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Economics of Waste Management and Land Cleanup
The EPA produces analyses that are vital to understanding economic issues surrounding the management of hazardous and municipal solid waste. Many of these analyses relate to the 1976 Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and subsequent amendments under which the management of both solid and hazardous waste is regulated.
The economics of contaminated site cleanup and land reuse are another important focus of EPA analyses. Sites may be contaminated by inappropriate waste management or by mistakes or carelessness in manufacturing or transportation processes. The primary risks posed by such sites are to human health and the environment. Many of the most contaminated sites are regulated by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA, also known as "Superfund"). The potential for contamination and the liability provisions of CERCLA are associated with persistent problems with vacant or underused land. This is addressed by The Brownfields Law of 2002, more formally known as The Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act. The Act defines a brownfield site as real property, the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant. Brownfield sites also include sites contaminated by petroleum or petroleum products, controlled substances, and mine-scarred lands.
Hazardous Waste
RCRA defines waste as hazardous if it appears on a list of specific hazardous wastes or if it exhibits at least one of the following four characteristics: 1) ignitability, 2) corrosivity, 3) reactivity, or 4) toxicity (for more information visit EPA's hazardous waste site). Economic studies focus on understanding how to reduce the volume of hazardous waste, how to encourage reuse of materials in production processes, the negative externalities associated with hazardous waste disposal, environmental justice, and compliance issues. Economic studies also focus on which economic incentive policies are best to accomplish waste reduction, disposal, and equity goals.
Municipal Solid Waste
Municipal solid waste (MSW), otherwise known as "garbage" or "trash," consists largely of waste discarded by households, businesses, and institutions. Economic studies focus on determining appropriate policies for MSW management, as well as measuring the negative external effects of MSW disposal, potential siting difficulties, and so on. The collection of MSW can be priced according to two different policies: traditional regulatory instruments (flat fees and local tax receipt-funded collection programs), and market incentives policies. Flat fees and local tax receipt-funded collection programs provide little incentive to reduce waste as the waste generator faces no extra costs in producing more waste each month. Approaches that include economic incentives increase unit costs and monetary rewards for reducing waste generation, and increasing composting and recycling. Examples of incentive structures include volume-based user charges, subsidies for recycling, and product charges that include the eventual costs of disposal. Economic studies that focus on the negative external effects of solid waste disposal have examined host community payments and hedonic pricing effects (for more information please see the Economic Incentives page). Economic analyses are also conducted to better understand the process and justice issues surrounding placement of recycling, composting, and other municipal solid waste facilities.
Contaminated Land
The cleanup and reuse of contaminated land is a source of social and economic concern. The spillage or release of hazardous substances into the environment can have serious economic consequences in terms of human health, damage to natural ecosystems that provide valuable benefits to society, and business operations within the contaminated area. CERCLA assigns liability to responsible parties for the cost of cleaning up contaminated sites. CERCLA states that responsible parties must be held financially liable for restoration efforts and damages to the public. Assigned liability is meant to encourage producers to safely manage hazardous substances such that it is to their financial advantage to do so. EPA's Handbook on the Benefits, Costs, and Impacts of Land Cleanup and Reuse (EPA's Land Handbook) summarizes the theoretical and empirical literature addressing benefit-cost and impact assessment of the cleanup and reuse of contaminated land. A target of economic research by EPA has been the magnitude of negative externalities, or unintended consequences, associated with contaminated sites. One way to measure such externalities is to examine nearby property values. Such hedonic studies have made headway in measuring the effects of cleanup by examining changes in house prices. Another approach to measuring the benefits of cleanup is to conduct a stated preference survey, whereby survey participants are directly asked their Willingness-to-Pay dollar value to avoid damages from a contamination event. A final method is risk assessment based. These and other methods are explained and discussed in EPA's Land Handbook.
The liability provisions in CERCLA likely contributed to a growing problem of under- or un-used contaminated or potentially contaminated land. EPA administers grants to aid in financing assessment, cleanup, and other activities at such sites. EPA has considered issues surrounding the benefits of addressing underuse of brownfields and has worked to develop approaches for measuring such benefits. Benefits include improving the efficiency of property markets, as well as reducing future health and ecosystem risks from hazardous substances. Benefit categories and assessment approaches are discussed in EPA's Land Handbook.
Related References
Bauer, Scott, Miranda, M.L.. 1996. The Urban Performance of Unit Pricing: An Analysis of Variable Rates for Residential Garbage Collection in Urban Areas. (PDF, 49 pp., 157 K, About PDF) U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Policy, Planning and Evaluation.
Bazan, Eugene, Rogers, T.A. 1983. Benefits Assessment of Two California Hazardous Waste Disposal Facilities. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Belzer, Richard B., Nicholas, A.L. 1988. Economic Incentives to Encourage Hazardous Waste Minimization and Safe Disposal.(PDF, 269 pp., 2.13 MB, About PDF) Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.
CONSAD Research Corporation. A Subject Reference: Benefit-Cost Analysis of Toxic Substances, Hazardous Materials and Solid Waste Control (03/04/1977)
Dower, R.C., Rand, S.D. Scodari, P.F.. 1985. The Scrap Tire problem: A preliminary economic analysis. (PDF, 53 pp., 372 K, About PDF) U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Policy Analysis.
Efaw, Fritz, Lanen, W.N.. 1979. Impact of User Charges on Management of Household Solid Waste.
Folz, David A., et al. 1999. Analysis of National Solid Waste Recycling Programs and Development of Solid Waste Recycling Cost Functions: Summary Statistics for Data Set No. 1. (PDF, 20 pp., 64 K, About PDF) U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Joint Institute for Energy and Environment.
Goddard, Haynes. 1975. An Economic Evaluation of Technical Systems for Scrap Tire Recycling.
Hall, Jeffrey, Jacobsen, S.E.. 1975. Development of an Economic Analytical Framework for Solid Waste Policy Analysis
Jenkins, Robin R., Kelly Maguire and Cynthia Morgan. 2002. Host Community Compensation and Municipal Solid Waste Landfills.
Lawless, Edward W. et al. 1984. Comparison of Risks and Cost of Hazardous Waste Alternatives: Methods Development and Pilot Studies.
Miranda, Marie Lynn, Bauer, S.D., Aldy, J.E.. 1996. Unit Pricing Programs for Residential Municipal Solid Waste: An Assessment of the Literature. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Miranda, Marie Lynn. 1996. Unit Pricing of Residential Municipal Solid Waste: Lessons from Nine Case Study Communities.(PDF, 82 pp., 259 K, About PDF) U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Miranda, Marie Lynn, Aldy, J.E.. LePalme, S. 1997. Unit Pricing of Residential Solid Waste: A Preliminary Analysis of 212 U.S. Communities. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Moll, Kendall, et al. Hazardous Wastes: A Risk Benefit Framework Applied to Cadmium and Asbestos. (PDF, 262 pp., 2.16 MB, About PDF) U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Schulze et al.. 1995. An Evaluation of Public Preferences for Superfund Site Cleanup. Volume 1: A Preliminary Assessment. (PDF, 84 pp., 159 K, About PDF) U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Policy, Planning and Evaluation.
Smith, Kerry V. 2007. Methods for Estimating the Social Benefits of EPA Land Cleanup and Reuse Programs. Summary Report of Workshop 9/28-9/29, 2006. (PDF, 38 pp., 199 K, About PDF)
Smith, Martha. 1995. Air Emissions from Municipal Solid Waste Landfills - Background Information For Final Standards And Guidelines, Final. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Air and Radiation.
Stafford, Sarah. 2006. Hazardous Waste Compliance and the Influence of Federal Initiatives, State Programs, and Corporate Characteristics.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 1984. The Feasibility and Desirability of Alternative Tax Systems for Superfund: CERCLA Section 301(a)(1)(G) Study.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 1994. Composting Yard Trimmings and Municipal Solid Waste. Office of Solid Waste.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 2001. The United States Experience with Economic Incentives for Protecting the Environment. Office of the Administrator (Section 8.3)
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 2011. Handbook on the Benefits, Costs, and Impacts of Land Cleanup and Reuse. EPA-240-R-11-001. October.


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Last year, I was invited to tour a house by a mutual friend of the owners who thought I would like to show it on the blog. I was all ready to go with the story back then, but there were still a few things that had been ordered by the interior designers that had yet to be installed. So, we decided to wait for these last few finishing touches and now, it's all ready for its debut. Most houses in this inner loop neighborhood are very nice, but this house stands out even among all the others. The appeal is in its differences – it has been custom built – and it's uniqueness is evident right at the front door, a charming wooden Dutch door with its own peep window and brass knocker.
Looking down from the staircase, the front door is a wonderful Dutch that opens at the top – a real plus on Halloween! Here you can see the brick arches that run down the entry hall, separating it from the living/dining room.
Once you enter the house, the interior details that make it unique became evident immediately: the floor is a stained concrete, the ceiling is beamed, and a series of brick arches run down the long entrance hall. The wet bar sits behind its own brick arch. The current owners bought the house from the couple who had it built and who have now built another house nearby. Since moving in, the couple have spent their first few years here changing up the decor, making it their own. They enlisted the design team of Lyndon West to help with the interiors: Charlotte McFadin and Traci Thompson headed up the project. These beautiful photographs were taken by Julie Landreth who specializes in both family and design photography. Enjoy!
Looking down the entry hall towards the front Dutch door. The living/dining room are to the right behind a series of brick arches. The bar sits next to this chinoiserie desk behind its own brick arch. The stairs are next to the front door. Here you can see the unique flooring – a stained concrete.
A beautiful English antique chest sits in front of the stairs. The furnishings are a mix of antique and new, some pieces are even a soft contemporary. On the stairs, a new patterned carpet runner has recently been added to the décor.
Across from the entry hall is a large living room/dining room combination. Above it is a beautiful wood beamed ceiling in a grid pattern. The furnishings are a mix of antique and new – here two French chairs sit next to a more contemporary side chair. The large bookcases are painted to blend in with the walls. The owners opted for textured blinds instead of curtains on this side of the room. Underneath is a muted, light colored area rug.
Looking from the living area towards the dining area. Here you can see on the very right – the wet bar behind the brick arch. The entry hall leads back to the family room/kitchen area.
Dividing the living area and the dining area is a trio of windows up high. Each side of the room has its own built in bookcase. Here, a contemporary chair sits next to the antique styled coffee table.
A zinc topped arched element console table sits behind the sofa which divides the living area from the dining area. The arches in the table repeat the brick arch motif found in the hallway. Aidan Gray sells a similar tin top "Arched Cathedral" console. HERE.
Looking towards the other direction – I love the juxtaposition of the classic English console with the more trendy console! So pretty! And I love the contemporary, simple glass lamps on the console. This space is between the living area and dining area.
The dining area has its own matching bookshelves, minus the closed cabinet doors. I like the way the shelves were designed with the heavy "foot." The light fixture is wonderful – again a more trendy, contemporary style to mix with all the antiques. The light fixture really makes the room – I just love it. Similar ones can be found at Brown and Restoration Hardware. The wood table is antique looking, while the chairs are more transitional or classically styled – notice how the heavy chairs weigh down that side of the room – perfect!!!
In this view, you can see out the window to the back yard. Here, there are curtains to soften the dark, wood stained French doors. In this picture you can really see how perfectly proportioned the light fixture is to the table and chairs.
Here, an antique clock with a trendy white wash finish looks wonderful against the brick arch. I adore the pitchfork in the corner and then, following the eye, lower still, the corner Oriental cabinet. I love how the eye goes from high to low here with a mixture of the fine and the rustic. The bar is seen here through the arch – the kitchen and family room are at the end of the entrance hall.
The large kitchen/breakfast/family room sits at the end of the entrance hall. Behind the sofa through the door is a screened in porch. The kitchen cabinetry is painted a soft blue gray. The grid ceiling is continued through into this area, as is the concrete flooring.
The countertops are a combination of white marble and wood.
The breakfast room is in the corner – a screened in porch is on the right side behind the windows. So pretty!
Going up the stairs is a window seat and here you can see the patterned carpet that runs up the stairs and down the hallway.
I really like flat weave patterned carpets like this – in a trellis pattern especially, or in a small dotted pattern. So much better than just plain carpet. I also really like carpet when it is two-toned as opposed to tone on tone. Just my opinion, for what it's worth. The guest room is to the right.
Lyndon West had just completed the guest room when I had been in the house and this was my favorite room - I loved the doors! These were found at an antique mart and the colors of the room were taken from the turquoise blue found in the doors. I love the mounted sconces. So clever! The headboard was custom made for the spot and the proportions are perfect, which is why one hires an interior designer!
Here is a close up of the vintage doors with the mounted sconces. The old drop leaf tables are the perfect choice – a nice contrast between smooth and rough.
Leading into the master suite is a series of oriental watercolors – all framed alike. Framing anything alike makes so much more of a statement.
The master bedroom is large and includes a fireplace and a seating area. The bed fits into the niche between the bookcases. Do you remember when I discussed my love of the Robert Allen fabric Eleria HERE? Well, this is where I first saw the fabric! The homeowner has it in the other colorway, Biscotti. The Biscotti has a lot of deep aqua in it – the exact color of the walls here, plus there are touches of orange that run throughout it. I just ordered 80 yards of the Eleria in the Green Tea colorway for a client's curtains. I only pray they turn out as pretty as these did. Cute dogs!
On the other side of the bedroom is the sitting area – with a great French chaise, half burlap-y, and half linen. More Eleria curtains. Notice the beautiful highboy behind the chaise.
And across from the bed is this large French armoire, painted.
Here's a peek at the daughters bathroom – all in purple paneling, with white marble and tiny black and white tiled floor.
The curtain shower and towels were coordinated in bright colors. So cute. I wish there were pictures of the kids bedrooms – there is a loft area above the rooms. Oh well – maybe next time.
A HUGE thank you to the homeowners for sharing their beautiful house and a thank you to the designers from Lyndon West and the photographer Julie Landreth for sharing these pictures. I hope you enjoyed the tour!!
WAIT - There is More News:
I recently told you about one article I wrote, Updating Your Décor, for the new issue of Antique Shops and Designers HERE, but I also wrote another article about the house owned by Ruth Davis of Found for the Home fame. HERE. The house is an original in the classy Old Braeswood neighborhood, dating back to the 1930s. Davis and her business partner/interior designer Aaron Rambo have filled the house with a mix of Swedish and French antiques along with contemporary art work and iconic furniture pieces.
Ruth Davis' living room – filled with antiques and contemporary furniture and artwork.
In the article, Ruth confesses she is thinking about moving on, so it wasn't a complete surprise when last night I got an email from Houston real estate superstar Cathy Blum. Cathy informed me that the Old Braeswood house is now up for sale! Just thought I would pass this info along to anyone who read the story and might be interested in buying it.
Davis' dining room overlooking the back yard has a large French table surrounded by antique French chairs.
If you are interested in touring the house with Cathy Blum, this is the link to the listing with all her information on it: HERE.
AND, finally, one more piece of business for Skirted Roundtable listeners:
Blogger Meg Fairfax Fielding on the Nate Berkus show. Nah – we're not jealous, NOT at all!!! ahahah!!!!!
We have a new Skirted Roundtable up! It's an interview with Pigtown Design's Meg Fairfax Fielding. Meg, who has written her blog for almost 4 years now, recently found a new vocation. Nate Berkus, former Oprah interior designer, discovered Meg and he recently had her on his show – twice, with more appearances scheduled in the future. Calling her The Junk Whisperer, Nate talks to Meg about her flea market finds, like the $2. Hermes scarves. Yes. It's not everyday that a blogger ends up on national TV, so we just HAD to find out how she did it!!! Tune in to listen to one of Baltimore's most famous daughters – Meg! HERE.
BTW, this past Monday, we had interior designer David Easton on the Skirted Roundtable. Let me be so bold as to say – it was really, really interesting! He is such a character – warm, friendly, charming, and funny. We had a great time. The Easton interview should be up next week. And that's all, finally!!!

subset: commoncrawl


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Washington Post denies story about Obama, Beyonce affair
Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images, McClatchy-Tribune News Service
It looks like French media is trying to shatter Beyonce's 'halo.'
French media outlets are reporting that President Barack Obama is having an affair with superstar Beyonce. Tres scandalous! Some French news agencies are even reporting that POTUS and FLOTUS will soon divorce.
"La bombe" was dropped by paparazzo Pascal Rostain (in other words, we're taking this with a grain of salt.) What's more, Rostain says the Washington Post will unveil this big story tomorrow.
The Washington Post, on the other hand, says it's planning no such thing.
Not much else is said by the paparazzo, except a lot of hype and what we can only imagine is a desperate attempt on Rostain's part at making a name for himself.


text:
I've gotta admit . . . I am a man who used to love me some public nudity. Some of my friends used to joke that you didn't graduate from Earlham College if you didn't see Jamie Utt naked. It started just after high school when my friends Zach, Jeff, and I just couldn't hang out without a little bit of nudity. In college, some buddies and I had a tradition every semester during finals where we would stop studying, get naked, and streak the library. Weren't we just HILARIOUS!? We would go to parties . . . NAKED! AAAhahahahahahaha.
I didn't just find my antics hilarious, though. I honestly thought them a progressive redefinition of masculinity, one that challenged aggressive homophobia and that celebrated bodies. After all, all those homophobic dudes would cringe and "Uhhhhhh" when my dudebros and I would run around with our things flapping in the wind. And weren't we just loving the masculine form that we had been taught from a young age to feel ashamed of and to hide? Plus, most people found it hilarious (or so it seemed)… so why not keep doing it?
A few different times, women approached me to talk about how it bothered them that I (and my friends) were always getting naked in public. Sadly (especially considering that I would have called myself a "feminist"), I never listened, simply attributing their concern to "prudishness" and their strange desire to control my free expression.
It took me a long time (and lots of times of being told) to realize what was actually going on: a simple recreation of oppressive, privileged, hegemonic, normative masculinity.
Now, I know some of my readership is saying, "What on earth do you mean by 'normative masculinity' and a 'redefinition of masculinity?'" So let's back up.
The crux of the issue is that normative masculinity is (most often) destructive and restrictive. Normative masculinity tends to reflect traditional values of Western patriarchy: physical strength, stoicism, dominance, self-reliance, control, heterosexual virility, violence, and power over. Perhaps most importantly, normative masculinity tends to devalue traditionally feminine traits like emotive expression, collaboration, non-violence, community, and power with and through (particularly when men display these traits). As such, normative masculinity restricts both men and women into roles that do not allow either to be fully realized as human beings. As such, it's also often called hegemonic masculinity for the ways that it forces normative masculinity on everyone, even those who actively try to resist it.
One aspect of feminist theory and thought encourages a redefinition of traditional gender roles and understanding, and as part of that, normative masculinity ought to be challenged and changed.
Growing up steeped in many aspects of normative masculinity (as most men in the U.S. are), when I discovered the liberated feeling of public nudity and noticed the ways that other men condemned male public nudity as "gay," I immediately assumed that this was part of the "liberation" I had learned about in my elementary understanding of feminism. Hence, the "progressive redefinition of masculinity" farce that I lived under for a number of years.
I'm ashamed to say that it wasn't until about a year ago that I truly began to question how problematic my getting naked in public actually was. I've always found it a little strange when women streaked (though I never bothered to interrogate deeply why). I generally just hated the way that many men took it as an opportunity to "ogle some boobies," and I felt a paternalistic desire to "protect" the women from the male gaze. Plus, it was never quite as "funny."
A year ago I was at an ultimate frisbee tournament, and a couple of dudes and a woman streaked through the party. Of course, I laughed. Then one of the naked dudes asked me to help him "land shark" the party, an absurd display of public nudity where four folks hold up a naked person face down and with a frisbee wedged into his ass while carrying him through the party. Get it . . . the disc's a fin! HILARIOUS!
Well, I agreed, but as I was carrying him around, I couldn't help but wonder, "How many of these people really want this dick wagging in their face while they enjoy their drink?"
There, in that moment, I realized what so many women had been trying to tell me but hadn't heard because I'm a privilege denying, traditionally masculine asshole who must figure things out for himself rather than listen to a woman. Every time that I ran naked through the library, I was saying to everyone there, "This space is mine. It is so much mine, that I can force my nudity on you, whether or not you like it or whether or not it makes you uncomfortable."
I refused to consider the ways that my act of public nudity could be triggering for survivors of sexual violence. I refused to consider the ways that my act of public nudity claimed all space as mine rather than as egalitarian and public. I refused to consider the incredible amounts of privilege that it took for me to so brazenly strip down and flap in the wind.
And therein lies why I was never quite comfortable when women streaked. Rather than being a redefinition of traditional masculinity, I was simply enacting hegemonic masculinity, forcing my nudity on every person in whatever space I streaked. When women did it, though, it was actually subversive, as women's bodies were claiming space that is traditionally masculine (since all space is masculine in a patriarchy unless we construct it as otherwise). Such an act of subversion made me uncomfortable because it exposed my act as really just another act of masculine assholery.
Dudes, we need to wake up. I recently was hanging with some folks who were discussing the wonderful trend of unsolicited dick pics. One of the guys, a known streaker, was describing how "creepy" he found this phenomenon, and I couldn't help but wonder: how is an unsolicited dick pic any different from land sharking a party? In both cases, a man is forcing his penis into the space of those who did not ask for it. In both cases, consent is FAR from present, and in both cases, it's a gross abuse of male privilege that, when we get down to it, is little more than sexual harassment.
To close, I want to tell you about my friend Margot. I've known Margot since high school, and for a long time (until she got married and learned of the wonders of consensual, committed, crazy sexy time), she wore her innocence with pride. She waited to have sex until marriage, and though I've taken a different route in life, I respect her decision and her commitment. Recently, though, we were hanging out, and she said, "You know, the first penis I ever saw was yours." We laughed, but then I got sad. She didn't have a choice in that. She didn't have agency. Maybe she wanted the first penis she saw to be her husband's, but because of my "hilarious" antics, I took away her agency.
And for that I am profoundly sorry.


text:
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" I can't tell when you're telling me the truth."
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"How do I know anything you've told me is..."
- You don't.
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October 10, 2011: another sad tr.i.p.le
Listen to this show: | Add or read comments
|Approx. start time
|Y Society
|Hole in Your Pocket
|Travel At Your Own Pace
|Damu the Fudgemunk
|Falun Gong
|Milligram Retreat
|0:02:54 ()
|Genocide Organ
|s.low / the lord is my light
|0:06:43 ()
|Bert Jansch
|Blacksmith (live)
|An Acoustic Hour With Bert Jansch
|0:13:07 ()
|The Snows
|Solomon's Seal
|0:17:19 ()
|Yo La Tengo
|Needle Of Death
|cover: B. Jansch
|0:20:48 ()
|Harold Biffen
|Frosty Murray and the Motor Company
|The Wormhole and the Hymn
|0:24:18 ()
|Bee Mask
|Deducted from Your Share in Paradise
|Elegy for Beach Friday
|0:25:48 ()
|Zodiac Free Arts Club
|Sonntags in Altona
|Floating World
|0:31:13 ()
|Bert Jansch
|The Gardener
|Jack Orion
|0:37:07 ()
|Kevin Ayers
|May I?
|Shooting at the Moon
|R.I.P. David Bedford
|0:44:14 ()
|David Bedford
|The Sirens
|The Odyssey
|0:48:01 ()
|Kevin Ayers & The Whole World
|Why Are We Sleeping
|Hyde Park Free Concert 1970
|0:57:13 ()
|Sun Ra, SW remix
|What A Great Joke
|V/a, Interplanetary Remixes: WFMU Reinterprets the Music of Sun Ra
|you maka da pledge, you getta da disc! we all got together on this disc, ton of staff remixes, it's amazing - $100 pledges
|1:09:14 ()
|David Hess & John Corigliano
|Odyssey / The Faces Are The Same / When Love is Free
|The Naked Carmen
|R.I.P. David Hess
|1:24:48 ()
|David Hess
|Phillis Spills Her Guts
|sdtk, "Last House On The Left"
|1:32:36 ()
|David Hess
|1:35:49 ()
|David Hess
|Now You're All Alone / Mayhem Montage
|sdtk, "Last House On The Left"
|1:40:01 ()
|Neon Indian
|Polish Girl
|Era Extraña
|1:44:51 ()
|The Martinis
|Charles 'Packy' Axton-Late Late Party-1965-67
|1:58:40 ()
|Radiation City
|Summer is Not An Act 1
|The Hands That Take You
|2:01:05 ()
|Still Corners
|Into The Trees
|Creatures of an Hour
|2:04:49 ()
|Craft Spells
|From the Morning Heat
|Idle Labor
|2:08:21 ()
|Pooh Sticks
|I Know Someone Who Knows Someone Who Knows Alan Mcgee Quite Well / Heroes & Villains
|2:12:29 ()
|Information Society
|Run Away
|2:16:01 ()
|Robert Lawrence & Mark Phillips
|Computer Bank
|V/a, The Hidden Tapes: A Compilation of Minimal Wave from Around the World '79 - '85
|2:19:40 ()
|Gui Boratto
|Flying Practice
|2:24:55 ()
|Marcia Griffiths
|First Time Ever I Saw Your Face
|Put a Little Love in Your Heart: Best of, 1969-1974
|2:29:38 ()
|Vex Ruffin
|Crash Course EP
|2:33:42 ()
|Janis Ian
|At 17 (I Got Run Over By a Traktor)
|2:36:45 ()
|Bert Jansch Conundrum
|Where Did My Life Go
|Thirteen Down
|2:40:45 ()
|Eve and The Last Waltz
|I Got the Message
|2:47:33 ()
|Mist House
|2:50:26 ()
|Latus Rectum and His Pungent Parabola
|V/a, Knife Culture: Buried Melbourne
|2:53:41 ()
|Bert Jansch
|Blackwater Side
|Jack Orion
|2:56:33 ()
Listener comments!
Mon. 10/10/11 2:49pm
Brian in UK:
Got a modest pledge in early Scott. Spreading the wealth around the station.
Mon. 10/10/11 3:05pm
My only question is: who carries water in their pocket anyway? Use a damn bottle or flask or something.
Mon. 10/10/11 3:05pm
Scott W:
Sweet, thanks much Brian! Yeah, we shan't speak of it aloud y'all, but I'd love to see my pledge totals get a bit higher than 5% today! Please show some love fer the shock, the awe, and the show. thanks!
Mon. 10/10/11 3:08pm
"Money falls out." No water was spilled in the making of that track.
Mon. 10/10/11 3:10pm
Thanks, jaycjay! That's what you get for trying to listen to the radio while your ears are blocked by the flu.
Mon. 10/10/11 3:19pm
Dead Corporate Eyes:
sudden burst of enthusiastic clapping that ends just as suddenly.
Mon. 10/10/11 3:19pm
Thanks for this one, Scott!
Mon. 10/10/11 3:21pm
It's amazing that Bert's body of work was so consistently great. "The Snows" with Pentangle if one of the best.
Mon. 10/10/11 3:21pm
Scott W:
yes indeed Irene! wish I got to hear your Bert trib today, will have to hit the archive
Mon. 10/10/11 3:25pm
Sweet cover. Hello!
Mon. 10/10/11 3:26pm
Oh, it was only 3 songs. I think next week I'll do a more full-on tribute. Sweet to see which songs touched various DJs lives here.
Mon. 10/10/11 3:27pm
Scott W:
Looking forward. Hello Looms!
Mon. 10/10/11 3:31pm
Mon. 10/10/11 3:36pm
Scott W:
sup bub?!
Mon. 10/10/11 3:38pm
scratch committed. hope it helps. and sorry for the txts out of left field, sir.
Mon. 10/10/11 3:47pm
Scott W:
Raga the mensch! thanks buddy, and don't sweat the txts - always nice to hear from you
Mon. 10/10/11 3:53pm
the thing we got in the mail for the awetober fund raiser looks a lot like the one we get during the marathon. with the levels and premiums, swag and such. I like that it is during October and the record fair being the finale, but it means I have less to give because October is usually the month I spend money on travel and such to the record fair each year. but i suppose if i bought less records and brown bagged my own beer i could save enough for a sizable pledge.
Mon. 10/10/11 3:56pm
Scott W:
"but i suppose if i bought less records and brown bagged my own beer i could save enough for a sizable pledge" you said it slab! right on
Mon. 10/10/11 3:58pm
Dead Corporate Eyes:
man, this is beautiful!
Mon. 10/10/11 4:01pm
killer track
Mon. 10/10/11 4:02pm
Brian in UK:
Everyones talking 'bout Bert but David Bedford's demise is a great loss too.
Mon. 10/10/11 4:03pm
i've only ever heard the bongwater version (picture little hearts around the word bongwater) of why are we sleeping
Mon. 10/10/11 4:04pm
Brian in UK:
They used to hold the free concerts in the Park in a little gazebo in the south east corner. Needless to say the Stones in '69 needed a litte more space.
Mon. 10/10/11 4:04pm
Scott W:
Kevin ayers has done like 1000 versions of it himself and they're nearly all stellar. Our Rich Hazelton does a pretty smoking version too.
Mon. 10/10/11 4:05pm
C'mon peoples! Scott gives and gives and gives! Pledge $15 and get a slab of WFMU Miracle Soap, which actually works and which we're running out of. I'm talking suds and every damn thing.
Mon. 10/10/11 4:07pm
Brian in UK:
David Bedford, Kevin Ayres, Lol Coxhill, Mike Oldfield. Some company.
Is that Ken the station manager? If so, can you tell me how honest people are with their pledging?
Mon. 10/10/11 4:10pm
yes brian, it is I. Not sure what you mean - but there is not a way to fake a pledge - payment has to actually be made via credit card or paypal.
Mon. 10/10/11 4:10pm
i am always awed by wfmu and also during this special month of awetober. wfmu never fails to awe. but I am not sure it has shocked much in the month so far. I'm talking shock value of Kenny G, station manager Ken when he goes off his skull, and the general bizarreness that seemed to happen at wfmu a few years ago but doesn't seem there as of late. am I missing something? Clay Pidgeon seems to bring on the weird and shock sometimes. so far this month has been heavy on the awe light on the shock. but maybe it should be that way.
Mon. 10/10/11 4:11pm
You cant force the weirdness, Slab. It's gotta come naturally. Now just buy a brown bag and pledge to Scott.
Mon. 10/10/11 4:12pm
Brian in UK:
Come to think of it I might have been at this gig!!! I was at the Stones.
Ken. What I meant was when you ring it thru you get a bill and if the bill is not paid...... does this make sense?
Mon. 10/10/11 4:12pm
Dead Corporate Eyes:
buy a couple of brown bags, while you're at it
I thought that sounded like Mike Oldfield on that Odyssey track...wow!
Mon. 10/10/11 4:14pm
Brian in UK:
You want shock & awe Sparky?
Mon. 10/10/11 4:15pm
Brian in UK:
DCE Check out David Bedford, he passed on Oct 1st. He has produced MO & KA amongst others.
Mon. 10/10/11 4:17pm
Brian - for the marathon in March, people can make an unpaid pledge, that's true. Right now you can't. In March, 35% of those unpaid pledges never get paid. But fortunately almost all the pledges these days are pre-paid. Now I want somebody to pledge to Scott's show.
Mon. 10/10/11 4:20pm
Brian in UK:
Thanks thats what I meant Ken. Bastards. This is the only way to minimise everyones workload. WE KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE.
Mon. 10/10/11 4:21pm
Whose version of "Don't Sleep on the Subway" & "You've Lost that Loving Feeling" is that playing in the background?
Mon. 10/10/11 4:24pm
Hoboken, "way up away from... the douchey part." Har har har har har! Scott makes me laugh with the truth.
Mon. 10/10/11 4:24pm
@Ken... 35%?? That's obscene...
Mon. 10/10/11 4:24pm
Brian in UK:
Scott, have you been to Belgium?
Mon. 10/10/11 4:24pm
Dead Corporate Eyes:
that is a pretty terrible statistic right ova dere
Mon. 10/10/11 4:25pm
what is the sparky thing Brian in the UK? I've heard you use that before. can we brown bag to this beer pull? when my daughter was a baby and toddler I would stuff beer in a diaper bag as a single dad (full time single dad back then, no mommy around) you can fit a six pack in the average size diaper bag.
Mon. 10/10/11 4:27pm
Oh sweetie jeezus, John Corigliano... I was 12 when Altered States came out, & played the goat-sacrificing HELL out of the soundtrack. Always wondered if he spilled blood elsewhere...
Mon. 10/10/11 4:27pm
Dead Corporate Eyes:
I have two kids and I admit I have never tried that, slab. My wife would give me hell if I did.
Mon. 10/10/11 4:28pm
Brian in UK:
Check the link slab, it's the same name as FMU are using for this (lowers voice) FUCKIN' FUNDRAISER right now. It's all 'bout 'lectricity hence sparky.
Mon. 10/10/11 4:33pm
Hey. thanks to whoever just pledged to Scott's show! You ROCK! I'm gonna go see who it was and then keep the information to myself.
Mon. 10/10/11 4:33pm
oh, B in K. i thought you were calling me sparky. thought maybe you knew me because that is a reference to something only people in my past would have known. strange. pretty sure you used that sparky thing before when i have posted.
Mon. 10/10/11 4:34pm
Brian in UK:
Scott synochronicity, you have raised 19% as has the overall total.
Mon. 10/10/11 4:35pm
Dont get too worked up by the 35% stat. That is only for phone pledges. Overall, only 8% of March marathon pledges go unpaid because over half of the pledges are paid upfront via credit card and paypal and check.
Mon. 10/10/11 4:36pm
Bas, NL:
It was me that just pledged. I'm listening much easier now... ;)
Hi Scott, hi Ken, hi all!!
Mon. 10/10/11 4:36pm
Thank you Bas! You're the best!
Mon. 10/10/11 4:37pm
Brian in UK:
Not knowingly slab.
Bas you just blew Ken's kool. Tee Hee.
Mon. 10/10/11 4:38pm
and that does not include the people who paid their pledges in full with brown bags full of pennies that are still being counted by volunteers.
Mon. 10/10/11 4:39pm
cut from another site:
China IS NAZI, communism NOW IS NAZI except IN CUBA, where the real ideals ARE TRYINGLY been kept upheld by good Fidel Castro. Cuba is the ONLY ever communist country THAT DID NOT fall into madness.
how do i get out of here. easy. nappie was no scumbag, folx who think like that are comfortable sofa-intellectuals, sudo-"intellectuals".
REAL, really TRUELY being-so intellectuals like Chomsky HAVE DA FRIGGIN GUTS to to turkey and help some "dissident" getting freed. Some brave good TRUESCREAMERS like our fieldmarshall Alex Jones MyLord and Liege and OverDuke and Total OverBaron (adhere to the sad fact that most people will take the worde "total" up in a wrong way, here, so misunderstanding here solved most easily, as well :) , have the guts to call for the REAL ISSUES.
The sudo-"Fed"s.
The "Bohemian Grove" childKILLING KKK NAZI SWINE ORG.
first, I abolish dat evil KKK and MARLBORO meaning upside down "OROBL JEW", and i never listened to vynil records from behind in a reverse manner, that i saw in some stupid docus, good ones also among them, being critical against such rubbish…… oy worlde… where art thou going, i hope OTPOR is kicked out soon and peacefully and easily…. those "DRAFT" shouters here like this mista "51″ are plain crazy… shouting WAR and stuff….. that's what I call FEARMONGERING… panic spreading….. all SPAMMMMMMM spigeddee spamm, spam spigeddeee spammmm
Mon. 10/10/11 4:40pm
Scott W:
Mon. 10/10/11 4:43pm
what if someone pledged $5 to ten different shows, would they get the t-shirt?
Mon. 10/10/11 4:44pm
aw, RIP David Hess and the Ice Cream Song.
Mon. 10/10/11 4:44pm
sort of. has to be 15$ min to a show. think it says when you pledge
Mon. 10/10/11 4:45pm
yair yona (tel aviv, Israel,Earth):
hey scott.
so did I miss the entire Jansch part of the show??
Mon. 10/10/11 4:48pm
Brian in UK:
Scott This is a belter thought I remembered it, trouble played it last week reminded me of Tahiti 80 a bit.
Mon. 10/10/11 4:50pm
so if i pledged $15 to 4 different shows I would qualify for the t-shirt? is it kept track of? during the marathon i do my usual mouse pledge then pledge to individual shows as it goes on. in this month i would like to spread it out too. but still qualify for the dollar amount swag that comes with the ultimate total of pledges amount.
Mon. 10/10/11 4:53pm
Mike East:
slab - I've done that, and yes it is cumulative.
Mon. 10/10/11 4:54pm
Dead Corporate Eyes:
they have massive organization skills down there
Mon. 10/10/11 4:56pm
Ken, why not steal KFJC's idea and at the meetups have people throw in their spare change? Or, jeez, you and Andy go sit out on the street and beg for spare change?
Mon. 10/10/11 4:56pm
Though, I guess that might feel like you have to pay for Meetups. Which is not the goal... never mind!
Mon. 10/10/11 4:57pm
Didn't Ken and Andy already beg for spare change on a 7SD episode once?
Mon. 10/10/11 4:59pm
@Ike, I was wondering that... Yes, actually, I believe so... never mind!
Mon. 10/10/11 5:00pm
BTW, I double checked the gifts page for pledges and I am so impressed that WFMU used the correct form of the plural of premium that I may give more money...
Mon. 10/10/11 5:01pm
when i go to the record fair i easily splay out several clams at the pub around the corner McManus pub. it is a wonderful pub and i always sneak out to pound a few pints. it is right around the corner to the record fair. maybe i can drink 35 percent of my beers there and brown bag the rest and give the savings to wfmu.
Mon. 10/10/11 5:04pm
Scott W:
who's gonna help me hit the halfway mark today, hmmm? 19% is nice, but after the show I'm 50% thru my showzz fer Awetober!
Mon. 10/10/11 5:04pm
this Radiation City is really nice
Mon. 10/10/11 5:07pm
Scott W:
yeah jeff i'm with you on this one, it's gorgeous
Mon. 10/10/11 5:07pm
haha , and then there is this one too...
Mon. 10/10/11 5:09pm
Yes Slab, it's all cumulative. If you pledge once and divide it between different shows, it has to be a $15 minimum per show. Of course you can circumvent that and pledge $5 to as many shows as you want but then you have to make a payment each time. Better to stick with the $15 per show.
Mon. 10/10/11 5:09pm
Scott W:
mm hmm, yup~ sub pop no less
Mon. 10/10/11 5:11pm
i think i can do $15 for the show, since it counts for over all pledges. I am addicted to wfmu t-shirts and want it after $50 worth of pledges. I was going to do it all at once but it is nice to see that it can be spread out to support individual shows.
Mon. 10/10/11 5:17pm
Do it now Slab! The station is way way behind pace on this thing.
Mon. 10/10/11 5:23pm
ok. now i am at the place where i want to select my pledge amount. i can click on $15 and it asks if i want soap or the wuf-mu sticker. or any amount above. if I click on $15 for Scott's show, and another $15 for Ken's show on Wednesday and another $15...and os on...will I get a bunch of bars of soap and no t-shirt?
Mon. 10/10/11 5:27pm
Slab - Joe McGasko will come to the rescue. Grasp the faith!
Mon. 10/10/11 5:28pm
Mike East:
I really want that TShirt too. I just got a mortgage and spent a buttload of money on furniture, moving, various other expenses. When are payment going to be due for this silent marathon (which I was hearing about all last week on 91.1 while painting with no internet)
Mon. 10/10/11 5:31pm
great mix of sweetness & slight abrasion. here. in ears.
Mon. 10/10/11 5:34pm
oh, yes. I forgot about Joe. He is on top of it all. That reminds me. I need remember to change my credit card info that i have with wfmu will expire in 2012. Joe actually called my house one time years ago saying that my card date had expired and needed a new date. i wonder how often that happens. reminder to all. i am known in my area as the wfmu t-shirt guy. an area where wfmu isn't all known. but they know it because of me and my t-shirts.
Mon. 10/10/11 5:46pm
Mike East:
sorry, what I meant was - When will the payments be due for this silent marathon? I feel like my wife will leave me if I donate money in a month when I'm telling her that she can't buy any of the stuff she wants.
Mon. 10/10/11 5:47pm
last year for halloween I dressed up as my luche libre character with suit and all. you know, the way the luche libre guys dress up in suits when they are not in a match and in interviews. so cool. eithere way i pledge $15 dollars to fifteen minutes left in the show. I will bring the luche libre to the area because i will be there for halloween.
Mon. 10/10/11 5:47pm
I was once at a gig, sporting the very latest in WFMU apparel when suddenly the prettiest of girls threw herself on me exclaiming "W-F-M-U"! I thought I was in some sort of dream until I noticed behind her were two big college guys who were none too pleased at their Beau's apparent loss of control and were slowly approaching. I withdrew gracefully but the power of the shirt was truly undeniable.
Mon. 10/10/11 5:52pm
A couple weeks ago, a gorgeous female coworker told me that my "consistently inconsistent" t-shirt made her feel like twisting my nipples :(
Mon. 10/10/11 5:54pm
Scott W:
Stanley, I don't believe you. Looms, I do believe you.
Mon. 10/10/11 5:59pm
oh, yes. the wfmu t-shirt of any show our kind can make many females want to jump you. even if they don't know what wfmu is. it is something about the vibes, man, and the staion. and the shirts. that is why wfmu has so many shirts. including a luche libre shirt...which i do not have and want many!!!
Fri. 10/14/11 3:38pm
Moody Moodswing:
That was nice of you 0:)
Fri. 10/14/11 3:40pm
Scott W:
Hi Moody Moodswing! I love your donut.
RSS feeds for Scott Williams's show: Playlists feed | MP3 archives feed| E-mail Scott Williams | Other WFMU Playlists | All artists played by Scott Williams |


text:
Floorcovering Installer
The Floorcovering Installer program will train you to install, repair and replace resilient floorcovering materials such as underlayment, carpet, sheet goods (i.e., vinyl) and tile in commercial, residential and industrial buildings.
Application Deadlines
All application deadlines, start dates and training schedules are posted on the Tradesecrets website.
Career Options
Floorcovering installers are employed by floorcovering retail outlets, contractors and installation companies.
Approximately 90% of floorcovering journeymen are self-employed, making it one of the most independent building trades.
Grad Employment Rate
Employment rates reported by NAIT alumni are for information purposes and do not guarantee future employment opportunities.
Median Journeyman Salary
Salaries reported by NAIT alumni are for information purposes and are not a guarantee of future alumni income.
Tuition & Fees (Cost per semester)
Tuition Cap: $686.00
Tuition International
Entrance Requirements
All applicants are required to meet the following academic and subject prerequisites.
This program has additional entrance requirements in addition to academic prerequisites.


text:
Hi, this week I received an email from a consultant asking about the process to update a plug-in (bundle) for Rational Team Concert. This can be a doubt of other readers, so I decided to write this little post to explain how this can be done.
As readers of this blog already know, the customizations are plug-ins, which are included in a Feature, which is related to an Update Site. Then a provision file is created to inform RTC where is the site and which feature has to be loaded.
note: (ccm e jazz are the two most common path options for the application Change and Configuration Management).
So if you made any changes in a plugin and want the server to update this plugin, you first need to rebuild the Update Site
After that, you need to configure the server to reload bundles on next restart. For that, access to this URL: https://{your-server-address}:9443/ccm/admin/cmd/requestReset.
You will see a message like this:
Now replace old site directory with the one newly built.
Okay, next time you restart the JazzTeamServer, the new plugins will be loaded.
In a few cases, this may not be enough, then you must perform an extra step between stopping and restarting the server, which is delete the directory tomcat/work/Catalina/localhost/ccm, thus forcing application deploy.
That's it. See you on next post.


text:
Has Washington waited too long?
President Barack Obama said Newtown changed everything.
But it didn't change Washington.
Story Continued Below
Two days after 20 first-graders were gunned down at Sandy Hook Elementary School in what Obama has said was the worst day of his presidency, he took the podium at the memorial service with a simple message: Americans' approach to guns was wrong, and it had to change. Too many children had died, and he wouldn't let more follow them.
And yet more than 100 days later, no bill has passed either house of Congress — and members are now off on a two-week spring break.
In interviews, gun control advocates' frustration with — and mystification over — Washington is palpable. So far, their anger has not turned specifically on Obama — though people in Newtown itself and gun control advocates beyond question whether he could have done more to turn the post-Sandy Hook momentum into tangible results.
( Also on POLITICO: Poll: Support slips for gun control)
But the increasingly sour mood of gun control proponents highlights the stakes in reaping even a slim victory from Congress this spring.
Anything less, in terms of Obama's legacy, would transform Newtown from a moment of moral clarity to a symbol of how much clout a newly reelected president really has in a divided Washington.
Obama may still get a bill, but not like the one he and his allies envisioned in December. There won't be new bans on assault weapons or high-capacity ammunition magazines. Universal background checks have moved from an assumed yes to a wish list item for gun control advocates. Even a new gun trafficking law — the smallest and weakest of the issues — is not a sure thing to pass the Senate.
( PHOTOS: Politicians speak out on gun control)
National Urban League President Marc Morial, who has pushed for more attention to city crime, acknowledged that it takes massacres like Newtown to drive gun control momentum.
"Too much of our history has been in reacting to crisis, but sometimes that is what it takes," he said.
President George W. Bush understood that. Forty-five days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Congress passed and Bush signed the PATRIOT Act, a sweeping overhaul of the nation's security apparatus.
But Obama took a different approach — one that's familiar to those who watched him move methodically (but successfully) on health care and methodically (but unsuccessfully) on climate change.


text:
Dr. Steven M. Zinder, ATC, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will present "Skin Diseases in Athletics" on Monday, Nov. 9, at 7 p.m. at the MaasCenter at Hope College through the Distinguished Lecture Series in Sports Medicine.
The public is invited. Admission is free.
The address will present information on skin infections and give specific recommendations for certified athletic trainers and others participating in athletic health care who work with the athletes that contract them.
Zinder is an assistant professor of athletic training in the Department of Exercise and Sport Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has also served on the faculty at California State University, Fullerton and the University of Virginia-Charlottesville, and has held athletic training positions at secondary schools in addition to at the college and university level. He is the author of several articles that have been published in peer-reviewed journals as well as two book chapters or handbooks, and has made numerous presentations at professional meetings. He holds his bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Arizona, and his doctorate from the University of Virginia.
The Distinguished Lecture Series in Sports Medicine is designed for health care professionals with an interest in physically active patients, and is intended for students, educators and clinicians alike. It is co-sponsored by Orthopaedic Associates of Michigan, Shoreline Orthopaedics, Holland Hospital Rehabilitation Services and the college.
Zinder's address is the first of four lectures scheduled through the series for the 2009-10 school year. The remaining presentations will be "Management of Elbow Injuries in Athletics," by Dr. Bruce Stewart of Shoreline Orthopaedics on Monday, Dec. 7; "Neuropathic Gait: 'What is it and what to do about it?,'" by Dr. James Richardson of the University of Michigan; and "Patello-femoral Instability: Evaluation and Treatment," by Dr. Thomas Matelic of Orthopaedic Associates of Michigan.
Additional information about the series may be found online at https://hope.edu/academic/kinesiology/athtrain/ dlssm/index.html
The Maas Center is located at 264 Columbia Ave., on Columbia Avenue at 11th Street in Holland.


text:
Loyola at a Glance
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Brendan Brown Lecture examines third-world food trade
April 1, 2011
The Loyola University New Orleans College of Law presents its annual 2011 Brendan Brown Lecture on Tuesday, April 12, at 6 p.m. in College of Law, Room 405. The featured speaker this year is James Thuo Gathii, associate dean for research and scholarship and the Governor George E. Pataki Professor of International Commercial Law at Albany Law School. The presentation, "Food Sovereignty for Poor Countries in the Global Trading System," is free and open to the public. A reception will follow.
Gathii's research and expertise focus on the international areas of economics, public law, intellectual property, and trade law, as well as on issues of good governance and legal reform as they relate to the third world and sub-Saharan Africa.
Gathii has published more than 40 articles and book chapters and is a member of the International Law Association's Study Committee on the Meaning of War. He received his Bachelor of Law from the University of Nairobi and a Master of Law and Doctor of Juridical Science from Harvard Law School. Gathii's recent book, "War, Commerce, and International Law," was published by Oxford University Press in 2010.
The Brendan Brown Natural Law Institute, established through the generosity of the late Brendan Brown who was a former faculty member of the College of Law, sponsors a major annual lecture, colloquia and other scholarly activities in keeping with Brown's love of natural law and scholarly discourse.
For more information, contact Jessica Howard at 504-861-5760 or firstname.lastname@example.com or Dominique Custos, professor of law, at 504-861-5660 or firstname.lastname@example.com.
For the latest updates about Loyola University New Orleans, follow us on Twitter @LoyolaNOLANews or become a fan on Facebook at www.facebook.com/loyno.
Loyola at a Glance is written and distributed for the faculty, staff, students and friends of Loyola University New Orleans. It is published by the Office of Public Affairs, Greenville Hall, Box 909, 7214 St. Charles Avenue, New Orleans, LA 70118. (504) 861-5888.
Information to be included in Loyola at a Glance must be received 2-3 weeks in advance of the publication date. Send us your news here.


text:
- Research article
- Open Access
Evolving stochastic context-free grammars for RNA secondary structure prediction
© Anderson et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2012
- Received: 27 September 2011
- Accepted: 4 May 2012
- Published: 4 May 2012
Stochastic Context–Free Grammars (SCFGs) were applied successfully to RNA secondary structure prediction in the early 90s, and used in combination with comparative methods in the late 90s. The set of SCFGs potentially useful for RNA secondary structure prediction is very large, but a few intuitively designed grammars have remained dominant. In this paper we investigate two automatic search techniques for effective grammars – exhaustive search for very compact grammars and an evolutionary algorithm to find larger grammars. We also examine whether grammar ambiguity is as problematic to structure prediction as has been previously suggested.
These search techniques were applied to predict RNA secondary structure on a maximal data set and revealed new and interesting grammars, though none are dramatically better than classic grammars. In general, results showed that many grammars with quite different structure could have very similar predictive ability. Many ambiguous grammars were found which were at least as effective as the best current unambiguous grammars.
Overall the method of evolving SCFGs for RNA secondary structure prediction proved effective in finding many grammars that had strong predictive accuracy, as good or slightly better than those designed manually. Furthermore, several of the best grammars found were ambiguous, demonstrating that such grammars should not be disregarded.
- Normal Form
- Positive Predictive Value
- Production Rule
- Start Symbol
- Brute Force Search
RNA secondary structure prediction is the process of predicting the position of hydrogen bonds in an RNA molecule based only on its nucleotide sequence. These predictions can be used to better understand the functioning of cells, characteristics of gene expression and the mechanisms involved in protein production[1]. Early attempts at systematic prediction include[2]; who simply evaluated all possible structures with respect to free energy functions. Later, thermodynamic principles were used to advance free energy methods in algorithms such as UNAfold[3] and RNAfold[4]. (For a good overview of RNA secondary structure prediction, see[5]). Whilst energy minimisation models have proved popular, SCFG based methods also have their merits.
Stochastic Context Free Grammars
A context–free grammar G (henceforth abbreviated to "grammar") is a 4–tuple (N, V, P, S) consisting of a finite set N of non–terminal variables; a finite set V of terminal variables that is disjoint from N; a finite set P of production rules; and a distinguished symbol S ∈ N that is the start symbol. Each production rule replaces one non–terminal variable with a string of non–terminals and terminals.
Note that each instance of S (standing for sum) generates a sum of n ≥ 1 terms (F + F + … F), and each F (standing for factor) generates a 1, a product of terms (F ∗ F), or a whole expression within parentheses. It should be clear that many different expressions might be generated: 1 + 1 + 1, (1 + 1 ∗ 1) + 1 + (1), and so forth. Formally, the grammar has non–terminal variables S, F, terminal variables (,), +,∗, 1, production rules S → F + S, S → F, F → 1, F → (S) and start symbol S. The order in which the production rules are used forms the derivation of a string. One valid derivation would be S ⇒ F ⇒ (S) ⇒ (F) ⇒ (1), generating the string '(1)' and using the sequence of production rules S → F, F → (S), S → F, F → 1.
A SCFG is a grammar with an associated probability distribution over the production rules which start from each T ∈ N. Beginning with the start symbol and following production rules sampled from the relevant distribution, a string of terminal variables can be produced (if the grammar terminates). Choosing nucleotide symbols or the three characters used in dot–parenthesis notation as terminal variables, SCFGs can be constructed which produce strings corresponding to nucleotide sequences or secondary structures.
Application of SCFGs to RNA Secondary Structure Prediction
The use of SCFGs in RNA secondary structure prediction was based on the success of Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) in protein and gene modelling[6]. Any attempt to apply HMMs to RNA secondary structure was prevented by the long–range interactions in RNA[7]. SCFGs, being generalisations of HMMs, offer a solution. This was first exploited by[8] and then developed by others (e.g.[9]).
The Pfold algorithm[10, 11] is one of the most successful approaches using SCFGs. It is designed to produce an evolutionary tree and secondary structure from an aligned set of RNA sequences. Pfold uses a SCFG designed specifically for RNA secondary structure prediction (denoted KH99 in this paper). Therefore, when only considering a single sequence, Pfold is simply a SCFG prediction method. There are other approaches which predict secondary structures from aligned RNA sequences, such as RNAalifold[12] and Turbofold[13]. However, we are concerned with the single–sequence prediction problem, so these are not used here.
While KH99 was effective, it seems to have been chosen relatively arbitrarily, in that there is little discussion about the motivation behind the choice of production rules. This problem was addressed by[14], in which nine different lightweight SCFGs were evaluated on a benchmark set of RNA secondary structures. The set of grammars they tested, however, was by no means exhaustive. All of these grammars were constructed by hand and there was little motivation for their production rules (except for the extension to stacking grammars: production rules such as for nucleotides). This suggested that a computational search of a large space of grammars might find stronger grammars, which is what we have attempted in this paper.
Evolutionary approaches have already been implemented for HMMs. Indeed,[15] used one to find the best HMM for protein secondary structure prediction. A mild improvement was found compared to HMMs which had been constructed by hand. It is hard to tell quite how conclusive the results were since the limited size of the data set forced training and testing to be done on the same data. Given the size of the data set, overtraining may have caused unreasonably high quality predictions. Clearly though, the method is potentially very powerful.
In this paper, only structure generating grammars are considered (i.e. those which have terminal variables in {( , ), . }). Strings generated by these grammars uniquely define secondary structures, with a dot '.' representing an unpaired nucleotide and an opening parenthesis indicating pairing with its corresponding closing parenthesis. Once a structure is generated, a generative model for sequences is to stochastically allocate nucleotides to each site according to the frequency of occurrence (paired and unpaired) in some set of trusted sequences and structures.
Normal forms
This normal form allows the development of the structural motifs commonly found in RNA. For example (where V i correspond to non–terminals) base–pair stacking can be generated by rules of the type V1 → (V1), hairpins by V1 → (V2), V2 → V2V3|V3V3 and V3 →., and bulges by V1 → (V2), V2 → V3V1 and V3 →.|V3V3.
Furthermore, with the exception of the ability to generate empty strings, this normal form allows the expression of dependencies of any context–free grammar producing valid structures. It was also designed to avoid cyclical productions; that is, combinations of production rules which result in the same string that they started from. These are undesirable as they permit a countably infinite number of derivations for some strings. For this reason, rules of the form T → ϵ and T → U were not considered. There is, however, nothing intrinsically wrong with these rules; it is quite possible to create strong grammars with these rules present (many of those used in[14] have rules of this type).
As a result of eliminating these rules, many grammars already established in RNA secondary structure prediction cannot be exactly replicated, since they are not initially in the above normal form. For example, the KH99 contains the rule S → L. As this normal form is an extension of CNF, any context–free grammar can be converted to this normal form, maintaining paired terminal symbol emissions. For example if S → L and L →.|(F), the forbidden rule S → L would be replaced by S →.|(F). This produces the same strings, and a given probability distribution for stochastic grammars can even be conserved. However, the transformation will often change the set of parameters in the model, which may result in different predictions when the production rule probabilities are inferred.
Secondary structure prediction
Secondary structure can be predicted by two methods, both of which are employed here. Firstly, one can find the maximum likelihood derivation of a sequence, during which a structure is generated. The Cocke–Younger–Kasami (CYK) algorithm[16] determines, by dynamic programming, the probability of the most likely derivation, and so backtracking can be used to find the most likely structure. It is designed for grammars in CNF, though there are established methods of dealing with grammars in a different normal form[17].
Secondly, one can employ a posterior decoding method using base–pairing probability matrices. The base–pair probability matrix for a SCFG are obtained via the inside and outside algorithms[18]. The secondary structure with the maximum expected number of correct positions can then be calculated via dynamic programming. Our decoding algorithm follows[19], including a γ parameter specifying the trade–off between correct base pairs relative to correct unpaired positions. For assessing the fitness of a grammar in the genetic algorithm, a value of γ = 2 was used, so as to maximise the expected number of positions correctly predicted.
Both methods were used in the search, as this additionally gave a chance to compare the two prediction methods.
Ambiguity and completeness
A grammar is said to be ambiguous if it produces more than one derivation for a given structure[20]. If structure A has one derivation with probability 0.3, and structure B two derivations, each with probability 0.25, the CYK algorithm will choose structure A, while structure B is more probable. This may reduce the quality of predictions using the CYK algorithm. The posterior decoding, though, sums over all derivations in prediction, so might be affected less by grammar ambiguity.
Nine grammars are tested in[14], of which two are ambiguous. They find that the CYK algorithm does choose suboptimal structures, and that the ambiguous grammars perform poorly relative to the unambiguous grammars. Consequently, efforts have been made to avoid ambiguity[20]. The conclusion that ambiguous grammars are undesirable is not necessarily justified. The ambiguous grammars in[14] are small, with at most two non–terminal variables, and one might expect them to be ineffective regardless. Their poor predictive quality may be due to deficiency in design rather than ambiguity.
We define a grammar to be complete if it has a derivation for all possible structures which have no hairpins shorter than length two. Clearly the ability to generate all structures is desirable for a grammar. However, one should be careful not to overemphasise this desirability, even for a complete grammar, once parameters have been inferred, converting it to a SCFG, it is unlikely that all structures have a probability significantly different from zero for any sequence. Similarly, the posterior decoding is not prone to grammar incompletness in the same way that CYK is since, in theory, after obtaining the probabilities of unpaired and paired positions, structures which cannot be derived with the grammar can still be predicted. One can perform a heuristic test for completeness by testing on a sample of strings. Ambiguity can also be checked for heuristically[20], but determining grammar ambiguity and completeness is undecidable[21].
Practically, it is very difficult to ensure both unambiguity and completeness. A complete, unambiguous grammar cannot be simply modified without compromising one of the properties. Adding any production rules (if they are ever used) will create ambiguity by providing additional derivations. Equally, removing production rules will create incompleteness (unless the rule is never used in a derivation), as the original grammar is assumed unambiguous. Because of this, an automated grammar design based on simple–step modification is practically impossible without creating ambiguous and incomplete grammars. Moreover, grammars that are unambiguous and complete are vastly outnumbered by grammars that are not. Therefore, grammars not possessing these desirable qualities must be considered and as a result our grammar search serves as a test of the capabilities of ambiguous or incomplete grammars.
Parameter inference
Training data, consisting of strings of nucleotides and trusted secondary structures, is used to obtain the probabilities associated with each production rule, as well as paired and unpaired nucleotide probabilities. If derivations are known for the training sequences, then there are simple multinomial maximum likelihood estimators for the probabilities. Usually, though, the derivation is unknown. Again, one can estimate probabilities by finding derivations for the training set using CYK, or by the inside and outside algorithms.
For the CYK algorithm, in the case of ambiguous grammars, one cannot know which derivation produced the known structure, so probabilities cannot be obtained. Consequently, we train these grammars using the same approach as[14] to ensure comparability. That is, we randomly select one derivation. For unambiguous grammars, such as KH99, this has no effect on the training. As with the prediction, inside–outside training works for unambiguous and ambiguous grammars alike.
Again, both CYK and inside–outside were used for parameter inference in the search and evaluation.
Evolutionary algorithm
With the double emission normal form, for m non–terminal variables there are grammars (m3 production rules of type T → UV, m2 of type T → (U) and m of type T →.). An evolutionary algorithm would allow for efficient exploration of the space of grammars in the above normal form. The way that the algorithm searches the space is determined by the design of the initial population, mutation, breeding and selection procedure. To find effective grammars, these must be well designed.
Initial population
where between zero and four of the S → UV rules were excluded. We also tried initial populations containing the SCFGs from[14] to consider examining SCFGs close to these.
Mutations constitute the majority of movement through the search space, so are particularly important. They give the grammar new characteristics, allow it more structural freedom, and add production rules which may be used immediately or may lie dormant. For non–terminals V i ∈ N, and corresponding production rules, the allowed stochastic mutations were:
The start variable (and corresponding production rules) change,
A production rule is added or deleted,
A new non–terminal variable V ′ is added along with two new rules that ensure that V′ is reachable and that is not empty,
A non–terminal variable is created with identical rules to a pre–existing one,
A production rule of the form V i → V j V k is changed to V i → V j V l , V i → V l V k or V i → V l V p , or production rule of the form V i → (V j ) is changed to V i → (V k ).
This form of mutation is very basic, but allows many structural features to develop over generations. The rate of mutation determines movement speed through the search space and development of these structural features. Adding rules too slowly prevents grammars from developing structure, while too many results in a lot of ambiguity and thus creates ineffective grammars. Deleting rules almost always results in a worse grammar. To aid the grammar design, especially in consideration of facets of the normal form, the rule B → . was kept constant in the evolutionary process.
More complex mutation is clearly possible. The derivation could be used to find the rules used more often and make mutations of those rules more or less likely. A model for simultaneous mutations could be developed, which might be able to make use of expert understanding of RNA structure, in combination with an evolutionary search. We have found the above model to give sufficient mobility in the search space, and therefore did not investigate other extensions.
The breeding model forms a grammar which can produce all derivations of its parent grammars. The grammar G formed from breeding G1 and G2 has start symbol S, non–terminals V1, V2, …, V n and W1, W2, …, W m , B, terminals .,(,) and production rules
For V i : where all occurrences of S1 are replaced with S,
For W i : where all occurrences of S2 are replaced with S.
This breeding model was chosen to keep the size of the grammar relatively small, whilst allowing expression of both bred grammars to be present in derivations.
We grow the population in each generation by introducing a number of newly mutated or bred grammars, then we pare it back to a fixed population size by stochastic elimination. We determine the probability of elimination of a grammar by the inverse of some fitness measure. Fitness functions we use include mountain metric distances[23] between the predicted structure and the trusted structure, sensitivity (True Positives/(True Positives + False Negatives)) and positive predictive value (PPV) (True Positives/(True Positives + False Positives)). We follow the definition of accuracy in[14], where a base pair constitutes a true positive if it is present in both the predicted and true structures, false positive if present in only the predicted structure, and false negative if present in only the trusted structure. We also tried these accuracy measures in combination with other factors in the fitness function, including largest correctly predicted length, inability to predict structures, and cost for grammar complexity.
Brute force search
In addition to the evolutionary algorithm, we have run a brute force search to evaluate small grammars which might be effective. One of the main points of emphasis of[14] was to look for lightweight grammars. In searching exhaustively for a small grammar, computational problems are quickly encountered. The search is feasible for grammars with only two non–terminals in addition to the rule B→ . (16,384 grammars) but not for 3 non–terminals (over 500 billion grammars). Whilst the search in three non–terminals may be worthwhile, especially since KH99 contains only 3 non–terminals, it was far from computationally feasible for the purposes of this paper.
We took data from RNASTRAND[24], a collection of other databases[25–31]. We filtered the data set so that the sequences and structures could ensure reliability of predictions. We removed identical sequences and disregarded synthetic data and sequences with ambiguous base pairs. We further cleaned the data to filter out any sequences with greater than 80% base pair similarity with another structure (the standard used in[14]). Furthermore, we removed all sequences with pseudoknots as it is well established that SCFGs cannot predict pseudoknots[32].
The spectrum of sequence length, is of particular significance in selecting data. The CYK and training algorithms are of cubic order in the length of the string, so we decided to use large training and test sets with small strings. Longer strings require longer derivations, thus they have a larger weight in the parameter training, which might lead to overtraining. Equally, if one omits longer strings, poorer predictions may result from overtraining on the shorter strings. We found the trained parameters highly sensitive to the choice of training data set, and struggled to balance this with computational efficiency.
We used a final data set from a variety of families, consisting of 369 sequences with corresponding structures. There was a total of 57,225 nucleotides with 12,126 base pairs. As with[14] and[10, 11], sensitivity and PPV were used as the measures of structure fit, as well as F–score (2*True Positives/(2*True Positives + False Negatives + False Positives)), a more balanced measure of sensitivity and PPV. We investigated the practice of dividing data into training and test sets.[18] randomly generate training sets of 200 and 400 strings for parameter training.[14] use a training set of 278 structures and test set of 403 total structures. Meanwhile,[10] used a considerably larger training set, with 2273 structures, and a much smaller test set of just four sequences. Our training and test sets used in the evolutionary algorithm were disjoint sets of size 109, chosen at random from those sequences in our data of length less than 200 nucleotides. The remaining data form our evaluation set, on which grammars' sensitivities and PPVs are reported.
As well as measuring performance on our own data, we have used results obtained with the[14] data. This helped us to verify the performances of the new grammars, to check our results against earlier work, and to verify that KH99′ is a good representation of KH99.
Results and discussion
Sensitivity and specificity of evolved SCFGs and other prediction methods
Our data
DE data
Sensitivity and specificity of evolved SCFGs using different training and testing methods
Grammar found by
This shows grammars with very different structures perform well on the same (full evaluation) data set. KH99′ is still a strong performer, but we have shown that there exist many others which perform similarly (these GG1–GG6 form just a subset of the good grammars found in the search).
GG1 is KH99′ with two rules added, A → AA and A → (A). These rules were used infrequently (probabilities 0.007 and 0.047 respectively). The mild improvement in functionality allows for an additional fraction of base pairs to be correctly predicted.
GG2 and GG3 were found using the posterior decoding version of the evolutionary algorithm. They have a high density of rules, that is many rules for each non–terminal variable. Particularly, GG2 has almost all of the rules it is possible for it to have, given B→ . is kept constant through the evolutionary algorithm. Given this, it is not surprising that they performed poorly using the CYK training and testing. However, with posterior decoding, the base–pair probabilities are still effective for good predictions.
GG4 has only two variables (A and C) used almost exclusively in producing base pairs. It then uses various exit sequences to generate different sets of unpaired nucleotides and returns to producing base pairs. Finally, GG5 and GG6 are typical of larger grammars we have found with complex structure. It is not obvious to us how their structure relates to their success in secondary structure prediction. GG4, GG5, and GG6 were all found using the CYK version of the evolutionary algorithm, and perhaps their complex structure can be accredited to this. GG6 is a strong performer throughout, particularly when considering F–score.
Most grammars achieved lower predictive power on the Dowell and Eddy dataset. The difference in performance between KH99 and KH99′ is small and confirms that the representation of KH99 as KH99′ is a good one. Particularly noteworthy is the performance of GG3 and GG5. GG3 has had a considerable increase in PPV, likely due to the posterior decoding prediction method. Given many of the structures in the Dowell and Eddy dataset contain pseudoknots, other grammars score poorly trying to predict pairs where there are not, in contrast to GG3. By predicting fewer base pairs, GG3 gains higher PPV as more of them are correct, but lower sensitivity. GG5 is a grammar which was unremarkable in its results on the original data set, however, it has outperformed the rest of the grammars on the benchmark set and is the only grammar with improved sensitivity when compared to the RNASTRAND dataset.
Overall, the grammars found in the evolutionary search still perform well because they are not overadapted to deal with the original data. Determining which is best depends on the measure of strength of prediction, whether the size of the grammar is a concern, ability to approximate structures with pseudoknots effectively, and so on. However, it is clear that a selection of effective grammars has been found. Results shown by UNAfold and RNAfold continue to be superior to those produced by SCFG methods.
Further analysis of
To test the local features of the space, we evaluated variations of KH99′ against the full data set. Where a single rule was deleted, only one grammar had prediction accuracy of the order of KH99′. This is the grammar without the rule A → (C) (which would have been used only infrequently in KH99′, with probability 0.014). However, it is clear that deleting rules has a strong negative effect on the predictive power of KH99′, given that no others have sensitivity greater than 0.25. Of course, this might be expected given that this SCFG has been constructed manually, and it is therefore unlikely to have unnecessary production rules.
Brute force search
Ambiguity and Completeness
Ambiguity and completeness
Similarly, it might be surprising that some of the grammars found (GG4 and GG5), are incomplete. However, heuristically it seems that the structures that cannot be generated have little biological relevance (e.g. GG4 cannot generate "(…)(…)(…)(…)"). In some sense therefore, the incompleteness is permissible, as the grammar is still able to generate any relevant structure.
Our brute force search and search around KH99 demonstrate that intelligent searching methods are necessary, and overall, the method of evolving SCFGs for RNA secondary structure prediction proved effective. We found many grammars with strong predictive accuracy, as good or better than those designed manually. Furthermore, several of the best grammars found were both ambiguous and incomplete, demonstrating that in grammar design such grammars should not be disregarded. One of the strengths of the method is the ease of application and effectiveness for RNA structure problems. In particular, grammatical models are used in phylogenetic models of RNA evolution[33] which make use of manually constructed grammars, and so the accuracy might be improved with automated grammar design. Overall though, whilst many grammars have been found with good predictive power, the space of grammars grows rapidly with the number of non–terminals, so we cannot conclude that no better grammars exist. The effectiveness of the search heuristic is supported by the fact that we consistently find grammars on par with the best manually created grammars. The equally consistent inability to achieve any significant improvement on this level of performance, and the relative limited prediction correlation between the many good grammars found points to the inherent challenge of grammar design, or indeed to the limitations of SCFG based methods as a whole. It appears that the number of grammars able to achieve this level of performance is large, and may depend little on the overall grammar structure, and at the same time it appears that a performance improvement may be difficult or impossible to achieve with a grammatical approach.
Author's contributions
JWJA conceived the idea in discussion with RL and JH. JWJA then developed the methodology with PT and JS, with help from RL. PT and JS then designed and wrote the code, and results were analysed and written up by JWJA, with help from PT and JS. All authors were involved in critical redrafting of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
JWJA would like to thank the EPSRC for funding. JH would like to acknowledge the Miller Institute for funding and hospitality. All authors would like to thank the Department of Plant Science, University of Oxford for their support and use of facilities. We should like to acknowledge the EU grant, COGANGS, for support.
Authors' Affiliations
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