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A Natural History of Dragons: A Memoir by Lady Trent by Marie Brennan
Genre: Historical Fantasy
Format: Ebook, 336 pages
Published On: February 5, 2013 by Tor Books
Source: Requested for review via NetGalley.
♥ Read an Excerpt ♥ Grab a Wallpaper ♥
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Laboratory by Todd Lockwood
A Natural History of Dragons is a fictional memoir of a famous dragon naturalist Lady Isabella Trent, set in a country similar to 19th century England with one distinct difference - in the world Marie Brennan invented dragons exist. Lady Trent describes to us her childhood, what sparked her interest in dragons and her first expedition.
Although I liked Marie Brennan's writing style (which I found similar to the novels of sisters Bronte), the same is not true for personality of Lady Isabella - her tone was condescending, patronizing and too full of self-importance. Isabella admits that she was often accused of being unemotional and explains that with having rational, scientific mind, but I think she took a role of detached quirky scientist to an extreme.
Lady Trent announced in introduction:
"Be warned, then: the collected volumes of this series will contain frozen mountains, fetid swamps, hostile foreigners, hostile fellow countrymen, the occasional hostile family member, bad decisions, misadventures in orienteering, diseases of an unromantic sort, and a plenitude of mud. You continue at your own risk. It is not for the faint of heart—no more so than the study of dragons itself. "
Sparked by this promise and word 'dragons' in book title, I was expecting a lot of breath-taking adventures and kick-ass heroine, female version of Indiana Jones. Sadly, this is not what A Natural History of Dragons is about. The study of dragons is full of problems that most of the time have nothing to do with dragons. Going to the reclusive secluded village in the mountains on an expedition and looking for dragons in the unfriendly landscape is certainly adventure for a gently-bred lady but for a fantasy-loving bookworm that devoured Anne McCaffrey's Dragonflight - well, not so much.
Wolf Drake, Desert Drake & Zhagrit Mat by Todd Lockwood
The best part of A Natural History of Dragons to me were wonderful illustrations by Todd Lockwood. Lady Trent hinted a couple of times that there will be future volumes of her memoirs and although I did not enjoy this particular volume very much, I may read the next book in series when it is published. I liked Marie Brennan's writing style and I will give her another chance. Also admiring more beautiful pictures by Todd Lockwood is a bonus. ;)
I recommend this book to fans of: fictional (or real) historical memoirs about female scientist that are ahead of their time or to dragons lovers who will be content that dragons are only side characters in the story and not much smarter than any other wild animal.
Let's Talk:
Did you read A Natural History of Dragons? Did you like it? Have you read something else written by Marie Brennan?
Any other thoughts or comments?


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Arias with a Twist to Return to New York in September
In this intimate modern fantasy, Twist's signature sights and innovative puppetry unite with Arias' legendary voice to transport audiences to unpredictable worlds, channeling ecstatic desires, lavish nightmares and bizarre premonitions.
For TheaterMania's review of the original New York production, click here.
For tickets and more information on Arias With a Twist, click here.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
oakley dealer
2017 Oakley Active Eyewear 9107 Blue Frame Yellow Lens
Oakley Active Eyewear 9107 Blue Frame Yellow Lens for Cheap:A number of Oakley sun glasses can even be labeled while productive. These kind of sun glasses are generally people who are generally exclusively for the purpose of those who would like to target fashion in lieu of operation. ...
Auguste Deperdussin c Belgian born, a former cabaret singer (who with borrowed money had made a fortune selling imported silk to big department stores), entered the aviation business in 1910 in the aftermath of Bl Channel flight and the great airshow at Rheims.
Though innocent of any technical training, Deperdussin knew talent when he saw it and was shrewd enough to hire Louis B In 1913 the young engineer designed for him the most advanced racing airplane of the pre war years. Deperdussin's firm won handsome contracts from the French government and had even begun to penetrate the Russian market when its fast living and free spending owner was charged with forgery, fraud, and breach of trust. Paris, 30 March, 1917. The French aircraft maker is jailed for five yrs. and fined FF 1,000 for embezzling FF 32,000,000 from his company. Deperdussin's career and that of others suggests the volatility of an industry that depended for its survival on the largesse (and fears) of the French state. cr en 1910 la Soci de Production des Appareils Deperdussin (SPAD). Il engagea Louis B pour diriger la soci et un jeune ing Andr Herbemont. Ils mirent au point une s d'appareils monoplans, monocoques, aile m et tr l dot de deux flotteurs principaux plus un troisi la place de la b de queue. Le premier succ d'un avion Deperdussin fut remport par le 9 septembre 1912, pilot par Jules V Chicago dans le cadre de la quatri coupe Gordon Bennett. 1913 fut une ann riche en pour Deperdussin. Pr gagna la premi de la coupe Schneider, Monaco, le 16 avril 1913, la vitesse moyenne de 72 km/h. Puis il remporta la coupe Gordon Bennett Reims le 29 septembre de la m ann et un peu plus tard il un nouveau record du monde de vitesse : 203,850 km/h. La m ann le 27 octobre, Eug Gilbert remportait la coupe Deutsch de la Meurthe. Malgr tous ces succ la soci cessa ses activit la fin de l'ann avec l'arrestation de son fondateur. Elle f rachet par oakley dealer Louis Bl et devint la Soci pour l'Aviation et ses D Un exemplaire en version terrestre est pr au Mus de l'Air et de l'Espace du Bourget. The acronym Spad was derived from the company's formal name, Soci pour les Appareils Deperdussin. Spad was taken over in 1914 by the famous aviation pioneer, Louis Bl when the firm was experiencing serious financial difficulties. Bl renamed the company Soci pour l'Aviation et ses D thus retaining the same acronym. Wealthy French silk merchant founded his aircraft building company Soci pour les Appareils Deperdussin (SPAD) at Betheny near Reims, in 1910. He was fortunate in employing Louis B to be responsible for the running of the company and later engaged a young engineering graduate named Andr Herbemont. These two brought undying fame to the original short lived SPAD organization, which went into liquidation in 1913 after Deperdussin had been arrested for embezzlement. B designed a series of monoplanes of increasing capability, perfecting a monocoque form of fuselage construction that combined a desirable circular cross section with light weight and strength. Typically, the Deperdussins were braced high wing monoplanes, two king posts on the forward fuselage oakley sunglasses outlet clearance carrying a skein of wires to brace the slender wings. Lateral control was by wing warping. Landing gear was normally of fixed tailskid type, but floatplane versions had, for their day, a very neat float installation. Power was provided for most of the range by Gn rotary engines of various power outputs. Even greater were the achievements of 1913, Maurice Prevost winning the first Schneider Trophy race at Monaco on 16 April, the Gordon Bennett Cup at Reims, France, on 29 September, and setting a world absolute speed record of 203 85 km/h (126.67 mph) on the same date. To complete the year's achievements, a Deperdussin piloted by Eug Gilbert won the Henry Deutsch de la Meurthe air race around Paris on 27 October. Thus, in a few months B and Herbemont had created for Deperdussin the world's fastest prewar aeroplane [and] from [this] pinnacle of achievement came collapse of the Deperdussin company. It was the 'speed phenomenon' of the years before the First World War. The plane was developed oakley watch early in 1912 by Louis B the designer for the Soci pour les Appareils Deperdussin. B worked from an idea by Swedish engineer Ruchonnet, and developed a streamlined monocoque plywood fuselage with a large spinner. To achieve maximum power two Gn rotaries were mounted on a common crankshaft. The first noteworthy achievement of this plane was the 1912 Gordon Bennett Cup, which it won with a speed of 108.1 mph (174.01 kph). The plane won the cup again the following year, on September 29,1913 in Reims, Maurice Prevost achieving an average of 124.6 mph (200.5 kph). During this race the plane beat the world speed record three times, and its maximum speed was 126.7 mph (203.85 kph). A few months earlier, in April 1913, Prevost had won another exceptional victory at the controls of the floatplane version of the Deperdussin monoplane: first place in the first race for the Schneider Trophy in Monaco, with an average speed of 45.
75 mph (73.63 kph). The low speed was due to the fact that the judges made Prevost repeat his take oakley radar pitch off and about six miles (l0km) of the course because of a supposed violation of the rules.
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"The speech at UWM was a screaming, foot stomping, standing ovation [and a] huge success. THANK YOU. Love. Ben"
This was actor and author Ben Stein's response to Young America's Foundation following his speech—entitled "How to Ruin America and How to Fix It"—to more than 650 students and community members at the University of Wisconsin– Milwaukee.
Through the use of his humor and wit, Stein won over the audience with his timely message. Kate Edwards, who organized his appearance, was extremely pleased by the large numbers of students who attended. Stein's history in television and movies, including his part as the boring teacher in Ferris Buehler's Day Off, also helped draw the large crowd.
In California, Mike Fincher and his conservative club at the University of California – Merced hosted Karl Rove to a packed hall of more than 900 students and community members. Mike has been involved with the Foundation since high school, attending the West Coast Leadership Conference in 2007 and the Reagan Ranch High School Conference in 2008. At Merced, Mike organized a number of events, including the Foundation's 9/11: Never Forget Project and Freedom Week, and he also hosted Foundation speaker and author Chris Horner.
In addition, Mike attended the Foundation's student training seminar at the Reagan Ranch Center earlier this year where the Foundation's leadership instructed Mike and other student leaders on how to host successful campus speaking events. Mike left determined to bring Karl Rove to his campus. After the student government president denied Mike's funding request, Mike and his club fought back and received full funding from the school. Rove's appearance drew one of the largest crowds for a student organized event at UC-Merced.
Also in October, Young America's Foundation sponsored Jonah Goldberg and several co-authors of his latest book, Proud to be Right: Voices of the Next Conservative Generation, at a standing-room-only event covered by C-SPAN at Georgetown University. Dinesh D'Souza spoke on his best-selling book, The Roots of Obama's Rage, at The George Washington University. In addition, the Wall Street Journal's Stephen Moore addressed Furman University


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Published in The Wall Street Journal August 17, 2009 by Cari Tuna
Tootsie Roll Industries Inc. posted $496 million in sales last year. At Kraft Foods Inc., sales totaled $42.2 billion, about 85 times as much. Yet Tootsie Roll considers Kraft a "peer" when deciding how much to pay its top executives.


text: Final Fantasy VI Acoustic Renditions are covers produced with a fusion of preformed acoustic instruments with a handful of virtual instruments. The album stays honest and true to Uematsu's beautiful original compositions by creating a human element from using high definition acoustic recordings. Eiko is a game composer specializing in RPGs. Her notable game credits include 'The Girl and The Robot' and 'Earthlock'. Produced, performed, mixed & mastered by Eiko (Ishiwata) Nichols. Check out Eiko's other Final Fantasy covers and her original music here: http://www.eikoishiwata.com/ http://www.youtube.com/aycomusic http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Eiko-Ishiwatas-Music-Remixes/137626216278557 http://www.twitter.com/#!/eikoishiwata


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The Nigeria Central Bank would not disclose the approved contract sum.
A contract awarded by the Central Bank of Nigeria for the construction of a 'Dealing Room' has raised concerns over the financial management and transparency of the Lamido Sanusi-led central bank.
Analysts say the Central Bank's decision to approve the contract allegedly at about N900 million is "outrageous"; although the apex bank denies the figure.
Sources in the apex bank told PREMIUM TIMES that the contract was awarded by the Central Bank under Mr. Sanusi to construction giant, Julius Berger, for almost N900 million.
The Central Bank admitted that it had indeed awarded the contract for the 'Dealing Room' but claims the amount approved for the contract "is nowhere near" the N900 million. It refuses to disclose the cost of the contract.
A dealing room
A 'Dealing Room' or 'foreign exchange (FX) dealing room', is an electronic trading platform where commercial banks and other foreign exchange dealers in the financial market meet to initiate, trade, price and execute transactions involving foreign financial instruments including bonds and treasury bills.
The Central Bank said it is constructing a foreign exchange dealing room in Abuja as part of efforts to position itself as a central and direct player in Nigeria's foreign exchange market.
The banking sector regulator never had a dealing room but relied on Reuters Dealing 3000 Xtra System and the commercial banks to sell foreign exchange to customers.
The CBN never had one because it largely provided the foreign exchange to commercial banks who sell it to customers. With the apex bank's new policy, it has become a direct player in the foreign exchange market.
"In a dealing room, you have a two-way quote- buy and sell quotes.
"Because it is CBN and it has plenty of liquidiy, the prices it quotes will make the market," a financial analyst said.
"The CBN will in essence become a big player who wants to play according to market rules," the analyst, who did not want his name mentioned, said.
He said being a direct player will make the Central Bank to primarily determine foreign exchange rate in the market.
The controversy
Apart from the controversy surrounding the cost of the contract awarded by Nigeria's apex bank, another controversy trailing the contract is the allegation that the award did not pass through due process.
The facility, PREMIUM TIMES learnt, is to be constructed within a section of the premises of the Central Bank headquarters in Abuja.
A source close to the CBN said the contract was not captured in the CBN's 2013 budgetary provisions for capital projects.
The Central Bank is one of the government agencies whose budget breakdown does not pass through the National Assembly for approval. It's board, headed by Mr. Sanusi, approves its budget.
Despite the allegations surrounding the contract, the CBN spokesperson, Ugochukwu Okoroafor, will not give its cost.
"Yes, CBN is trying to construct a dealing room, but the cost is no way near the cost being mentioned," Mr. Okoroafor said, refusing to give the official figure. "The CBN manages about $48 billion, being Nigeria's total foreign reserve, a significant portion of which is handled in-house without a dealing room."
The spokesman also denied that the project did not follow due process, saying it would be unthinkable for a big institution like the CBN to carry out such a project without an appropriation in the budget for its execution.
The Chief Executive of Financial Market Derivatives Limited, a Lagos-based financial expert, Abioye Ekundayo, would not comment on the cost of the contract but said it would "appear it on high side" if it was awarded for anything close to N900 million.
He described a Dealing Room as essentially a large room filled with gadgets and computer monitors linked to an internet infrastructure operated by people.
Another analyst described any approval of hundreds of millions of naira for a dealing room as "outrageous."
Nigeria needs it
The Central Bank's spokesperson said the project is in line with the apex bank's commitment to push forward its reform agenda to ensure financial system stability and make Nigeria's financial markets truly global, organised, liquid and diversified.
"No responsible regulatory authority would have that huge portfolio to manage and it allows it in the hands of commercial banks. It is important that the CBN monitors first-hand what is happening at all times.
"The CBN has an obligation to ensure that Nigeria's money is safe. That is why the CBN wants to become a direct player in the FX market," Mr. Okoroafor said.
Mr. Okoroafor said "this is the first time the bank is thinking of building an integrated dealing room where foreign reserve management would be combined with financial market operations, which involve naira and dollars."
He said the facility would be a complex terminal that is fitted with ultra-modern electronic equipment that would operate 24 hours a day with real time access to all the markets in the world, apart from the people that would work in the department.
Analysts agree with Bank
The Central Bank's position on the need for a dealing room was echoed by other financial analysts who described the CBN's decision as necessary.
The Chief Executive of Financial Market Derivatives Limited, a Lagos-based financial expert, Abioye Ekundayo, commended the Central Bank for the initiative, saying as a big player with the huge liquidity level at its disposal, it would want to play by market rule and the FX rates it quotes would positively impact the market.
According to Mr. Ekundayo, the emergence of the Central Bank as a direct primary player in the FX market will make it have a true sense of the market and place it in a better position to make informed policies towards achieving financial market stability.
Our CBN source also agreed on the need for the dealing room.
"In the long term, the CBN's direct dealing will make it have a true sense of the market which allows it to make informed policies," he said


text:
- Visit
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ca. 1915
photo albums # 196
Album of photographs of two Boston residences where Henry F. and Susan T. Bigelow lived. The photographs were taken circa 1915-1916 by Thomas Ellison of Detroit, Michigan.
The first residence is 142 Chestnut Street, Boston. There are two exterior photographs and 27 interiors, including the courtyard. The second residence is 409 Beacon Street, Boston. There is one exterior photograph and 11 interior photographs. The Bigelows lived in 409 Beacon Street from 1913-1915 and in 142 Chestnut Street from 1916-1929. Henry F. Bigelow was an architect with Bigelow & Wadsworth (later Bigelow, Wadsworth, Hubbard & Smith).
historic houses
interior views
exterior views
architectural elements
photograph albums
black-and-white prints (photographs)
album number 196
1 photograph album; 13 1/2 x 18 inches
Photograph albums collection
Boston (Suffolk county, Massachusetts)
Ellison, Thomas (Photographer)
photograph albums
black-and-white prints (photographs)
Bigelow, Henry
Bigelow, Wadsworth, Hubbard, and Smith
Chestnut Street, Boston, Mass
Beacon Street, Boston, Mass
photo albums # 196


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text:
Almost six years ago I set out on a journey to become a healthier, happier individual and mother. Today, I am that person. My life has changed in many ways, shapes and forms over this time period.....and this is a just a tiny piece of all of that. Come with me as I have entered into my new life and all the ups and downs since have WLS in November 2006.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
I am back from the visit
and now I going to bed. I'm drained, she is definitely not well and all is not good :(
2 comments:
- Susy said...
I'll pray for your friend! Thinking of you tonight Michelle. I remember seeing the picture of your friend and your smiles. We will pray and hope for more.
- A Blog In The Rough said...
Hello fellow Delawarean/WLS/divorcee! Just found your blog from another blog and wish it wasn't such a sad post I'm introducing myself on.
Will keep you and your friend in my thoughts and prayers. Stay strong.
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Kampala - Are you building a house and need construction materials on the cheap? Or, have you been saving to buy a car, food and drinks for the festive season? The Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) on Wednesday auctioned assorted items from vehicles, fridges and washing machines to furniture, electrical appliances, rice and wines.
The sale is taking place the URA Customs Warehouse in Nakawa, east of Kampala City.
More than 50 motor vehicles and 45 motor cycles are on offer.
On sale are 400 bags of sugar imported from Thailand and 600 bags of rice.
Other items on auction include washing machines, fridges, wines and juice, mattresses, cigarettes and microwaves.
Speaking to Daily Monitor, the URA manager public relations, Mr Ian Rumanyika, said: "We auction every quarter, items that have been given the grace period of nine months and the owners fail to pay taxes."
He said that some of the items being auctioned belong to owners who were dragged to court over various tax related cases while others had been smuggled into the country and the owners are on the run.
Interested buyers were supposed to buy the bid form at Shs10,000 and submit the lot number of item they are interested in.
Mr Rumanyika said: "In order to avoid bias. The bid forms are submitted when the lot number of the item is read."
He said the interested bidders hand in at that action time and the item is sold off to the highest bidder above the reserve price.
He said it is from here that the highest bidder will be required to pays 25 per cent of the price in cash or by Visa/master card.
He said the remaining balance of 75 per cent on the items bought would be paid within the next 48 hours.
Mr Rumanyika said that they introduced UBA point of sale (POS) payment method which does not require one to carry cash; they only need to come with their visa and master cards.
He said those without the above will be catered for as usual, (the 25 per cent cash will be received by our cash on standby).
Mr Rumanyika said: "The items are worth different reserve prices that are determined by our customs valuation team. We keep them classified because the auction is based on highest bidder and must be above the reserve price."
On offer
Items auctioned include; tiles, rice, Thailand sugar, motor vehicles, motor cycles, spare parts for Benz, washing machines, fridges, wine, juice, mattresses, solar cables, electrical wires, cigarettes, microwaves, empty containers, scrap, chemical fertilisers, trucks, furniture, scarf folding, steel cabling, wielding electrical, aluminium articles, phone accessories, DVD players and speakers, among others.
[email protected]


text: BIG JUMP. The nation's basic money supply surged $4.8 billion in early June, the Federal Reserve Board reported Thursday. The rise, sharper than expected, left the measure of funds readily available for spending about $15 billion above the upper limits of the growth range set by the Fed in its attempt to stimulate the economy without fueling inflation. M1: A seasonally adjusted $590.6 billion in the week ended June 10 from a revised $585.8 billion the previous week.


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The Food and Drug Administration's decision to approve Zohydro ER (extended release), a pure form of the painkiller hydrocodone, has stirred opposition from many addiction medicine experts, public health officials and legislators. Join Together spoke with Dr. Richard Blondell, Vice Chair for Addiction Medicine in the State University of New York at Buffalo Department of Family Medicine, about the issue.
While most colleges focus their substance use prevention and treatment programs on alcohol, marijuana and prescription drugs, heroin use is a serious but little-discussed problem, Inside Higher Ed reports.
Dr. Nora Volkow, Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), urged lawmakers this week to resist legalizing marijuana. At a House subpanel hearing, she said marijuana can act as a gateway drug.
E-cigarettes are as dangerous as regular cigarettes, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Tom Frieden told The Los Angeles Times. He is concerned the devices will hook a new generation of young people on smoking.
The U.S. Navy has announced a new campaign aimed at reducing prescription drug abuse among sailors, according to the Navy Times.
Health care providers must expand their use of medications to treat opioid addiction, in order to reduce overdose deaths, according to government health officials. Misperceptions have resulted in limited access to the medications, they argue in The New England Journal of Medicine.
When patients under age 24 are prescribed higher-than-recommended doses of antidepressants, they are more than twice as likely to attempt to hurt themselves, compared with their peers who are treated with the recommended dose, a new study concludes.
A new study finds teenagers who use marijuana and alcohol together are more likely to engage in unsafe driving, compared with those who use one of those substances alone.
Manufacturers of e-cigarettes say they are pleased with the Food and Drug Administration's proposed regulations of e-cigarettes, The Wall Street Journal reports. Consumer groups said the rules don't go far enough, according to USA Today.
The Food and Drug Administration announced new rules on Thursday that would allow the agency to regulate e-cigarettes, The New York Times reports. The proposed rules would ban the sale of e-cigarettes, cigars and pipe tobacco to anyone under age 18.


text:
Both sides started brightly with the visitors breaking the deadlock with 18 minutes on the clock.
The Riversiders pilled on the pressure in search of an equaliser and were rewarded in the 38th minute. A speculative strike from Daniel Donkor was palmed away by the visiting keeper only for Matthew Asmah to follow up and tap in to draw the home side level before the break.
Mikidar Sumaila was introduced after the break and the youngest wasted no time in making his mark. Sumaila collected a through ball from Asmah before brilliantly evading two challenges to slot home his first in the 49th minute.
Sumaila completed his brace in the 58th minute nodding in a brilliant cross from the enterprising Asmah as Densu Rovers seized control the duel at St Martins Park.
Densu Rovers with their tails up pushed for a fourth and were duly rewarded when man of the match Sumaila found skipper Daniel Donkor in space. Donkor unleashed a strike from distance which sailed pass the helpless Agape FC goalkeeper to secure a resounding 4-1 win for Rovers.
Man of the match - Mikidar Sumaila


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John Gapper points out that the elevation of Bob Diamond to the top of Barclays indicates that the financial crisis hasn't stalled the rise of investment bankers in Europe.
From the Financial Times:
Mr Diamond's appointment as the next chief executive of Barclays means that investment bankers will now head four of the biggest European banks with global reach.
Mr Diamond joins Josef Ackermann at Deutsche Bank, Oswald Grübel at UBS and Brady Dougan at Credit Suisse. Despite the massive losses incurred by the corporate banking arms of some commercial banks -including UBS - during the 2008 crisis, investment bankers remain in charge.
This does seem odd, given that the retail banking sides of universal banks were relatively blameless during the crisis. You might have thought that the retail bankers would have reasserted control over the highly-rewarded risk-takers.
Instead, the boards of banks clearly think that investment banking will stay a vital part of their businesses, and they need people at the top who understand it.
Mr Diamond, who built up Barclays Capital more or less from scratch, no doubt deserves his prize, but the hegemony of investment bankers is breathtaking.
Interestingly, this hegemony does not appear to hold sway in the US.
Bank of America is led by a former general counsel turned wealth manager head. We'll call him a retail brokerage guy. JP Morgan Chase is led by Jamie Dimon, who has spent his career building huge retail banking operations. Citigroup's Vikram Pandit is a trader, asis Goldman's Lloyd Blankfein. James Gorman is almost an investment banker but he's really a high-powered consultant. The purest investment banker running a prominent US financial institution might be John Thain, who has been installed at the top of CIT .


text:
by Nicolas Wu
Posted on 9 September 2010
This week's post is a reprint of an article I wrote on 10th March 2010 about the Google AI contest. Since I'm deprecating my blogspot account, I wanted to make sure that this article didn't get lost in the waves of the web.
Recently Google released a wonderful AI contest, and I submitted an entry. The aim of the competition was to produce an AI that could play tron effectively; this reminded me of my undergrad days, where hours were spent with friends around a single keyboard playing a simple 3D tron game.
The day before the end results, my bot (called zenzike) was ranked 35th in the world, and top of the Haskell league. Sadly though, my final submission never made it through to the final cut; I was submitting from a hotel room with a flaky internet connection, and my final entry clocked in 10 minutes too late, thus disqualifying me. The Haskell champion, jaspervdj, (congratulations!) has written a lovely blog article about his code, and released it for the whole world to oggle. I thought I'd try putting my bot against his to see how it would fare, and it turns out that of the basic starter pack, my AI performs favourably on the majority of maps that I've tried.
So here's my code just for kicks, this is the version of my code one release before my disqualified entry, plus some formatting, like removing couple functions that I never ended up using, as well as writing it up for a wider audience
The basic strategy for this bot is a recursive minimax algorithm with alpha-beta pruning. In actual fact, this implements the negamax variant, which makes the code a lot simpler. As a scoring heuristic, I simply used the difference between the amount of territory that each player controls, where we define territory as any space in the board which a player can reach first.
First up, here's the list of imports that I made use of for my entry, there's nothing of much interest here.
> import Data.Ix (inRange)
> import Data.List (maximumBy, nub, (\\), unfoldr)
> import Data.Array.Diff (Array, listArray, amap, assocs, (//), bounds, (!))
> import Data.Tree (Tree(Node), rootLabel, subForest)
> import qualified Data.Map as M
> import System.Time (ClockTime, TimeDiff(TimeDiff), tdSec, tdPicosec, diffClockTimes, getClockTime, addToClockTime)
> import System.IO (stdin, stdout, stderr, hPutStrLn, BufferMode(LineBuffering), hSetBuffering)
> import System.Timeout (timeout)
> import Control.Monad (replicateM)
The datatypes I make use of are pretty basic. First I define what a move might be, and these are the cardinals are, as well as a move,
None that represents an empty move.
> data Move = North | East | South | West | None deriving (Eq,Ord,Show)
> cardinals :: [Move]
> cardinals = [North, East, South, West]
We use the type
Move internally since it's easier to read than a bunch of number strings, but ultimately the tournament is set up so that there is the following correspondence between the moves we want to make, and the string that indicates the move:
> makeMove :: Move -> String
> makeMove None = "1"
> makeMove North = "1"
> makeMove East = "2"
> makeMove South = "3"
> makeMove West = "4"
The basic type I use to identify each point on the board is a
Point which holds the
(y,x) coordinate of the point in question. I've stored the points in this unusual format since it makes IO a little easier later on in the program.
> type Point = (Int,Int)
Players are simply defined as a pair of points, and the walls in a given board are simply an array of
Bool, which stores
True at every point where a wall is present. The dimensions of the array are the dimensions of the game board itself.
> type Players = (Point, Point)
> type Walls = Array Point Bool
Finally, the
Score type is a synonym for a pair of values
(x,m), where
x holds the score that is associated to a particular board state (assigned through our heuristic), and
m holds the move that a player would have had to make to get the board in that state.
> type Score = (Int,Move)
Probably the most basic utility function I use is
destination, which, given a current point and a move, returns the point where the move would end up at, irrespective of walls or world boundaries.
> destination :: Point -> Move -> Point
> destination (y,x) move =
> case move of
> East -> (y,x+1)
> South -> (y+1,x)
> West -> (y,x-1)
> North -> (y-1,x)
> None -> (y,x)
The destination function alone doesn't give us very much to work with, so we'll also define a function,
adjacent, that indicates the points that are adjacent to the point we're considering. We parameterise this function with a condition predicate, which allows us to specialise
adjacent to consider not only legal adjacent moves, but also those that end in definite survival, or in suicide.
> adjacent :: (Walls -> Point -> Bool) -> Walls -> Point -> [Point]
> adjacent condition ws p =
> filter (condition ws) $ map (destination p) cardinals
The idea behind adjacent is that we filter the moves that result from moving in each of the cardinal directions, starting from our given point.
A simple condition we might use here would filter only moves that are within the bounds of the game board:
> bounded :: Walls -> Point -> Bool
> bounded ws p =
> inRange (bounds ws) p
From this condition we can build two more; one that guarantees survival, and the other that ends in (legal) suicide.
> survive :: Walls -> Point -> Bool
> survive ws p =
> bounded ws p && not (ws ! p)
> suicide :: Walls -> Point -> Bool
> suicide ws p =
> bounded ws p && ws ! p
I don't think it's surprising that I never ended up using the
suicide filter.
An intrinsic part of our algorithm is the scoring heuristic. The score is calculated by making use of a measure of the territory of each player, which we define as the points which a player can reach before the other.
To measure the territory, we first define
distances, which returns a mapping that relates points to their distance from a particular point. This function effectively unfolds an initial seed value, increasing the radius at each level of the unfold. The key function here is
expand, which we'll describe in a second.
> distances :: Walls -> Point -> M.Map Point Int
> distances ws p =
> M.fromList $
> [(q,d) | (qs, d) <- zip (unfoldr (expand ws) ([p],[p])) [0 .. ], q <- qs]
expand function makes use of a seed value, where each seed
(ps, qs) holds a list of values that have been considered,
ps, and a subset of that list
qs that represent the outer shell of those values. If there are no values in that outer shell, then we've expanded as much as possible, so there is nothing left to return. Otherwise, we return the current outer shell
qs, paired with the new seed, which is the old set of all values
ps alongside the new shell
> expand :: Walls -> ([Point],[Point]) -> Maybe ([Point], ([Point],[Point]))
> expand _ (_ , []) = Nothing
> expand ws (ps, qs) = Just (qs, (ps ++ qs', qs'))
> where
> qs' = (nub $ concatMap (adjacent survive ws) qs) \\ ps
An implicit assumption of this function is that
ps and
qs contain lists of unique elements; this was true in our initialisation within
distances, and is preserved whenever we create a new seed.
Given two distances maps, one for each player, we can calculate the territory mapping quite easily. We use positive values to indicate the distances reachable by our player first, and negative values to indicate the distances reachable by the enemy first.
territory function works by taking the union of the maps for each of the players, after negating the map that belongs to the enemy. If only one player has the key to a point in their map, then the value doesn't change under map union, so the only case we need to worry about is when the key belongs to both players. This behaviour is handled by the "with" function that we use in this union, which calculates the player that would get there first.
> territory :: M.Map Point Int -> M.Map Point Int -> M.Map Point Int
> territory ps qs =
> M.unionWith (\x y -> -(x + y)) ps (M.map negate qs)
The scoring heuristic is the first meaty part of my program we consider. The heuristic simply calculates the score of a given board state, where a board is basically just some
Walls and
Players, and is given by the function
score. We feed in an additional
Maybe Int, whose value is
Just x when the territory owned by the enemy has an upper bound of
> score :: Walls -> Players -> Maybe Int -> (Int, Maybe Int)
> score ws (p,q) mx =
First we look at the case of
mx, if it's
Nothing, then we don't know how much territory the enemy has, and we'll have to calculate it fully. Here the values
tp and
tq are the territory sizes of players
(p, q).
> case mx of
> Nothing ->
> if p == q then (0, Nothing) else (attack $ tp - tq, mx')
Otherwise, if
mx is
Just x, then all we need to do is find out the size of our territory, and remove
x. We also have to return
Just (x-1), since we assume that the enemy is playing optimally.
> Just x ->
> (defend $ M.size dps - x, Just (x-1))
The value of
(tp,tq) is the result of folding the function
tally over all the values in a territory map, which basically sums up the amount of territory each player has.
> where
> (tp,tq) = M.fold tally (0,0) (territory dps dqs)
> tally d (x,y) =
> if d == 0 then (x,y) else
> if d > 0 then (x+1,y) else (x,y+1)
> dps = distances ws p
> dqs = distances ws q
> mx' = if M.member p dqs then Nothing else Just (M.size dqs - 1)
> attack s = (10 * s)
> defend s = (10 * s) -- + (length . filter (suicide ws . destination p)) cardinals
In fact, the commented part of the definition of
defend is the single change I made for my late submission. Sad eh?
In order to pick the best move, we make use of the value returned by
scoreTree. The result of this function is the (very large) tree of all possible allowable moves, and the scores that each of those moves generates. Here's where we see lazy evaluation (not) doing a huge amount of work for us; once we have this function in place, we can crawl up and down the tree as we require, and the values we need will be computed only on demand.
scoreTree function builds up two levels of the tree at a time, alternating between states generated when our player goes first, and then the states generated once the enemy has moved. Since tron is played as a synchronous game, the scores of intermittent trees, where only our player has moved are
undefined, but the existence of the node tells us that the move is legal. If we really wanted to calculate a value, we could do so, and I've left the code required as a comment. I actually left the
undefined value there, since it was a good way of making sure that my algorithms were working (my program would crash if those values were ever evaluated, which they should never be, in future I think I'd probably value robustness over correctness!).
> scoreTree :: Walls -> Players -> Move -> Maybe Int -> Tree Score
> scoreTree ws (p, q) move mx =
> Node (score', move)
> [ Node (undefined, m) -- Node ((negate . fst) $ score ws' (destination p m, q) mx, m)
> [ scoreTree ws' (destination p m, destination q n) n mx'
> | n <- ns ]
> | m <- ms ]
This code makes use of several other values. In particular,
ms and
ns are the moves that can be made made by our player, and the enemy, respectively. We save ourselves quite a lot of time when the players are in disjoint parts of the board by returning
Just x where
x is an upper bound on the number of moves. If the enemy has more than
0 territory then he may still move, otherwise, no moves remain.
> where
> (score', mx') = score ws (p, q) mx
> ws' = ws // [(p, True), (q, True)]
> ms = filter (survive ws' . destination p) cardinals
> ns = case mx of
> Nothing -> filter (survive ws' . destination q) cardinals
> Just x -> if x > 0 then [None] else []
For the truly observant, you'll notice that I'm actually storing the negation of the scores in this tree; the reason for this is that I'll be using the negamax variant of the minimax algorithm, which is more naturally expressed in terms of a negative score tree
The tree is initialised by providing an initial configuration for walls and players. Initially, we do not know whether or not the playrs are disjoint.
> initTree :: Walls -> Players -> Tree Score
> initTree ws pq =
> scoreTree ws pq None Nothing
The function which actually decides which move within the tree is optimal is
negamax, which is a variant of the standard minimax algorithm. When the depth for the
negamax search is
0, we simply return the score held at the node we are inspecting.
> negamax :: Tree Score -> Int -> Int -> Int -> Score
> negamax tree _ _ 0 =
> rootLabel tree
Otherwise we must pick the highest scoring score of the negation of the level below. This effectively alternates between minimising and maximising the score at each level of the tree.
> negamax tree alpha beta depth =
> maximumBy maxFst $ (alpha, None) :
> betaPrune beta []
> [ (-(fst $ negamax subTree (-beta) (-alpha) (depth-1))
> , snd $ rootLabel subTree)
> | subTree <- subForest tree]
> where
> maxFst (x,_) (y,_) = compare x y
To speed things along a little, my algorithm does a beta prune, which takes the first value that is guaranteed to succeed. If I had any sense, I would order this in ascending order of tree depth, but I didn't end up doing this.
> betaPrune :: Int -> [Score] -> [Score] -> [Score]
> betaPrune _ xs [] = xs
> betaPrune beta xs (x:xs') =
> case beta < fst x of
> True -> [x]
> False -> betaPrune beta (x:xs) xs'
negamax function is pretty crude since we have no idea how long it will take to return a value. To get round this, I computed a sequence of moves, in ascending order of
negamax depth. I called the function that did this
bestScores, since it returns the list of best scores we can think of.
> bestScores :: Tree Score -> [Score]
> bestScores tree = (head (map (rootLabel) (subForest tree) ++ [(0, None)])) :
> map (negamax tree (-100000) 100000) ([2, 4 .. ])
The first move I take is basically the first legal move that's available, which is only there incase we really have no time to compute anything sensible. Since our tree is only defined properly in even levels, I iterate over only even numbers, starting from depth
So far our discussion has only considered how to make the best move for a single board state. One cool feature of the infinite tree structure is that values computed can be reused in the next game turn. To do this, we need to assume that the moves we're given are legal ones, since we only compute legal states in our score tree.
We provide the function
inherit, which basically returns the tree who inherits the state after a given move.
> inherit :: Tree Score -> Move -> Tree Score
> inherit tree m =
> matchTree m (subForest tree)
The right inheritance is just shorthand for matching the subtree that fits the move that was made. I've cheated a little bit in this implementation.
> matchTree :: Move -> [Tree Score] -> Tree Score
> matchTree _ [] = error $ "matchTree: Move not found in children!"
> matchTree _ [t] = t
> matchTree m (t:ts) =
> case m == (snd . rootLabel) t of
> True -> t
> False -> matchTree m ts
The next thing to consider is how to return a value from our infinite list of moves within a given timeframe. To do this I used a function that makes use of Haskell's in built
timeout :: Int -> IO a -> IO (Maybe a) function, which tries to compute the value of some type
a, and returns
Nothing if it fails.
The idea behind
timeoutList is to provide a default value to output if we run past some time limit and otherwise we try a strict evaluation of the head of the list we're interested in. If a value is computed, then we use this in the next iteration of
timeoutList using the same absolute time limit. The trick is to make sure that we terminate a computation if it's too slow, and this is handled perfectly by the standard
timeout function.
> timeoutList :: ClockTime -> a -> [a] -> Int -> IO (a, Int)
> timeoutList timeLimit m ms n = do
> time <- getClockTime
> mx <- if time < timeLimit
> then do
> -- hPutStrLn stderr $ show (diffClockTimes timeLimit time)
> timeout (toMicrosec (diffClockTimes timeLimit time)) (return $! head ms)
> else return Nothing
> case mx of
> Nothing -> return (m, n)
> Just m' -> do
> -- hPutStrLn stderr $ show m'
> timeoutList timeLimit m' (tail ms) (n+1)
> where
> toMicrosec timeDiff =
> (tdSec timeDiff) * 1000000 +
> fromInteger (tdPicosec timeDiff `div` 1000000)
Strictly speaking, I didn't need to pass around the
Ints that are there; they're just present because they give me some stats about how far down the recursion tree the algorithm is able to go.
The rest of the program is, well, pretty boring really. It's all plumbing and IO, and making sure that we construct the state in the appropriate way. The real guts of the program are handled by the application of
reapply to the
nextTurn function, which I explain further down.
The main function does everything you might expect, we start with the initialisation of some timing variables, as well as making sure our input and output buffers are behaving nicely.
> main :: IO ()
> main = do
> let initialDelay = TimeDiff 0 0 0 0 0 0 2900000000000
> let normalDelay = TimeDiff 0 0 0 0 0 0 900000000000
> hSetBuffering stdin LineBuffering
> hSetBuffering stdout LineBuffering
Our next task is to get the state of the board, and this is a good time to start our first timer.
> l <- getLine
> time <- getClockTime
First up, we read the
x and
y dimensions of the board, and then get all the lines that make the board itself. The only important information that comes from the board is the pair
(ws, pq), where we hold the walls in the grid in
ws, and the player positions in
> let [x, y] = map read $ words l
> ls <- replicateM y getLine
> let (ws, pq) = getBoard x y ls
Once we've created our state, we initialise our tree, and calculate an initial score, by making the most of our
timeoutList function.
> let tree = initTree ws pq
> ((s,move), n) <- timeoutList (addToClockTime initialDelay time)
> (0, None) (bestScores tree) 0
With the score and move computed, we simply output our decision. I also had some debugging code here that gave me vital stats, but this made my algorithm bork on large maps, since a score must be calculated (and the first level of our tree shouldn't ever calculate a score).
> -- hPutStrLn stderr $ "Depth: " ++ show n ++ " Score: " ++ show s
> putStrLn $ makeMove move
Finally, we repeat the process for the next turns, where we inherit the tree and pass the position of the enemy.
> reapply (nextTurn normalDelay) (inherit tree move, snd pq)
> return ()
reapply function iterates a monad function over a value, to produce a new monad. The resulting monad is then applied over the value that was just computed.
> reapply :: Monad m => (a -> m a) -> a -> m a
> reapply f x = f x >>= (\y -> reapply f y)
If I wanted to be pointless I might have used the following, but I don't find it helpful at all:
> -- reapply = fix (liftM2 flip ((>>=) .))
Each turn starts off with the previous tree, where the move we computed has been inherited, and the position of the enemy.
> nextTurn :: TimeDiff -> (Tree Score, Point) -> IO ((Tree Score, Point))
> nextTurn timeDelay (tree, enemy) = do
We then get the new state of the board, which tells us where the enemy moved to, and use this to produce the tree that we must evaluate.
> l <- getLine
> time <- getClockTime
> let [x, y] = map read $ words l
> ls <- replicateM y getLine
> let move = getEnemyMove x y ls enemy
> let tree' = inherit tree move
Once this has been established, we can compute the new move that we want to make, perform the move, and return the tree that we've been working with, along with the position of the enemy.
> ((s,move'), n) <- timeoutList (addToClockTime timeDelay time)
> (0, None) (bestScores tree') 0
> -- hPutStrLn stderr $ "Depth: " ++ show n ++ " Score: " ++ show s
> putStrLn $ makeMove move'
> return $ (inherit tree' move', destination enemy move)
The last few functions we need to define are used in
main and
nextTurn, and basically construct the state that we use in our algorithm. You can easily skip the details of these functions, since they're really not interesting.
getBoard function simply creates a new pair of walls and players, which represents the state of the board. The only important thing to note is that the size of
ws, which holds the walls must be of the right dimensions, since we use this fact in our boundary checking functions.
> getBoard :: Int -> Int -> [String] -> (Walls, Players)
> getBoard x y ls =
> (ws, (p, q))
> where
> grid = listArray ((0,0),(y-1,x-1)) (concat ls) :: Array Point Char
> ws = amap (== '#') grid
> p = find '1'
> q = find '2'
> find c = head [i | (i,e) <- assocs grid, e == c]
After the first turn the only detail we're interested in is which way the enemy moved. I'm pretty sure that this function could be optimised, but it was pretty clear to me that this one was correct.
> getEnemyMove :: Int -> Int -> [String] -> Point -> Move
> getEnemyMove x y ls p =
> findMove p p'
> where
> grid = listArray ((0,0),(y-1,x-1)) (concat ls) :: Array Point Char
> p' = find '2'
> find c = head [i | (i,e) <- assocs grid, e == c]
> findMove (px,py) (qx,qy) =
> case (qx-px,qy-py) of
> ( 0, 1) -> East
> ( 1, 0) -> South
> ( 0,-1) -> West
> (-1, 0) -> North
> _ -> error "findMove: Given points not adjacent!"
I'm really quite surprised that this little AI performed as well as it did, since nothing I've implemented is particularly exotic. There are two ideas that I think make this entry work well:
Using a tree of all scores meant that I could reuse a lot of the expensive computation that was done from one turn to another, and laziness in Haskell made it so that I didn't have to worry about ever computing the entire thing. I think it's pretty amazing that the structure of the tree can be expressed so succinctly in the
scoreTree function. Conceptually, I enjoyed the fact that my algorithm expressed every single possible move in this tree, and it was then just a case of traversing it effectively. Using this form of structured programming really showed its strengths in the simplicity of the
negamax algorithm, which rivals even pseudocode in terms of its clarity and succinctness.
Coming up with the idea of a list of best scores generated at each turn was a real "aha!" moment for me, and I think I struggled most with the definition of
timeoutList. Once I realised that I could use an absolute point in time as a time limit, though, everything seemed to fall into place.
In summary, the lessons I've learnt from this are:


text:
Mission Statement:
Central Montana Head Start is a nurturing and supportive non-profit organization which strengthens and empowers children, families, and communities.
Who is Eligible?
Children during the two years prior to starting kindergarten ("three" to "almost five" years old). Families who meet certain income-eligibility guidelines or families who receive SSI or TANF, and Children with disabilities. Head Start can enroll a limited number of families that exceed our income guidelines, so please apply to see if your family is eligible.
What Area does Central Montana Head Start Serve?
Central Montana Head Start serves Fergus, Musselshell, and Wheatland Counties.
There is a center in Lewistown and in Roundup and a classroom in the Harlowton High School.
Lewistown, Roundup, and Harlowton are Center Based programs where children attend a classroom 4 hours a day, four days a week.
All classes run September through May.
Lewistown Center
25 Meadowlark Lane
Lewistown, MT 59457
Roundup Center
204 7th Ave West
Roundup, MT 59072
Harlowton Classroom
304 East Division
Harlowton, MT 59036


text:
Our Beginnings
This business began with a purpose and we will tell our story on how we got started.
This business began with a purpose and we will tell our story on how we got started.
The story of the creation of our business name was the result of major life experiences. A photographer collegue of the founder, Rodel, told him inside his photo studio that he see's him building an empire. As confused as he was to hear that from his collegue, this thought went to the back of his mind. While walking to his full time job in October 2013 this life experience came to mind and it was then that he combined the following words...
Calligraphy Sketch
Final Logo
My name is Rodel Casio and I'm excited to share good news of building something much bigger than myself and my prior photo imaging businesses.
My expertise goes back to my humble technology and artistic beginnings when I first got my computer in the 5th grade which has developed into minimalistic graphic design, empowered calligraphy, black & white soul portrait photography, and printing, but the news I want to share this that I am one of Oregon's and Hawaii's upcoming Certified Personal Photo Organizer. The purpose of my a personal photo organizer is to help develop solutions to photo imaging/design challenges that encumber people's lives. This is where I come into the "picture", I welcome you to my new imaging empire and your life legacy experience...Emperience Legacy Imaging & Archival Solutions.
Almost overnight negatives and film were replaced with digital cameras and we gained the ability to snap hundreds of photos in an instant. We are taking more photos than ever and the question is, HOW do I organize my 100's or 1000's of unscanned printed photos and digital photos scattered between old and new cell phones, multiple tablets, multiple computers, multiple external hard drives, multiple USB drives, CD's, DVD's, memory cards and media that no longer exist? (Oh my!)
In addition, the pictures that we do manage to print and all of those printed prior to the digital camera era, are usually still in boxes, bins and bags. My goal is to educate and help you make sense of that huge pile of photos...by doing it for you, with you, or by sharing ideas and techniques you can use to do it on your own. I can accommodate ANY special design, print or project requests.
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We will take inventory of what photos and memorabilia you have, listen to your photo frustrations & needs, define your goals and discuss how I can assist you.
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How do we envision the future? Stay tuned!
We are passionate and love what we do when it comes to helping you bring your photos and memorabilia come to life.
We will exist to educate, educate to engage, engage to entertain, entertain to excite, excite to enlighten, enlighten to empower, and empower to enable individuals and communities to value their photographic history, bring photo organizational awareness in hopes to leave a great and memorable photo legacy and amazing life experience story behind.
To be the the worlds most loved and respected photo imaging and photo management company.


text:
Less is more? University of Michigan researchers say old adage rings true at Christmastime
Cool, right?
Okay, now let's say your husband gives you an iPod and a $15 iTunes gift card.
I bet you're excited.
But which scenario will you appreciate more?
According to a recent University of Michigan study, the iPod, without the gift card, is likely to be received with the most gratitude.
That's because when people receive gifts, they average the total value of gifts received, instead of adding the sum of all gifts, according to the researchers.
Less, it turns out, really is more."(Gift-givers) are using an adding strategy, like more can't hurt," Stephen Garcia, U-M associate professor of psychology and organizational studies, said in an interview. "But evaluators are actually processing things with averaging mindsets."
Thus, the gift card significantly brings down the averaged value.
"You might actually think you're creating a more generous package but, ironically, you're probably diluting the overall value," Garcia said.
Garcia conducted the study with fellow U-M professor Norbert Schwarz, who teaches marketing and psychology, and Virginia Tech researcher Kimberlee Weaver.
The three call the disparity between the gift giver and gift recipient a "presenters paradox."
"Everyday observations suggest, however, that presenters, that is, individuals who are attempting to create impressions, fail to anticipate this averaging-like process on the part of evaluators," they wrote in a paper soon to be published in the Journal of Consumer Research.
Check out the U-M faculty discussing their research below:
Kellie Woodhouse covers higher education for AnnArbor.com. Reach her at firstname.lastname@example.com or 734-623-4602 and follow her on twitter.
the major
Sun, Dec 25, 2011 : 11:57 p.m.
I would definitely appreciate the ipod and the itunes card more. This study is silly.
Sun, Dec 25, 2011 : 7:28 a.m.
Someone should have told the fellow I watched buy 11 $100 gift cards while in the grocery checkout lane a few days ago. ;-) The upside of this is that, while people "average out" the value of such gifts, it still makes Visa, Master Card and American Express very happy. Happy Christmas, Corporate America ™!
Big B
Sat, Dec 24, 2011 : 10:59 p.m.
So if I get a Lexus with a big red bow and an iPod it'll really feel like I got two Hyundais... interesting. If anyone wants to try this out on me I'd be happy to test the theory.
Sat, Dec 24, 2011 : 8:41 p.m.
I think people react differently when responding to researchers' questions than face-to-face with a loved one giving them a gift.
Sat, Dec 24, 2011 : 6:59 p.m.
And what do they say about the posted salaries of U of M personnel?
Sat, Dec 24, 2011 : 2:14 p.m.
Does anybody really care? Its suppose to be a time of making other people happy!
Sat, Dec 24, 2011 : 1:17 p.m.
In my opinion, the greatest gift of all that can be given is the true gift of friendship, love and sharing life. All material gifts big and small should be received with graciously and with a thank you.
Sat, Dec 24, 2011 : 1:46 p.m.
The best things in life are not things
Sat, Dec 24, 2011 : 12:08 p.m.
If you are giving gifts to impress the receiver, you should re-evaluate your priorities. If you are making general statements about people based on surveys, interviews, and focus groups, you should add in a huge plus/minus range on the probability that you are even close to being correct. Is the business school confusing what a corporate marketing plan should include and what a family gift should be?


text:
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September 12, 2017
Brian Kelly
South Bend, Indiana
BRIAN KELLY: Afternoon. After a tough loss, the best medicine is to get back out at it. We met yesterday, got a chance to refocus and get back to work on Boston College, which we remember from two years ago. It was a game that certainly we did everything we could to keep it close. They did a great job taking the football away. We know what kind of game it's going to be against Boston College. Coach Addazio will have his team ready to play. We're going to have to play extremely well.
Getting back out on the practice field is going to be important for us. We want to obviously get our guys refocused on obviously the process of winning football games. They're excited. They're going to get prepared to play a very good football team that plays Notre Dame tough.
That was really the discourse yesterday: each and every team that we play is going to play their very best. We watched film against Appalachian State to prepare for Georgia, and we shouldn't have watched it because the team we saw was a different team. Georgia played extremely well against us. So we know, it was a great learning experience in terms of knowing how well teams will play against us. Boston College will be no exception to that. They'll play extremely well.
As I mentioned, Coach Addazio has done a great job. Bowl game last year, won a bowl game for Boston College. Landry on defense, one of the best defensive players in the country. Very disruptive. Coach Reid is a veteran defensive coordinator. They were an outstanding defense last year. They bring a lot of players back. Very gritty, tough-minded group. Speed on the back end. Experience at the safety position. Love to play man-to-man. Again, an aggressive group that likes to take the football away.
They've done a nice job. Scot Loeffler, I have a great deal of respect for what he does offensively. Freshman quarterback who is very, very talented. I think they've added a lot of speed at the wide receiver position, size at runningback. Again, it's a team that is committed to playing a lot faster. They play with tempo. We'll have to work on it this week.
Special teams have done a great job in their kickoff, kickoff return team. They've been very good there. In all three phases, we'll have to play well.
Excited to get back on the field and get back to getting our football team ready to play against a good BC team.
Brandon Wimbush has two starts under his belt. What are your points of emphasis with him this week, particularly as it relates to what occurred against Georgia?
BRIAN KELLY: I think game recognition, what he sees in the game, then trusting the teaching. You have your teaching, and you go through it during the week, then it happens in the game. Just trust what you see and go with it. Don't be indecisive. Be decisive, trust it and go with it.
I think that's probably the biggest learning curve for all young quarterbacks, is that at times they become a little bit -- they think a little bit too much instead of just trusting it and going with it. Just trust your teaching.
I think he learned a lot from that game. I think it will be a springboard for him.
Knowing Georgia's defensive front, the success it had against your offensive front, what could Wimbush have controlled better? He's under attack, but as a coach what could he have controlled better?
BRIAN KELLY: I mean, it's hard in those settings to answer your questions, really, to be honest with you. We could sit down and I could have a 30-minute conversation with you on some of the -- like you ask detailed questions. I'm just being honest with you. They're detailed questions about, like, the nuances of the game. So I could give you a million different things.
Third down, for example, with under eight minutes to go in the game, he pulls the ball. He needs to stick his foot in the ground and go north and south instead of bouncing it out. Just the little nuances of the game. He's not doing anything outlandish or well outside. But those are experiences he's never had before. He's learning those things, then he'll take the next step.
A couple things in protection where he easily could have flipped the protection and gotten Josh in a better position to pick up the buck backer. Indecisive to make the check in that situation.
We could talk about 15 different things. They're really details of small, minute things you may not see. But when he went through them this week, he'll be better for it next week.
What about mechanically? Do you see any issues in him mechanically throwing the football?
BRIAN KELLY: No. He was a little rushed. He got on his back foot a little bit, which will happen sometimes when you're rushed in certain situations. But once he settled down, threw a couple in-cuts late in the game, he was in really good balance.
You're just showing them those clips, showing him when you're in good balance how the ball comes out of your hand. When you rush it obviously you're not as accurate. You're just trying to reinforce when you're in good balance and rhythm, here is how the ball comes out.
Notice that Chris Finke is listed as a starter. Was there an injury to Canteen?
BRIAN KELLY: Freddy has an injury, a subluxed shoulder. He was doubtful for this week.
Elijah Taylor, is there a timetable for him coming back? Is Javon McKinley injured?
BRIAN KELLY: No, he is not. Javon is not injured. Just working on the traits every week with him.
Elijah has been slow. The process is taking a lot longer in terms of getting him where he needs to be.
Do you have any timetable for him?
BRIAN KELLY: In last talking to our training staff, they could not give us a clear he's ready to go in there and change direction at a level necessary to play, you know, championship football.
When Jay Hayes was a freshman, there was a press conference where you were up there, and he came in by mistake. You actually had him come up to the podium. You talked about very briefly what a bright future you thought he would have. Here he is, and it looks like it's finally arriving. In terms of trying to determine the best direction, he's been inside for you, he's been outside, base end now, why was that the best fit kind of for him this year?
BRIAN KELLY: Well, for our team in terms of the way we're running the defense, we wanted somebody that could overpower and be a dominant player over a tight end, really be physical at that location where a lot of action tends to occur. We felt like he could control the line of scrimmage at that point.
Could he play in at the three? Certainly. We've cross-trained him a little bit at that position. But when he started to make the gains in terms of change of direction from his work in rehab and through weight training, it was pretty clear that he was going to be able to hold down that position and not have to be a guy moving into the three technique position.
With Harold Landry, to a certain extent your own pass-rusher Daelin Hayes, I know a lot of these guys are 6'6". These guys are 6'3", 250-ish. When you are evaluating players of that size to be a pass-rusher, doesn't always show up right away, didn't with Landry, what are you looking for? What gets your attention that this guy is going to be successful over another guy that size?
BRIAN KELLY: Really how they bend. I mean, if you look at Landry, he had a sack the other day against Wake Forest where he really beat a long-arm tackle underneath him. Landry is 6'3", all of 6'3". He was able to bend, to get underneath the hands of an offensive tackle. We use the phrase 'run the hoop'. Really his ability to bend around the corner and have that kind of flexibility and certainly explosiveness, too. But first step is his ability to get off the ball, run the hoop, have that ability to bend.
Certainly obviously a want to. He's got a great motor.
In the off-season obviously you spoke about the traits, getting your team to the point that you can overcome in the fourth quarter. Obviously you came up short on Saturday. Do you feel Saturday was similar to losses from last year or different, and how so?
BRIAN KELLY: I really like our team. I think it's a totally different scenario. I know that question was asked after the press conference, and I probably could have handled it a little bit better. But in the heat of the moment, my thoughts were on the game itself.
I stay in the present. In the present, I really like the way our team is put together. I don't think much about last year. I think about how our team played on Saturday. So my vision and my eyes are on how that team showed grit and toughness, didn't back off.
We needed to make another play, no question. But our defense gave us three shots with 8:30 and less to go in the game to win it. We needed to make a play.
I just loved our sideline. Being able to walk up and down the sideline and sense, you know, their fight, how they felt about the game. Just a different feeling for me, and one where at the time it's hard to articulate those thoughts and feelings right after a game.
But staying in the present, my eyes and what I hear and what I see, it's just a different team.
With Nick Coleman, how do you coach a kid to have confidence again after he's lost it?
BRIAN KELLY: That's a really good question. I think you have to go out and have a positive coaching environment. You can't be beaten down during that process. In other words, when you've lost your confidence, you have to be able to be put into an environment where I call it CAR. We as coaches are responsible for the engine in that CAR. CAR for us is competency, autonomy and relatedness.
So if you take that acronym and take a Nick Coleman, for example, as a coach I'm responsible for the CAR and the engine in that CAR. Let's say it's Nick Coleman, right? We got to find something that he's good at. That's the first thing. When he's not having success, let's find one thing.
What we found was special teams for him. We got him on special teams. He started to have some success on special teams. Then as we built him back from early in the season, we got him involved in some dime play. Then he had some success in the dime play. Then he gained some autonomy where he could say, All right, I can do this. Then relatedness, Now I'm part of the team.
That's how we built him back. Then he went and made some plays at the safety position when we moved his position. Now we are where we are today.
When did you feel like he was back to full confidence, you didn't have to think about it? Was it Saturday or was it something you saw in spring?
BRIAN KELLY: No, I think he was coming -- well, let me back up for a second.
I think we were past the confidence level when we got into the spring, at a new position, moving him from corner to safety. I think that was a big shift.
This was a big game for Nick Coleman in getting both those backs down on the ground, and he did that. He's going to build on that moving forward.
From an offensive play calling standpoint, a big moment for Chip, huge spot. What do you think he learned about being here, all the attention that comes with it, some of the opponents you play here that maybe he hasn't seen in the past?
BRIAN KELLY: I think it's a fair question. You know, I could be the harshest critic. I've play called in all kinds of environments. Maybe I shouldn't even comment on it publicly, but we had plenty of opportunities to score enough points to win the game through play calling. We would have liked a couple plays back here and there. We could have called a couple of better plays here and there, maybe executed better here and there.
But we look at it as an 'all' thing. In other words, we needed to coach a little bit better, make a couple more plays. But I think we walk away as a group, as a group meaning players and coaches alike, that maybe one more good play call, maybe one more good play, and I think we win the game.
The play on Sunday, the late hit, how do you see that on tape? Do you have a real issue with it?
BRIAN KELLY: We just felt like it's too close to put an official in that position. Julian was not in a targeting position where he was trying to hold up. It's just a learning experience for Julian. He felt terrible. We told him, Look, one play does not make this game. He felt terrible about it. It was a close play. But obviously we don't want to put an official in a position to make that kind of close call.
We're not looking back on it as something that, hey, it cost us the game. There were other plays in the game.
(No microphone.)
BRIAN KELLY: Well, we had 20 targets to him. We targeted him 20 times. It's something that we have to be aware of. You've got to get the ball to your play-makers. Various reasons why. That's coaching and that's playing. Both of those have to improve as we move forward.
But we have to continue to target him. Quite frankly, we have to gain balance within our offensive passing game so he doesn't become double covered all the time, get somebody rolling up on him, a safety over the top. We got to continue to target him. We've got to, again, find balance. Again, I think a little bit of that is play calling, a little bit of that is playing and making plays.
(Question regarding the defense overall.)
BRIAN KELLY: So defense is by and large about a confidence and a belief. Our players believe in what we're doing defensively, have got great confidence in the players around them, that they're going to do their job. So when you have that dynamic going forward, it certainly is going to allow you to continue to grow as a defense.
Can you comment on the progress of Devin Studstill. Seemed like he has two games in a reserve role, got more snaps against Georgia.
BRIAN KELLY: Devin was a freshman last year. I mean, you're looking for growth from year one to year two. The growth has been in consistency in assignment. He has been, for Mike, I would say somebody that he knows is going to get the right checks and communicate effectively what Mike wants back there. He continues to progress in his tackling. He continues to progress in his coverage skills.
But I think if we were to highlight one thing as to why he is now in a competition back there with Jalen is that consistency in communication with our defensive structure.
You opened that Boston College, whether better, worse or similar to Notre Dame, plays Notre Dame very well.
BRIAN KELLY: Heck yeah.
How do you coach that to a team? It's one thing to know it, but how do you impart that where if they don't have a great game the two weeks previous, you can get that across to the team?
BRIAN KELLY: We just let them know about it relative to last week's opponent. This is really for the younger players to understand the Boston College-Notre Dame rivalry, two Catholic institutions. But more importantly, we don't want to talk about it any more than that. It's really about developing a mindset in your program that this is about dominating your opponent regardless of who it is.
It's okay to know the history and how they're going to play you, who Boston College is, the respect that you have for them, how they play Notre Dame, and everybody plays that way. But really this is about having a mindset going into this football game.
I think from my conversations with the players, what I have seen in front of me, they're more closer to the mindset than they are needing the pep talk to be leery of a fired-up Boston College.
It's your first road game. For the players who have not been in that experience, playing on the road in a big game like this, how do you develop that mindset for them before they go into it?
BRIAN KELLY: Well, you're hoping -- 'hoping' is really not the right word.
Everything you do relative to your routine and how you prepare and how you practice should put your players in a position that when they go on the road, they compete in a fashion that no distractions should interfere with the way they compete.
If they're easily distracted, then they don't have the kind of focus that you've been building with your football team. It's just reminding them about the mental preparation that you need to have when you go on the road, and that is just being locked in and tuning out all of those distractions, playing the game in the manner that you've been trained.
BC has used both quarterbacks this year. Is there much difference between them?
BRIAN KELLY: I think there's a little bit of a difference. I don't think the offense changes very much. I think the offense is going to be pretty much what it is. There seems to be much more of a commitment to the freshman quarterback, but we'll see.
We'll prepare for both. We'll prepare for even some wildcat, some things we haven't seen before. I think you always have to do that, prepare yourself for Boston College. But the offense won't change that much.
EQ, it seems like a Catch-22 because you talk about you want to target him as much as possible, but he would be the guy that most teams would try to double cover, take out of the game. How do you and Chip strike that balance that you need to have?
BRIAN KELLY: Well, look, I had Michael Floyd here. Everybody knew about Michael Floyd. We had Will Fuller. Everybody knew about Will Fuller. We had Tyler Eifert. Everybody knew about Tyler Eifert.
We have know how to move him around and get the football. That's not the issue. The issue is we need balance. We weren't able to strike enough balance in terms of running the football and getting the ball to other receivers so we could get those shots that we needed to our featured guy. That's what we have to do more than anything else.
We got to continue to target him, but we've got to find better balance within the structure of the offense.
Will Dexter be part of the game plan this week?
BRIAN KELLY: He was part of the game plan last week. I know I was asked the question. Circumstances and the way the game was going made for a tough insertion in their three down. It became a heavy pressure game. It was a decision that was made during the game that it didn't work at the time.
But he's got to get in the game. I made it clear to our offensive coaches that he's got to get on the field. We've got to use his talents.
Thank you.
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Reusable Swiffer Cloth
Reusable Swiffer Cloth
Create a Reusable Swiffer Cloth with the free DIY tutorial from Sew Much Ado!
"One of my favorite cleaning products is the Swiffer duster. They are so handy and work so well. If only it weren't for the disposable duster cloths they use (and use, and use). I've been wanting to make a reusable Swiffer duster cloth for a long time but hadn't gotten around to it. I guess I was saving it for Go Green Month. I love the reusable flannel duster cloth. It can be washed over and over again, and really does a great job dusting. I HAD to share the tutorial so you can all make your own!" - Sew Much Ado


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to that dearest dad of mine,
Thank you for teaching me how to suffer embarrassment at an early age. I swear, it's all because of you and your Piaget inspired embarrassment conditioning, I am no longer embarrassed about anything ever. Because at some point along the way I realized if who you are is different than what follows social norm, it's their problem, not yours. Being the only person that isn't over the age of 75 at the pool in a speedo? "Michael Phelps wear them, what's the problem?" Driving a car that's older than half your age? "SO? Everything is made like crap nowadays." Turns out, it's a lot more fun to just live and be weird. I would know. I got it from you.
I almost didn't want to move to Seattle this summer because I was going to miss your drop ins at work and helping you with your experiments on my breaks when I worked three floors above yours. As much fun as exploring the city during my lunch breaks now are, I sometimes still wish I could exchange the occasional lunch on Pike's for twenty minutes in your office eating PB&J's with you.
I may be Mom's daughter through and through, but you're the one who keeps me grounded and reminds me that no matter my successes, it doesn't mean anything if I'm a crappy family member, friend, or can't keep my room clean.
You're FIFTY today and this is the first year I haven't been there for your birthday/Father's Day extravaganza and I wish I could have seen your face when you saw my annual photoshopped card for you. I missed you today, old man, and thought of how much many complaints on every city block you would be rolling off your sassy tongue if you could see what I saw.
Thank you for loving me despite wanting to make crazy choices like jetting off to Hawaii and moving to the city for the summer because I know I can count on you to be the person I know is always looking out for me.


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- Page 1 Synology DiskStation DS410j
- Page 2 Synology DiskStation DS410j
- Page 3 Synology DiskStation DS410j
Key Features
- Review Price: £273.65
As last year's DiskStation DS409slim proved, Synology knows how to product a decent NAS device. But just in case you thought that product was a fluke the company has done it again with the DiskStation DS410j. Considering its sub-£300 price tag, it packs in an excellent array of features and, importantly, performs admirably.
This four bay NAS device doesn't have the compact dimensions of the DS409slim, but it does have features galore and an attractive price tag to go with them. The chassis might not be amazingly small, but at 230mm x 168mm x 184mm it's hardly overly imposing either. Certainly the combination of its aluminium casing and white plastic surround looks attractive enough, and the angled front panel makes for easy reading of the systems vital stats, such as hard drive status.
Around the rear are the power input, Gigabit Ethernet port and a pair of USB 2.0 ports. The latter can be used either for connecting a USB storage drive (either for transporting files or augmenting the internal capacity), for sharing a USB printer over your local network, for connecting to a UPS or even for controlling a (compatible) USB webcam using the DS410j.
The rear is also home to four thumbscrews which when removed enable the back of the DS410j to be opened, revealing the four drive bays inside. Interestingly these can house both 3.5in and 2.5in hard drives so if you're feeling really flush you could even use SSDs – even if it would probably be cheaper to hire someone to backup all of your data by hand, in 0s and 1s, on paper.
It's worth noting that in RAID 1 and RAID 5 configurations, these drives can be upgraded to larger capacity units, without losing data. So far as I am aware, Netgear is the only other manufacturer that facilitates this, so kudos to Synology for implementing that. Be warned that rebuilding volumes is a lengthy process, leaving the NAS out of commission while it's happening.


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Now Viewing:
Product Highlights
The Shure UHF-R Professional Diversity Wireless Microphone System reinforces Shure's status as leaders in large-scale touring and fixed installation wireless microphone systems. The UHF-R series is primarily designed for touring, stage performances, fixed installation in large clubs, theaters, houses-of-worship, large scale presentations and more.
In order to meet the demands of various applications, the UHF-R series is available in a variety of configurations. This package enables two UR2 handheld microphone transmitters to operate simultaneously and includes the UR4D+ dual diversity receiver.
The UR4D+ dual diversity receiver is a durable, single space, rack-mountable unit that is designed to receive signal from two transmitters simultaneously. The UR4D+'s diversity design aides in minimizing Radio Frequency (RF) interference and noise. Dual back lit LCDs provide access to all programmable parameters. Audio outputs include a microphone / line level switchable balanced XLR with ground lift and 1/4" phone connectors. USB and Ethernet connections are provided for direct integration with a PC and network arrays.
The UR2 handheld transmitter is rugged and designed to withstand the rigors of daily use on the road. The transmitter is made available with a variety of Shure microphone capsules. This transmitter includes the Beta 58 supercardioid capsule. The transmitter is capable of 10 or 50 mA output power, enabling extended range whenever necessary. The UR2 features a backlit LCD display and is powered up to 9 hours on 2 AA alkaline batteries (low RF power).
|Type of System
|Dual Handheld UHF, Rackmount Type Receiver
|RF Carrier Frequency Range
|H4 / 518 - 578MHz
|Approx. Working Range
500 feet (150 meters) typical conditions
1600' (500 meters) line-of-sight, outdoors for a single system.
|Overall Frequency Response
|40Hz to 18kHz +/- 1dB
|Signal-to-Noise Ratio
Ultimate Quieting (ref. 45 kHz deviation)
< 100 dB, A-weighted
|# Of Channels
|2400 Selectable Frequencies Across 60 MHz Bandwidth
|# Of Simultaneous Systems
|Up to 60 Preset Compatible Systems/Band (140 w/Multiple Bands, Region Dependent)
|Type of Receiver
|UR4D+ Dual Receiver - Diversity
|Type of Outputs
XLR 3-pin: Mic / Line Switchable, Balanced Low-Z with Ground Lift Switch
1/4" Phone: 200 ohmsUSB: Computer Interface
RJ-45: Ethernet Network Interface
|Headphone Monitoring
|1/4" Phone with level control dial
|Power Requirements
100 to 240 Vac, 50/60Hz
0.8 Amps max.
|Battery Type/Approx. Life
|None - AC power only
|Backlit LCD: Group and Channel, Frequency, Automatic Transmitter Sync, Receiver name, Output Level, Squelch, Receiver Lock, LCD View, Contrast, ToneKey, Network Parameters
|Mounting Options
|Rack Mount Hardware (Included)
|Antenna Type
|Two band dependent antennas
|1.72 x 19 x 14.39" (44 x 483 x 366mm) (HxWxD)
|11.2 lbs. (5.1 kg)
|Type of Transmitter
|UR2 UHF Frequency Agile Handheld (x2)
|Type of Microphone
|Beta 58
|Polar Pattern
|Battery Type/Approx. Life
1.5V AA Alkaline Batteries x2
9.5 hours (low power)6 hour (high power)
|Mute Switch
|not specified by manufacturer
|Level Control
|Gain: -10dB to +20dB
|Antenna Type
|Flexible Antenna
|Backlit LCD
|10.27 x 2" (261 x 51mm)
|11.1 oz (314 g) without battery
|Packaging Info
|Package Weight
|21.2 lb
|Box Dimensions (LxWxH)
|23.3 x 17.6 x 6.4"


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What's New
Texture resolution improved for Church and logos in Opening Credits.
Co-op menu "...connect additional devices" changed to "...connect/pair game controllers" to be less confusing.
App Description
Octodad: Dadliest Catch is a game about destruction, deception, and fatherhood. The player controls Octodad, a dapper octopus masquerading as a human, as he goes about his life. Octodad's existence is a constant struggle, as he must master mundane tasks with his unwieldy boneless tentacles while simultaneously keeping his cephalopodan nature a secret from his human family.
In this sequel to the splash hit Octodad, our cephaloprotagonist has gotten himself in a bind between his wife's mounting mistrust, and a disastrous trip to the local aquarium! Are you dad enough to control the titular octopus father as he strives to hide his nautical nature from his family while keeping his tangled tentacles intact?
App Changes
- October 30, 2015 Initial release
- November 01, 2015 New version 1.0.12
- November 04, 2015 New version 1.0.13
- November 29, 2015 New version 1.0.15
- December 08, 2015 New version 1.0.16
- April 23, 2016 New version 1.0.21
- December 21, 2016 Price decrease: $4.99 -> $0.99
- January 01, 2017 Price increase: $0.99 -> $4.99


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from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- In mech., to travel farther than is necessary to do a certain act or perform a definite function.
Sorry, no etymologies found.
I wanted it glass bedded, recrowned with a recessed target crown on an 11 degree angle and a trigger job to remove creep and overtravel and set the weight at 2 pounds even.
The 504's trigger comes with a 4-pound pull that can be adjusted lighter by a Remington representative and is equipped with screw adjustments for sear engagement, pull weight and overtravel.
Under an unwise or indolent herder the sheep going on an unaccustomed trail will overtravel and underfeed, until in the midst of good pasture they starve upon their feet.
And in the fourteenth hour, I perceived that I did be like to overtravel the Maid, though I made alway to have a less speed than did be natural unto me.
During plunge grinding and reciprocating grinding, the overtravel and the time for table reverse are reduced.
I felt that the striker release was severe and offered a glitch in the action that was hard to ignore, and there was a lot of overtravel.
The redesigned trigger reduces overtravel and increases trigger control, making quick follow-up shots easier.
For a donation of $50, I'll do a trigger job and add an overtravel stop.
He'd changed out the Remington trigger for a Jewell that gave 5965321 a five-ounce pull without creep or overtravel.


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RV Function in Ischemic Cardiomyopathy
Study Questions:
What is the association between mitral regurgitation (MR) and right ventricular ejection fraction (RVEF) in ischemic cardiomyopathy?
The study cohort was comprised of 588 patients with ischemic cardiomyopathy who underwent cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) (mean age 63 ± 11 years; 75% male; 57% had a history of hypertension, 55% had a history of hyperlipidemia, 52% had a history of prior revascularization, and 40% had a history of diabetes mellitus). In the analysis assessing predictors of RVEF, the study authors only included patients who had an echocardiogram within 6 months of the cardiac MRI. The study authors assessed baseline characteristics, left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF), severity of MR, treatment modality, scar burden, and RVEF. They utilized Cox proportional hazards and multivariable linear regression models to assess the association between RVEF and mortality and MR and RVEF, respectively.
The study investigators found that MR severity was independently associated with RVEF, after adjusting for age, gender, LVEF, right bundle branch block (RBBB), and RV scar—the RVEF in patients with significant MR (effective regurgitant orifice [ERO] >0.2) was significantly lower than in patients with less MR (39% vs. 46%, p < 0.001). During the median follow-up period of 5.7 years, there were 240 deaths. And there was a 17% risk of mortality (p = 0.008) for every 10% decrease in RVEF, after multivariable adjustment. Although decreasing RVEF was associated with a poor prognosis in the non-repair group (hazard ratio [HR], 1.28 [1.12-1.47]; p < 0.001), it was not associated with death in the mitral valve (MV) repair or replacement group (p for interaction 0.046). In those who did undergo MV surgery, decreasing RVEF was no longer significantly associated with increased mortality (adjusted HR, 0.90 [0.71-1.13]; p = 0.354). The patients who underwent MV surgery were slightly older (mean age 65 vs. 62 years, p = 0.016), had a significantly lower mean RVEF (39% vs. 44%, p = 0.004), and mean LVEF (22% vs. 25%, p = 0.006), and had a higher mean ERO (0.28 vs. 0.12, p < 0.001). The patients who underwent MV repair or replacement also were more likely to undergo coronary revascularization with percutaneous coronary intervention or coronary artery bypass grafting (86% vs. 51%, p < 0.001). There was no significant difference in the two groups in terms of LV scar (p = 0.25) and RV scar (p = 0.71).
The authors concluded that MR severity was found to be an independent predictor of RVEF, as were RBBB, LVEF, and the presence of RV scar. Decreasing RVEF is associated with increased mortality in patients with ischemic cardiomyopathy; however, this association may be mitigated in patients who undergo MV repair or replacement.
This retrospective study suggests that MR is an independent predictor of RV function and the latter was associated with increased mortality. More importantly, MV repair or replacement mitigated this increased mortality. It is unclear whether sleep apnea or coronary revascularization contributed to RV dysfunction and consequently to mortality. Prospective studies are needed to validate the important findings of this study.
Clinical Topics: Arrhythmias and Clinical EP, Cardiac Surgery, Heart Failure and Cardiomyopathies, Invasive Cardiovascular Angiography and Intervention, Noninvasive Imaging, Prevention, Valvular Heart Disease, EP Basic Science, Cardiac Surgery and Arrhythmias, Cardiac Surgery and Heart Failure, Cardiac Surgery and VHD, Acute Heart Failure, Interventions and Imaging, Interventions and Structural Heart Disease, Echocardiography/Ultrasound, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Hypertension, Mitral Regurgitation
Keywords: Bundle-Branch Block, Cardiac Surgical Procedures, Cardiomyopathies, Diagnostic Imaging, Echocardiography, Heart Failure, Hypertension, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Mitral Valve Insufficiency, Myocardial Revascularization, Stroke Volume, Ventricular Function, Right
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Featuring The Florida Wildlife Corridor's film The Forgotten Coast, followed by a showing of In Marjorie's Wake, a film from Equinox Documentaries, Inc.
Following in the footsteps of a wandering Florida black bear, three friends leave civilization and become immersed in a vast and unexplored wildlife corridor stretching from the Everglades to the Florida-Alabama border. The rugged thousand-mile journey by foot, paddle, and bike traverses Florida's Forgotten Coast – a wilderness that has the potential to transform the way we see the natural world.
For more information about Florida's Wildlife Corridor, go to www.floridawildlifecorridor.org.
In Marjorie's Wake examines the many ways in which the St. Johns River of Florida has shaped culture — literature, art and music — over time. It does so by re-creating a historic trip that Pulitzer-prize winning author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings once made on the river in 1933.
For more information about the film, click here.


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Tournament schedule and qualification details
|Prize Pool
|Qualification Period
|PokerNews Bounty Brawl #2
|June 1
|May 4. 00:01 GMT — May 29. 23:59
|PokerNews Bounty Brawl #3
|June 29
|June 1. 00:01 GMT — June 26. 23:59
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If you experience any problems with this or any of our promotions, please contact our Ticketed Promo Support System.
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As a light internet user, I always say that FreedomPop is the best thing that ever happened to me. I have been enjoying free data for some time and would love to spread the good news around. So am doing this by writing a FreedomPop review to show you just how amazing their data plan is.
Signing Up
Becoming a FreedomPop wireless internet subscriber is pretty straightforward. You need to log into their website and fill in your email address and area zip code. The zip code is to help them identify if they currently offer their packages to your area. Next, they will take you to their data plans page where you can choose a plan that you are most comfortable with. Having done that, you will now chooses a device that suits your preferences and budget. This will be followed by a request for your credit card and shipping information. That done, you will only need to wait for your device to be brought to you by FedEx and you are set to go.
There are five data plan available. Although there is a free data package, it only runs for some time, after which you will need to start paying to get your monthly data. You can use the free data as a trial package. It allows you 500MB of data and 200 minutes talk time plus messages. You can pay a small fee of $2.99 to avoid any hiccups on your free data plan. The other data plans range from 1GB to 10GBs of data. If you do not find the 500MB data enough, you can choose from any of these packages. Should you exhaust your data before the month is up, you will be charged a certain amount for every extra MB of data used.
Earning Extra Data
After you have exhausted your one year of getting free data, you need not quit. There are plenty of way in which you can earn free data, without even having to pay a dime. My friends, who have been subscribed to FreedomPop longer than I have been claim that they have been beneficiaries of this program. By simply logging into your email and connecting with them or letting them know about FreedomPop, you earn 10MB extra data. Another way they earn data is by completing surveys and downloading software from the FreedomPop website.