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Keeping Smiles Beautiful & Healthy
At Berchelmann Family Dental in San Antonio, TX, we proudly offer a wide range of general dentistry services, ensuring that every member of your family maintains a healthy and happy smile. General dentistry includes the diagnosis, treatment, and management of overall oral health care needs. Dr. Berchelmann and our entire dental team always make sure to give you and your family the best dental care possible.
Our general dentistry services can fix a variety of dental issues and get your oral health back on track. Learn how Dr. Berchelmann can help your smile stay beautiful.
Your Regular Dental Appointment
Teeth Cleanings & Exams
Maintaining regular biannual dental appointments is a key component of your oral health. It's easy to miss areas of your teeth when you're brushing and flossing. At your dental cleaning, our dental hygienists will clean those hard-to-reach areas, as well as clear any built-up plaque and tartar from your teeth.
We'll also examine your teeth to make sure you haven't developed any areas of decay or cavities. If we do find any issues, we'll recommend treatment options. Attending your regular six-month appointments ensures these issues won't become too severe before they're detected – meaning less invasive treatments are needed.
Oral Cancer Detection
During your regular dental appointments, Dr. Berchelmann will perform an oral cancer exam. The exam is a simple visual and physical check of your mouth, face, and neck to determine if there are any reasons for concern. If we do find a potential issue, we can collect a sample to send to a laboratory for testing.
This disease can be life-threatening, even though treatment in its early stages is simple. If you're visiting us at Berchelmann Family Dental regularly, we can help give you peace of mind about oral cancer by making sure you're clear.
Browse Our General Dentistry Services
Dental Fillings
If we detect a cavity on one of your teeth, Dr. Berchelmann will recommend a dental filling. A cavity forms when bacteria eat through the enamel of your tooth, resulting in a hole. The bacteria will continue deepening the hole in your tooth unless they're stopped in their tracks.
Dr. Berchelmann will clean out the infected part of your tooth and remove any affected tooth materials. From there, he can fill in the hole with a tooth-colored filling that'll protect your tooth from further infection and keep your smile looking natural.
Dental sealants are thin layers of protective coating for teeth. They're made from safe, BPA-free plastic that's unnoticeable, but seals bacteria out. Sealants are great for keeping vulnerable teeth safe from cavities. While sealants are typically recommended for children, adults can also benefit from dental sealants.
Root Canal Therapy
Cavities are a common dental issue, so they may not seem like such a big deal. But leaving a cavity untreated can lead to a deeper infection. The longer you leave a cavity, the more the bacteria will continue through the layers of your tooth until they reach the center. In the center of your tooth, important and sensitive nerves and tissues are stored. They can become severely painful when affected by bacteria and the infection threatens your entire tooth.
Learn more about how Dr. Berchelmann can utilize root canal therapy to save your tooth.
Tooth Extractions
If root canal therapy isn't an option or doesn't work for your tooth, it may have to be extracted. Dr. Berchelmann will do everything he can to save your natural tooth but in some cases, it's more beneficial for your oral health to have the tooth extracted.
Dealing with tooth extraction can be difficult, but Dr. Berchelmann can help you recover. He offers beautiful restoration options, such as dental implants, that can fully restore your smile.
At Berchelmann Family Dental, we offer a variety of restorative options to replace missing teeth while also restoring the functionality of your smile. We offer the following restoration options for your convenience:
A mouthguard, also known as a bite guard or sports guard, is a great way to protect your teeth from injury or damage. It's a custom-created protective appliance that fits over your teeth, allowing you to stay safe while enjoying an active lifestyle. Mouthguards can also be worn at night to protect your teeth from the effects of bruxism, or teeth grinding.
Visit Berchelmann Family Dental
At Berchelmann Family Dental, we care about your oral health and always put patient care first. Our general dentistry services are aimed at giving you and your entire family a long-lasting smile that stays vibrant and healthy. To schedule an appointment with Dr. Berchelmann, call our San Antonio office at (210) 336-8478 or fill out our convenient online contact form and we'll get back to you as soon as possible.
Frequently Asked Questions
Dental X-rays provide detailed images of your teeth, mouth, and jaw. It's a diagnostic tool that's used to show certain issues that can't be seen with the naked eye. Some of which include cavities, impacted teeth, tooth decay, and bone loss. X-rays give off a low level of radiation to capture the images of your mouth.
Some patients are unaware that they suffer from gum disease until it advances to a more serious stage, commonly known as periodontitis. There are several symptoms that may indicate that you have gum disease, such as:
- Red or swollen gums
- Gums that bleed
- Painful gums or teeth
- Loose teeth
- Bad breath
- Receding gums
Before the procedure, Dr. Berchelmann will numb your tooth and surrounding area to ensure you won't feel a thing. You may experience some sensitivity and discomfort following root canal therapy. However, this should subside within a few days and can be managed by taking an over-the-counter pain medication and applying a cold compress.
To maintain good oral hygiene, use a soft-bristled toothbrush and fluoride toothpaste when brushing your teeth at least twice a day. We also recommend that you floss daily and rinse with mouthwash in between meals. It's also important to schedule dental check-ups and professional teeth cleanings every six months, or twice a year. This allows us to help maintain healthy teeth and gums for years to come.


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TikTok rolls out its Photosensitivity Feature for people with Epilepsy
TikTok, the social media giant, has moved to create a new mission for inclusivity. This time, the company wants to focus on making the app more accessible for people with photosensitive epilepsy.
"For people with photosensitive epilepsy, exposure to flashing lights at certain intensities or to certain visual patterns can trigger seizures. While the population of those with photosensitive epilepsy is small, the impact can be quite serious," said Laura Thrall, president and CEO of the Epilepsy Foundation.
Over the past few months, the TikTok team met with epilepsy advocates who shared feedback on how they can improve the platform. Based on the data they have gathered, the brand launched a feature that warns creators when they upload content that could trigger photosensitive epilepsy. In the coming weeks, the team will also be introducing another accessibility feature to protect users from photosensitive content. With this new feature, viewers who have come across a photosensitive video will get a notification allowing them to "Skip All" future photosensitive content.
"It is great to see TikTok addressing this issue by making changes to their platform so that people in our epilepsy community can feel protected when viewing content on TikTok. We are proud to have worked with TikTok on this initiative and truly appreciate our continued collaboration," said Thrall.
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subset: commoncrawl


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Swindon Town Community Foundation is now recruiting for their next 'Football Fans in Training' course.
In September 2019, the Foundation will welcome the 11th cohort of male and 4th cohort of female Football Fans in Training. They're looking for men and women to join the hugely successful 12-week course that has been proven to help you lose weight and live a healthier lifestyle.
The course is open to all men and women aged 35 to 65, with a waist measurement of 38" and above. Your trouser size can however fall below this.
Public Health Swindon and Swindon Borough Council have been instrumental in supporting Swindon Town Community Foundation with the Football Fans in Training initiative, which has helped over 300 local football fans become healthier and lose weight, with a combined weight loss of over 360 stone.
Many of their past participants are now taking part in regular weekly activities to maintain their healthier lifestyles. Some have taken part in the London Marathon, the RunVEMBER challenge, walking groups and six-a-side friendly fixtures.
A past participant said "I would recommend this course to anybody; it's really worked for me. As a group we've worked to find what has worked for each person individually, because it is very different. How you fit things in to how you live, and work, and your family, is different, and I think it's just finding what works for you.
It's been real, and that's the key thing to me. We've talked about how people will go out for a drink and do it sensibly. People will get a take-away and keep within a healthy lifestyle. It's not 'you can't do this', 'you can't do that', 'you can't eat such-a-thing'. So, I think that's Important, and I think because its pragmatic and real, it's had results for everybody".
They'll be running another 12-week course of Football Fans in Training from 19th September and you too can change your life for the better.
For more information on this hugely successful Healthy Lifestyle initiative, contact Tom Swindall via email firstname.lastname@example.com or call the Community Foundation on 01793 421303.
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Title courtesy of Koka Kola, by The Clash
It's gardening catalog season again. They arrive in the mail, shiny and bright, filled with colorful photographs of gleaming fruits and vegetables. They promise award-winning harvests, plants that grow themselves, and lip-smacking heirloom produce. They use words like "beautiful," "bountiful," and "easy," as if plants will blossom just being in the vicinity of their products. While it's simple to give in to their vision, often it's much better not to.
Even if you start it for environmental reasons, gardening for food can be just as consumerist as any other hobby. Needless to say, companies haven't ignored the homesteading trend. Garden supply stores have been around for decades, but the market has expanded drastically in recent years. When Williams and Sonoma has an entire "Agrarian" section that even includes chicken coops and beekeepers' suits – two of the more hardcore contingents of home agriculture – you know that it's not just for cheap hippies anymore. Their chicken coop alone, with its fashionably faded red paint, starts at a mere $600.
While these visions of idyllic homesteading are tempting – I know I look at them longingly and try to convince Chris that raising chickens would be awesome – it's just another version of advertising's same old story. "If you just buy our stuff, you and your house will be beautiful and your life will be awesome," it whispers.
However, unlike clothes, beauty products or electronics, many of the items offered in gardening catalogs are easy to make, often from recycled materials. (And to do so without a special, overpriced DIY kit.) One of the better catalogs, Gardeners' Supply Company, has a whole collection of tools that promise to make life easier, from ready-made raised beds to high tunnel hoops. However, most of these things can be easily constructed with a little knowledge and a few items from the hardware or a local recycled goods store. Instead of plastic garden markers that always get lost, we've refashioned old metal clothes hangers into them with tape. We've already built a worm box for $30 and an about a hour and a half of work that's just as functional as their $110 Worm Factory. Similarly, we just bought $40 worth of lighting supplies this weekend and will be using some leftover lumber to construct a seed starting array. In contrast, their cheapest "SunLite" garden for sprouting seeds is $199 (also available as a "simple monthly payment" of $24.88). In addition to saving a ton of money, we get the satisfaction of using something we've constructed with our own hands. I recognize this approach isn't practical for everyone, but it's worth trying a few times.
The other temptation gardening catalogs offer is buying a bunch of stuff that you won't even use. I have this particular problem with seed catalogs. Looking at all of the different varieties, I imagine a garden with a huge diversity of plants, far larger and neater than our relatively small plot. As a result, between seed exchanges, free seeds from Rooting DC, purchasing on a whim from the gardening store, and ordering from catalogs, I always end up with far more seeds than I could ever put in the ground in a single year. While none are particularly expensive and many are free, it's still a waste.
To me, the best way to fight this urge is to allow my garden's needs to drive my purchases, not the other way around. I try not to buy something until a specific need comes up, and I know exactly what I will use it for. While I didn't "need" a worm box, I didn't purchase it until I knew how to take care of worms and how to use their compost. Similarly, I'm building the seed starting setup because raising my seeds indoors without them has failed miserably the last two years. While I'm never this organized, I know I could cut down on my seed hoarding issue by actually planning out what I'm growing and then choose seeds based around that map, rather than on my over-active imagination.
If urban and home agriculture really is about turning our industrial food system on its head, we have to be willing to do things differently and not have them just delivered to us. Before purchasing, I need to ask myself these three questions: 1) Do I really need this and if so, what will I use it for? 2) Can I borrow it from someone else? 3) Can I make it myself in a more sustainable fashion? If I can truthfully answer those three questions, then I can go ahead and buy it. If not, then I need to consider why I really want it – for my actual, real-life garden or some fantasy perpetuated by shiny images. Growing food is a messy, real business; there's no room in my garden for glossy advertisements.


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Construction workers in NYC are constructing a building that looks like it could break the guinness world record for world's largest jenga tower. 56 Leonard, one of the priciest condominium buildings in Tribeca, is finally continuing construction. After seeing the rendering of this project, the real time version brings the future-esque drawing into reality and gives us something to physically feast our eyes upon.
This soon-to-be new Lower Manhattan residential building will awe us entirely when it is completed, as it already has spectators fawning for the finished product. Construction of this uniquely crafted addition to Tribeca was previously stopped late last year due to scaffolding issues. 56 Leonard in particular having such an irregular building structure, required larger scaffolding to suffice for the floor designs being built. This resulted in the city giving the building a stop work order, which isn't entirely uncommon in the world of development. The stop work order, coupled with a concrete contractor that was dismissed, undoubtedly led to unexpected delays in the construction of this eye-catching building. Thankfully, the construction is back on!
Herzog and de Mueron designed the evolutionary tower, in conjunction with sculptor Anish Kapoor. Together, they are creating a synergy of building and sculpture becoming one, with art and architecture. 56 Leonard will be Kapoor's first permanent work in NYC.
Almost all of the units that encompass the new building have already been signed for; residents are eagerly awaiting their piece of the 56 Leonard to be fully completed. The development hosts 10 penthouse units that all have private elevator access, high ceilings, and colossal terraces. One of the penthouses has been sold for $31 million, and the last penthouse on the market went up for $18.75 million. The 145-unit building, features panoramic views of the Hudson and East Rivers. If the views weren't already breathtaking, the list of amenities will surely knock your socks off, with everything you can think of—yoga studios, saunas, catering kitchen, dining salon, treatment room, 75-foot infinity lap pool, indoor/outdoor theater. We can see why the building is already spoken for when it comes to occupants.
With the construction currently underway 56 Leonard is giving something to everyone. For residents, there is hope that their homes will be built quickly, and for Manhattanites, a particularly novel building gives us all another reason to look up.


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Pitterpatter.com.my is hosting another pregnancy workshop! Empowering Pregnancy Where? KLGCC, Bukit Kiara (See Maps) When? Sunday 22 Sept 2013 from 10.30am to 5pm. What? There will be a tea party cum forum for moms and partner. It will be a day jam-packed with information, demonstrations and fun activities! Expert Talks: Honey, the Baby's Coming! (Preparing forContinue reading "Workshop: Empowering Pregnancy @ KLGCC – 22 September 2013"
Tag Archives: Pregnancy
Pregnancy Workshop: A Joyous Pregnancy by Pitter Patter – 30 June 2013
First time parents and couples planning for their first child may be interested to attend the following pregnancy workshop hosted by Pitter Patter: A Joyous Pregnancy! Date: 30 June 2013 (SUN) Time: 11.30am-5pm Venue: Hotel Premiere, Bukit Tinggi, Klang What's Involved… A) Experts topics: Give Birth with Confidence by Consultant O & G Prenatal EducationContinue reading "Pregnancy Workshop: A Joyous Pregnancy by Pitter Patter – 30 June 2013"
The Link Between Morning Sickness and Smart Babies
For mothers who have ever wondered why they have been singularly selected to suffer the most dreadful morning sickness symptoms known to man during pregnancy, you will be relieved to hear that there is possibly a reason for this. According to Brain Rules for Baby, there is a study showing that the worse your morningContinue reading "The Link Between Morning Sickness and Smart Babies"
2nd Delivery – The Birth of Gareth
They say that every delivery is different. Indeed, there have been quite a number of differences with this delivery compared to the first one. Perhaps it is old age creeping up on me but I was certain that the bed felt more uncomfortable and the food tasted worse than it did the first time I wasContinue reading "2nd Delivery – The Birth of Gareth"
2nd Pregnancy: Preparing the Older Child
It is the night before I am due to go into the hospital. What am I doing up when I should be resting? Quite frankly, I can't sleep. Neither can I keep my mind on anything specific – hence the reason I haven't been writing for Helium or updating the blog on the other chaptersContinue reading "2nd Pregnancy: Preparing the Older Child"
2nd Pregnancy: Final Visit to the Doctor
I had my final visit to the doctor earlier today. Blood pressure: 110/70 Weight gain: 1kg (woo hoo!) Urine: trace of protein and sugar (dang!) Baby's weight: anywhere between 3.5-4.2kgs Based on Dr Wong's palpation, he estimates the baby's size to be at least 3.5kgs. The scan's estimate was 4.2kgs. On average, babies gain aboutContinue reading "2nd Pregnancy: Final Visit to the Doctor"
Pregnancy and the Chicken Pox Vaccination
Recently we had a notice from Gavin's school that one of the girls turned up with Chicken Pox. They had not noticed the spots until the afternoon when they showered her (some of the children stay for the full day at school and get showered before their afternoon nap). After calling her parents to takeContinue reading "Pregnancy and the Chicken Pox Vaccination"
2nd Pregnancy – Week 38
I apologise for the on again, off again blogging. As D-day approaches, I find myself sleeping more and staying up less. Yet there's still so much I want to write about. Isn't that the story of our lives – so much to do and so little time? As we enter into Week 38 – veryContinue reading "2nd Pregnancy – Week 38"
2nd Pregnancy: 8th Visit to the Doctor
I had my eighth visit to Dr Wong on Friday. Vital statistics were good: Blood pressure 110/70 Urine clear Weight gained was not so good – 3.5kgs since the last appointment. Gosh I wonder how that happened? *eyes wide with innocence* Seriously though, I did think I was relatively well-behaved. Baby's weight: 3.4kg Ironically, DrContinue reading "2nd Pregnancy: 8th Visit to the Doctor"
Chocolate Cure for Suppressing Coughs During Pregnancy
I've been down and out lately. It appears the nasal congestion I have been experiencing lately isn't due to my sinuses but a little bug that Gavin picked up from school and passed on to me. It became evident when it spread to my throat. I've been surviving with the nasal congestion without having toContinue reading "Chocolate Cure for Suppressing Coughs During Pregnancy"


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UNITED COUNTIES of SD&G, Ontario – Traffic on five of the busiest roads in The County has dropped significantly since physical distancing, remote working and other pandemic protocols have been instituted.
A transportation and planning department report presented at the April 30 County Council meeting suggests an average drop of 46 per cent covering an earlier part of this month. The Covid-19 pandemic has provided municipalities with an opportunity to understand how the extreme adaptation of remote work changes traffic patterns.
"With our partners we're studying the impact of remote working on the transportation network, specifically how broad adaptation of remote work opportunities may lessen the need for infrastructure expansions," said transportation and planning director Benjamin de Haan.
County Coun. Kristen Gardner echoed de Haan's sentiments and suggested an individual's increased comfort level with working remotely or staying off the road during challenging times may be one positive to come out of this pandemic.
"One of the positives may be that folks are more comfortable with doing more telecommuting," said Gardiner. "Potentially we may see a trend where people are more able and willing to stay home when there's a large snow event
in the winter. That could in turn impact our snow-clearing operations in a positive way."
It should be noted that the values in this document are unadjusted for time of year – they are for information and interest only. Additionally, the speed data that was collected during this period suggested that the prevailing traffic speeds are not substantially different when compared to typical times.


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GOP heavyweights make Senate contest intense, fluid
ATLANTA - Three congressmen, a female ex-statewide official, a successful businessman, the nation's only black GOP Senate candidate and a newcomer who argues Republicans must broaden their appeal on social issues add up to a crowded primary and a range of choices for voters.
Adding to Republican voters' challenge in picking a Senate nominee is the well-funded political scion expected to win the Democratic nomination. GOP stalwarts are not only selecting the person they would like to see representing them in Washington but also the one with the best chance of winning in November.
Recent polls show how fluid and unpredictable the race is, especially because likely low turnout and a crowded ballot mean a difference of a relatively small number of votes will determine which two candidates get in the runoff and which stay home.
Independent polls have shown former corporate executive David Perdue in the lead followed closely by either Jack Kingston, a Savannah congressman, or Karen Handel, the former secretary of state who narrowly lost a runoff four years ago for the gubernatorial nomination.
Perdue has gained some support, allowing him to pull further away from his rivals in the Republican Senate primary, according to a survey released Thursday.
Handel and Kingston are effectively tied for second in the InsiderAdvantage survey conducted by automatic phone callers to 531 likely primary voters Wednesday evening for Morris News and Fox5 of Atlanta.
Trailing in the polls and rounding out the field are Paul Broun, an Athens congressman; Phil Gingrey, a Marietta congressman; Derrick Grayson, a transportation engineer who's the only black Republican candidate running for the U.S. Senate; and Art Gardner, a patent attorney pushing for moderate social positions to attract independents to the party.
Because the candidates have similar views on most issues - with the exception of Gardner - the choice for voters is probably dependent on experience, personality and circumstance.
Perdue, the cousin of the state's previous governor, earned a reputation for turning around troubled companies as CEO of Reebok and Dollar General, including several international operations during stints overseas. He argues it makes him a problem solver and a job creator.
"If you're as outraged as I am by the size and scope of our government and by the inexcusable, childish behavior exhibited in Washington right now, then I hope you'll give this outsider from Georgia a chance," he says in his latest television ad. "Fixing big problems like this is what I've done all my life. It's what I do."
Perdue's Midas touch failed him in 2003 during a seven-month period at the helm of the struggling North Carolina textile firm Pillowtex. It folded, and 4,000 people lost their jobs while Perdue got a large severance package.
His opponents warn that will prevent him from attracting enough independents to win the general election in November.
Kingston boasts that the endorsements of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Business prove he supports business-friendly policies. The Chamber is airing ads on his behalf, and he hopes to get a big bounce before May 20 with the removal of the final federal hurdle to expanding the job generator that is the Savannah harbor.
"I am the one who has been pushing for it all along," he said.
Kingston has taken his own share of criticism, such as a super PAC's ad that calls him a big spender and the "King of Earmarks" because of his longtime service on the House Appropriations Committee. But, as he notes, the National Journal rates his voting record as the most conservative of the three congressmen in the race.
Kingston's ability to work across the aisle translates into effectiveness, especially in a hyper-partisan Washington, according to Rob Engstrom, the Chamber's political director. The other GOP candidates sought the Chamber's endorsement, but Kingston came away with it.
Handel has some plum endorsements of her own, ranging from pro-life groups to conservative personalities Sarah Palin, Erick Erickson, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer and Sue Everhart, the former chairwoman of the Georgia GOP. Her shoestring budget was supplemented by publicity over a public slight from Perdue about her dropping out of college.
"I've been a fighter my whole life. I left a troubled home at 17, beat the odds, worked my way up in the private sector, and as Georgia's secretary of state, I implemented Georgia's tough voter ID law," she wrote in a recent fundraising letter.
Plus, she argues, no other candidate would be as effective a foil to Democrat Michelle Nunn, the likely nominee.
"I'd like to see her try to drop the 'war on women' bomb on me," Handel says at Republican gatherings.
Where admirers see Handel's personality as tenacious, detractors call it prickly. Where she won praise from abortion foes as an executive of the Susan G. Komen Foundation for ending grants to Planned Parenthood, others see ham-handedness that nearly wrecked a respected charity.
Where she may say she can't be bought, major donors have shied away because they see her as unreceptive and divisive.
Broun has even less support from big donors and the establishment wing of the party. While his personality is easygoing and genteel, his rhetoric strikes many as extreme. He's called President Barack Obama a socialist who should be impeached and derided the Theory of Evolution as "lies straight from the pit of Hell."
His voting record shows he's often in a tiny minority opposing the leadership and causing Washington insiders to characterize him as too extreme to be effective.
But Broun is the darling of tea party advocates fed up with compromise. He also has the backing of conservative national groups dealing with national defense, spending-reduction and personal liberties.
"Since I came to Congress in 2007, I've been fighting to restore constitutionally limited government and return the powers to the states and the people as the 10th Amendment says," he said. "We must stop the current mentality that Republicans and Democrats alike have in Washington where they're governing over the people."
Gingrey, the third congressman in the race, like Broun is a physician and like Kingston was first a state legislator. He has focused on health policy since entering politics, and he became a leading opponent of the Affordable Care Act.
Gingrey has promised to get Obamacare repealed or to retire after one Senate term. Some GOP strategists worry that could give the seat to the Democrats.
"Obamacare is so harmful I voted to repeal or defund it over 40 times, but our efforts die in the Senate," said Gingrey in one ad. "I'll help repeal Obamacare in my first term or go home, because you deserve a senator who gets the job done or gets out of the way."
Gardner and Grayson have livened up the party's series of debates, but both suffer from a lack of resources. As a result, polls show them languishing in the single digits and suggest they are unlikely to make it to the runoff.
Paul Broun
Home: Athens
Occupation: Physician
Political experience: U.S. House of Representatives
Art Gardner
Home: Atlanta
Occupation: Attorney
Political experience: None
Phil Gingrey
Home: Marietta
Occupation: Physician
Political experience: Marietta City School Board, state Senate, U.S. House of Representatives
Derrick Grayson
Home: Redan
Occupation: Transit engineer
Political experience: None
Karen Handel
Home: Alpharetta
Occupation: Consultant
Political experience: Fulton County Commission, Secretary of State, ran for governor
Jack Kingston
Home: Savannah
Occupation: Insurance
Political experience: Georgia House of Representatives, U.S. House of Representatives
David Perdue
Home: St. Simons Island
Occupation: Businessman
Political experience: None


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The authors investigated the differences in using problem decomposition and problem recomposition between dyads of engineering experts, engineering seniors, and engineering freshmen. Participants worked in dyads to complete an engineering design challenge within 1 hour. The entire design process was video and audio recorded. After the design session, members participated in a group interview. Video and audio data were transcribed, segmented, and coded to make comparisons. Results show differences between engineering experts, seniors, and freshman in design thinking. Students tend to use depth-first decomposition, and experts tend to use breadth-first decomposition in engineering design. The results also show that students spend less cognitive effort on the problem-definition stage than engineering experts.
Keywords: engineering design; problem decomposition and recomposition; design thinking; expertise.
Design is recognized as the critical element of engineering thinking which differentiates engineering from other problem-solving approaches (Dym, Agogino, Eris, Frey, & Leifer, 2005). One of the primary goals of engineering design education is to equip students with the capability to become expert design engineers. To develop this capability in students, educators require a detailed knowledge of the cognitive behavior of both undergraduate students and expert design engineers. However, there is insufficient information about the cognitive behavior of expert design engineers because most studies are focused on individual student engineers or early professional engineers.
Engineering design is fundamental for engineering graduates because engineering design is a major skill required of practicing engineers. The use of design strategies plays a significant role in engineering design, and a commonly used strategy is problem decomposition or recomposition. It is frequently used by experienced engineers, especially for solving complex engineering problems (Vincenti, 1990). The process of problem decomposition involves breaking the design problem into smaller independent subproblems (Arvanitis, Todd, Gibb, & Orihashi, 2001). Each subproblem can be further broken into even smaller problems (Arvanitis et al., 2001), and the decomposition process stops when designers can directly approach each subproblem. Problem recomposition is a bottom-up process that usually comes with problem decomposition. It is a process of recomposing all subsolutions (Chandrasekaran, 1990) in the premise of satisfying requirements of the combining design (Hall, Jackson, Lanney, Nuseibeh, & Rapanotti, 2002). Instead of focusing on a complex design problem as a whole, engineers can work on several smaller, more approachable subproblems using this process, which makes the process of engineering design more efficient. Studies have identified a gap between engineering novices and engineering experts when it comes to problem decomposition and recomposition skills in engineering design (Ball, Evans, & Dennis, 1994; Ho, 2001; McCracken, 1997).
To the extent that past works are available (e.g., Ball et al., 1994; Ho, 2001; McCracken, 1997), most studies about problem decomposition or recomposition have focused on individuals instead of groups. However, in the real world, engineers usually work in groups to solve engineering problems. By investigating this topic in the context of collaborative engineering design, researchers can have a better understanding of the development of expertise and the use of problem decomposition or recomposition in practical settings. Design is a creative, open-ended, and experiential process that aims at problem solving. Engineering design is a central part of engineering and has been emphasized as a focus for engineering education for several decades (Dym et al., 2005). Engineering design challenges are widely and effectively used in teaching engineering and in engineering education research. Engineering design challenges can be used in both formal academic circumstances and informal settings. Dym, Agogino, Eris, Frey, and Leifer (2005) believed that engineering design challenges could benefit student learning in many ways. In theory, these challenges should include the entire engineering design process, but practical engineering design challenges are extremely complex and ill structured. Classrooms educators sometimes only incorporate parts of the design process based on the needs of the curriculum (Atman et al., 2007; Katehi, Pearson, & Feder, 2009).
Research Design
To investigate the gap that exists between skills developed in universities and skills needed in the industry to become an expert engineer, a pilot study was conducted. The research question guiding this research is: In the process of engineering design, how do experts approach the design problem differently from engineering students?
In this study, participants were selected using a convenience sampling method (Gall, Gall, & Borg, 2007). Fifty participants took part in this study, including 20 college engineering freshmen, 20 engineering seniors, and 10 engineering experts. All of the participants worked in dyads. It should be noted that this research was a pilot study; therefore, data were collected from a small sample. Results of the quantitative data show preliminary findings only and cannot be generalized because the N size is small.
Design Challenge
All dyads completed the same open-ended engineering design challenge. The design challenge used was a double-hung window opener that would assist the elderly in raising and lowering windows. This design challenge has been used by other researchers to study engineering design (Gero 2010; Lammi & Becker, 2013). There were various engineering and social constraints in this challenge, which made it a typical engineering design challenge. During the design session, participants had access to only five websites related to the design challenge. Participants had limited access to prevent them from searching for solutions to the design problem. They were recommended 1 hour to complete the design challenge. Participants only submitted design proposals as their final outcome. Participants received no instruction about the form or the content of the proposals. They did not build, test, and analyze their design because of the time constraint.
Data Collection
The primary form of data collection was protocol analysis. In the process of engineering design, conversation happened naturally within the dyads. The researcher used audio and video recording to capture participants' conversations and their nonverbal interactions. The researcher did not answer participants' questions. The audio and video data complemented each other to provide rich information about the conversations and actions in engineering design process. The protocol analysis of design sessions was coded based on the function– behavior–structure (FBS) coding scheme. This ontology provides a set of irreducible foundational concepts of design and designing, which covers the acts of designing and the representation of the design. The definition and conceptualization of the ontology is illustrated in Figure 1. Function (F) represented designers' expectations of the products, behavior (B) represented the ways that designers accomplish their goals, and structure (S) represented the solutions to the problem.The design actually is a consequence of a series of processes including the above FBS variables:
1. Formulation (process 1) transforms the design requirements, expressed in function (F), into behavior (Be) that is expected to enable this function.
2. Synthesis (process 2) transforms the expected behavior (Be) into a solution structure (S) that is intended to exhibit this desired behavior.
3. Analysis (process 3) derives the "actual" behavior (Bs) from the synthesized structure (S).
4. Evaluation (process 4) compares the behavior derived from structure (Bs) with the expected behavior to prepare the decision if the design solution is to be accepted.
5. Documentation (process 5) produces the design description (D) for constructing or manufacturing the product.
6. Reformulation type 1 (process 6) addresses changes in the design state space in terms of structure variables or ranges of values for them if the actual behavior is evaluated to be unsatisfactory.
7. Reformulation type 2 (process 7) addresses changes in the design state space in terms of behavior variables or ranges of values for them if the actual behavior is evaluated to be unsatisfactory.
8. Reformulation type 3 (process 8) addresses changes in the design state space in terms of function variables or ranges of values for them if the actual behavior is evaluated to be unsatisfactory. (Gero & Kannengiesser, 2004, p. 3)
Under the FBS ontology, there was another coding system to represent the level of the problem. Typically, engineers decompose the design problem into multiple subproblems and work on each subproblem in order to find a solution. The level of the problem ranged from 1 to 3. The meaning of each number is shown in Table 1. Gero and Mc Neill (1998) adopted this coding system in analyzing design protocols. Ho (2001) used a similar coding system to investigate engineering design strategies used by individual electrical engineers. Few studies have used levels of the problem to code; as such, there is little data available for this study, but Ho (2001) collected very similar data.
Table 1
Level of the Problem
|Level of the problem
|1: System
|Designers focused on the problem as an integral whole.
|2: System and subsystems
|Designers focused on interactions between subsystems.
|3: Subsystems
|Designers focused on details of the subsystems.
Immediately after completing the design challenge, participants took part in a focus group interview in which they answered questions. During this semistructured interview, the researcher asked questions about how participants framed the problem, generated alternative solutions, reached agreements, and used strategies. Table 2 (continued on next page) shows the guiding interview questions. Participants' sketches were also collected as a data resource.
Table 2
Interview Guiding Questions
|Interview Question
|How did you define the problem?
|How did you decide what information to get?
|How did you develop or come across different ideas (solutions)?
|How did you know which ideas would work and which would not work?
|Why and how did you choose your final idea or plan?
|Is there anything else you needed or wanted that would have helped you?
|Did you tackle the problem as a whole or decompose it into several subproblems? If you decomposed it, why did you choose it over the other one
|What difficulties did you meet in solving the problem?
Data Analysis
Coder training. Prior to analyzing data, two coders were trained to use the coding systems in order to reach an ideal intercoder reliability. They learned the coding systems and started coding sample data from previous studies separately. After coding separately, they compared their codes and calculated the percentage of the codes that they coded the same, which was the intercoder reliability. They also discussed the segments that they coded differently to reach a consistent understanding of the coding scheme. They repeated this process for several rounds until the intercoder reliability remained above 80%. In the social sciences, 70% intercoder reliability is acceptable (Schloss & Smith, 1999).
Data transcribing and segmenting. After participants completed the design challenge, the researcher manually transcribed participants' conversations and movements into spreadsheets. The spreadsheet data containing participants' conversations and movements were further broken into segments based on design issues. Each segment is a coding unit and can only contain one code.
Coding. Coders started the coding process by using the FBS ontology. Table 3 shows a piece of coded data and how coders arbitrated data. After all data were coded using the FBS ontology, Codes D, R, and O were excluded from being coded before coding the level of the problem because they do not pertain to levels of the problem. Code O is about other issues that are not related to design cognition. Code R is the requirement that is given to designers. Code D is the documentation process; the spread sheet didn't record the content of designers' sketches or drawing, so it was excluded as well. Table 4 shows a piece of data coded by two coders. The coding of "levels of the problem" was based on codes of the FBS ontology. The last column shows arbitrated codes, which are also the final codes of "levels of the problem."
Table 3
Example of FBS Codes and Arbitrated Codes
|Not what I'm asking, but like how in-depth?
|Because that's like how I'm in senior drawing ...
|Like a pulley is just something you go to the store and buy. Like you… You know...Based on, like
|I don't think we are given all the numbers that we need to be able to figure what type of pulley system or what gear ratio.
|Yes, and the cost of materials
|Yes, I mean, I wondering this is more just given what we are given. I don't think we really can say we need a specific number
|I see, like 15 or whatever the number type going here
Table 4
Sample of Codes for Levels of the Problem
Levels of
Coder 1
Levels of
Coder 2
Levels of
|Not what I'm asking, but like how in-depth?
|Because that's like how I'm in senior drawing ...
|Like a pulley is just something you go to the store and buy. Like you. You know...Based on, like
|I don't think we are given all the numbers that we need to be able to figure what type of pulley system or what gear ratio.
|Yes, and the cost of materials
|Yes, I mean, I wondering this is more just given what we are given. I don't think we really can say we need a specific number
|I see, like 15 or whatever the number type going here
The process of problem decomposition and problem recomposition was identified by the change of the level of the problem. Table 5 (continued on next page) shows a piece of sample data of an individual dyad in which problem decomposition and problem recomposition were coded. As previously illustrated, the problem decomposition is a top-down process, whereas the problem recomposition is a bottom-up process. When the level of the problem transitions from a higher level to a lower level, it is defined as the problem decomposition, and when it transitions from a lower level to a higher level, it is defined as the problem recomposition.
Table 5
Example of Problem Decomposition and Problem Recomposition
Levels of
final code
|Not what I'm asking, but like how in-depth?
|Because that's like how I'm in senior drawing ...
|Like a pulley is just something you go to the store and buy. Like you.. You know...Based on, like
|I don't think we are given all the numbers that we need to be able to figure what type of pulley system or what gear ratio.
|Yes, and the cost of materials
|Yes, I mean, I wondering this is more just given what we are given. I don't think we really can say we need a specific number
|I see, like 15 or whatever the number type going here
The numbers of utterances generated by each dyad were different, so simply comparing the frequencies of each type of code would affect the validity of the study. The percentages of codes were used in order to compare the differences between dyads. The percentage of each code from each dyad was calculated by dividing the frequency of the code into the total number of effective codes of the dyad.
Interview and sketch data. The analysis of qualitative data was connected with quantitative data. The constant comparative method (Glaser, 1965) was adapted in analyzing data. The first step included going through each interview and sketch and themes were recorded. The second step was sorting themes to different categories. The third step was looking for differences between expert dyads, senior dyads, and freshman dyads within each category. The analysis of qualitative data allowed any themes or new phenomena to emerge that could not be discovered by analyzing quantitative data. Table 6 provides a small piece of interview data in order to show the first three steps of constant comparative method used in analyzing qualitative data. There were many themes and categories that emerged from the entire qualitative data, and some themes emerged repeatedly. The conclusions drawn in Step 3 were based on the analysis of the entire data instead of the small piece shown in Table 6 (please note that Table 6 has been divided into several cells for readability purposes). The fourth step of analyzing qualitative data was writing the theory which is not shown in Table 6. The analysis of sketches followed the same four steps.
Table 6
Example of Qualitative Data Analysis
Step 1: Themes
Emerged from Answers
F- Freshmen S –
Seniors E - Engineers
Step 2:
Step 3: Comparing
students and
How did
you define
Problem definition:
understood the
problem better than
|Increase the force (F)
|Problem definition
|Modify existing window (F)
|Problem definition
|ADA Guidelines (S)
|Problem definition
|Old people in wheel chairs (S)
|Problem definition
|ADA requirements (E)
|Problem definition
|No major construction required (E)
|Problem definition
|Safety issues (E)
|Problem definition
How did
you know
which ideas
work and
would not
Design Experiences:
Engineers had more
design experiences
and intent to use
their experience in
solving new
|Daily experiences (F)
|Design experiences
Don't know if the ideas
would work and how
much it would cost (F)
|Analyze pros and cons (S)
|Alternative solutions
Comparing the design
with devices used before
|Design experiences
|Analyze clients (E)
|Problem definition
Why and
how did
you choose
your final
idea or
Cost: Students did
not pay enough
attention to the cost
of the design. Some
of them did not
know the cost of
|Practical and feasible (F)
|Alternative solutions
|Easy to work (F)
|Alternative solutions
|Consider how solutions fit requirements (S)
|Alternative solutions
|Only came up with one idea (S)
|Alternative solutions
|Cost effective (S)
|Cost/ Problem definition
|Easy to use and maintenance (E)
|Problem definition
|Fits the goal of the design (E)
|Alternative solutions
|Not block views (E)
|Problem definition
did you
meet in
solving the
solutions: Engineers
alternative solution
more effective than
Have difficulties
deciding which solution
to choose (F)
|Alternative solutions
They are good at solving
homework problems but
not the real problems. (F)
|Homework problem and real life problems
The design challenge is
very different from
problems in class. (F)
|Homework problem and real life problems
Need more constraints
and criteria (S)
|Problem definition
They don't know the cost
of materials (S)
They need more
information about
clients' design
consideration (E)
|Problem definition
They wanted to talk to a
window producer to
make a product of their
design (E)
|Design experiences
The researchers calculated frequencies of using problem decomposition and problem recomposition in students and engineer dyads. The means and standard deviations of percentages of using problem decomposition and problem recomposition are shown in Table 7. From these numbers, we can determine that engineer dyads used more problem decomposition more than engineering freshmen and seniors. In order to see if there are any statistically significant differences existing, p-tests were conducted, effect sizes (ES) were calculated. The results of statistical tests are shown in Table 8. In the use of problem decomposition, freshmen used problem decomposition as much as seniors did in engineering design. Engineers used more problem decomposition than both freshmen and seniors did in engineering design. In the use of problem recomposition, the results are similar; freshmen used problem recomposition as much as seniors did in engineering design, and engineers used more problem recomposition than both freshmen and seniors.
Table 7
Means and Standard Deviations of Problem Decomposition and Problem Recomposition
|Problem decomposition(%)
|Problem recomposition(%)
|Type of Dyad
|Freshmen ( N =10)
|Seniors ( N =10)
|Engineers ( N =5)
Table 8
Comparisons of Problem Decomposition and Problem Recomposition
Types of dyads
|p value
|Effect Size
|p value
|Effect Size
|Freshmen vs. seniors
|Freshmen vs. engineers
|Seniors vs. engineers
** p ≤ 0.01.
The analysis of qualitative data had similar findings. In the interview, a question was "Did you tackle the problem as a whole or decompose it into several subproblems? If you decomposed it, why did you choose this over the problem as a whole?" Students' answers varied from dyad to dyad. Some dyads broke the problem into multiple subsystems, some dyads solved the problem as a whole because they thought the problem was too simple to break down, and some student dyads did both. For engineer dyads, the answers were more consistent. They started with considering the whole problem to get the big picture, then broke it into small pieces to work on, and finally combined small pieces into the final solution.
The study also compared the effort spent on different levels of the problem. These results are shown in Table 9. Means and standard deviations from the three types of dyads show that freshmen, seniors, and engineers spent most of their cognitive effort on Level 3 (details of subsystems). All three types of dyads spent the least amount of cognitive effort on Level 1 (system). In order to see if there are any statistically significant differences existing, a series of tests were conducted, and the results of statistical tests of are shown in Table 10.
Table 9
Means and Standard Deviations of Levels of the Problem
|Level 1 (%)
|Level 2 (%)
|Level 3 (%)
|Types of dyad
|Freshmen (N = 10)
|Seniors (N = 10)
|Engineers (N = 5)
Table 10
Comparisons of Cognitive Effort on Different Levels of the Problem
|Level 1
|Level 2
|Level 3
Types of dyads
|p value
|Effect Size
|p value
|Effect Size
|p value
|Effect Size
|Freshmen vs. seniors
|Freshmen vs. engineers
|Seniors vs. engineers
*p ≤ 0.05.
** p ≤ 0.01.
On Level 1, which indicates the designer considering the problem as an integral whole, results show that freshman dyads and senior dyads spent the same amount of cognitive effort when they considered the problem as an integral whole. Engineer dyads spent more cognitive effort than freshman dyads and senior dyads when they considered the problem as an integral whole. On Level 2, which indicates designer considering interactions between subsystems, engineers spent more cognitive effort than freshmen and seniors did when they considered interactions between subsystems in engineering design. On Level 3, which indicates designer considering details of subsystems, engineers spent less cognitive effort than freshmen and seniors did when they considered details of subsystems in engineering design.
In the interview, participants were asked how they defined the problem. Engineer dyads considered many more factors in this stage. They defined the problem by thinking about both the problem and their client's needs. All of them made sure that the design met requirements from Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). They also considered safety issues, aesthetic issues, maintenances of the device, implementation, and cost. Some of them even considered the noises generated by the device because the device would be used in a nursing home in which a quiet environment is preferred. When freshman dyads defined the problem, the focus was to assist in opening the window. Two dyads mentioned clients of the design. A few dyads talked about the ADA, but most of them ignored ADA standard. Most senior dyads focused on the device itself, although they did better than freshman dyads. Most of them were aware of ADA standards, and a few dyads mentioned cost effectiveness as one of their criteria.
Discussion and Implications
The results showed that engineer dyads used problem decomposition and problem recomposition more than senior dyads and freshmen dyads. Qualitative data from interviews also support this result. In spite of differences in research settings, the results of this study are consistent with Ho's (2001) study. Both studies suggested that there is a gap in using problem decomposition and recomposition between experts and novices. In fact, in interviews with engineer participants, they emphasized the importance repeatedly.
Although problem decomposition and recomposition are crucial strategies in engineering design, the results of this study showed that there was no difference between freshman dyads and senior dyads using this strategy in engineering design. This would suggest that, throughout the engineering program, students do not learn adequate knowledge about problem decomposition and problem recomposition; hence, students in the first year of the engineering program perform similar to students about to finish the engineering program.
The results of the study showed that engineer dyads, senior dyads, and freshmen dyads all spent the most cognitive effort on Level 3 and the least cognitive effort on Level 1. The quantitative data showed that on Level 1, engineer dyads spent more cognitive effort than senior dyads and freshman dyads. On Level 2, engineer dyads spent more cognitive effort than senior dyads and freshman dyads. On Level 3, engineer dyads spent less cognitive effort than senior dyads and freshman dyads.
Past studies identified two types of problem decomposition: the breadthfirst approach and the depth-first approach. The breadth-first decomposition approach focuses on exploring various solutions of each subproblem and avoids deep exploration to any specific solution in the early stage, whereas depth-first decomposition tends to explore a specific subproblem in detail before other subproblems are investigated (Ormerod & Ridgway, 1999). In this research,Level 3 represented designers considering details of subproblems. Student dyads spent more cognitive effort on this level because most of them used depth-first decomposition and spent a majority of cognitive effort exploring details of a certain subproblem. Engineer dyads used a breadth-first approach. Unlike student dyads, the distribution of their cognitive effort was more balanced across three levels of the problem.
A series of interesting findings emerged from the interviews and the analysis of participants' sketches as well. In the process of generating alternative solutions, student dyads tended to generate too many or too few solutions compared with engineering dyads. Some dyads only generated one solution and finished their design at a premature stage. They did not make use of the time that they could have used to optimize their design. When examining engineering curriculum, we find that, in most courses, students are taught to generate only one solution instead of multiple ones. It also explains why some dyads only generated one solution through the entire design. For those dyads who generated too many alternative solutions, they spent a lot of time analyzing solutions, which lead them to either go way beyond the time limitation or to haphazardly select a final solution at the end of the design period.
In analyzing qualitative data, engineers were found to be more comfortable working in groups than students were. Student dyads had various difficulties when they worked together. A freshman dyad of students expressed their inadequacy in understanding each other's ideas. Another freshman dyad of students had disagreements about which final solution to choose, which cost them a lot of time. A few senior dyads pointed out that they did not make good use of their time by working individually on different tasks at the same time. Typically, engineering students take foundational engineering courses before taking design classes. Most engineering fundamental courses focus on learning mathematical and scientific theories, which does not provide enough opportunities for students to work on team projects. This may be the main reason why some freshman dyads in this study had issues working with each other. As engineering students move forward in their program, they take design classes and participate in group projects, which explained why senior dyads performed better than freshman dyads when it comes to working in groups. However, the performance of senior dyads was still very different from the performance of engineer dyads. This finding is consistent with a series of previous studies (Holcombe, 2003; Meier, Williams, & Humphreys, 2000; Sageev & Romanowski, 2001; Scott & Yates, 2002).
Engineering design has always been a significant content area in engineering education. Problem decomposition and recomposition strategies are frequently used by professional engineers. The results of this study showed that there is a gap between engineering students and engineering experts in using problem decomposition and problem recomposition. In addition, no differences were found between engineering freshmen and engineering seniors, which indicates that students did not learn the skills of problem decomposition and problem recomposition in their undergraduate study. In order to better prepare students for future careers, it is extremely important to incorporate this content into engineering education. There is a need to develop supplemental teaching materials featuring problem decomposition and problem recomposition.
Considering the design problem as a whole was a common practice among professional engineers. They would analyze the big picture of the design problem, and this process is part of the problem-definition stage in engineering design. Problem definition is the first stage of engineering design. This study found that students spent significantly less time on this stage compared with engineering experts. This conclusion is consistent with previous studies (Atman et al., 2007; Jain & Sobek, 2006). Both freshman and senior dyads were found to spent significantly less effort in defining the problem, which implies that engineering education should place more importance on teaching problem definition in general.
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About the Authors
Ting Song (firstname.lastname@example.com) is Professor in the Department of Applied Science at South Puget Sound Community College in Olympia, Washington.
Kurt Becker (email@example.com), is Professor in the Department of Engineering Education at Utah State University.
John Gero (firstname.lastname@example.com), is Research Professor in the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study at George Mason University & University of North Carolina.
Scott DeBerard ( email@example.com), is Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Utah State University.
Oenardi Lawanto (email@example.com), is Professor in the Department of Engineering Education at Utah State University.
Edward Reeve (firstname.lastname@example.com), is Professor in the Department of Technology and Engineering Education at Utah State University.


text: At Natoma we understand that your business has a specific set of circumstances and challenges that it needs to meet. We have cleaning professionals that understand that industrial cleaning is quite different from commercial and corporate cleaning. Oftentimes you must adhere to stringent requirements that require you to focus on a specific set of guidelines.


text:
Check Out Blue Ivy's Sassy New Look
Sure, we already knew that the blessed child of Queen B is automatic perfection, but I'll probably never stop swooning over her. After a private Saks Fifth Avenue shopping spree in Beverly Hills, dad Jay Z carried 2-year-old Blue Ivy out, and I just can't help myself. She's too cute. Yeah, like, it'd be kind of exciting to see Jay, but Blue's top knot! (Do you think there's a mini sock bun in there?)
The department store was shut off to the public for the outing, in part because that's just how the Carters roll, and also probably in part because Blue Ivy's sass was just too much to handle (in the best possible way.) I mean, look at that face. Beyoncé's angel obviously knows she's the heir to music industry royalty.
And check out that little shopping bag her tiny hand is clutching (pause for another moment — awww.) Her little ballerina flats are precious, too. Oh, and the way her moto-style leather jacket is draped over her shoulders? Man, I cannot wait to see her street style game in 20 years. So cool.
North West best be watching her back, because it looks like another tot in tinseltown is upping her style standards. Your move, Kim.
Images: Instagram/@luvsdc3nkls, @onxthexrun, @january_alsina


text:
The 2019 BC Rugby Junior Girls' Club titles were decided during an exciting day of competition held at the UBC Thunderbird Stadium this weekend. Castaway Wanderers RFC and Abbotsford RFC contested both the U16 and U19 Finals, each team walking away with a victory. Abbotsford RFC took the U16 Title while Castaway Wanderers took the U19 Final. A mix of Westshore RFC and James Bay AA, playing as WestBays, claimed the U16 third-place match over a spirited mix of United RFC and Ridge Meadows Bruins RFC.
Awards were handed out by BC Rugby Board members Tanya Donaldson and Brad Baker and the players were treated to an exhilarating BC Senior Women's XV exhibition batch between BC Blue and BC Gold. This provided a fantastic spectacle for the younger athletes watching from the stands as twilight settled over Thunderbird Stadium.
Rounding off the day in style, the BC Senior Women's XVs squad held an exhibition match between the BC Blue and BC Gold teams. This was a great showcase for the younger girls to aspire to but also to highlight the path a female athlete can take in BC. While there were some familiar veterans of previous years on the field including Tess Woldring, Laura Russel and Amanda Thornborough, it was exciting to see a swathe of new faces pulling on the BC Senior Women's colours.
The action on the field was fast and furious, both teams relishing the chance to stretch their legs and apply some training ground strategies in a proper match. In total 11 different clubs or teams were represented on the field, showing great promise for the future at both club and Provincial level.
Speaking with Darcy Patterson, Rugby Development Manager – Women & Girls, it was clear that games like this are intended as a sign of things to come. "We wanted to provide a high-level competitive matchup up so we can build that foundation within athletes born or based in BC. The more strong competition we can provide domestically, the stronger rugby will be in BC and Canada."
Given the satisfaction of both the players and the spectators, it seems likely that more of these matches would be welcomed. Not only do they help provide more consistent game time and high-level performance from the top female players in BC, but they serve as a great visual example of aspiration and progression for the girls currently competing at the junior levels. "The next step for Women in BC is participating in club rugby or CanWest 7s starting in mid-January," said Patterson, "then the Senior program will start again in the Spring, commencing with a Best of the West tournament vs Alberta at the end of June."
BC Rugby would like to thank everyone who donated over the weekend. Finally, a huge thank you to the team staff, therapists, coaches, parents, match officials and UBC for helping to make the 2019 Junior Girls' Club Finals such a success.
U16 Bronze – WestBays* 27 – 14 United **
U16 Gold – Abbotsford RFC 46 – 29 Castaway Wanderers RFC
U19 Gold – Abbotsford RFC 10 – 70 Castaway Wanderers RFC
Senior Women's Exhibition – BC Blue 34 – 10 BC Gold
*(Westshore RFC & James Bay AA)
**(United RFC / Ridge Meadows Bruins RFC)
BC Senior Women's XV Team Rosters:
BC Gold:
1 Chelsea Minter Westshore RFC
2 Erin Geddie Westshore RFC
3 Ada Okonkwo University of Victoria
4 Regan Casey University of Victoria
5 Kate Field Brit Lions RFC
6 Peyton McNeil Vancouver Thunderbirds
7 Karina Christianson Capilano RFC
8 Sarah Bill Capilano RFC
9 Caity Mattison Westshore RFC
10 Shannon Craig Capilano RFC
11 Heather Muir Capilano RFC
12 Amanda Thornborough (C) Westshore RFC
13 Sya Trafford Westshore RFC
14 Olivia Burns Capilano RFC
15 Paula Simpson Nanaimo Hornets RFC
16 Caleigh Silversides Kamloops Rugby Club
17 Vlada Schevchenko Kamloops Rugby Club
BC Blue:
1 Tess Woldring Vancouver Thunderbirds
2 Zoe Williams University of Victoria / Castaway Wanderers RFC
3 Mikiela Nelson Capilano RFC
4 Kendra Roberts Vancouver Thunderbirds
5 Nicola Jones Capilano RFC
6 Thea Flundra Kamloops RFC
7 Emmy Baker Vancouver Thunderbirds
8 Laura Russell (C) Cowichan RFC
9 Julia Folk Castaway Wanderers RFC
10 Alayna Scramstead Vancouver Thunderbirds
11 Jessica Piotrowski Simon Fraser University
12 Shoshanah Suemanutafa Vancouver Thunderbirds
13 Madi Gold Vancouver Thunderbirds
14 Kira Katan University Fraser Valley
15 Sara Einarson Castaway Wanderers RFC


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Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Waning Moon
Neptune Retrograde
Uranus Retrograde
Rainy and cool
First, the good news — I'm a guest on Penny Estelle's blog as part of Christmas in October, with HEX BREAKER. You can also win a PDF of a story that will be one of the Copper Wishes Creek Tales released next year.
Lost most of my morning workday due to problems with the webhost, 1and1.com. Suddenly, it won't let me put ANY buttons on my site. It used to be just Twitter and Facebook buttons, but I could drive to a computer with IE on it and put in the "Buy Now" buttons on my site. No more. They basically want to double what they're charging me and say "that's how it's always been". Then why have I had those buttons on my site previously? Plus, of course, the usual problems with changing font size not taking, and wonky links. Why would I pay double what I'm paying now, when they don't even give me the service for which I pay now? I lost at least three hours of work time, for which I will invoice them.
So, anyone who takes the upcoming Fast & Fun workshops just has to make direct PayPal payment, without the buttons, which looks unprofessional. I will be billing them for lost income.
And then their dumbass "customer service" people argue with me.
As soon as I can free the files they continue to hold hostage, I'm outta there.
We got our first seal at the National Marine Life Center. You can see pictures of Townsend here. Isn't that the cutest little face ever? We are so excited! He's a lively little guy, a harbor seal. His arrival was exciting!
Then, the chairperson of the Mermaid Ball and I visited a couple of locations for next year's Mermaid Ball. Both locations were good; each had positives and negatives that need to be weighed in terms of the choice. We're going to look at two more today.
Checked on Townsend before we headed home (little cutie, getting settled in his tank).
Worked with the students in the Supporting Characters workshop — some excellent work. They're taking it seriously.
Couldn't get into Savvy Authors at all to work with my tarot students — I tried in three different browsers, but MacGeorge says, no honey, it's got malware, we're not going there. This has been an ongoing issue for the better part of a year. I feel for them, but it's also putting all of us behind a lot.
Didn't get a chance to do any schoolwork yesterday, so I'll have to make up for it today, working on my final project for Sustainability, and watching lectures for this week in all three classes.
I know it's coming up quickly, but the "Dissecting Guidelines" workshop is this Saturday, October 13, and the "The First Three Pages: Dynamic Openings" is on October 20. This is the only time they will be offered this year, and they're very reasonably priced. More information here.
Got to get a lot of work done this morning, before I head out again to look at venues!


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Sometimes you meet a person and you just click – You're comfortable with them, like you've known them your whole life, and you don't have to pretend to be anyone or anything.
3 Comments
This is not so convenient when you meet your soulmate, they make you question everything.
Matter of trust and openness commenter Petya…besides your soulmate has the finesse in dealing human matters…respects privacy…
Great moment and memory to have met a soul in the Law of Attraction and simply asking me from what country I came from….and an episode was made in the history of online world…
Thanks so much for having helped a bruised heart….


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#ThreatThursday - SpeakUp
September 3, 2020
This #ThreatThursday we are releasing our first macOS threat to the SCYTHE Community Threats GitHub. As more and more customers migrate to Apple products, we want to provide adversary emulation plans that work against macOS as well. SCYTHE has the ability to create campaigns for Windows, Linux, and macOS. This post will look at emulating a macOS threat known as SpeakUp.
Cyber Threat Intelligence
SpeakUp is documented and mapped to MITRE ATT&CK in its own software page. SpeakUp has a Linux and a macOS variant and we will focus on emulating the macOS variant. The main reference to this threat actor comes from research at CheckPoint.
SpeakUp uses POST and GET requests over HTTP to talk to its command and control server, and does some interesting things with the User Agent as well as with POST requests. The initial POST packet will send a victim ID so that it can register the victim on the C2 server. Once registered, the implant will look to pull more information on the victim through the use of common discovery commands such as "uname -a" and "ifconfig -a". The implant also has a fixed "knock" interval that it uses to communicate with the C2 server for new commands.
As for the User Agent, SpeakUp uses three specific User-Agents for communication with its C2 server. Two of the User Agents are MacOSX while the third is a hashed string of the word liteHTTP
- Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; U; CPU OS 3_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/531.21.10 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/BADDAD
- Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; U; CPU OS 3_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/531.21.10 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/7B405
One of SpeakUp's main features is its ability to serve another payload post-infection. We have seen SpeakUp serve XMRig miners to its infected servers to mine Monero coins. It should be able to just as easily serve another type of miner or something even more destructive.
Adversary Emulation Plan
To emulate SpeakUp, we'll first use SCYTHE's default heartbeat since SpeakUp has a fixed knock interval when communicating with the C2 Server. We'll also use one of the two MacOSX User-Agents for this MacOS campaign.
Here is an adversary emulation profile for SpeakUp. The emulation plan can be downloaded from the SCYTHE Community Threats Github and imported to your SCYTHE instance.
To set the User Agent, it is as simple and adding parameters for the Communication Modules:
As mentioned in the Cyber Threat Intelligence portion, SpeakUp looks to register the victim information onto the C2 server through the use of a number of discovery commands.
Since SpeakUp is also able to serve an additional payload, we will be using the downloader module to grab a benevolent file, save it as a shell script, then cat it as a proof of concept. This will allow us to stay non-destructive with our emulation.
Defend against SpeakUp
The primary tool in the defending against SpeakUp comes from a common source: the network traffic. As of the reporting, we can see that SpeakUp reliably uses specific user agents, and heartbeat intervals for its C2. For example, in SpeakUp's HTTP traffic, a network monitor would reliable see the strings: "Mobile/BADDAD", "Mobile/7B405" and "E9BC3BD76216AFA560BFB5ACAF5731A3", together these create some very clear IOC to look at from the network layer.
As for the behaviors and progoation, defense can be found by monitoring and logging of accounts for strange or unexpected behavior. The ability to detect when users (and especially root) are performing commands without your intent is critical in catching threats such as SpeakUp early. Finally, the regular auditing of cron is critical, as this is SpeakUp's primary mechanism for persistence.
In this #ThreatThursday, we looked at our first macOS community threat. We started by consuming Cyber Threat Intelligence about SpeakUp and learning about the macOS malware variant. We created an adversary emulation plan using the same User-Agent and C2 profile as SpeakUp, shared it in our Community Threats Github, and showed how to emulate it yourself. Lastly, we covered how to defend against macOS threats. We hope you enjoyed it!
This Threat Thursday post discusses active research by SCYTHE and other cited third parties into an ongoing threat. The information in this post should be considered preliminary and may be updated as research continues. This information is provided "as-is" without any warranty or condition of any kind, either express or implied.
About SCYTHE
SCYTHE provides an advanced attack emulation platform for the enterprise and cybersecurity consulting market. The SCYTHE platform enables Red, Blue, and Purple teams to build and emulate real-world adversarial campaigns in a matter of minutes. Customers are in turn enabled to validate the risk posture and exposure of their business and employees and the performance of enterprise security teams and existing security solutions. Based in Arlington, VA, the company is privately held and is funded by Gula Tech Adventures, Paladin Capital, Evolution Equity, and private industry investors. For more information email email@example.com, visit https://scythe.io, or follow on Twitter @scythe_io.


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Not only are we getting a heap of new music this month, we're also getting some more TV to satiate the musical historians among us. TV One is re-upping their collection of Unsung features starting January 14th, and we are so here for it. So which artists are they dusting off from the musical shelves and placing under the spotlight, you ask? Over the next few weeks, we get four new episodes of the series and an interesting line-up of former superstars. Rick James, Peaches & Herb, Angie Stone and Meli'sa Morgan headline the new season. We're super curious and nosey to see these backstories, especially Rick James and Peaches & Herb, which were both supposed to air last year.
In the past, we've learned the untold stories of artists like Bobby Womack, Gerald LeVert and Montell Jordan. What we love about Unsung is that we get the other side of the glitz and glam we often hope is their reality. While some of the episodes give us a serious case of the sads, a lot of them do end with a shiny light at the end of the musical tunnel. Check out the episode air dates below and be sure to take a trip down memory lane with Unsung. Let us know whose story you're itching to see and if you've missed a few seasons, nine to be exact, you can catch a few old episodes of Unsung on the TV One website.
TV One Unsung episode air dates:
January 14th - Rick James
January 21st - Peaches & Herb
January 28th - Angie Stone
February 4th - Meli'sa Morgan


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Product Information
Make a statement! This lush arrangement of hot pink roses and gracefully trailing ivy can be a fabulously romantic gift, or a fun-filled gift for a girlfriend.
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"Multiple top international news outlets confirm that a list of 1.95 million Chinese Communist Party members has been leaked, and in it are the names of potentially thousands of individuals who live and work in the West, including at major financial institutions, medical research and pharmaceutical companies, and foreign governments." READ FULL STORY HERE: LEAK CONFIRMED: Chinese Communists Have Infiltrated Top Companies, Governments In US, UK, Australia – National File
This is your warning not to take a vaccine and not to lay down and do as they tell you for your own good. It is for their easy takeover that you obey. It is NOT FOR YOUR OWN GOOD – it is for their ease of takeover!
This is not a game. This is not a trial run – this is an attack on AMERICA! America is at war with the world forces and they are evil. The global alliance is using bio warfare and it is destroying everything it can get away with destroying. Nation leaders have signed on to destroy their own nations in order to usher in their coveted new world order. It appears that the only nation leader who has not signed on is PRESIDENT DONALD JOHN TRUMP AND HE IS HANGING ON BY A THREAD AGAINST THIS EVIL FORCE.
He needs YOU to COME TO THE AID OF YOUR COUNTRY! It is not a matter of resisting, it is a matter of standing up for those who are fighting on the front lines and those front lines are padded with traitors who want you to shut up and those who won't they don't have nice things planned for you.
The bottom line of this war is you all go down, you all are imprisoned. There is one time to stop this and that time is now! RIGHT NOW!
DO I HAVE FAITH THAT AMERICA WILL WIN? Yes! I also know that nothing is gained without standing up for what is right and if you aren't doing that…there is no telling how much hell on earth you will endure before victory is gained. For God's people win in the end…but there is no timeline given for when that will be if his people are lukewarm/complacent. For it has been complacency that has allowed those who hate us to gain such power over us. One man can not fight the giants alone, and all of us together can not fight the giants alone, it takes God at the head and God only can stop this world evil. Stay in prayer and put on the whole armor of God for we are in the battle of all battles. Stay strong!
Dianne Marshall


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Back When they Bucked with Earl Batteate
story by Siri Stevens Earl Batteate (Bud) was born Nov. 20, 1918. He grew up in Hayward, Calif. "I didn't get to hear the news […]
Terry Peek craved riding bulls. And although he never made a living at it, it was his hobby, his lifestyle, and where he made many friends. The Bandera, Texas cowboy was born in 1945 in Paris, Texas, the son of Joe Bailey and Robbie Lee Peek. When he was seventeen years old, he was at a rodeo, behind the chutes, when someone asked him, "Son, do you want to get on this bull?" He thought it was a good idea, so he said, "You bet." The man asked, "Did you sign a release form?" "I said, sure I did," he recalls. "I didn't even know what a release form was."
So he found a cotton rope, wrapped it around the bull's girth, and got on. He rode him for six seconds, got bucked off, and "from then on, I said, boy, this is fun and this is what I want to do." The next Monday, he bought a bull rope and a pair of spurs, and his rodeo career began.
Terry, who had worked for local farmers and ranchers around Paris, had broken and ridden horses for people, earning $35 a head. After his first bull ride, he went to every junior rodeo he could get to, hitching rides with buddies or going on his own. He was friends with Sammy Andrews, Gerald Smith, who owned Wing Rodeo, and Robert Wright. Friends would meet at Robert's, near Talco, Texas, every Sunday, to ride bulls.
He was also friends with Todd Whatley, who introduced him to world champion bull rider Freckles Brown. Freckles' home in Soper, Okla., was just across the state line from Paris, and Terry went to work for Freckles, putting up hay on his ranch. Terry rode bulls at the Paris rodeo, where Freckles was the judge, and when Terry won a go-round, Freckles was "tickled to death," he said. "He said, Terry, did you get your check? I said, I don't even know where to go." Freckles laughed and said, "Son, go right up those stairs to the announcer's stand and there will be a secretary there with a check." It was a check for $250, "which was huge for me. I came back, showed it to Freckles, and he said, 'that-a-boy.'"
His parents were not pleased with his decision to ride bulls. His junior year in high school, he declared to his parents that football did not interest him anymore; he'd be rodeoing. His mother had something to say about that. "She said," Terry remembers, "let me explain something to you. You've made a commitment to play football to the coach. You're going to fulfill that commitment. You can ride bulls, but you'll play football." He did, but "I was thrilled when the season was over," he said.
His parents grew to accept his choice to rodeo. "They finally understood, this boy is going to do what he's going to do. My mother said to my dad, let's just go to some of his rodeos and watch him, so they did."
After high school graduation, Terry was a student at Paris Junior College. He was still rodeoing, and to him, rodeo was more important than school. He declared to his mother that he was going to quit school and rodeo full time. "My mother had this look on her face," he recalled. "She didn't say anything." A few weeks later, his mother told him Sonny Sikes, the rodeo coach at Sam Houston State University, had called, asking him to rodeo for the team. "I said, 'he does?'" And she said, yes. "They have a great team there and he's heard about you and he wants you to come and rodeo at Sam Houston." It was a set-up; Sonny Sikes had never heard of Terry but his mother arranged it so that Terry would go back to college.
It worked. Terry attended Sam Houston State for two years, riding bulls for them and earning a degree.
While in college, he qualified for the College National Finals Rodeo in 1967 and 1968, finishing the '67 season as Southern Region bull riding champion. Terry was in good company, competing alongside the likes of Phil Lyne, Carl Deeton, Ronnie Williams, and other good cowboys.
His parents made a real sacrifice to send him to college. Before he left for Huntsville, his mom and dad gave him fifty dollars. It was what they were able to save for him. His mother told him, "your dad and I have saved fifty dollars and we want you to have it, to get off to a good start." Each week, his mom would put a case of Campbell's soup on the bus to him. Terry would meet the bus at Huntsville to pick it up. "I always had food," he said, even if he did get tired of soup. Sometimes he'd trade a buddy a can of soup for a hamburger. In 1968, he graduated from college with a degree in ag education. He enrolled in the master's program at Sam Houston, but got drafted into the Marine Corps. He spent two years in the Marine Corps, stationed in various places on the west coast and in the Pacific, before his honorable discharge.
When he got out of the Marines, he got a job in Coldspring, Texas, teaching agriculture. He was still competing at 35 or 40 rodeos a year, all over east Texas, Louisiana, and farther. They were regional and International Pro Rodeo Association events.
After two years in Coldspring, he moved to Cortez, Colo., spending five years there as an ag teacher and the high school rodeo coach. He was still rodeoing, this time in Colorado, Utah and that part of the country.
In 1979, Terry moved to Ft. Collins, to work on his doctorate in ag science at Colorado State University. After earning his advanced degree, he moved to Glenwood Springs, Colo., to work for Colorado Mountain College as dean of community education. He had worked with Exxon Mobil, getting students jobs with the oil company. When Exxon offered him a job, he took it. They sent him to Colombia, South America for three years, then Mexico, then back to the States: Houston, Illinois and California.
But he decided he missed teaching, so he went back to the classroom, as ag mechanics instructor and rodeo coach at Texas A&I in Kingsville (now Texas A&M in Kingsville). He loved the classroom and helping rodeo athletes. For the five years he was in Kingsville, his athletes qualified for the College National Finals every year.
It was there that he got on his last bull. Terry had quit riding at age 35, but at the age of 49, he got on one more. During an evening practice, the college bull riders couldn't stay on. "They couldn't ride a milk cow that night," Terry remembered. "I said, 'golly, you boys are pathetic. Let me show you how this works." He got on a bull, rode for eight seconds, and when he dismounted, he fell and the bull stepped on him, breaking his pelvis and separating it three and a half inches. The college kids were laughing. "Yeah, yeah, Dr. Peek," they said, as the ambulance came. "I was always one to take a dare," Terry said.
After five years in Kingsville, the wanderlust in Terry returned, and he moved to Farmington, New Mexico, where he worked at San Juan College for five years. Then it was on to Roseburg, Oregon, to Umpquah Community College as vice-president. Two years later, he was on to Wenatchee (Wash.) Valley College.
He and his first wife had two sons: Josh Peek and Jason Peek (Terry and his sons are no relation to the steer wrestler Josh Peek from Colorado), and one of his grandsons, Idan Peek, needed some extra attention, so Terry raised him. After his divorce, he was single for many years. "That was good," he said. "I wasn't distracted. I was able to do my work and do a good job of raising that child."
Then a chance encounter on a plane brought him his wife, Dorene. It was on a flight from Austin to Portland, and he was seated next to her. As they visited, he discovered that she was a barrel racer and her father had raised some National Finals Rodeo bucking bulls. After the plane ride, they stayed in touch, then married in 2008.
Terry retired in 2009 and the couple settled in Bandera, Texas. He still receives phone calls from former college kids who were inspired and helped by him. He was an example to them, that rodeo and a good education aren't exclusive of each other; he was able to get his schooling done yet still ride bulls. He loves to talk to former students. "They appreciate what I did for them, and I was lucky to have them," he said. He also has a high respect for Sonny Sikes, and the two stay in touch.
He is a member of the Rodeo Cowboy Alumni Association, a group that gets together twice a year and raises funds for scholarships for young people. He enjoys getting together with other rodeo friends.
In retirement, he golfs and works in a saw mill he and a friend purchased. He makes furniture, and still attends rodeos, including the National Finals Rodeo, Pendleton, Bozeman, Mont., and others. There are several retired cowboys in Bandera, and they get together. "We talk about how good we were, back when they bucked," he laughed.
Bull riding was his love. "I loved to get on those things," he said. "I just craved getting on bulls. I couldn't wait to get on the next bull, for so many years."
"I wasn't one of the best, but I had a lot of passion for what I was doing."
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