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New US Digital Service Looks to Avoid IT Catastrophes
BY Alex Howard | Wednesday, August 13 2014
At a time when the public's trust in institutions is at historic lows, the federal government's use of technology has an unusual place in the national discourse. After the first Internet president's administration was responsible for the high-profile failure of Healthcare.gov, the issue seemed ripe to drive significant reform on Capitol Hill. Even if some 10 million adults gained health insurance through the Affordable Care Act after "Obama's trauma team" made successful fixes to Healthcare.gov, negative public perception has lingered, and for good reason. Under the radar, other projects have continued to sputter, like a $300 million dollar Social Security government IT boondoggle that still has not delivered a working system for submitting disability claims. The crash of the FCC's dated website under the weight of 1.1 million comments this summer didn't help, either. At the same time, the confidence of the technology community has been damaged by revelations of dragnet surveillance and surreptitious backdoors planted in software.
In the face of those challenges, both the legislative branch and executive branch of the U.S. government have taken steps to address the endemic failures of large IT projects and systemic issues with the way Uncle Sam plans, creates and maintains technology. In July, a bipartisan group of lawmakers formally introduced the Reforming Federal Procurement of Information Technology Act (RFP-IT), which would codify the successful Presidential Innovation Fellows program, establish a Digital Government Office and expand competition for federal IT contracting. Earlier in the year, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 1232, the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA), which could give federal chief information officer more authority, but it hasn't gone anywhere in the Senate, like so many other bills in the least productive Congress in the modern era. Both RFP-IT and FITARA might be earn consideration in the lame duck session of the 113th Congress, however, after the November mid-term elections.
On the executive side, the White House and federal agencies have made several significant moves over the winter and spring, even as the furor over the Healthcare.gov mess grew and subsided. The first big public initiative was the establishment of 18F, a new unit of the U.S. General Services Agency that looks to "fail fast" instead of failing big on government IT projects. Working with agencies, fellows and contractors, 18F is actually building, free and open source government digital services, working in public on Github , for the public. Significantly, 18F has committed to developing free and open source software for Uncle Sam, releasing code developed on behalf of the public to the public. As I wrote here in April, if 18F can prove that bringing technologists into government to buy, build and deploy technology, it will be a huge shift from the traditional RFP and contracting model, offering a new model for "insourcing" technology and creating new pressure in the market for services.
The second initiative went live on Monday, when the White House formally launched a United States Digital Service (USDS) and published an open source Digital Services Playbook and a "TechFAR," a part of the guide that "highlights the flexibilities in the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) that can help agencies implement 'plays' from the Digital Services Playbook."
While the playbook has earned a lot of attention, the TechFAR component of it may have more impact inside of government. If you read between the lines the way Red Hat chief public sector strategist Gunnar Hellekson does, " The existence of TechFAR implicitly endorses what industry has been saying for quite some time: the rules are fine as they are," he wrote on his blog. "This is a surprise, since you can't spend five minutes with someone in government IT without a sarcastic remark about procurement. With TechFAR, OMB has spoken: We can make do with the acquisition tools we have. Reinterpretation and new guidance will get us where we need to go."
That's not to say that no regulatory reform is needed nor that legislative action would make no difference. It does mean that the White House felt that clarity around the flexibility that federal procurement officers already enjoy needed to re-emphasized.
"The staggering failure rate of government technology projects can attributed to a number of factors, but none are as pervasive as outdated development practices that put all the planning up front and fail to understand the system's actual users," said Jen Pahlka, the founder of Code for America, in an interview. Pahlka worked on this problem while she was at the White House for the last year, serving as a deputy U.S. chief technology officer. "The TechFAR handbook finally makes it clear to the contracting community and the federal IT community that agile development is not only perfectly legal, but in fact the default methodology. This is huge: it gives those responsible for creating government digital services access to the same development methods that have produced the world-changing consumer services so many use today."
The digital playbook itself is something of a marvel for an official government policy: it's elegantly designed, has clear navigation and is responsive to any device you choose to view it upon. It's certainly strongly evocative of the award-winning design principles promulgated by the United Kingdom's Government Digital Service (DGS) last year, a parallel that can and should lead to comparisons to the British approach to delivering digital services.
If those GDS principles have inspired those of the USDS, "I feel vindicated," said Mike Bracken, the executive director of digital for the United Kingdom, in an interview. "The principles by which we work are nothing more than applied common sense in the Internet age. If they make sense, use them: they're for everybody."
Whether the USDS and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) can create carrots and sticks for agencies to adopt those principles is another matter. Unlike the United Kingdom's Digital Government Service, the United States has not created a singular new entity with a large budget and spending authority. Nor has it hired dozens and dozens of top technologists at high pay grades who then set about building core digital services for the country, although 18F merits comparison. Instead, the USDS will work with federal agencies as they create or upgrade services and products.
"At the end of the day, the agencies own the delivery of their services," said U.S. chief information officer Steven VanRoekel, who will oversee the USDS in OMB, in an interview. "They crave new approaches. They crave having people help them really be state of the art and come in at a low cost and high value, high output, and high level of effectiveness. The engagement in the ramp-up stage, to get our minimally viable product team out there and work with these limited number of agencies, will really be on a one-on-one. They're asking for us more than we're asking to go into them and deploy this team on board. We have, right now, more demand for the service than we have supply. We have to be targeted for our ability to go out and work directly with them."
Much in the same way that the "trauma team" drove improvements to Healthcare.gov, the USDS will act like a consultancy, in terms of analyzing and helping to manage government IT projects and products better.
"I think the Digital Service will go in and work with agencies on identifying what level of capability does this agency have to deliver a great service," said VanRoekel. "What are the approaches they're using? What are different approaches should they be using? What sort of technologies and direction are they taking, from open data to open interfaces to utilizing open source where they can? Drive that into the solutions set. We're not staffing to the bandwidth where they would go in and then take over an effort and write the code, where they'd build this. The [USDS] is really about being a team of context-shifters."
In other words, 18F, Presidential Innovation Fellows and agency fellows, and contractors working with those agencies will build, deploy and maintain technology, while the USDS will strategically engage on certain projects to get ahead of potential failures. How that works remains to be seen.
"I salute the effort and admire the strategic direction," said Bracken. "The separation of those skillsets seems to me perverse, but I say that with a huge asterisk of what I don't know. Why you wouldn't put them together is beyond me."
One component that should help is proven leadership and operational efficacy. The White House tapped former Google reliability engineer Michael "Mikey" Dickerson to be the first administrator of the USDS, reporting to VanRoekel as a deputy US CIO. He'll be working with 7 to 10 new hires onto this team, according to VanRoekel.
"We will also be surrounding this team with some detailees from government and my other deputy US CIO, Lisa Schlosser, who runs the statutory functions in our office," said VanRoekel. "We're also going to have great opportunities for her team to rotate in, and they come with a deep expertise in procurement, cybersecurity, and other things. We'll surround the team with some infrastructure that helps them kinda navigate but yet disrupt the status quo." If RFP-IT becomes law, it would codify the USDS within OMB, with the United States chief information officer at its head as a Senate-confirmed presidential appointee.
By hiring key members of the team that rescued Healthcare.gov, the Obama administration proved it could attract top tech talent, following its success in attracting other technologists to the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, Department of Health and Human Services, and 18F, among others.
"There's a right way to do digital services that work for the people they're supposed to serve, and Mikey Dickerson showed how to do that with his heroic effort on healthcare.gov," said Pahlka. "Now he's going to help us avoid crises like that in the future by leading the U.S. Digital Service. Government needs him and those like him. If we can't implement the policies we create, we can't govern."
If the USDS is an effort to make the lessons learned from Healthcare.gov endure elsewhere in government, Dickerson will have plenty of opportunities to "run that playbook" again.
"We think that a lot of the same tactics that worked on Healthcare.gov will work again at other agencies again and again," said Dickerson, in an interview. "We have high confidence that the results will be repeatable. If you put one person in charge of a project, that usually helps a lot. If you monitor in real time what you're doing, that also helps a lot. All the stuff in the Digital Services playbook that we released today, that's almost a point-by-point recipe for what worked for us on Healthcare.gov."
A worthwhile hypothetical to apply to the question of impact is whether the USDS could have identified the ineffective contract planning and oversight practices at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the entity responsible for building Healthcare.gov, and then made an impact upon the choices and project management there. One of the top consulting firms in the world, McKinsey and Associates, warned the administration last spring about critical issues with Healthcare.gov in a "red team" report, without apparent significant impact. The CTO and CIO at the Department of Health and Human Services warned then Secretary Kathleen Sebelius about concerns, and yet the flawed marketplace still went live. For the USDS to make a difference, the White House tech team will need to be much more closely involved with monitoring projects, from the very beginning, follow through if and when the President says to make sure a project works.
In our interview, Dickerson emphasized a strategy that will focus upon working with agencies to ensure that IT projects are well planned and managed, not just diving in as a "digital SWAT team," as some media accounts have suggested.
"Plan A is always to approach the agencies collaboratively," he said. "They want the same things that we want. Most of the time, that's what I expect to have happen. Most of the time, that should be sufficient for what we want to do. I also think that the Digital Service, ideally, is a kind of rallying point and a coordination point for all of the different parts, because there are a lot of people interested in helping government do better at technology delivery. There's agency staff, there's a lot of new blood in the agencies, there's new agency CIOs, there's agency CTOs, there's contractors that are new in the game, there's the PIFs, there's 18F. There's a lot of energy around this right now. Ideally, the Digital Service will a place to coordinate and make sure all of those groups are getting what they need."
On transparency and delivery
Whether the White House and agencies can find a way to make these new components grafted into existing institutions function well is an open question, and one that will only be answered if the failure rate for government IT projects goes down and the speed and quality of delivery increases. So far, the news of the USDS launch has been greeted with excitement amongst supporters of the Obama administration and cautious, calibrated enthusiasm outside of it.
"We have to applaud any effort that works to ensure effective delivery of IT solutions, particularly efforts that enable industry and government to partner together" said David Wennergren, senior vice president for tech policy at the Professional Services Council, the national trade association of the government professional and technical services industry. "If you go through the playbook, a lot of those plays really reflect and align with recommendations that PSC has been making for some time, including customer involvement, workforce training, modular contracting, strong program management, and performance metrics."
Wennergren said that the USDS is a good foundational start but will be limited in scope by the number of people there. (OMB estimates 7-10 staff this year, expanding to 25 if Congress provides funding.) "The key to success is recognizing that given a limited number of people, how do you select the right projects that deliver the most value," said Wennergren. "Picking the right things to work on is very important." He also emphasized that the new USDS is just a first step in a process that needs a lot of other steps as well.
"This can't take the place of more substantive IT and acquisition reform," said Wennergren. "Other things like FITARA are just the first step in a more broad agenda. We want to find ways to institutionalize reform. It's hard to not be supportive of something that's going to make IT delivery better, though -- this idea of finding experts -- like Healthcare.gov example that led to Mikey being appointed - if you can get smart people involved, this will get better."
Wennergren urged the administration and Congress to take more steps that allow industry to participate in improving services. "What we see is a dramatic shift in the way the technology market is operating," he said. "People are looking for broader things than infrastructure as a service. We need to tap into broader industry expertise to partner with government from the start.
One of the issues that we face is that there is more flexibility in the acquisition process than is used. We are missing out on the opportunities afforded by changing to technologies to change how work gets done. Buying a weapon system is different than buying a technology system in the 21st century."
"The Healthcare.gov launch was a debacle because politically empowered officials who didn't understand the technology kept meddling instead of offering clear direction and letting experts do their job," said Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA), in a statement. As the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Issa has been a leading critic of the administration's use of technology, particularly the botched rollout of the Healthcare.gov marketplace.
"The president is right in looking to the private sector to improve federal IT practices, and establishing a collaboration center has been a bipartisan proposal in Congress," he said. "To work, this process has to be fully transparent and not another episode where appointees try to steer technology decisions they don't fully understand behind closed doors."
That last bit -- "transparency -- has proven to be far easier said that done in government IT, at all levels of government. The Government Accountability Office found that one prominent instrument of transparency, the highly touted online IT Dashboard launched by former U.S. CIO Vivek Kundra to facilitate public monitoring of government IT projects, had not been updated publicly for 15 of the past 24 months, with inconsistent ratings of risk and progress. In May, VanRoekel told the Senate that "Since 2012, our PortfolioStat data-driven accountability sessions have resulted in over $2.5 billion in identified cost savings and $1.9 billion in realized savings."
David Powner, the Government Accountability Office's director of information technology issues, told the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on financial services and general government this spring that these goals aren't ambitious enough, given the GAO's estimates of some $3 billion more in annual savings that are possible. Powner also told the Senate that agencies have major IT investments that are not accurately described as "reds," or high-risk, on the dashboard. When I asked about data quality issues or whether the dashboard ratings were an accurate representation of where projects or initiatives stand, the US CIO explained how he was monitoring the health of IT projects.
"The IT Dashboard is really intended as a tool for agencies to use to manage their IT internally, less about how are we checking up on things, from the central standpoint, where we are going in and flagging stuff based on certain criteria," said VanRoekel, in answer to my question about the tool's potential utility for tracking USDS work. "There are things we watch pretty closely, like people are not hitting budget, if they're changing their due dates or changing their budget projections throughout the lifestyle of a project, or things like that. Then, I get to see those changes and we can react to those things."
He expanded a bit more about his thinking on the value of a public dashboard in a follow up answer. "The theory is that, sometimes in government, if you change from a yellow to a red or something, it creates a different dynamic than if you have a thoughtful conversation about the approach someone's taking on getting something done," he said. "We believe in our heart of hearts that transparency plays a positive role in that stuff, as a great mechanism. I just want to make sure that we're super smart about how we're doing that and how we're manifesting that in insuring that we see great success."
If OMB is already communicating with agencies directly and plans to expand direct audits and engagement through the USDS, it could help to prevent some failures or rescue ailing IT investments. The management methodology that VanRoekel is applying, PortfolioStat, will be familiar to viewers of "The Wire," who may remember the Comstat meetings held by the Baltimore Police Department, or the TechStat reviews that Kundra held.
If OMB and the Office of E-Government find that keeping issues with projects out of the public eye by not updating dashboards is an effective management strategy, the results should show it. At this point, it's fair to say that the White House was not closely enough engaged in what was happening with the health insurance marketplace at CMS until after its launch, nor particularly transparent about the status of fixing it over the winter as the media and political storm that surrounded the implementation of the Affordable Care Act raged online and in cable news.
Not publishing the actual status of progress towards milestones online as open data or updating, however, may not recover public trust. For example, look at the digital government spotlight data on the IT Dashboard, which tracks some agency progress towards relatively uncontroversial national strategy milestones: it has not been updated in 2014, despite legitimate agency progress. Even if it's not uncommon for a new public official or the second term of a presidential administration to let initiatives introduced by a predecessor moulder, the shift does highlight how whatever is not institutionalized by Congress can shift in priority. (Whether a President Clinton, Bush, Paul, Christie, Perry, Ryan, Rubio or Biden would keep the USDS might be up for debate in a year or two. Maryland governor Martin O'Malley's data-driven style of management makes him, at least, likely to retain a governance system that works.)
If making things "open" makes them better, though, as the GDS's design principles explicitly assert that making things "open makes them better" and the USDS' 13th play is to "default to open," the public should expect to see not only improvements to the IT Dashboard but also a clear explanation of what digital services are being transformed and where the work stands. Just take a look at the United Kingdom's gov.uk's page for electoral registration to see how this can be done well, and then compare it to Perfomance.gov to see how much room remains for improvement. At least one agency has been demonstrating how this works in practice for months: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's "Open Tech" site shows their work and recruits developers to code for Uncle Sam in the process.
While the playbook's "default to open" is a visible nudge to change other federal agency's culture and processes, it's only the latest nudge from OMB, going back to the 2009 Open Government Directive or more recent Open Data Executive Order. Whether agencies view this as more than a compliance exercise is another matter, particularly when projects aren't going so well and products don't work as designed.
"It's difficult," said Bracken. "It's easier to set the dial to open when things are fundamentally broken than when they're not publicly broken. The question for any group around a central government that has a digital remit is whether they're there to make a fundamental change, not just a bolt-on, and if they going to put openness at the heart of changing the system and culture. Ideally, you do both."
Dickerson expressed optimism that he'll be able to communicate how the work is going throughout the process. "I hope to be pretty open and transparent about how things are going as we go along," he said. "I don't know what those channels will be, exactly, as we're just setting everything up, but hopefully you'll be able to see. You won't have to wait two years to ask the question: week to week, you'll be able to follow the developments as you want to." Whether the White House communications shop lets him engage freely and speak frankly in online forums remains to be seen.
"As far as a clear tactic, and we started it on day 1, is putting the TechFAR and the playbook up on Github right away," said VanRoekel. "We're already getting comments, we're already closing some comments. We're going to check in later today on what that's been looking like throughout the day. Making the work we do open and collaborative as much as we can, where it has great effect, is something that's definitely the spirt of this team."
Within 48 hours, the administration received 22 pull requests to the playbook, closing 13 of them, and 15 issues, closing 5 of them. One open pull request to watch comes from new chief data officer for the U.S. Department of Transportation, Dan Morgan, noting that "open source is commercial."
Proactivity, reactivity and high expectations
Fixing projects gone awry has immense value, but stopping them from becoming that way might be even more so, given the $80 billion dollars spent on information technology every year by the U.S. federal government. One answer that became clear in my joint interview with VanRoekel and Dickerson is that they both believe that the USDS won't just be a reactive entity. If so, that will address of the threads of concern I heard from other parties I asked about the initiative.
"Really, the goal here is less of really taking what has been traditionally more of a reactive stance to this stuff and getting more proactive on the most important engagements on citizen-facing services," said VanRoekel. "How we manifest the oversight that [deputy US CIO] Lisa's team will be doing on those projects and projecting that outward is to be determined. We're taking a very agile approach. We're going to start small and work our way through this. Hopefully, Lisa and Mikey are going to work very closely together on how that stuff will manifest."
Red Hat's Hellekson, for one, currently has more questions than answers:
The really interesting questions come when you put the USDS is the context of the Federal IT strategy and a longer-term vision for what government IT should be. Here, I'm hard-pressed, because I'm not really sure how the USDS is meant to succeed. Is it designed to accrete web and mobile projects over time, as the UK's GDS has done? Is it meant to be a kind of consultancy to other groups, making them more successful? Since it's led by one of the saviors of healthcare.gov, will it become a team of firefighters, rescuing faltering websites? Once we understand that, how will USDS serve the tactical goals of cloud first, shared first, and the FDCCI? How will we know that it's doing a better job than a private contractor? How will we know it's better than publishing the Playbook and TechFAR alone? There's a lot to be learned from the UK's experience with this, and Mark Thompson has leveled some very important questions at GDS which apply just as easily to the USDS. I encourage you to read it.
Another, still-unanswered question is the extent to which the USDS can shift how IT projects are scoped out, proposed, bid upon, managed and scrapped, if they don't work.
"The question is to what degree will a small number of very capable people paint rusty trains or build new ones," said Bracken. "Now, building trains in digital is so cheap; the challenge is shutting down the old ones. That's where you need teeth." (If the U.S. CIO proves willing and able to power down more IT failures as well save money by consolidating IT services, we'll know if the USDS has some bite.)
"The problem with these groups, especially the consultancy level, is the risk that you're the first to the scene of the next accident," Bracken elaborated. "You're a sort of technical ambulance chaser that getting ready to fix the next screwup. If people of that caliber do nothing else than fix really shambolically broken systems, then that's just great. Nonetheless, one has to ask the question if those are the best uses of their skills? Or should someone not have decided to spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on proprietary technology built by a company that has no experience with digital services?"
The best way to prevent a visit to the emergency room is to get regular checkups, focus on preventative health care and identify and mitigate high risk behaviors. In the UK, the GDS has made progress on all of those fronts.
"We've made the relationship between technology and government better," said Bracken. "We're part of a shop that saved the country £13.4 billion pounds last year, and £10 billion the year before." To judge the success of the USDS in 3 years, he suggested, "I'd lead with other questions: What have you fixed? What have you stopped happening?"
On that count, the White House told me to stay tuned and judge the USDS by its results. "We're brand new," said Dickerson. "I can only speak for myself and what I'm hoping for and believing as we get into this, and that's if we make -- again, using Healthcare.gov as the reference point -- Healthcare.gov-sized impacts on even a handful of government projects, then I will like my time has been well spent. Obviously, we have ambitions of doing even more than that, scaling up from those few projects that we're going to focus on in the first few months into things that are generalizable and will really improve the process all across the agencies."
Given the anger, doubt and frustration prevalent in the public discourse around government IT, the only way public trust in the federal government's ability to use technology well for something other than surveillance and warfare will be through the deployment of beautiful, modern Web services that work. Jen Pahlka has explicitly connected government's technical competency to trust in this young century.
"If government is to regain the trust and faith of the public, we have to make services that work for users the norm, not the exception," she told to Government Technology, after leaving the White House. Mayors, governors and presidents are experiencing the truth of her statement around the country, from small towns to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
"The first thing you have to do is show what's possible," said Pahlka, in our interview. "Mikey and others have already done that with Healthcare.gov. Then you have to show that those outcomes are replicable. That's what the USDS team will do next, working on a few key areas that really matter. Then you make that approach the new normal, which is going to take a long time. But the important thing is to have started, and that enough people believe we can do better."
The hardest task before the newly launched USDS, along with 18F, the Presidential Innovation Fellows, and millions of other federal employees, is not only to deliver basic services, but to go beyond, remembering that the American government has accomplished the seemingly impossible before, and can do so again.
"What I've said to other engineers, if you could only remember one thing from what we've talked about for two hours, it would be that a huge amount of what people think is immovable, unfixable, intractable -- 'there's nothing we can do here, government will never change its behavior, this is just hopeless' there's a lot of people with that attitude, both inside and outside -- and a really shocking amount of the time, maybe 60% of the time, the thing that you think can't be done really can, if you would work on it," said Dickerson. "A lot of the stuff people think agencies can't do, because it's prohibited by the FAR [Federal Acquisitions Regulation] or this or that, well, it's really not. You just had to try. If there was just one thing from Healthcare.gov that we learned, I would say it's that: a lot of these problems that we've assumed are unsolvable really aren't."


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I don't believe that you should eat all the wrong foods, and then suddenly once a month decide that it is time to find the perfect 7 day detox plan. It is obviously important to do everything in moderation. However, a detox cleanse is beneficial in many ways, no matter what you eat.
You will be focusing on certain types of foods that are great for the liver, the colon and overall you will just feel a lot better with more energy throughout the day. A lot of people decide to do this merely to lose weight, which of course you will achieve.
You can do a three day plan or a five day plan, depending on what you want to achieve. Some people even decide to stick it out for 30 days. Dr Oz recently came up with a 3 day plan and this has become very popular and effective. My only gripe with this is that it goes along with a whole lot of supplements.
A detox plan without supplements?
I went on a detox plan for 3 days without supplements because I didn't feel like spending extra money on that, and found it to be as good as I was expecting. One thing I would advise and what I would change is to come off the caffeine slowly.
For the first day, I had a massive headache, and I know this was from not drinking any coffee. I suggest that you wean yourself off this a couple of days before. This is especially recommended if you drink a ton of coffee, like I do!
What it consists of
Some people are very strict about this, and that is probably the better way to go. This goes along with detox smoothies and juices, which you would have for breakfast, lunch and supper. However, I'm not that strict and like to change it up quite a bit. I may cook up some spinach and then have an avocado before I make a strawberry and banana smoothie later on.
Drink water
Drink at least eight glasses of water every day. This is something that you just can't skip. It may be tough at first, but you can really make this interesting by adding things like mint and citrus or other fruit. Let this steep in the refrigerator overnight, and you have a lovely cocktail.
Here is an example
Strawberry Water
- 1 pint strawberries
- 1 pint mixed berries
- Water
- Ice
Get yourself a big pitcher, filled with water. Add the berries in here, and leave it in the fridge overnight. This will give you more flavor. Take it out the next morning and add the ice.
What's the plan?
The foods you are allowed to eat, will depend on your plan and how long you are detoxing. If this is a week long program and you are at the office all day, then you can't live on smoothies and juice all day because you are going to get lethargic. However, you could manage this if you reduce it to three days.
Some of the foods to detox your body
- Spinach
- Substitute dairy milks for coconut milk and almond milk
- Brown rice, buckwheat, potato flour
- Unsweetened fresh fruits, unsweetened canned fruits
- Fresh fish
- Organic chicken, turkey
- Split peas, cashews, legumes, pecans, sunflower seeds, hazelnuts, almonds
- Olive oil, flax seed, sesame
- Decaffeinated tea
- Cinnamon, cumin, dill, garlic, ginger, parsley, tyme, mint, trragon
Foods you can't eat on a detox diet
Just like there are foods that you should definitely stick to, there are also those foods that you must stay away from. Be disciplined about this in order to get the best results.
- Stay off all meats, other than fish and chicken. Processed meats should be avoided as well.
- Anything processed should not be included in your plan. This is because of what is added to these types of meals. Everything you have should be fresh.
- Coffee and Tea - you can have herbal teas, and remember to drink water. Like I said earlier, if you are a heavy coffee drinker, then make sure you come off it slowly, otherwise you are going to suffer from headaches.
- Dairy - only use coconut milk or almond milk. Otherwise no other dairy products should be used in your detox diet plan.
- Bread, Pasta - No wheat is allowed
- Chocolates, Sugar and Pastries - You will just have to stick it out for this time. There is no sweet things allowed here. You can find this in your fresh fruits, though. Remember this for when you are finished detoxing.
- Alcohol - none of this!
- Salt - This is also included in things like soya sauce, so check the labels.
Smoothie Recipes for your 3 day detox plan
All of the ingredients here play a part in helping your body function in one way or another. They have certain vitamins and minerals to help with various functions. For example, apple juice helps get rid of body toxins and carrots contain vitamin A.
Strawberry and spinach smoothie
- 1 cup coconut milk
- 1tsp flaxseeds
- 1 cup spinach
- 4 large strawberries
- 1 banana
- Handful mint
Blend until smooth
Blueberry and banana smoothie
- 1 cup almond milk
- 1 banana
- 1 tsp sliced ginger
- ¼ cup blueberries
The Ultimate Green Smoothie
- ½ cucumber
- 1 pear, peeled and cubed
- 1 orange, peeled and sliced
- 1 Tbsp pumpkin seeds
- 1 cup water
- 1 cup water
credit: flickr.com/photos/timpatterson/3710708383
The liver cleanser
- ¼ cup parsley
- 50% kale
- 1 small beet, peeled and sliced
- 1 apple
- 1 Tbsp chia seeds
- 1 lemon
- 1 cup water
- 1 tsp ginger, sliced
Amazon Price: $119.99 $49.85 Buy Now
(price as of Aug 23, 2016)
Juicing Recipes for your 3 day plan
Beetroot and Carrot
credit: flickr.com/photos/sercasey/405828309
Chop up everything, depending on the requirements of your machine and wait for your lovely juice to flow through.
Apple and Celery
- 3 Apple
- 2 Carrots
- 3 Celery Stalks
Celery is great because it acts as a natural diuretic and helps the body with water retention.
Delicious Grapefruit and Blueberry Juice
- 1/2 Grapefruit
- 15 Grapes
- 1 1/2 Cup Blueberries
This is really tasty!
- Don't forget about your water!
Amazon Price: $99.99 $87.17 Buy Now
(price as of Aug 23, 2016)


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Commercial Vessels in Tasmanian Waters
MAST is responsible for waterways management matters such as the provision of navigation aids, VHF radio services, facilities and ports and pilotage.
In accordance with the Marine and Safety (General) Regulations 2013, the owner of a Domestic Commercial Vessel (DCV) operating in Tasmanian coastal waters contributes to the cost of providing these services through the payment of the Annual Infrastructure Administration fee.
The owner of a DCV that has not previously operated in Tasmanian coastal waters must notify MAST of the intended home port of the vessel.
Certificate of Competency holders wishing to operate a registered recreational vessel in Tasmanian waters require a Recreational Motor Boat Licence. Certificate of Competency holders will not be required to undertake the practical boat licence course, but payment of the triennial Recreational Motor Boat Licence fee is required. A Recognition of Interstate Motor Boat Licence / Certificate of Competency Application Form will need to be submitted to MAST.
Domestic Commercial Vessels (DCVs) are regulated by Commonwealth Legislation – the Marine Safety (Domestic Commercial Vessel) National Law Act 2012 (the National Law) and State based legislation.
The National Law regulates vessel construction and operation plus seafarer qualifications. It also establishes Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) as the National Regulator for commercial vessel safety.
Information on certification for vessels and seafarers under the National Law can be accessed through the AMSA website or by calling AMSA Connect 1800 627 484 (Monday to Friday, 8am to 5pm).


text:
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The Beatles - A Day in The Life: June 25, 1968
George Harrison produces Jackie Lomax's Sour Milk Sea
George Harrison produced the second session on this day for fellow Liverpudlian musician Jackie Lomax, recording Harrison's song Sour Milk Sea.
The song was recorded at Abbey Road over three days, on 24-26 June 1968, as well as a Lomax song, The Eagle Laughs At You.
Harrison produced the songs and played acoustic guitar, with McCartney on bass, Starr on drums, Eric Clapton on guitar and Nicky Hopkins on piano. The Eagle Laughs At You featured Harrison and Clapton playing rhythm and lead guitar alongside Lomax, but no other Beatles.
For the first two of the days McCartney was out of the country, but added his bass part to Sour Milk Sea on 26 June. It is likely that the backing track for another Lomax song, You've Got Me Thinking, was also recorded during these sessions. McCartney also busked the song on 21 January 1969 during the Get Back/Let It Be sessions.
Jackie Lomax was the first artist to sign to The Beatles' Apple label. Sour Milk Sea was released as a single in August 1968, with the catalogue number Apple 3. It was part of Apple's "Our first four" set of singles, which also included The Beatles' Hey Jude, Mary Hopkin's Those Were The Days and the Black Dyke Mills Band's Thingumybob.
The song also appeared on Lomax's debut album, Is This What You Want?, released by Apple in March 1969.


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– A screening of the feature-documentary "License for Crimes" is being planned in Kyiv for February 2019. According to the organizers of the project, Ukrainian non-governmental organization Cavalier, the documentary is dedicated to the history of religious extremism in the Russian Federation.
The director of the Brussels-based NGO Human Rights Without Frontiers (HRWF), Willy Fautre, will act as an expert in the project. This is not the first time that Cavalier and HRWF have worked together. In 2016, the NGOs released a documentary entitled "Protect your dignity", which was dedicated to the protection from and prevention against manifestations of religious extremism in modern society.
One of the key elements of the "License for Crimes" documentary is a so-called 'Russian Federation patriot instruction manual in pre-war period'. Interestingly, the textbook is dated in the year of 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea, a first step to the military conflict in eastern Ukraine. As a consequence, the Luhansk People's Republic (LNR) and the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) appeared on the map of Ukraine as separatist entities (although they are not recognized by the international community).
The textbook is said to originate from Russia. In accordance with the terms under which this textbook was shared with us, we have no right to publish the full version of this manual yet. However, we will provide a description of the key blocks of the textbook and use several of the most vivid pages to demonstrate the methodology.
According to the authors of the textbook, the Russian Federation has four types of enemies:
– Enemies of the State;
– Enemies of the Church;
– Enemies of the State policy;
– Enemies of the undeclared State policy.
The authors of the textbook call those falling under one of these four categories a "special contingent", which must either have their activities terminated or be destroyed. Onward, there is a detailed description of three levels of training and methods to be used by Russian 'patriots'; methods which strictly correspond to the way Jehovah's Witnesses were eliminated from the map in Russia.
As for the authenticity of this textbook, the answer is obvious. Everything that is mentioned in the manual has been put into practice by Russia. What is very disturbing is that it gives instructions to 'patriots' for pre-war and war periods. Concerning the pre-war period, we see that Russia has implemented the recommendations of the handbook in Crimea and Donbass. If we look at what has happened in Crimea in the pre-war or pre-annexation period, we see that Russia had prepared the minds of the people in the peninsula, mobilizing them in one way or another to feel closer to Moscow than to Kyiv. They also prepared 'the minds of people' outside Crimea, asserting that it had historically been ruled by Moscow, under the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, and that it was normal to reintegrate its Russian-speaking population in the current Russian Federation. This was the first step of the pre-war period.
The next step was irregular warfare. Unidentifiable men in arms surprisingly took control of the TV station, and administrative and public buildings, including the local parliament of Crimea. A disturbing situation, as it was originally not understood as the first step of the conquest of Crimea.
We also saw the faithful implementation of the handbook for Russian 'patriots' in Donbass when Putin spread the idea that the Russian world was extending beyond the borders of the Russian Federation and included neighboring territories with Russian-speaking populations. Step by step, while denying any involvement, Russia created a protracted conflict in the Donbass that has made more 10 000 victims in last few years.
The manual for Russian 'patriots' describes strategies that were implemented before our eyes in the last few years. When it is made public, we expect that the FSB will deny association with it and say it is a provocation of Ukraine.
This textbook is unique and will present opportunities for expert discussions on national and international levels when it is revealed in its entirety.
The movie "License for Crimes" will be screened in Kyiv in February 2019. After this première, it will be shown in film festivals and in international forums, and open for discussion.
For more information about the screening of this film, contact Mr Konstantin Slobodyanyuk/ Слободянюк Константин email@example.com


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We, at SI Solar, are committed to the renewable energy movement. We support local recycling programs, power sources that reduce our carbon footprint, products that help reduce greenhouse gases, and other things that help to make our planet a better living environment for current and future generations.
Toward that end, we have compiled a list of Green Tips to encourage our readers to do their part.
How will you help our earth today?
- consider solar panels on your home to generate your own electricity
- turn off the lights when you leave a room
- take a shorter shower
- plant a tree
- walk to the store
- recycle everything you can
- get your car tuned up
- utilize recycled bags for shopping
- unplug appliances when not in use
- donate old clothes to a charity
- utilize power strips for appliances you need to plug in
- fix leaky faucets
- purchase organic fruits and vegetables
- organize a local park clean-up day
- install ceiling fans in your home, so you use less air conditioning
- write with a pencil, rather than a pen
- don't litter
- drive the speed limit
- plant your own herb garden
- go on a picnic, but remember to take all your trash with you
- buy locally-grown fruits and veggies
"The best thing you can do is the right thing. The next best thing you can do is the wrong thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing." ~Theodore Roosevelt
There are many things we can do as individuals that can make a big difference collectively. Check back often, as we continue to add to our list of Green Tips.


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WASHINGTON - The House today took up a $630 billion-plus spending bill awarding the Pentagon a record budget while giving generous help to U.S. automakers and victims of hurricanes and floods.
The year-end budget measure also would lift a quarter-century ban on oil drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and is flying under the political radar compared with a hugely controversial White House plan to bail out Wall Street.
The bill is fueled by a need to keep the government running past the Oct. 1 start of the 2009 budget year. Until now, Democrats had mostly punted on the need to pass the 12 annual bills funding agency operating budgets, but the 357-page measure released late Tuesday — along with 752 pages of accompanying explanations and tables of previously secret earmarks by lawmakers — would close out about 60 percent of the budget work Congress must pass each year.
That includes $488 billion for the Pentagon, $40 billion for Homeland Security Department programs and $73 billion for veterans programs and military base construction projects.
Pelosi, who needs to be driven from office at all costs, slipped this one under the table after having been negotiated--not in the open light of debate, but in virtual secret, presented to the floor for vote with no more than several hours notice.
$630 billion, 357 pages, plus another 752 pages of footnotes and tables of previously secret earmarks by lawmakers, were released late Tuesday. Slam-dunked through within hours, while the nation was focused on (and raging ove) a $700 billion Wall Street bailout.
This is the government Nancy Pelosi has presented us.
Previously secret earmarks. So much for transparency. Offshore drilling is not only 'back on the table,' but approved. Homeland security gets $40 billion with which to bungle while Nancy caved to Bush administration blockage of extended unemployment insurance, increased food stamp payments and help for states dealing with shortfalls in their Medicaid budgets.
What are some of the earmarks? There are 2,322 of them, amounting to some $6.6 billion, so space only allows a few:
- A $182 million courthouse for Cedar Rapids, Iowa (chump change)
- $25 billion for Detroit automakers to use up and squander in their 'final throes.'
- Twenty (additional) F-22 fighter planes that no one asked for.


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I've spent a fair bit of time around Linux and I was very interested to see what this new distribution had to offer. I went the cheater's path for my work PC (a Dell GX260) and upgraded first to the RC and then patched to the full version. I like it a lot on this machine, it detected my wide screen LCD properly, looks nice and feels like it runs faster than 7.04. So, all good.
At home however, the story varies significantly. I have a whitebox with an AMD processor in it, a 250GB SATA disk and standard everything else. It currently runs Windows Vista Ultimate (ugh!) and I had approximately 80GB free that I thought would be handy for Ubuntu. I will note that this particular machine, when I attempted to install OpenSuSE 10.3 on it, appears to have some obscure SATA controller and SuSE was unable to detect it. I was prepared for the eventuality that Ubuntu wouldn't see it either, but to my pleasant surprise it did.
I ran the install, popped GRUB on the system and rebooted. Everything had seemed to go well, the partitioning etc was a breeze and Ubuntu have done a very nice job of making the installation process as painless and thought free as possible (good for the newbz out there that say Linux is too hard to install). After the reboot I was greeted with the unhappy result from GRUB: Error 17. Subsequent reboots and I got Error 18 and even Error 15. The SATA controller problem (I suspect) had struck again. What *really* ticked me off was that Vista was unable to repair the boot partition and I lost the lot. Now fortunately I have backups (let that be a lesson to all of you who don't) and I didn't lose any data. I did, however, lose several hours of time and my temper at least twice.
The SATA controller in this particular machine is not a fancy one. The board is a fairly standard one and it ran Ubuntu 7.04 without any issue. And yet neither OpenSuSE 10.3 or Ubuntu 7.10 worked with it properly. Very annoying. Vista (sadly) did work with it properly and is once again working with it properly. *sigh* I want to get away from the Microsoft world (it's expensive!) and I am restrained once again due to hardware issues.
So a win and a loss with Ubuntu 7.10 and one complete recovery failure with Vista. Life goes on.


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Research Project
Grant-in-Aid for General Scientific Research (C)
The purpose of this study is to analyze the front of density underflow using the k-epsilon turbulence model. First, in order to investigate the turbulence structure of the front of the density underflow and the mechanism of the entrainment by the front, the experiments are carried out. The angle of the bed slope is chosen as a parameter. The salt water flows into the body of the fresh water filled in the tank to form the density front. The velocity distributions in the density front are measured by the hydrogen bubble method. The concentration distributions of salinity in the front are measured by the conductivity meter. From these experiments, the properties of the distributions of the velocity and the concentration in the density front are clarified in comparison with the characteristics of the steady region of the density underflow.Next, the method of the unsteady numerical analysis using k-epsilon turbulence model is developed. The model consists of the following basic equations :
… More
the mass conservation equation of the fresh water, the conservation equation of the salinity concentration, the momentum equation, the equation of the kinetic energy of turbulence and the equation of the viscous dissipation rate of the turbulence. The numerical analysis model adopts the volume integral method to discretize the basic equations. This method is numerically stable in comparison with the other method.The preliminary calculations are carried out to test the present model of the numerical analysis. The target of the calculation is the steady region of the density underflow. The results are compared with the experimental data. The present model explains well the characteristics of velocity and concentration distributions of the density underflow.The present model is applied to the analysis of the front of the density underflow in which the flow is essentially unsteady. The distributions of the velocity and concentration of the aslinity and the interface of the density front are calculated. The flow mechanism of the unsteady density front is explained well by the present analysis. Less
Published: 1990-03-31
Modified: 2016-04-21
User Guide
Terms of Use
Attribution of KAKENHI


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The season finale of New Girl airs tonight! It's been a pretty dramatic season, so I can't imagine what kind of stakes will be raised tonight. But catch up now, because you never know what these wacky people will do next.
Photos: See pics of all of the celebrity guest stars on New Girl!
Cece is marrying a nice guy whom she's never slept with. No, sex is not necessarily a huge part of their relationship or Cece's character, but I'm worried she's headed towards a Charlotte on Sex and the City disaster.
OK! News: This moment on New Girl is nominated as one of the funniest scenes of the year!
Schmidt is finally moving past Cece, because he's dating a nice but "chubby" ex-girlfriend of his again, Elizabeth. The two totally get each other and share the same weird sense of humor, and she's definitely helping the character get over his vanity issues.
Winston is still dating Brenda Song and continues to be ignored by his roommates. They just forgot his birthday, 16 Candles style. Poor, sad Winston. At least he's got a girl (and a plotline!).
Nick and Jess still haven't figured out what they're doing, but they're both on board in their confusion and attraction. Maybe they'll DTR (that's uh, define the relationship) tonight?
Are you all caught up on New Girl? What do you hope happens tonight? Where do you think the show will take Nick and Jess? Tell us in the comments below or tweet us @OKMagazine.
For access to all our exclusive celebrity videos and interviews – Subscribe on YouTube!


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Urban Europe — statistics on cities, towns and suburbs — the dominance of capital cities
Data extracted in February–April 2016
The number of inhabitants residing in capital cities as a share of national populations grew in all but one of the EU Member States, namely Greece, between 2004 and 2014.
This chapter is part of an online publication that is based on Eurostat's flagship publication Urban Europe — statistics on cities, towns and suburbs (which also exists as a PDF).
Definitions of territorial units
The various territorial units that are presented within Urban Europe — statistics on cities, towns and suburbs are described in more detail within the introduction. Readers are encouraged to read this carefully in order to help their understanding and interpretation of the data presented in the remainder of the publication.
The dominance of capital cities
Capital cities have the potential to play a crucial role in the development of the European Union (EU). The cultural identity of well-known European capital cities such as Praha (the Czech Republic), Athina (Greece), Paris (France) or Roma (Italy) helps to shape opinions of the EU across the globe.
The EU's capital cities are hubs for competitiveness and employment, and may be seen as drivers of innovation and growth, as well as centres for education, science, social, cultural and ethnic diversity, providing a range of services and cultural attractions to their surrounding area. Nevertheless, the EU's capital cities also provide examples of the 'urban paradox' (further details are provided in Chapter 2), insofar as they may be characterised by a range of social, economic and environmental inequalities; as such, they are at the heart of efforts to ensure more sustainable and inclusive growth within the EU.
This chapter examines the relationship between capital cities and the national economies to which they belong. It shows that some capital cities may exert a form of 'capital magnetism', through a monocentric pattern of urban development that results in investment/resources being concentrated in the capital. Whether such disparities have a positive or negative effect on the national economy is open to debate, as large capital cities that dominate their national economies may create high levels of income and wealth that radiate to surrounding regions and pull other cities up. By contrast, other capital cities are part of a more polycentric pattern of urban development, whereby economic activity and employment is more evenly balanced between the capital and other major cities.
International comparisons
Table 1 provides information on the total number of inhabitants living in the urban agglomerations of the G20 capitals. The data are provided by the United Nations and are based on national definitions which may undermine comparability in some cases; note the definitions employed are somewhat different to those used elsewhere in this publication (which are based on a harmonised data collection exercise conducted by the EU).
The biggest capital cities in the EU are relatively small when compared with other global capitals
In 2014, the largest urban agglomerations among G20 capitals were located in Asia and Latin America. The total number of inhabitants was highest in Tokyo (37.8 million), followed by Delhi, Mexico City, Beijing and Buenos Aires. Moskva (Moscow) was the first European capital city in the ranking (12.1 million inhabitants), with a slightly higher population than either Paris or London — the only two megacities in the EU with in excess of 10.0 million inhabitants (see Table 1). The number of people living in the Italian and German capital cities — Roma and Berlin — was considerably lower (3.7 and 3.5 million inhabitants respectively) and there were only three G20 capitals that recorded smaller populations, namely, those of South Africa, Canada and Australia — Tshwane (formerly Pretoria), Ottawa-Gatineau and Canberra.
People living in Buenos Aires accounted for 35.6 % of the total population in Argentina …
Given the considerable differences in total population numbers between the G20 countries, it is perhaps more revealing to analyse the population shares of the urban agglomerations for capital cities in their national populations. On this basis, Buenos Aires recorded the highest share, as those living in the Argentinian capital accounted for more than one third (35.6 %) of the total number of inhabitants; note these data are sourced to the United Nations and are based on national definitions. The population of Japan was also relatively concentrated within its capital, as the inhabitants of Tokyo accounted for a 29.8 % share of their national population, while approximately 20 % of the populations of Saudi Arabia and the Republic of Korea inhabited their respective capitals of Ar-Riyadh (Riyadh) and Seoul.
… while the inhabitants of Beijing accounted for 1.4 % of the Chinese population
The 19.5 million inhabitants living in the urban agglomeration of the Chinese capital, Beijing, accounted for just 1.4 % of their national population. According to the United Nations (World Urbanisation Prospects, the 2014 revision) there were 105 other cities in China with at least one million inhabitants (including Shanghai, which has a larger population than Beijing). A similar pattern was observed in the world's second most populous country, India, as the 25.0 million inhabitants of Delhi accounted for 1.9 % of their national population. The total number of inhabitants living in the capital cities of Brazil, Australia and the United States also accounted for no more than 2.0 % of their respective national populations. All three cities, Brasilia, Canberra and Washington, D.C. had relatively small populations — likely linked to their largely administrative role as capital cities.
Comparisons within the EU
The analysis is extended in Table 2, supplementing the number of inhabitants by the addition of information on employment and gross domestic product (GDP), while the typology used for defining European capital cities is that of metropolitan regions; this typology is based on an approximation of functional urban areas (cities and their commuting zones) based on one or more NUTS level 3 regions, whereby the metropolitan region may include rural regions (if these have a relatively high prevalence of commuting).
GDP — territorial and residential approaches
GDP is calculated on the basis of where people work (a territorial approach, rather than a residential approach). Those cities characterised by high net commuter inflows are likely to witness a higher level of economic output beyond that which could be produced by their active resident population, and GDP per inhabitant will therefore appear inflated.
Furthermore, cities with apparently high standards of living do not necessarily have correspondingly high levels of income, as some of their income will be used to recompense commuters (living in other regions). Furthermore, GDP per inhabitant is an average for a particular territory and does not provide any information on the distribution of wealth among those living in each city.
The relative importance of capital cities to national economies tends to be higher in the smaller EU Member States …
The relative importance of the capital city in the national economy was often inversely related to the population size of the EU Member State in question. This was particularly the case in three of the smallest Member States, namely, Cyprus, Luxembourg and Malta, where the metropolitan region of the capital city equates to the whole (or almost all) of the national territory. Otherwise, Rīga and Tallinn — the relatively small Latvian and Estonian capitals — accounted for the next highest shares of population, employment and GDP, followed by Dublin (Ireland), Athina (Greece), København (Denmark), Wien (Austria) and Budapest (Hungary); the metropolitan regions of these five capitals each accounted for 30–40 % of the total number of national inhabitants. Each of these Member States displayed a monocentric pattern of development, with the metropolitan regions of their capital cities accounting for high shares of their total number of inhabitants, workforce and economic activity; a similar pattern was also observed in France and the United Kingdom.
In the most populous EU Member State, Germany, the metropolitan region of the capital Berlin accounted for the lowest share of national population, employment and GDP (all within the range of 5–6 %). The metropolitan region of Roma also recorded a relatively low share of the total number of inhabitants in Italy (around 1 in 14). As such, Germany and Italy, as well as Poland and Romania, were characterised by more polycentric patterns of development, with several cities accounting for relatively high shares of their populations, economic activity and employment, and conversely the capital city metropolitan region accounting for a relatively low share. For example, Roma accounted for less than 10.0 % of the total number of inhabitants, the workforce and economic output in Italy, while Warszawa accounted for 8.7 % of the Polish population, 10.5 % of its workforce and 17.1 % of its GDP.
… although Paris and London accounted for a relatively high share of economic activity
The unequivocally large size of the metropolitan regions of Paris and London — with more than 10 million inhabitants each — meant that each of these two global capitals accounted for almost one third of their national GDP, while their shares of national population were lower, at closer to one fifth of the total; these figures reinforce the view that the economies of France and the United Kingdom displayed a monocentric pattern of development. Although considerably smaller than Paris or London, the Irish and Greek capital cities also reflected a broadly monocentric pattern of development, with Dublin and Athina generating close to 50 % of their national GDP, while their shares of the total number of inhabitants and workforce were somewhat lower.
Berlin was the only capital in the EU with GDP per inhabitant below its national average
GDP per inhabitant provides a proxy measure of living standards: when expressed in purchasing power standards (PPS) it is adjusted to take account of the price level differences between EU Member States; note however that there may also be considerable price level differences within individual Member States — for example, the cost of living in Paris is, for most people, much higher than in Bordeaux, Lille or Lyon. Furthermore, GDP per inhabitant fails to reflect a number of negative externalities that may be of considerable importance for some individuals in relation to their standard of living.
Figure 1 presents GDP per inhabitant for the metropolitan regions of the EU's capital cities in relation to national averages. In 2013, the standard of living among those residing in the Slovakian capital of Bratislava was 2.4 times as high as the national average. A similar situation was observed in the capitals of Bulgaria, Poland and Romania, where GDP per inhabitant for those resident in the metropolitan regions of Sofia, Warszawa or Bucureşti was, on average, 1.9–2.3 times as high as the national average in 2012.
Among the largest EU Member States, the French and German capital cities stood out. GDP per inhabitant in Paris was 64 % higher than the French national average in 2012. By contrast, the standard of living in Berlin was 16 % lower than its national average, the only capital city in the EU where this situation was observed. The standard of living in the metropolitan regions of Roma, Madrid (Spain) and London (2013 data) was 37-41 % higher than their respective national average.
A network of relatively large cities was distributed quite evenly across Germany
The urban morphology of the EU's largest economies differs in terms of the number, hierarchy and distribution of cities. Map 1 provides an overview of population distribution across the four most populous EU Member States, highlighting those urban centres with high-density clusters. Germany is characterised by a polycentric distribution of its major cities, from Hamburg in the north, to Köln in the west, München in the south and Berlin in the east, with a number of relatively large cities (for example, Bremen, Hannover, Frankfurt am Main, Stuttgart, Nürnberg, Dresden and Leipzig) spread in a network across the remainder of its territory.
In France, the capital of Paris occupies a prominent position in terms of its location, from which transport links run in a radial pattern to other cities. Outside of the capital, the main urban centres in France are often located around (or close to) its coastline. A relatively high proportion of the population in France inhabits rural areas and these are spread over the majority of its territory. Although not shown, there was a similar pattern observed in Spain, with the capital city Madrid in the centre of the country and a pattern of radial transport links to other cities, most of which were located around the coast. In contrast to France, the interior of Spain is largely arid and often characterised by sparsely populated areas.
The patterns of urban morphology in Italy and the United Kingdom are less uniform. Besides the capital of Roma, there are two other significant urban clusters in Italy, with high-density urban conurbations centred on Milano in the north and Napoli to the south of the capital. The urban morphology of northern Italy is not dissimilar to that found in Germany, insofar as there is a network of relatively large cities distributed quite evenly across its territory, while south of Firenze this pattern ceases and relatively sparsely populated areas become the norm, with the distribution of urban areas more akin to that in Spain.
In the United Kingdom, London is by far the largest urban agglomeration. The other metropolitan regions are principally those of the West Midlands (including Birmingham) and Merseyside/Greater Manchester in the north-west of England. The morphology of the United Kingdom is quite distinct insofar as there are relatively short distances between these high-density areas, with the bulk of the population living in the south-east of the territory, while most parts of Wales or Scotland are sparsely populated.
In Germany, the second city had a higher number of inhabitants than the capital city
Table 3 presents information on the number of inhabitants residing in the three largest metropolitan regions of each EU Member State; note that under this typology there are only 17 Member States with three or more metropolitan regions (see the table for more information on data coverage).
The aggregated number of inhabitants living in the 17 capital cities of those EU Member States with at least three metropolitan regions was 71.1 million inhabitants in 2014. A similar calculation reveals there were 33.6 million inhabitants living in their second cities and 22.9 million inhabitants living in their third cities. As such, these aggregate figures show a close relationship to Zipf's law, insofar as the population of the metropolitan regions of the 17 capital cities was, on average, 2.1 times as high as that recorded for second cities and 3.1 times as high as for third cities.
Zipf's law
Initially based on a language study, Zipf's law states that the frequency of use of any word is inversely proportional to its rank. In other words, the most frequently used word ('the' in the English language) will occur approximately twice as often as the second most frequently used word ('of'), three times as often as the third most frequently used word ('and'), etc. Such a rule based on frequency and rank has been applied to a number of other situations across a range of natural and social sciences. It has been shown to apply to the distribution of: income between individuals; enterprises operating in a particular economic activity; or the size of cities.
Zipf's law in relation to city sizes suggests that the city with the largest population in a given country is generally twice as large as the second largest city, and three times as large as the third largest city, and so on. Empirically, there are a number of studies that show the distribution of city sizes tends to converge to Zipf's law, at least at the upper end of the distribution among larger cities.
Within the individual EU Member States there were also examples that approximated closely to Zipf's law, for example:
- in Bulgaria, the population of Sofia (1.68 million inhabitants) was 2.5 times as large as in Plovdiv (0.68 million inhabitants) and 3.5 times as high as in Varna (0.47 million inhabitants);
- in Denmark the population of København (1.95 million inhabitants) was 2.3 times as large as in Århus (0.85 million inhabitants) and 3.4 times as high as in Aalborg (0.58 million inhabitants).
However, there were also examples that diverged from Zipf's law, for example, in Germany and Italy there were only minor differences between the number of inhabitants living in the capital city and the second city, whereas the number of inhabitants residing in the capitals of Hungary, France and the United Kingdom was substantially bigger than that recorded in each of their respective second cities:
- in Hungary, the population of Budapest (2.97 million inhabitants) was 4.4 times as large as in Miskolc (0.67 million inhabitants);
- in France, the population of Paris (12.01 million inhabitants) was 4.6 times as large as in the conurbation of Lille - Dunkerque - Valenciennes (2.60 million inhabitants);
- in the United Kingdom, the population of London (14.03 million inhabitants) was 5.2 times as high as in (Greater) Manchester.
Are capital cities growing?
An inverse relationship between the population size of an EU Member State and the share of its capital city in the national economy has already been mentioned earlier in this chapter (see Table 2). This analysis is extended by introducing a time dimension to look at developments during a recent 10-year period during which the relative importance of capital cities was seen to grow in the vast majority of the 25 EU Member States for which data are available (metropolitan regions for the capital cities of Cyprus and Luxembourg equate to the whole of their national territory at NUTS level 3, while the main island of Malta accounts for the vast majority of its territory (Gozo is excluded); these three Member States are therefore excluded from this analysis).
All but one of the EU's capital cities accounted for a growing share of their national population
The number of inhabitants residing in capital cities as a share of national populations grew in all but one of the EU Member States between 2004 and 2014 (see Figure 2). Athina was the only exception as its share of the Greek population fell from 36.0 % to 35.4 %, perhaps reflecting the effects of the financial and economic crisis and subsequent sovereign debt crisis during which Greece experienced a strong increase in emigration. There was no change in the share of the French population living in Paris, while the number of inhabitants residing in Madrid and Berlin rose modestly relative to their national populations.
The most rapid shifts in population towards capital cities were recorded in the three Baltic Member States. The proportion of the Estonian population living in Tallinn rose from 39.3 % to 43.5 % during the period 2004–14 — an increase of 4.2 percentage points — while the share of the population living in the Latvian and Lithuanian capitals of Rīga and Vilnius rose by 2.8 and 2.6 percentage points respectively; in Sofia and Budapest there was also a relatively rapid transformation, as an increasing share of the national population chose to live in the Bulgarian and Hungarian capitals.
Between 2003 and 2013, the Austrian capital of Wien was the only metropolitan region among the 19 for which data are available (see Figure 3), to report that its share of national GDP fell (2003–12); there was no change in the share of Portuguese GDP generated in its capital, Lisboa. Otherwise, each of the remaining 17 EU Member States reported an increasing share of their economic activity being generated within their capital. This shift was most pronounced in Bulgaria and Romania (both 2003–12), as the share of economic activity that was generated in Sofia and Bucureşti increased by 9.0 percentage points and 6.0 percentage points respectively.
In 13 out of the 19 Member States for which data are available, the shift in economic activity towards the capital city was at a faster pace than the change recorded for population, suggesting that these capital cities were becoming increasingly productive in relation to the rest of the country or that commuter inflows were increasing; the exceptions were Tallinn, Wien, Rīga, Lisboa, Praha and Helsinki.
Patterns of urban development among the largest EU Member States
An alternative approach to analyse the importance of capital cities relative to their national economies is presented in Figure 4, which shows the number of inhabitants living in the metropolitan regions of the largest EU Member States, as well as their GDP per person employed, which may be used as an indicator to measure labour productivity or more generally competitiveness; note the size of each bubble represents the overall level of GDP for each city. The advantage of the ratio of GDP to the number of persons employed is that it is not influenced by commuter flows, as commuters are included in the number of persons employed and contribute to GDP.
Paris and London play an influential role in their national economies
Paris and London appeared as distinct outliers, with each of these megacities playing an influential role in their national economies, accounting for very high shares of the total number of inhabitants and overall GDP, as well as the highest levels of GDP per person employed; note that GDP per person employed for all of the cities in the United Kingdom is based on the number of employees as the denominator which leads to an overestimation. Warszawa also recorded the biggest share of its national population and the highest level of GDP per person employed, although its size and level of productivity were far more in keeping with the other Polish cities.
It is interesting to note that Milano, the second largest city in Italy had a somewhat higher level of productivity than the capital Roma and that these two cities were almost equal in terms of their number of inhabitants, while the two main cities in Spain — Madrid and Barcelona — also recorded results that were within close proximity of each other. The pattern observed in Germany was similar insofar as the two largest metropolitan regions in population terms, Berlin and the Ruhrgebiet, were again almost the same size and also recorded similar levels of productivity; however, these were not — as in most other EU Member States — the highest productivity levels in the national economy.
A more detailed picture is presented in Table 4: in 2012 there were only three EU Member States where the capital city failed to record the highest level of GDP per person employed. Two of these were Berlin and Roma (as mentioned above), while the third was the Irish capital of Dublin. Although Dublin recorded the second highest level of GDP per person employed among EU capitals (just behind London), there was one metropolitan region in Ireland with a higher level of productivity, namely, the southern Irish city of Cork, which is home, among others, to a number of pharmaceutical and information technology multinationals.
A comparison between productivity levels for the capital city and second city of each EU Member State shows that the widest disparities between metropolitan regions were recorded in Romania, where GDP per person employed in Bucureşti was 2.9 times as high as in the second city of Iasi. There was also a relatively wide gap in productivity levels between the capitals of Paris, Bratislava, London and Sofia and their respective second cities of Lille - Dunkerque - Valenciennes, Košice, (Greater) Manchester and Plovdiv, with GDP per person employed 1.5–1.8 times as high in these four capitals. Many of the capital cities with the highest levels of productivity and the widest gaps (in relation to productivity levels in their second cities) were located in those Member States characterised by a monocentric pattern of economic development.
Capital city economic developments to the detriment of provincial cities?
A comparison between GDP per inhabitant and GDP per person employed may be used to examine differences between standards of living on the one hand and labour productivity/competitiveness on the other (see Figure 6). The differences shown reflect, among others, employment rates in each city and the impact of commuter flows; more information on commuting is presented in Chapter 9.
With these provisos, the overall patterns in Figure 6 confirm that Paris and London had considerably higher standards of living and productivity than their second to fifth largest cities, emphasising the monocentric nature of economic developments in these two economies. In the United Kingdom the gaps between London and the four largest provincial cities were particularly wide, as (Greater) Manchester, the West Midlands, Glasgow and Liverpool each reported a level of GDP per inhabitant below the national average for the United Kingdom. A similar pattern was observed for the two southern Italian cites of Napoli and Bari, where GDP per inhabitant was lower than in Roma and also below the national average.
All four of the provincial cities in Germany had higher levels of GDP per inhabitant than the capital of Berlin and three out of the four — Hamburg, München and Stuttgart — reported an average standard of living that was above the national average.
Source data for tables and graphs
- Urban Europe — statistics on cities, towns and suburbs (online publication)
- Degree of urbanisation classification - 2011 revision
- Eurostat regional yearbook
- Statistics on regional typologies in the EU
- Regions and cities (all articles on regions and cities)
- Territorial typologies
- Territorial typologies for European cities and metropolitan regions
- What is a city?
- Urban audit (ESMS metadata file — urb_esms)
- Regional statistics by typology (ESMS metadata file — reg_typ_esms)
- European Commission, Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy, Urban development
- European Commission, Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy, A harmonised definition of cities and rural areas: the new degree of urbanisation
- OECD, Redefining urban — a new way to measure metropolitan areas


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These findings in experiments with pigs may lead to treatments for injuries or osteoarthritis in the knee, according to Duke University Medical Center orthopaedic researchers. The researchers report that two immune system proteins, interleukin-1 (IL-1) and tumour necrosis factor (TNF), block the healing of the damaged pig meniscus, an important layer of buffering tissue within the joint. When agents that counteract the effects of these two proteins were administered directly to the damaged meniscus, the repair process resumed.
The primary function of the meniscus is to act as a shock absorber and a distributor of weight within the joint. Nearly 15 percent of all athletic injuries to the knee involve the meniscus, and the breakdown and loss of this tissue ultimately leads to osteoarthritis.
Duke researchers exposed pig knees to various concentrations of IL-1 and TNF. They found that as they increased the amounts of the proteins, the meniscus tissue was less able to repair itself. The range of concentrations of IL-1 and TNF used in the experiment match those found in the joint fluid of humans with rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis, providing further evidence that these proteins could play a role in the disease process.
"There already is a drug that blocks the effects of TNF that is used widely and effectively in patients with rheumatoid arthritis, the form of the disease caused by body's own immune system attacking the joint," Farshid Guilak, Ph.D., senior member of the research team and director of orthopaedic research at Duke said. "Another drug also exists that blocks IL-1 that is being used for rheumatoid arthritis and is currently undergoing clinical trials for osteoarthritis." These drugs are administered to the entire body. However, the key to the possible new approach would be to deliver these agents directly into the site of meniscus damage, Guilak said.
MEDICA.de; Source: Duke University Medical Center