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Traditions of breaking plates not in Singapore.
Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash
Breaking dinnerware at a celebratory gathering as a traditional ritual can be considered a dying tradition like many other old superstitions. While the majority of the populace might not have observed this practice, most are familiar with the practice through film and television dramas. However, as observers from outside, the reason behind the practice is often unknown. Therefore, it leads people to wonder about the questions like “who breaks dinnerware at family gatherings?” or “what is the reasoning behind the practice?”
Origin of the tradition
From a historical perspective, it was a Greek wedding tradition dating back to the middle ages. There are also some cultures that use the practice to mourn the passing of dear relatives. While the tradition might have been a popular ritual in the past, there are few families who still follow this tradition in the current society. While there has been much such tradition which faded into obscurity, the bizarre nature of this tradition has led to numerous renditions of the practice in popular media which is the main reason behind people remembering this practice. The development of the society in the middle ages was based on wealth and nobility and ostentatious displays of wealth were common to practise among the nobility and wealthy citizenry. While there is little historical support behind this justification of the practice, logic dictates that the reasoning to be plausible reasons as the ceramic and glass dinnerware were a symbol of wealth in middle age and it was impossible for a commoner to own even one set of such items in the household. Therefore, the breaking of dinnerware in the gatherings could be considered a clear display of wealth from a practical perspective as destroying an item so highly valued by the people indicates overabundance for the families practising such traditions.
While the economic reasons behind the practice can be explained easily, it is impossible to use this factor as acceptable reasoning behind the practice from a social perspective. There are many symbolic factors behind the practice that are often contradictory. In the Greek myths, the spirit of a dead person does not leave the body until three days after burial. At his point, the family of the deceased visit the grave and take part in the ceremony where the priest blesses a plate of koliva and breaks the plate on the tombstone after scattering the blessed food to the wind. The reasoning for this is based on symbolism where the breaking of a plate is considered a loss resembling the loss of a loved family member which is very similar to ritualistic sacrifices in other cultures. This helps the participants grieve and display their feeling of loss. The extravagant funerals are often a sign of the status of the dead person and his family which is aligned with the previous logic explaining the practice. This practise was common in the Greek funerary rites and has the oldest record of the ritualistic breaking of dinnerware which was later adopted in the other social occasions.
Current practices
Currently, many of the people only know about the breaking of dinnerware at Greek weddings which has been displayed numerous times in popular media. However, the historical record shows that the practice related to funerary rites was much older. Therefore, it can be assumed that the source of the tradition lies in the funerary rites. The reasoning behind breaking dinnerware in celebratory occasions, specifically weddings, is derived from the same concept. The breaking of dinnerware at happy occasions is supposed to deceive the evil spirits that might be interested in spreading malice on the happy occasions. The breaking of plates is supposed to identify the domestic disturbances so as not to attract the attention of such evil spirits. Therefore, the ritual in weddings seems to be based on protecting the happiness of the newlywed couple (Alexiou, 2002). However, this practice is rarely seen in modern times as this is considered an unnecessary waste and the potential dangers. It is only practised on occasions to attract tourists learning about foreign traditions and thus lost its cultural significance in modern times.
The plate throwing is often done by tourists in the various exhibition performances for tourists to applaud the efforts of the musicians and dancers. The reasoning for this practice or kefi is the same as the wedding which is to aver the evil spirits which might bring bad luck to the performers. This is also a matter of interest as the danger to the performers can be high as the intoxicated tourist’s poor aim can affect the safety of the bystanders as well as performers. The establishments that allow tourists to participate in this activity are required to have a licence from civil authorities which is used to ensure the safety standards and control the potential danger. While there are few establishments still practising this ritual as a tourist attraction, most have replaced this with flowers which are far less dangerous and easier to clean up.
Modern takes on the old tradition
While the tradition might have become well-known due to the novelty and bizarre nature, in the current society this is seen as a wasteful and dangerous making it a dead tradition form a social perspective which is only seen in exhibition performances or tourist attractions. The cultural significance of the tradition might be lost in modern times but this tradition remains as a way of attracting attention. In roadside traditional cuisine restaurants in Athens, there are often plate smashers stationed in the doorways who throw plates to attract the tourists. Recently, protesters used the breaking plates to signify their hunger strike where the shards were sent to the embassy as a protest.
Therefore, the practice of smashing dinnerware might have started as a superstition; modern practices have evolved to represent different things which are based on the current social beliefs. The tradition has been abandoned by the general populace due to its danger and messy nature and only remains as a symbolic gesture and expensive noisemaker losing its origins mired in the superstitions of middle age. | https://andglazed.co/blogs/news/traditions-of-breaking-plates-not-in-singapore |
Welfare and kindness are essential ingredients in the very nature of knowledge. Knowledge serves humans in difficult situations. Knowledge always proves helpful at all times in resolving problems. We know from the experience of the past that knowledge equips humans with courage and audacity whenever they are confronted with challenges. Basically, knowledge begets capacity and ability. Acquisition of knowledge widens the horizon of human mind, which ensures development of the society. Knowledge opens the gates of possibilities towards advancement. This is why all world religions have laid great emphasis on acquiring knowledge. Islam has placed knowledge in its priorities. The first revelation of the Holy Qur’an, saying, Read in the name of your Lord…(96:1) drives home the point that knowledge is the most important asset of all humans. It will be seen here that the first chapter of the Holy Qur’an al-‘Alaq and the first verse thereof command humans to seek knowledge. There stems a question from this command of our Lord as to what knowledge aims at. What does education stand for? What changes are brought about in humans by means of knowledge?
A list of the aims and objectives of education could be quite long, but of these the most important objective is that knowledge lays the seeds of awareness, giving humans the ability to develop the faculty of understanding or commonsense. The first aim of knowledge is the recognition of their Creator. Humans should know the purpose of their creation. Knowing the Creator is to know the purpose of one’s creation since the Creator of the universe has created human beings. Humans must also reflect on who the Creator is. They should seek the answer to the question as to who has created the earth and heavens because everything belonging to the universe has been created to benefit them. Humans should apply their mind to understand why so much prestige has been conferred on them simply for the reason that the first priority and importance are attached with them. After acquiring knowledge humans reflect on these questions because such a reflection is one of the basic aims of knowledge.
Also, knowledge plays a vital role in the formation of a moderate and righteous society. Society owes its creation to human existence. If society is adorned with piety, moderation and righteousness, humanity will be seen on the path of advancement, and that particular society will find a place of pride across national and regional boundaries. On the other hand, if a society falls short of social values, it will become a running sore for the whole world, because in such a society attention is wrongly focused on evil designs instead of positivity. This kills the very purpose of human creation and causes the wrath of Allah, the Almighty. Ignorance leads to waywardness, forgetting the purpose of their creation humans take themselves to the pleasures of temporal life and are ever seen bent upon improving it. Therefore, these wayward people take recourse to killing and destruction among fellow beings; their blood lust causes killings of each other. Then, there are those who, intoxicated with the wealth they possess, transgress all limits. Further, there are those who exceed all limits to acquire wealth and power or authority. There are also those obsessed with their pedigree prejudices who consider only themselves worthy of all the good things. All these evil thoughts and actions ruin society, giving way to jealousy and malice and the situation worsens culminating in tension and war. Families get pitched against each other. Brothers don’t see eye to eye and go for each other’s blood. In such conditions peace and tranquility become strange words. All this happens on account of lack of knowledge. When humans turn away from seeking knowledge, their ignorance dumps the society at marshy land from where it can’t extricate itself.
Promotion of human freedom is included among the basic aims of knowledge. A human adorned with rich knowledge considers freedom fundamental. The person believes that freedom to think, freedom to express views and to live on one’s own terms are fundamental rights. Contrarily, if a society is deprived of knowledge and members of the society are not concerned with the pursuit of knowledge, it results in a section of people conspiring to subjugate them into slavery, treating them in an inhumanly manner and also making them subservient to its authority by denying them the privilege of thinking. Under these circumstances human ability to reflect on their condition vanishes. They come to resemble tamed animals whereas they were born as rational animal. Such a life is subjected to one purpose which consists in blindly following one’s earthly master, executing all his orders and to live according to his wishes.
The main cause of humans getting chained in slavery-like conditions is that they are deprived of knowledge. When someone receives education, he or she thinks about himself or herself future and conditions around themselves take those independent decisions, thinking that first of all it is they who have the right over their life. A human owes this quality to knowledge. It is for this reason that those in authority have always denied slaves the right to acquire knowledge. History tells us that people who acquired knowledge raised their voice for freedom. They launched protest movements against human suffering with the strength of their knowledge.
By getting equipped with knowledge humans take on several fruitful activities to make society prosperous. They challenge the oppressors and support the oppressed by all possible means. Among human infirmities comes over penchant for looking down on others. It is observed that man generally looks down on others. Those in possession of great wealth consider others inferior and contemptible while they project themselves as highly civilised. Some people take pride in their pedigree, considering themselves superior to the rest of the people as they think their family is the most outstanding. In their sight all others are low-born. They think that they enjoy distinction over other humans and they unleash oppression on the unprivileged, making them the target of their tyranny. They think with great pride that those who fall outside their superior social status can be subjected to terror as if doing so was their hereditary right. On the other hand those enriched with knowledge confront oppressors and come to the aid of the oppressed, preventing attempts to terrorise the weak. This quality to rise strongly against the oppressor is gifted by knowledge and is rightly considered a great virtue.
Knowledge transforms human heart to a great degree. Persons illuminated with knowledge do not rely on materialistic pursuits alone; instead they are temperamentally inclined to think about human well-being. Knowledge teaches preservation of virtues of self-consciousness. Knowledge makes humans exemplary by adorning them with attributes like tawhid (belief in God’s unity), love of God, magnanimity, striving hard, modesty, contentment, tolerance, moderation, helping the poor, challenging oppressors, disgust of lay life. Thus society becomes pleasant and a vision of the aims of knowledge becomes manifest. It becomes clear why Allah the Almighty has laid great emphasis on acquiring knowledge, why does every religion call for the acquisition of knowledge, and why excellence and greatness of knowledge are talked about at length.
The moral conclusion drawn from the above discussion is that education aims at preparing humans for self-reform and to bring in them such a transformation that they become ideal citizens and helpful in bringing into existence a righteous and moderate society. They should take a strong stand against oppression, liberating humans from the chains of slavery. Besides this, the most important purpose of education is that humans shall know their Creator; should understand the purpose of their creation. Wisdom should dawn on them to understand their own self, and they should acquire the attributes to strengthen and consolidate self-awareness. | http://www.iosworld.org/currentaffiarsdetails.aspx?current_affairs=932&catype=1 |
Many people must dream of meeting a great artist like Rembrandt eye to eye on an equal footing.
The Museum is making that dream come true for art-loving children. In the collection display The Children’s Republic they will be able to see major works of Baroque art literally at eye level and interspersed with pictures by young artists, aged between eight and twelve, who have been inspired by the detail and narrative richness of Dutch seventeenth-century painting.
Children and their education were accorded exceptional importance in the Netherlands at that time. The family was seen as the basis and guarantor of a wealthy society, with education forming an essential precondition of economic growth. Such views are clearly reflected in the art of the period.
As the new presentation in the Museum’s Baroque galleries makes clear, children play an important part in many paintings, whether as the protagonists of portraits or as supporting figures in genre images or landscapes. In a sense, then, the Netherlands was indeed a children’s republic. | https://wsimag.com/art/25635-the-childrens-republic |
There have been many cultural icons who have put India on the world map with their excellent literary skills. One of the greatest icons amongst them is Rabindranath Tagore. Being a Bengali and being born in a generation which marked the end of Bangali cultural simplicity and pride, I feel very regretful to say that I am not well-versed with Tagore.
Being born and brought up in Kolkata, you cannot miss the presence of Tagore. Tagore and his works are omnipotent and also omnipresent. Coming from a family which was way ahead of its time, Tagore’s works reflect a line of radical thought which strike a cord with individuals from all generations. Throughout his stories, plays, poetry and novels, Tagore has talked about a lot of issues which were taboo topics at that point of time and which are a taboo even now.
Known to be deeply engaging, Tagore’s texts have a tendency to raise complex emotions and raise striking questions in one’s mind. This is the precise reason why not everyone is deeply well-versed or connected with Tagore. One consistent theme in some of his later works has been to challenge societal norms. Many of these questions are still being asked by different schools of thought. A lot of these important questions are similar to the questions raised by what we presently relate to or theorise as Feminism. I’m not saying that Tagore was a feminist, however, he did raise similar questions through his works, which we as feminists are asking even now.
Streer Patra (The Wife’s Letter) is an epistolary written by Tagore, expressing a woman’s plight and resentment with the way her life unravels. The story however covers much more important issues than what it presents at face value. The text reflects the difficulty of widows and how society oppressed them during the 19th century.
The Bengal Renaissance was a cultural reformation to improve the status of women and women’s education.
The plot revolves around Mrinal, who is married to an upper-class, upper-caste patriarchal zamindar household. After marriage Mrinal is mocked for her rustic nature. However, her affinal family is highly aware of her sharp brains. As Mrinal goes on to describe the mundane nature of her daily lifestyle, a fragmentation in the story line is added by the appearance of Bindu. Bindu is the widowed cousin of Mrinal’s sister-in-law. Tortured by her extended paternal family, Bindu runs away and then comes to stay with her cousin. Troubles start appearing here as well when Mrinal grows fond of Bindu and starts fighting for her with the rest of the family.
Bindu is however soon married off to another household, to a mentally-challenged man. Terrified of her husband and mother-in-law, Bindu runs away from her in-laws household within three days of the wedding and comes back to Mrinal. However, Bindu has to succumb to patriarchal norms and go back to her husband. Mrinal’s desperate attempt to rescue Bindu through her brother also failed, when Mrinal’s brother brought back the news of Bindu’s suicide. Losing all faith in the institution of the family, Mrinal left her husband and her family to find solace in tirtha (pilgrimage).
Tagore was one of the pioneers of the Bengal Renaissance which took place during the 19th century. The Bengal Renaissance was a cultural reformation by a group of intellectuals within the state to improve the status of women and women’s education. While on the one hand these group of intellectuals have been criticised for being embarrassed about the illiteracy of their community’s women and also for their ‘barbaric‘ customs, on the other hand they have also been praised for bringing a concrete change to the lifestyle of Bengali women, and Indian women at large.
Through Mrinal’s narration of her lifestyle we get to know about the different patriarchal customs which have continued to bind society. When Mrinal is being ‘seen’ for marriage, her parents are both sitting in anxiety waiting for the approval of the groom’s uncle. A woman’s beauty is a criteria which is primary for being valued for marriage marketability. A woman who is beautiful will not have a dearth of men seeking her hand in marriage. This redundant thought on beauty is still garnered in the minds of the society and presently commercialisation of beauty has made it possible for women to achieve societal standards of beauty, so as to improve their marriage marketability.
When Mrinal’s husband asks her why she keeps roaming around the entire day, she replies that she rests during the afternoon and reads. Her husband then asks what is the reason to read? “Oto pore ki hobe? Tumi ki ar Raichand, Premchand upadhi pabe?” (What will come out of your reading books? Will you get titles like Raichand and Premchand?), Mrinal painfully explains how she is bound by her beauty and no one gave any importance to her intelligence. Tagore beautifully expresses this through the concerns which Mrinal’s mother has for her daughter.
Mrinal narrates, “Ma amar buddhi’ta niye khub udbighno chhilen, meye manusher pokkhe ek balai!” (Mother always used to worry about my intelligence, she thought that it was a curse for me!) This line beautifully sums up how women were only viewed as objects which were to be owned and patronised by men. Women who were capable of thinking were dangerous and hence had to face resistance.
“Jake badha mene cholte hobe, she jodi buddhi ke mene cholte chay, tahole tar kopal bhangbei!” (The person who has to follow restrictions, shouldn’t want to follow her brains, then she’d have to face resistance). The thought that women might actually possess the ability to rationalise and participate in activities other than household chores was completely alien to the society at that point of time. Hence a woman having too much intelligence was not a boon but a curse!
In terms of culture, these group of reformers believed that the Indian culture was superior to western culture, however it needed certain kinds of polishing. One such polishing was ‘empowering‘ women. Women who were not granted education and treated like an object lying in the household, were now expected to be educated and suitable to the Western educated man.
Tagore exposes the hollowness of the reform movement IN the 19th century.
What was lost in this context was the fact that in both scenarios, women were being adapted or were adapting themselves to the likes of men, and thereby not utilising their own agency in any manner. Women were seen as the barometer of respectability of the society, which only led to further policing of their behaviour. The burden of upholding ‘Indian culture and tradition’ was placed on them. Thus, even though there were ‘reforms’ carried out for women, yet there were no real reforms being made FOR women.
Thus like Mrinal, Bimala from Ghare-Baire also had a kind of emptiness which consumed her every living moment. They found no purpose to their life and to the skills that they already had.
Tagore was inspired to write Streer Patra when he was requested by a reader of the Amrita Bazar Patrika (1914) to write on the widely reported death of Snehlata, a young Bengali woman who set herself on fire to prevent her parents the torture of arranging dowry for her marriage.
Bindu’s death and the torturous life which she went through are not a tribute to only Snehlata but to the numerous women who did not find a voice or an appropriate way to express their plight during that period, and even now. Literature cannot help us solve practical problems of dowry deaths and honour killings and domestic violence, but literature gives us the greater power of empathy. Empathy and a subjective understanding of these issues is what helps us relate to their causes and restore their survivors back to normal life. So let’s thank the Nobel laureate for creating a platform for discussion and empathy. | https://feminisminindia.com/2017/05/10/rabindranath-tagore-streer-patra/ |
Olla peeps! Architecture is, a vast topic, and there is a lot to learn about it. So, let’s talk about Baroque architecture in this post. I have tried to collect as much information as I could so that you get all your answers in this one post. Let’s make reading more interesting, so stay connected. Now we will start with our free tour to the amazing world of Baroque architecture.
1) What is Baroque architecture?
- It is the style of the Baroque era which began in the late 16th-century, Italy.
- The buildings represented the style of that era.
- Baroque Architecture took the touch of the Roman vocabulary of Renaissance architecture and modified it in a new fashion, often to express the triumph of the Catholic Church.
- It played with new forms, light and shadow and dramatic intensity. This brought in a new style called Baroque style.
- The major difference between Renaissance and Baroque architecture was that Renaissance focused on wealth and power of the Italian courts and it was a blend of secular and religious forces, whereas Baroque focused on both emotional aspects and wealth and power of the Catholic Church.
- In Italy the term “Baroque” originally meant a pedantic, contorted argument of little dialectic value.
- Later in almost all European languages, it ended up becoming a synonym for the extravagant, deformed, abnormal, unusual, absurd, and irregular.
- Eighteenth-century critics adopted this pattern to apply to the art of the preceding century.
- Baroque architecture went ahead, displaying these specific characteristics: the use of movement, whether actual or implied; the attempt to represent or suggest infinity; gave importance to light and it’s effect; theatrical effects; mixing various forms in paintings, sculptures, etc.
- Baroque architecture also came in limelight due to its town planning techniques: arrangement of cities, creation of great parks and gardens around residences, etc.
2) Building Styles in Baroque architecture?
- Baroque architects understood buildings as a single mass which one can shape according to the number of requirements.
- For Baroque architects, designing building was like making a huge sculpture. It was like shaping a huge mass of soft plastic or clay into a piece of imaginary lines in the air.
- Complex, rich and dynamic designs took the place of simple and plane structures.
- Earlier, the ground-plans were in forms of squares, circles and Greek cross. In Baroque architecture, the designs evolved into ellipse, oval or more complicated geometrical figures.
- Baroque architects introduced the idea of movement in a building. They gave movements to architectural elements in the form of more or less regular curves.
- Giving movements to elements became a dominant motif of Baroque architecture.
- Some of the best examples of this motif are Church of S. Andrea al Quirinale by Gia Lorenzo Bernini, creator, and exponent of Roman Baroque and S.Carlo alle Quattro Fontane by Borromini.
- The Italian architect Guarino Guarini evolved and put to use an “Undulating order” in his buildings in the form of curvaceous bases and columns.
- This also led to the evolution of new architectural and ornamental elements. These elements were in the form of a ribbon curling round at the ends.
- The function of these elements, was not purely decorative, but, principally functional and strengthening .
3) Distinctive features of Baroque architecture
- Complex, surprising and dynamic buildings.
- In churches, use of broader naves and oval forms
- Dramatic use of light; strong light and shade contrasts as at the church of Weltenburg Abbey, uniform lighting by means of several windows as at the church of Weingarten Abbey.
- Use of incomplete architectural elements to give different effects.
- Rich use of colour and ornaments( figures or putti made out of wood, plaster or stucco,marble finishing).
- Huge ceiling frescoes.
- The interior is a shell for paintings, sculptures and stucco(especially in late Baroque).
- External facade often characterized by a dramatic central projection.
- illusory effects (3-D appearance) and the blending of painting and architecture.
- Pear-shaped domes in the Bavarian, Czech, Polish and Ukrainian Baroque.
- Marian and Holy Trinity columns erected in Catholic countries.
4) Manipulation of light in Baroque architecture
- Light plays a significant role in emphasizing the appearance of a building.
- The textures of each material used in a building are different from each other. The texture of a brick wall is not the same as that of a similar wall on smooth marble or rough stone.
- The light reflects differently on different textures and hence produce different contrasting effects which add to the beauty of a building.
- Baroque architects exploited this fact for interiors and exteriors of their buildings.
- During Renaissance constructions, the purpose of the light was to make the buildings clearly visible, and monochrome with uniform lighting was in use.
- Baroque changed this pursuit of “effect” of light and played with it. Their motive was to create uneven spaces to play with light.
- Baroque architects achieved their concepts by various possibilities like: contrasting strong projections and overhangs or by making surfaces uneven with change in materials, etc.
- The above techniques gave a movement effect to the building, which emphasized it.
5) Orders in Baroque architecture
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- There were five traditional orders of architecture before Baroque era- Tuscan, Doric, Iconic, Corinthian, and Composite. These had their unique styles, forms and proportions.
- When Baroque architecture entered, a new order got introduced, named as “Colossal order.”
- Colossal order was order, with columns running up through two or three storeys. The details of the traditional orders too became enriched, complicated, and modified.
Other features which came along with the new order :
- The arches connecting one column or pilaster to the next were no longer restricted, as in Renaissance. Arches became semi-circular but were often elliptical or oval.
- Sometimes, arches were interrupted in form, with sections of straight lines which were inserted into the curve.
- This curvy element was also used above doors, windows or a whole building.
- The canonical shape of a pediment got a bit changed in Baroque architecture. They were sometimes open or combination of curved and straight lines or fantastic. Example: In Palazzo Carignano by Guarino Guarini’s- pediments appeared around doors and windows like draperies rolled back.
- Windows got changed from classical forms to more creative forms. Windows were seen including shapes like ovals or squares topped by a segment of a circle, or rectangles beneath little oval windows.
- Other details on entablatures, doors, and keystones of arches and at corners, everywhere included- volutes; stucco figures; huge, majestic and complex scrolls; and other fantastic shapes.
- Another major characteristic of Baroque architecture was the use of towers. Whether single one or pairs, but they erected the towers on the facade; domes of churches, with complex and highly decorated appearance.
Each work of Baroque architecture created its own balance between its various features. Each country developed these components in different ways. An understanding of these regional and national differences is essential to a proper understanding of the Baroque era. So, let’s learn how differences were there in different regions and nations under Baroque architecture.
6) Baroque architecture in Italy
- Italy is the platform for Baroque. It produced many good professional architects who are rated as excellent.
- Some of the most famous architects of Italy from Baroque era are Bernini, Borromini, Pietro da Cortona, and Guarino Guarini.
St. Peter’s Basilica and Bernini
- It is the most important example of Christian art. It is itself a history of the transition from Renaissance to Baroque.
- Carlo Maderna (Renaissance era) built a nave which was not a happy feature of the whole plan of the Basilica.
- In 1667 Bernini was given the great and difficult task of giving the Church of St. Peter it’s urban setting.
- He added a tower to Maderna’s facade but it didn’t workout. To increase the height of Maderna’s facade was technically impossible but Bernini took this challenge.
- In the true spirits of Baroque, he produced an impression of height by ingeniously misleading the eye.
- The open space before the church was rose in a slight gradient, crossed by pathways which approached it obliquely, enclosing an acute angle. Due to this, the facade seems narrower.
- All this led to enhancement of the Michelangelo’s dome which had been diminished by the addition of the nave.
Borromini’s designs were quite different from Bernini. They were more extravagant and restless. They included complex ground-plans and masonry, and contradiction of traditional details. His designs included oval shapes which reflected confusion and uncertainty and movements. The buildings had an elaborate and subtle combination of convex and concave forms, which again had no constructive purpose. Example- Church of S. Carlo alle Quattro Fontane.
7) Baroque architecture in France
- France gave a succession of excellent architects, more in number than Italy- Salomon de Brosse, Francois Mansart, Louis Le Vau, Jacques Lemercier and the great, Jules Hardouin Mansart.
- French architects considered themselves professional men, dedicated to the service and glorification of their king.
- In France, the ground plans were less complex, facades were more severe with greater respect to details and proportions of the traditional architectural columns.
- Example: The court of Roi Soleil.
- Landscape gardening was the glory of French Baroque. Andre Le Notre was the brilliant architect who created the new, perspective form of the garden which was earlier in the Italian Baroque Style.
- Garden style- on one side was the approach drive, the gates, the wide graveled area for carriages; and on the other side were lawns and parterres, or flower-beds in geometrical shapes, fountains, canals and broad expanses of water. Beyond all this was the dark line of woods pierced by long, wide, straight avenues which were linked by circular clearings. Example: Park at Versailles.
- France Baroque came in light for it’s maintained balance between Baroque tendencies and classical traditions.
- The Baroque architecture of Belgium and the Netherlands likewise got inspired from French.
8) Baroque architecture in Germany
- German Baroque architecture was closer to Italian Baroque, in Austria and Germany.
- The architects of this time were great as they were exceptionally accomplished and blessed with enthusiastic patronage from several royal courts of Germany- Johann Balthasar Neumann, Francis de Cuvillies, Matthaus Poppelmann.
- In Germany, Baroque sculpture was one of the propaganda as: in palaces, it impressed on the onlooker, the importance of absolute monarch; in churches, it was at the service of ‘the Counter-Reformation.
- Great architect Balthasar Neumann, produced a miracle of palace architecture in the Wurzburg Residenz. This showed his capability of producing an effect of unlimited space by an optical illusion. He included picturesque vistas and tricks of lighting. Example: Schloss Bruchsal, Vierzehnheiligen.
- Vierzehnheiligen (the Fourteen Saints) near Bamberg:
There was a flood of light while entering it and everything seems moving. It was enclosed with circles and undulating forms.
- Unlike the facades of Italian churches, German churches have kept their towers. Combination of forms reached its height.
- Effects of hidden lighting, the inclusion of fresco painting in stucco decorations, and every other possible illusionist trick came in application.
- These styles spread to Poland and Russia.
- German architects avoided sharp contrasts of light and darkness in favour of a more diffused and serene glow.
9) Baroque architecture in Spain & Portugal
- The salient and particular characteristic was a profusion of decoration.
- Whatever the form of a building was, it use to appear merely as a pretext for the ornamentation encrusting it.
- A particular style, known as ‘Churrigueresque’ dominated Spain and Portugal for two centuries.
Urban Planning
The first step was to understand how to plan a town? So, the architects dealt with it concerning the Circus and the Straight Road. It was not a perfect solution, but it was ingenious for the time. Working on the style of the French type of gardens, the evolution of great monumental fountains happened, in which architecture, sculpture, and water combined to form an ideal centerpiece and to express the feeling of Baroque. Rome became the city of fountains. Everything added up to the enhancement of its beauty.
Interior Designs
Two main characteristics of Interior Designing were :
- The complex, great staircases- began to appear in all aristocratic buildings from the seventeenth century onwards. Sometimes they became the dominating feature.
- The gallery- in origin a wide, decorated corridor, and display of showpieces. Example: Galerie des Glaces at Versailles.
Baroque is essentially an art of illusion. It implies all the tricks of scene painting, false perspective. Baroque painting or carving is an important part of its setting. If we remove them from it, then it will nearly loose all its effect.
So, this was all about Baroque architecture. I hope you liked this post and got your answers. I am always ready to take suggestions from you. So, if you have any suggestions or you want to ask any questions, you can comment below or email us directly on our website. Do subscribe to my Blog to get such relevant articles. As we were talking about architecture in this post, below are the topics which you can also check to gain more knowledge on this subject. | https://www.allassignmenthelp.co.uk/blog/world-of-baroque-architecture/ |
Below, you’ll find an in-depth explanation of attitudes in ‘Isabella, or the Pot of Basil’ by John Keats.
ATTITUDES
Wealth and social customs can destroy true love – the tension between marrying for personal love or marrying for wealth and status are at the heart of many great love narratives, and ‘Isabella, or the Pot of Basil‘ is one of them. Isabella’s brothers are depicted as the villains of the piece, yet they are also products of their environment – it could be said that Keats is more critical of the social norms and structures that oppress true love than he is of the individual villains themselves because their values are pretty much aligned with the values of their Renaissance society (until the point where they commit murder): they believe women are their property, to be used as bargaining chips to barter and secure wealth and business connections through marriage. They believe that lower born folk have no right to fall in love with or marry those of a higher status, and they believe that Florentine Renaissance culture and society is far superior to others of its time because it is the richest, being the banking capital of Europe – these were all commonly accepted attitudes in their time and place.
Love and suffering are cointegrated – As Keats had such a tragic life, he was wont to believe that the extreme pleasures of love could not be possible without difficulty and suffering; there is a sense that perhaps Lorenzo and Isabella are so strongly bound together because of the adverse circumstances, rather than just in spite of them.
Forbidden love is often tragic and painful – Isabella and Lorenzo are ‘twin roses’, they are clearly matched for one another and their union is pure and honest; however, due to the disparity in wealth and status, society would dictate that Lorenzo is an unfit match for Isabella. For this reason, their love is socially forbidden and this puts a lot of pressure on the relationship, forcing it into secrecy. The lovers are still happy with arrangements until the brothers intervene, feeling that it is their right to murder Lorenzo and wed Isabella to a wealthier suitor, to further their own profits and connections. The scenario parallels the tragic tale of Romeo and Juliet, another Italian Renaissance story of doomed lovers where the central characters are perfectly suited, yet the wider context of their feuding families prevents them from achieving a happy union. Keats uses allegorical referencing to Shakespeare’s play to place his own tale (originally Bocaccio’s) within the discourse of tragic love narratives.
Check this link for Context and Themes in ‘Isabella, or the Pot of Basil’ by John Keats.
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The Great Guild started out as the home of a Rigan brotherhood of merchants, with Saint Mary as its patroness (the Small Guild, on the other hand, was the craftsmen’s headquarters, warded by its patron Saint John). The brotherhood, active from 1354 to 1939, gathered in the Muenster Hall. According to the Guild’s statutes available online, its purpose was ‘to encourage social activity, courteous co-existence, festivities, charity, and soulfulness’.
The exterior of the edifice has undergone several transformations: it was rebuilt in Baroque style in 1697, but the building was considerably expanded in the middle of the 19th century and decorated in the so-called Tudor Gothic style. In the early years of the Republic of Latvia, the Great Guild was used for the Riga Great Guild Society to serve cultural and social functions. A congress hall with unbelievably extravagant wooden interior was opened in the Great Guild building in 1936 upon the request of Latvia’s president Kārlis Ulmanis.
In 1941, the State Philharmonic made the building their home. The Great Guild was rebuilt after the damage of 1963 fire; the renovation, adapting the centuries-old edifice to modern needs, is considered among the most successful projects of Latvian architect Modris Ģelzis. The walls were repainted according to architect Liesma Markova’s project in 1998, and the Great Guild underwent fundamental reconstruction prior to the 2006 NATO summit. | https://en.lnso.lv/par-koncertzali |
• The Clinical Linguistic and Auditory Milestone Scale (CLAMS) and Bayley Scales of Infant Development (BSID) were independently administered to 43 children with mild-to-moderate motor delay at 15, 21, and 27 months of age. Highly significant correlations were noted for each examination. Sex, race, and age at time of examination did not significantly influence the relationship between a CLAMS quotient and a Bayley ratio quotient (BRQ). On the first examination gestational age exerted an effect that carried over to the total population. The initial CLAMS quotient also correlated with the results of the CLAMS and BSID administered 12 months later. The CLAMS identified children with a delayed BRQ (<70) as follows: sensitivity, 0.66; specificity, 0.79; predictive value of a positive test, 0.80; and predictive value of a negative test, 0.65. The CLAMS provides the pediatrician with a language assessment instrument that adequately detects cognitive deficits in motor-delayed children.
(AJDC 1986;140:694-698)
Capute AJ, Shapiro BK, Wachtel RC, Gunther VA, Palmer FB. The Clinical Linguistic and Auditory Milestone Scale (CLAMS): Identification of Cognitive Defects in Motor-Delayed Children. Am J Dis Child. 1986;140(7):694–698. doi:10.1001/archpedi.1986.02140210092033
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At the bedside it was noted that, after ocular fundoscopy, patients with migraine complained more often of an after-image than did non-migraineurs. This phenomenon was then investigated in consecutive patients attending a general neurology outpatient clinic.
The relative risk for the diagnosis of migraine in patients reporting an after-image was 2.91 (95% confidence interval 1.96 to 4.34), and the sensitivity, specificity and positive predictive value of this observation for the diagnosis of migraine were 0.63, 0.75 and 0.55 respectively. After-images were equally likely to be reported by migraineurs with and without aura, and by patients with migraine equivalents.
The after-image phenomenon probably reflects the heightened sensitivity to visual stimuli of patients with migraine. Although a diagnosis of migraine is primarily established by the patient's history, the presence of an after-image following ocular fundoscopy may support this diagnosis.
Migraineurs frequently describe visual symptoms during the aura phase or while experiencing headache. These include photopsias, scotomas, scintillating scotomas, fortification spectra, blurred vision and photophobia. Positive and negative visual phenomena can arise from migrainous disturbances of the retina (producing monocular symptoms), but are more commonly caused by occipital lobe dysfunction (producing bilateral abnormalities). Migraineurs also seem sensitive to various physical stimuli, including light, noise, smell and movement. Visual stimuli that trigger migraine attacks include sunlight, flickering or flashing lights and striped patterns. During the routine clinical examination of neurological patients it was noted that patients who had migraine reported visual after-images following routine ocular fundoscopy more commonly than non-migraineurs. The current study was designed to determine the utility of this observation in establishing a diagnosis of migraine in an unselected clinic population.
Consecutive new patients attending the general neurological outpatient clinic over six months completed a questionnaire on visual symptoms after fundoscopy. Patients were asked whether fundoscopy had been performed, what if anything had been noted afterwards and how long any after-images had lasted. The questionnaires were issued and collected by clinic nurses, and the contents were not discussed during the consultation. Pupils were not dilated and the maculae were not examined specifically. Migraine with and without aura and migraine equivalents were diagnosed by application of International Headache Society criteria1. Other diagnoses were established on clinical grounds.
A total of 263 patients were seen. No patient reported insufficient visual acuity to perceive light, and the pupillary light responses were normal in all cases. Fundoscopy was not done in 41 patients, and 2 were unable to complete the questionnaire (severe dementia and severe learning disability). The results are in Table 1.
The after-image was usually a bright spot, but black spots and dots were also reported. The duration was usually between 30s and 2 min. The observation was equally likely to be made by migraineurs with and without aura and patients with migraine equivalents. All migraineurs were interictal at the time the examination took place.
The relative risk for the diagnosis of migraine in individuals reporting an after-image following ocular fundoscopy was 2.91 (95% confidence interval 1.96 to 4.34). The sensitivity, specificity and positive predictive value of the observation for the diagnosis of migraine were 0.63, 0.75 and 0.55 respectively. As expected, migraine was diagnosed more commonly in women than in men, the ratio of female to male being 2:1 when an after-image was reported and 1.6:1 when it was not. There was no difference in median age between individuals with migraine reporting and not reporting an after-image. In those patients in whom migraine was not diagnosed clinically, the ratio of female to male was slightly higher in the group reporting an after-image (1.3:1). Patients without migraine and not reporting an after-image were older than those reporting this phenomenon (P=0.0021).
Whilst the diagnosis of migraine will always be based on the patient's history, examination of the ocular fundus is usually part of the physical evaluation of a patient with headache and an after-image following this procedure may support such a diagnosis. It is not known how the sensitivity and specificity of this observation will be influenced if applied to a specialist ‘headache clinic’ population, or for that matter a general practice population with a variety of complaints including non-neurological ones. Also, the study needs to be repeated with different practitioners, preferably without their knowledge, in case the current investigator has influenced the identification of after-images by altering his technique subconsciously. It is noteworthy that in the non-migraine group of the current study, those reporting an after-image were younger than those not reporting it. This may reflect a tendency for this phenomenon to disappear with ageing. In migraineurs (where no similar age-related trend was seen) the observation was made almost three times as commonly, and this probably reflects the heightened sensitivity of such patients to visual stimuli. Using the term ‘flight of colours’, Feldman and colleagues described the reduced or abolished after-images after stimulation of each eye by a bright pocket-light in patients with defective central vision2. The observation of a heightened response in patients with migraine seems to be novel. Unlike the critical flicker fusion threshold3, where migraineurs without aura are reported to have a lower threshold than those with aura, the current observation does not discriminate between the two subgroups.
How might the phenomenon arise? Presumably it is mediated at the cortical level, since it is bilateral. Mechanisms such as those responsible for ‘spreading depression’ can be evoked to account for it, but await more detailed evaluation by studies of cortical blood flow. It would also be interesting to study susceptible subjects to see whether the presence of after-images depends on different colours, strengths and durations of ocular illumination. Electrophysiological studies with transcranial magnetic stimulation confirm cortical hyperexcitability in migraineurs. 13 of 15 migraine patients (14 migraine with aura, 12 women, mean age 39.9 SD 8.2 years) developed phosphenes after standardized occipital cortex stimulation by magnet, compared with only 2 of 8 normal controls (5 women, mean age 37.3 SD 6.0 years)4.
I thank Wan-Thai Weissman for help with data collection. The questionnaires were distributed and collected after completion by Anne Humphrays, Helen Burke, Kathy Denby and Norma Morgan. Christopher Hawkes gave helpful advice on data interpretation and regarding the discussion.
PubMed Central Canada is a service of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) working in partnership with the National Research Council's national science library in cooperation with the National Center for Biotechnology Information at the U.S. National Library of Medicine(NCBI/NLM). It includes content provided to the PubMed Central International archive by participating publishers. | http://pubmedcentralcanada.ca/pmcc/articles/PMC1281524/ |
This patient presents with headache, positive Kernig sign (severe stiffness of the hamstring), elevated WBCs, elevated protein, low glucose, and gram-negative bacteria on smear. She most likely has bacterial meningitis, and given the Gram stain result, it is most likely caused by Neisseria meningitidis, a gram-negative bacterium. A patient with this clinical scenario is in septic shock, which is a known complication of severe meningococcal infections. N meningitidis, in particular, can cause Waterhouse-Friderichsen syndrome, which involves a constellation of adrenal insufficiency, fever, disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC), and shock.
Whereas many gram-negative bacteria possess an endotoxin known as lipopolysaccharide (LPS), N meningitidis expresses an analogous endotoxin known as lipooligosaccharide (LOS). LOS contributes to the development of septic shock in patients with severe meningococcal meningitis by stimulating inflammatory cytokines the same way LPS does in other gram-negative bacteria. Both LPS and LOS act as pathogen-associated molecular patterns which are recognized through pattern recognition receptors (PRR) present on the cells of the innate immune system including macrophages, monocytes, and neutrophils.Inflammatory cytokines released by these innate immune-system cells subsequently lead to massive vasodilation, causing hypotension seen in shock. | https://firstaidteam.com/2018/11/09/step-1-question-of-the-week-2/?share=google-plus-1 |
The presence of synovial monosodium urate monohydrate (MSU) crystals is the gold standard for diagnosing gout. But a new study, funded in part by the ACR and led by rheumatologists, including Alexis Ogdie, MD, MSCE, evaluated the effectiveness of ultrasound in diagnosing it. The study found that ultrasound can be useful in discriminating gout from non-gout.
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“The idea was that if you are a primary care physician or you’re a rheumatologist but can’t do arthrocentesis, what’s the best way to diagnose gout?” says Dr. Ogdie, an assistant professor of medicine and epidemiology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. “A lot of rheumatologists now have ultrasound as part of their practice, and we wanted to know: What is the sensitivity and the specificity of ultrasound features for the diagnosis of gout?”
In the study, published in February in Arthritis & Rheumatology, the researchers wanted to reflect real-life clinical practice.1 Previous studies had relied on data from relatively small centers of gout expertise, among patients with a long history of the disease and showed that gout can be diagnosed by ultrasound upon detecting hyperechoic articular surface features on the hyaline cartilage (double contour sign, or DCS); a snowstorm appearance suggestive of floating, hyperechoic MSU crystals; or hyperechoic aggregates within the joint or along the tendons, which could indicate tophi.
But the research team, in addition to wanting to capture the capacity of more typical primary care or rheumatology practices to use ultrasound for gout diagnosis, also wanted to better understand the ultrasound features of early gout compared with longstanding disease and of cases with clinically detected tophus and those without.
“Sometimes, a patient doesn’t want arthrocentesis, or there’s not enough fluid in the joint, or they don’t have time,” says Dr. Ogdie. “There are a variety of different reasons, but if the primary care provider has access to ultrasound or it’s performed by a radiologist but they’re not comfortable aspirating that joint, what does that result tell you if you see (or don’t see) DCS, for example. What is the likelihood the patient has gout?”
The Study
To determine this, the researchers used data from the Study for Updated Gout Classification Criteria (SUGAR), a large, cross-sectional study involving 25 international centers. In that study, voluntary ultrasound was performed on 842 subjects, including 416 cases and 408 controls. Cases were subjects ultimately confirmed to have a gout diagnosis, determined by the presence of MSU crystals in fluid aspirates, with swelling in at least one joint or the presence of a subcutaneous nodule. Controls were subjects with gout-like symptoms, including joint swelling, but were negative for gout when tested for MSU crystals.
Trained observers performed the crystal identification. The observers were required to pass a certification test involving a Web-based evaluation and the examination of five vials of synovial fluid.
Ultrasound was also performed on at least one clinically affected joint among SUGAR study subjects. The tests were conducted by ultrasound-trained rheumatologists or radiologists blind to the results of the crystal tests. A hyperechoic band on the surface of the articular cartilage defined double contour sign; tophus was indicated by ultrasound as a hyperechoic, heterogenous lesion surrounded by an anechoic rim; and snowstorm was defined as joint effusion with a snowstorm appearance.
Additionally, the SUGAR study involved gathering subject age, sex, ethnicity, number of joint-swelling episodes, whether or not they utilized urate-lowering therapy, the number of weeks since their last episode, disease duration and whether they had involvement in their metatarsophalangeal joint (podagra). Each subject had a physical examination and the numbers and locations of swollen joints, as well as any suspected tophi, were recorded. Finally, serum urate levels—current and highest recorded in available records—and the presence of any radiographic abnormalities were recorded.
In analyzing the data, the study team examined the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) of each diagnostic ultrasound feature. They looked at the presence vs. the absence of any one ultrasound feature in cases vs. controls (those with gout and those without). Among these, they examined early disease (fewer than two years since disease onset) vs. late disease and those with and those without clinically suspected tophus.
The researchers also looked at the test characteristics of having any one, two or three ultrasound features. To understand any factors that may influence the results, they also performed statistical analysis among cases to examine any other demographic or clinical associations with having a positive test. They performed additional sensitivity analysis, including whether a subject with a positive test also had a tender or swollen first MTP joint.
They found that sensitivity (the percentage of positive ultrasound results among those positive for gout) for DCS was 60.1%, specificity (the percentage of negative ultrasound results among those negative for gout) was 91.4%, PPV (the likelihood someone with a positive ultrasound result had gout) was 87.7% and NPV (the likelihood that someone with a negative ultrasound did not have the disease) was 69.3%. For tophus identified by ultrasound, sensitivity was 46%, specificity was 94.9%, PPV was 90%, and NPV was 65.6%. For snowstorm, sensitivity was 30.3%, specificity was 90.9%, PPV was 77.2%, and NPV was 56.3%.
When any one feature was considered a positive ultrasound for gout, sensitivity was 76.9%, specificity was 84.3%, PPV was 83.3%, and NPV was 78.2%.
Comparing early to late disease, the researchers found no significant difference in sensitivity or specificity. Subjects with tophi on clinical examination had higher sensitivity and PPV compared with those without clinically detected tophi, while specificity and NPV were lower.
“Early gout didn’t look that different from late gout,” says Dr. Ogdie.
Subjects with an actively tender or swollen first MTP joint and those with elevated serum urate levels had lower specificity and NPV for all ultrasound features.
The researchers also found that a positive ultrasound finding for gout was associated with suspected tophi upon examination, higher serum urate level and abnormal radiographic findings, which means that ultrasound may not be necessary to diagnose gout in these patients, but it can still be helpful in patients without obvious gout upon examination.
Conclusions
In general, “The specificity is high,” Dr. Ogdie says, “so we can be fairly confident that a positive ultrasound is suggestive of gout. If it’s negative, we could still be missing people who do have gout.”
In previous studies, gout has been shown to be difficult to discern from calcium pyrophosphate deposition disease (CPDD) by ultrasound, so the study team examined the specificity of ultrasound features for gout among patients with CPDD (confirmed by aspirates). They found sensitivity and PPV were still high for gout.
“Ultrasound is a pretty good test for gout,” Dr. Ogdie says. “Just be aware that it could miss people with gout who have a negative test.”
Kelly April Tyrrell writes about health, science and health policy. She lives in Madison, Wis.
Reference
- Ogdie A, Taylor WJ, Neogi T, et al. Performance of ultrasound in the diagnosis of gout in a multicenter study comparison with monosodium urate monohydrate crystal analysis as the gold standard. Arthritis Rheumatol. 2017 Feb;69(2):429–438. | https://www.the-rheumatologist.org/article/ultrasound-can-useful-diagnosing-gout/?singlepage=1 |
Purpose: The Varus Stress Test is used to assess the integrity of the LCL or lateral collateral ligament of the knee. This is a key test to perform when assessing for posterolateral instability of the knee.
How to Perform Varus Stress Test
Position of Patient: The patient should be relaxed in the supine position.
Performance: The examiner will support the knee and lower leg at the ankle, applying a varus stress at the knee in full extension. The test should also be performed with the knee positioned into 20 to 30 degrees of flexion, applying the same varus force to the knee.
How to Interpret Varus Stress Test
Positive Finding: A positive test occurs when gapping or pain is noted with this test in full knee extension; this may suggest both an LCL and cruciate injury. With the knee at 20 to 30 degrees of flexion, a positive test occurs when pain is noted along the lateral knee or gapping is present.
Test Accuracy / Reliability / Evidence:
Sensitivity: 25%
Source: Harilainen A et al. Diagnosis of acute knee ligament injuries: The value of stress radiography compared with clinical examination, stability, under anesthesia and arthroscopic or operative findings. Ann Chir Gynaecol. 1986;75:37-43. | https://www.ptprogress.com/special-tests/knee-special-tests/varus-stress-test/ |
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A 37-year-old woman with a history of diabetes, hypertension, obstructive sleep apnea, depression, and Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB) 16 years prior presented to an ambulatory care clinic with fatigue, loss of appetite, and hair loss. She lost 50.8 kg from the time of the procedure to presentation, her body mass index at presentation was 23, and her preoperative comorbidities were in remission. She did not have any nausea, abdominal pain, or change in bowel habits, but her periods had been more irregular over the past 2 to 3 months and, when present, lasted for 7 to 10 days. She also noted a tingling sensation in her hands and feet. She was under some financial stress after recently losing her job, and reported drinking 2 to 6 beers within a 2-hour period on the weekends. She took a gummy multivitamin sporadically and self-reported a daily total calorie intake of less than 500 kcal and less than 20 g of protein. On physical examination, although she reported having paresthesias in her fingertips and toes, her neurological examination findings were nonfocal. She exhibited bilateral flattening of the temporalis muscle and thenar eminence. Her vital signs were normal, and serum tests were ordered (Table).
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C. The patient has both iron and vitamin B12 deficiencies.
The patient has B12 deficiency and concomitant iron deficiency anemia. From her history, this is likely secondary to nonadherence with postoperative vitamin supplementation recommendations.
Vitamin B12 (cobalamin) is a water-soluble vitamin, necessary for neurologic functioning, hematopoiesis, and DNA synthesis. It is obtained exclusively from animal proteins and absorbed in the ileum, facilitated by intrinsic factor.
Serum B12 is measured with a competitive-binding immunoenzymatic assay. Intrinsic factor conjugate and paramagnetic particles coated with monoclonal immunoglobulin G anti–intrinsic factor are added to the sample. B12 binds to the intrinsic factor conjugate, blocking it from binding with the paramagnetic particles. A magnetic field holds the particle-bound intrinsic factor in place while unbound materials are washed away. Finally, a chemiluminescent substrate is added and the light is measured with a luminometer. The light production is inversely proportional to the concentration of vitamin B12 in the sample. Sensitivity for deficiency detection is 95% at levels less than 200 pg/mL (<150 pmol/L), but specificity is limited to 50%. Serum B12 less than 400 pg/mL is considered suboptimal because 5% to 10% of patients with neurologic symptoms related to B12 insufficiency present with levels from 200 to 400 pg/mL.1 At levels greater than 200 pg/mL, sensitivity is reduced and can be bolstered by serum methylmalonic acid (MMA). During the Krebs cycle, B12 mediates the enzymatic conversion of methylmalonyl–coenzyme A to succinyl–coenzyme A; therefore, MMA levels greater than 0.75 μmol/L are suggestive of B12 deficiency.2
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Corresponding Author: Sameer B. Murali, MD, MSHS, Southern California Permanente Medical Group, 17296 Slover Ave, Fontana, CA 92337 ([email protected]).
Published Online: July 26, 2019. doi:10.1001/jama.2017.18945
Conflict of Interest Disclosures: None reported.
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Nocardia asteroides, a Gram-positive, aerobic, soil-borne bacterium, is a cause of opportunistic infections in immunocompromised patients, particularly those with lymphoreticular neoplasms, long-term pulmonary disorders, and long-term steroid use. The organism is usually inhaled and may cause localized or disseminated infections. A predilection for its spread to the brain and soft tissues has been noted. suppurative necrosis and abscess formation is the pathologic hallmark. Nocardia is distinguished by beaded, branching, filamentous growth in purulent exudate and tissue sections.
Ocular involvement by Nocardia is very rare, with approximately 30 cases of intraocular nocardial infection reported in the literature.1-4 Optimal therapeutic regimens are not established. Only 2 reports detail experiences with intravitreal antibiotics.5 We report our experience with a case of endogenous N asteroides endophthalmitis treated with vitrectomy and intraocular and systemic antibiotics, and for which a diagnostic subretinal biopsy was performed.
A 69-year old man was admitted to our hospital with pleuritic chest pain, chronic fatigue, weight loss, and a left upper lobe lung mass on computed tomography, which was judged to be a malignant or infectious process. The patient had glomerulonephritis with renal failure and had received oral prednisone for 16 months. Ocular history was unremarkable.
During admission, the patient reported having 2 days of floaters in the right eye. No pain or photophobia was present. Examination disclosed visual acuity of 20/30 OD and 20/20 OS. Pupils, visual fields to count fingers, color-plate test results, and tensions were normal. Slitlamp examination disclosed mild cataracts in both eyes. Ophthalmoscopy of the right eye disclosed 2+ vitritis and an elevated mass 3 disc diameters in size inferotemporal to the fovea within the vascular arcades (Figure 1). The lesion was yellowish with hemorrhages on the surface. The disc was unremarkable. Ophthalmoscopy findings of the left eye were unremarkable.
A, Ophthalmic appearance of the optic nerve head and subretinal abscess in the temporal area of the macula. B, Yellowish appearance of the subretinal abscess with overlying retinal hemorrhages. Moderate vitritis was present.
The following day, visual acuity declined to 20/100 OD and 2+ anterior chamber cell and 3+ vitritis were present. Vitreous tap was performed and samples were sent for bacterial and fungal cultures and mycobacterial stains. A tuberculin skin test was performed. Serologic tests for herpes simplex and varicella zoster viruses, cytomegalovirus, and syphilis were performed. The patient was treated with 5 µg of intravitreal amphoterocin B and intravenous amphoterocin B for presumptive fungal endophthalmitis. The oral prednisone was tapered.
The patient was observed for 1 week, with no improvement. Bronchoscopic and transthoracic needle biopsies of the lung lesion were attempted but histopathologic test results disclosed inflammation only, with no tumor or organisms present. A wedge resection of the lung lesion was subsequently performed.
One week after initial intravitreal injection, visual acuity had declined to hand motions OD. A relative afferent papillary defect was present in the right eye. The ocular lesion now appeared to involved much of the macula and optic disc, although it was difficult to view because of dense vitritis. All cultures and serologic test results were negative at this time. A second intravitreal injection of 5 µg of amphoterocin B was administered.
Pars plana vitrectomy with retinal and subretinal biopsy were performed 10 days after the initial ocular examination. Intraoperatively, a large yellowish mass was present inferotemporally and extended to within 1 disc diameter of the fovea. Subretinal fluid was present throughout the macula. Neuroretinitis was present and extended from the optic disc along the superior and inferior temporal arcades. During biopsy, the subretinal tissue was noted to be extremely firm in consistency. Intravitreal vancomycin (1 mg) and ceftazidime (2 mg) were injected at the end of the procedure followed by fluid-gas exchange.
Eleven days after initial ocular presentation, examination of the lung specimen disclosed filamentous organisms. Thirteen days after presentation, the culture of the lung tissue was positive for N asteroides (ie, at 8 days of growth). The patient began taking oral trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole. Based on sensitivity data, the eye was injected intravitreally with 25 µg of imipenem and 200 µg of amikacin (doses were adjusted downward to account for the 50% air bubble in the vitreous). Cultures of the vitrectomy specimen became positive at 4 days of growth and organisms consistent with Nocardia species were noted on transmission electron microscopy of the subretinal biopsy.
Postoperatively, no view of the posterior segment was possible. Echography performed 1 week after surgery disclosed an extensive shallow retinal detachment with enlargement of the lesion. Surgical repair was considered but was not performed due to the patient's anesthesia risk.
A 4-mm-diameter ring-enhancing lesion of the left temporal lobe was noted on a brain magnetic resonance imaging scan, which was considered to be a small abscess (Figure 2). The lesion remained stable during treatment. The patient was discharged 3 weeks after admission due to improvement in his systemic condition. Long-term oral trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole was prescribed. A 2-week course of outpatient intravenous therapy with ceftriaxone sodium was administered for the ocular infection. Six months after the onset of the condition, the results of a repeated magnetic resonance image scan of the brain disclosed resolution of the temporal lobe lesion. However, the patient's visual acuity deteriorated to no light perception, the eye became phthisical, and it was enucleated 7 months after the onset of the ocular condition.
Axial magnetic resonance imaging scan of the brain disclosed a 4-mm-diameter ring-enhancing lesion (arrow) of the left temporal lobe that was judged to be an abscess. Moderate enhancement of the sclera of the right globe with associated minimal enhancement of periorbital tissues was present.
Histopathologic examination results of the vitreous specimens disclosed an intense polymorphonuclear leukocyte infiltrate. Light and electron microscopic evaluation of the retinal biopsy disclosed fibrinous material and a dense infiltrate of polymorphonuclear leukocytes and mononuclear inflammatory cells. No organisms were identified. Electron microscopic study of the subretinal biopsy disclosed numerous filamentous, septated organisms that measured 1.1 µm in diameter (Figure 3). Histopathologic examination of the lung biopsy specimen revealed bronchopneumonia with occasional clusters of filamentous organisms with the silver stain (Figure 4). Examination of the enucleated eye disclosed iris neovascularization, cyclitic membrane, detachment of the retina with extensive subretinal proliferation, a serosanguinous ciliochoroidal effusion, rare foci of lymphocytes in the choroid, and no microbial organisms.
Ultrastructural appearance of septated filamentous organisms that measured 1.1 µm in diameter in the subretinal biopsy (A, original magnification ×8100; B, ×15 000; C, ×60 000).
Filamentous organisms in the lung biopsy specimen (A and B, Gomori methanamine silver; original magnification ×1000).
Nocardia infections may be difficult to diagnose. Organisms can be identified on Gram, acid-fast, and Gomori methenamine silver stains. Nocardia organisms grow readily on most nonselective media and typical colonies are usually seen after 3 to 5 days. Cultures and smears are positive in only one third of cases. Retinal and subretinal biopsies were performed in this case because of diagnostic uncertainty. Electron microscopic examination of the subretinal biopsy was successful in demonstrating organisms.
The treatment of ocular nocardial infection has been met with limited success, although favorable outcomes are common for infections at nonocular sites. The role of vitrectomy in nocardial endophthalmitis is uncertain. We injected amikacin and imipenem intravitreally in our patient. Although toxicity data are limited for imipenem,7,8 it displays comparable efficacy to intravitreal vancomycin in experimental Bacillus cereus endophthalmitis,9 and to amikacin in experimental Pseudomonas aeruginosa endophthalmitis.10 We chose to administer intravitreal imipenem in light of these data, known nocardial sensitivity and synergy data, and the patient's deteriorating ocular condition. A course of intravenous ceftriaxone was also added for the above reasons. Despite these measures, phthisis ensued in our patient.
Supported in part by the FA Hadley Travelling Scholarship, the University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia, and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Winston-Salem, NC.
Corresponding author: W. Richard Green, MD, Eye Pathology Laboratory, The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Maumenee 427, 600 N Wolfe St, Baltimore, MD 21287. | https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaophthalmology/fullarticle/269409 |
REPORT OF A CASE
A 22-year-old man presented to the dermatology clinic at the University of Miami (Fla) with a 1½ -year history of purpuric lesions, some of which had progressed to painful ulcerations over his lower legs and the dorsolateral aspect of his feet. His medical history was not significant and he denied a history of abnormal bleeding, Raynaud's phenomenon, sensitivity to cold, or the use of medications.Cutaneous examination showed purple-brown macular lesions on his lower legs, spreading from the medial malleoli to the lateral and medial aspects of the feet (Fig 1). Similar lesions were noted on the forearms distally. Superficial painful ulcers of various sizes were evident over the medial malleoli and over the dorsal aspect of the feet. The remainder of the physical examination showed normal findings.Laboratory studies showed the following normal or negative results: complete blood cell count, platelet count, erythrocyte sedimentation rate,
Klein AD, Kerdel FA. Purpura and Recurrent Ulcers on the Lower Extremities. Arch Dermatol. 1991;127(1):118. doi:10.1001/archderm.1991.01680010129024
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The ulnar fovea sign is a clinical test used to specify the cause of ulnar-sided wrist pain.
The ulnar fovea sign test can form an important part of the objective examination when the patient has complaints about the ulnar side of the wrist. It is a provocative test to give the patient an irregular soreness in the fovea region of the wrist. The ulnar fovea sign is not utile on patients who have global soreness of the wrist. It is at the most utile in a symptomatic patient who has no other clear evidence of pathology in the wrist and who continues to suffer pain despite affective nonsurgical interventions and for whom wrist arthroscopy should be the following examination.
The mechanism of injury for foveal injury is excessive traction of the ulnocarpal ligaments, elicited through hyper-radial extension or hyperextension of the wrist in combination with axial loading and/or forearm rotation. This mechanism transcribes forces at the fovea region. When the ulnotriquetral ligament suffers to an extreme traction, the ulnar styloid attachment will break down before the foveal attachment does.
In the research “The Ulnar Fovea Sign for Defining Ulnar Wrist Pain: An analysis of Sensitivity and Specificity” was the ulnar fovea sign positive in 156 patients. 90 patients received the diagnosis of foveal disruption and 68 patients of UT ligament injuries. So two patients had a positive ulnar fovea sign, but none of the two possible pathologies .
The fovea is situated between the ulnar styloid process and the flexor carpi ulnaris tendon.
Ligamentous structures in the fovea region when the forearm is in a neutral position form the foveal attachments of the conjoined palmar and dorsal radioulnar ligaments and the ulnocarpal ligaments.
For the purposes of this test, the patient is facing the therapist with the elbow on a table or plinth. The elbow has to stay in 90° to 110° of flexion with the forearm and the wrist in a neutral position. The thumb of the therapist has to be pressed deep into the soft space among the ulnar styloid process and the flexor carpi ulnaris tendon distally, between the palmar surface of the ulnar head and the pisiform.
A comprehensive wrist examination should be completed in conjunction to the fovea sign test in cases of ulnar-sided wrist pain. Objective components should include active strength in all functional movements, grip strength and range of motion of the wrist and forearm pronation and supination.
When a positive ulnar fovea sign is established there is a possibility of two wrist conditions, the longitudinal split tear of the ulnotriquetral ligament and foveal disruption. A positive ulnar fovea sign test has either a stable dorsal radioulnar ligament joint or an unstable dorsal radioulnar ligament joint. When it’s unstable, a longitudinal split tear of ulnotriqutral ligament is the probable diagnosis. When the stable dorsal radioulnar ligament joint is present, the probable diagnosis is foveal disruption . The difference between the two conditions is made clinically, radiographic or with a CT scan. | https://www.physio-pedia.com/Fovea_Sign |
Abnormality of gait is a sign common to many diseases and conditions. A complete history is important for diagnosis and should include incidence and duration in the herd, nutrition, feed changes, method of rearing, and recent introductions to the herd. (Also see Health-Management Interaction: Goats Health-Management Interaction: Goats .)
Some causes of lameness may be associated with systemic disease. Therefore, a thorough physical examination should always be performed, followed by a detailed examination of all four limbs, with a specific assessment of gait and mobility in an attempt to localize locomotor problems. In goats, as in other species, locomotor difficulties usually involve the musculoskeletal system directly, but conditions of the nervous system can mimic musculoskeletal disease and should be considered during the clinical examination.
The hoof of the affected leg(s) should be examined, and excess horn material removed to leave a level, weight-bearing surface. If the feet have not been trimmed recently, or the goats have been on soft ground or bedding, excess horn commonly overgrows from the walls, toes, and heels, and folds over the sole. With severe neglect, “sled-runner” or “Turkish slipper”−type hooves with elongated toes may cause the goat to walk on its heels. The following should be noted during foot trimming: any portion of the horn that is abnormally thickened, any underrunning of the heel or sole, any abnormal wear of one claw, or any abnormal or necrotic smell.
After trimming, the feet should be scrubbed clean and inspected for puncture wounds, foreign bodies such as stones or clover burrs caught in the interdigital space, or pus from a discharging abscess. Inspection should include the coronary band or coronet.
The rest of the leg should be palpated carefully, including the bones, tendons, and muscles. Any muscle atrophy or restriction of movement should be noted, and contralateral limb structures should be compared for signs of asymmetry. The joints also should be checked for heat, swelling, or pain.
If the clinical examination suggests joint involvement, it may be necessary to aseptically sample fluid from an affected joint for visual examination, cytology, Gram stain, and culture and sensitivity tests. Joint fluid containing pus alone, or with Gram-stained bacteria, indicates joint-ill; fibrin and pus combined suggest Mycoplasma spp; clear or cloudy joint fluid with many mononuclear cells suggests caprine arthritis-encephalitis virus (CAE, see Caprine Arthritis and Encephalitis Caprine Arthritis and Encephalitis ).
A blood or serum sample may also be useful to establish the underlying cause of lameness. In joint-ill, the WBC count is high due to neutrophilia. Blood calcium, phosphorus, and vitamin D levels may help diagnose epiphysitis or rickets, although blood levels often return to normal before the affected goat is examined. If CAE is suspected, the presence of antibody can be checked; however, false negatives may be seen during severe stress, and positive tests may be coincidental to another cause of lameness if seroprevalence of the CAE virus is high in the herd of origin.
Radiography may be helpful. In epiphysitis, the growth plates should be checked; there is also lateral deviation of the radii and occasionally thinness of the bone. In CAE virus infection, the initial swelling of the soft tissue surrounding the affected joint may be followed by calcium deposits in the swollen periarticular tissue, joint capsule, ligaments, tendons, and tendon sheaths. Later changes may include mild periarticular osteophyte production, “joint mice,” and rough extensions of the periarticular bone proximally and distally.
Some of the more important conditions that cause lameness in goats are discussed below, listed in alphabetical order. The differential diagnosis in any case of lameness is influenced by geographic location, herd history, management practices, and other relevant factors. | https://www.msdvetmanual.com/musculoskeletal-system/lameness-in-goats/overview-of-lameness-in-goats |
AL is an Environmental Portrait Photographer.
With over 30 years of experience, AL believes that “people are the spice of life”. He is dedicated to celebrating people through photographs that are taken with intention, planning, and a desire to show the true value and nature of the person. Anything less devalues the relationship between the photographer and the subject.
“I believe that every photograph should excite curiosity!”
The defining trait of AL’s photography is that it intentionally elicits a heightened curiosity from the viewer that makes them linger and want more. They become emotionally invested and want to look deeper into the photo, learn more about the subject, or even try to figure out what is happening.
What is an environmental Portrait?
The environmental portrait is a combination of traditional portraiture, journalistic photography, and the art of storytelling. It is designed to give you information about the subject while at the same time leaving you with questions. Every aspect is curated to spark your senses and weave a narrative through your subconscious about the person you are observing. Welcoming you into their world, their thoughts, and their lives.
“I intentionally chase one image”
AL believes that shorter deadlines, and still cameras that can capture as many frames per second as a video camera has, lead to a lack of depth in photography. It is so easy to just capture a huge number of photos and choose one that is good, or even great, that the art of intentionally building and planning a photograph is being lost. The power of a portrait is in the emotional response it elicits in the viewer. The more intentional you are with your photograph, the the more powerful the emotional response. | https://alsmithphoto.com/about/ |
2002 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art Art Gallery of South Australia 1 March 28 April 2002
The 2002 Adelaide Biennial of Australian art offered the opportunity to explore the complexity of political, sociological and cultural debates of our futures. This kind of collaboration between art and science can offer a space to consider the tensions between interrogation and contemplation, comfort and discomfort. From this perspective, much of the work within conVerge: where art and science meet allowed speculation on not only past and future worlds, but specifically of human habitation within them.
Oron Catts' and Ionat Zurr's bio-medical installation of a fully equipped xenotransplantation laboratory occupied the space as a microcosm of genetic engineering. Tiny pairs of wings were grown for the duration of the exhibition from living pig tissue, and as such, Pig Wings traced a speculative path from fear, to idea and back again.
In this context, Patricia Piccinini's animatronic Synthetic Organism 2 (SO2): The Siren Mole seemed positively benign. The public fears of the possibility of pig-part transplantation seemed absent in this work, replaced instead by an aestheticised and arguably romanticised view of bio-medical futures.
Justine Cooper's large-scale projection/installation Transformers, presented the overlapping datum of identity – fingerprints, DNA codes, personal narrative, translated memory – offering a hypnotic meditation of the constitution of individuality in an environment of increasingly universal medical mapping.
For Martin Walch, contemporary landscape exists as the domain of human intervention, with both seductive and repulsive results. His tiny stereoscopic viewfinders offered views of expansive, achingly beautiful other-worldly landscapes – in terrifying reality, the environmental destruction of the open-cut mines of Tasmania's Mount Lyell.
Human traces were perhaps no more clearly or seductively invoked than through Adam Donovan's Perimetry. As an immersive and interactive installation, Perimetry invited the viewer to engage in spatial definition through the robotic tracing of the viewer's movement through space. The subtle sounds created by the slightest movement made for a truly self-conscious experience. (I felt equally self-conscious watching the seemingly endless loop of Jon McCormack's Universal Zoologies. I couldn't help but feel for McCormack's anamorphic running man; the sheer awkwardness and the exhaustive weight of synthetic gravity made me feel glad to be human).
The glamour and wizardry of high-technology – not to mention its unreliability to function as intended – arguably risked compromising much of the Biennial's critical objectives through its mesmerising distraction. While attempting to cross the boundaries of traditional art museum engagement – touching, poking, prodding was intrinsic to many works – engagement seemed dependent upon first negotiating viewers' trepidation of interacting with the technology itself, and their subsequent disappointment if nothing happened.
For these reasons, Fiona Hall's Cell Culture stood out in a largely technologically dependent exhibition, through the beauty and persistence of the human crafting of objects. Her witty taxonomy of part animal, part kitchenware creatures invoked not only the conquest of domestic science over kitchen disorder, but also the less-amusing historic use of glass beads as colonial currency in exchange for the Eurocentric classification of the world. Equally, both the work of Jason Hampton, and the enormous canvases of the Mangkaja artists' mapping of the traditional country of the Great Sandy Desert, asserted the living currency of Indigenous knowledge systems.
Much has been said about the prohibitive entry cost of the associated conVerge symposium. The great shame is that it was arguably the symposium that provided the real guts of debate, and the truly dialogic space proposed by the exhibition. By contrast, the art museum space and its continuing belief that the art object should be able to speak for itself compromised, if not muted, the political edge of critical debate through sheer lack of information for the viewer.
Was the objective of the exhibition to merely enjoy the artwork, or to interrogate it? The creativity that underpins both scientific and artistic practice stems from an essential curiosity; everything presumably begins from a question. Yet these questions, the problematic ethical messiness of collaborations between artists and scientists, even the very collaborative processes that created the work, remained largely absent or invisible. I wanted to know more about the scientists and thinkers who were acknowledged on artwork labels as collaborators. Who were they, and where were they? As such, the work within the exhibition risked being perpetuated as the apparent product of magical (and slightly mad) genius.
Whether conVerge succeeded in advancing critical debate for a broad audience about the synthetic and authentic futures of the social, the cultural, the biological, is debatable itself. But for those brave enough to enter its darkened spaces, it at least succeeded in creating a space of immersion and speculation in which to contemplate the place of art and self in these debates. | https://www.artlink.com.au/articles/2376/converge-where-art-meets-science/ |
I am inspired by the world around me and by the places that I have an intense emotional response or attachment to. My imagery mainly references cottage country and rural areas. I intend to create an embodied experience with my art, where the viewer and myself are able to become emotionally involved in and around my work. I hope to achieve this by using vibrant colours, diverse textures, and layered materials that invite the viewer to investigate my pieces.
I am interested in pushing the boundaries of how to piece an image together and what is constituted as a painting verses a sculpture. My work is mainly constructed from cut and welded metal, but I often incorporate painting, which was my original passion. I found myself instantly drawn to the process of working with metal because of its physical aspect, for I spent most of my childhood as an athlete. My process involves blood, sweat and bodily exhaustion that consumes me in my art and hopefully engages the viewer. With metal I am able to intensify painterly aspects with the use of different welding techniques to create colour and textures in my pieces. Furthermore, the metal functions as my new canvas allowing me to push the emotional experience with my art further. I completed my Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art and Art History at McMaster University in April of 2013, and I am now looking to further my artistic education while practicing as an artist. | https://kaylynroloson.com/category/artist-statement/ |
What Is Modern Art?
Modern art is a specific artistic style movement that began during the 19th century and lasted until the 1970s, and many art historians tend to agree that it shares some time overlap with the contemporary art movement. Its principle characteristics include a departure from traditional views and experimentation with media and subjects that were previously considered out of the ordinary or even controversial. Some of the most famous works of modern art focus primarily on emotional expression rather than stoic restraint, and a good number of early modern artists drew their inspiration from the philosophical ideas of the Enlightenment. Changes in technology and increasing rates of intercultural exchange also contributed to the development of modern art.
One of the main goals of some modern artists' work is to accurately capture society as they believe it exists during their lifetimes. This practice is a noted difference from previous art movements that largely celebrated or idealized the past. Depictions of everyday life became common in modern art beginning in the 1880s, and several artists of this era also began creating works that addressed social problems such as economic inequality. The resulting reactions from traditional art critics sometimes ranged from dismissive to shocked.
Another significant factor in modern art is usually one of expressive freedom; this period in art history is the first in which artists felt they could use their own internal visions as starting points instead of following the conservative formulas for creating art that had been the standards up until that point. Some works of visual art such as paintings and sculptures were sometimes even created to break the traditional rules of art such as keeping paint inside a canvas frame or displaying a sculpture on a proper pedestal.
Contemporary art is generally considered a later period of the modern art movement that began during the 1960s and continues in various forms into the present. Experimentation with digital technology has allowed the development of new media art such as computer animation, digital photography, and video installations. Some contemporary artists also experiment with the roles of the artist and the viewers, leading to the development of interactive art. This medium is not used with the goals of a passive audience observing pieces in a gallery exhibit; it instead requires that each viewer briefly become a part of the artwork, usually by interacting with a camera or other type of electronic input device.
Discussion Comments
I love modern and contemporary art. I get very angry when people scoff at or make of of either of these art forms. They are art, and they are beautiful in my opinion.
And beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. If they don't like a particular work, they don't have to look at it. I am a contemporary artist and I get many compliments on my works.
I'm just glad to know that there are others who share my love for modern art. It truly is a milestone in the art world and should be praised rather than laughed at.
I used to create art in elementary school involving mysterious shapes. My classmates always liked my drawings, though no one knew what they were.
My mother teased me and called them modern art. It is a term sometimes scoffed at because artists can make a lot of money by painting something as simple as a red dot on a blue background.
I now know that my art would better be defined as contemporary art. Until I read this, I did not know that modern art was confined to a certain period of time.
I would love to visit the Museum of Modern Art. I really like how they focus on educating people about modern art and preserving it as well, and I think it's really important that they recognize both modern and contemporary art as exploratory methods of artistry that began back in the late 19th century and still progress today.
I like how modern art seeks to go beyond the boundaries and encourage deeper thought. I also like the fact that often, its meaning is left to interpretation, and different viewers can come up with totally different interpretations of a single piece of modern art. | https://www.musicalexpert.org/what-is-modern-art.htm |
The artist Teja Tegelj has a Master of Science in Art Pedagogy. This process of conceptual enquiry has a direct influence on the creative expression of her paintings. Through the process of drawing and painting she reflects on her gestures and recognises a balance between the emotional, physical force and the artistic mind. But this is not a solitary process, for Teja she is acutely aware of her audience. With art being a matter of imagination, she invites the viewer to not just observe the painting, but to step into it, to engage physically with it. Her exploration of this process is based on science. Latest neuroscientific research proves that imagining an activity creates a trigger within the same neural pathways as when the actual activity is performed. These mirror neurons also explore the notion of empathy, and therefore Teja would like her audience to step away from technological reproductions and digital art and revert to responding to art on a purely sensory level. This is especially poignant in current society where the frivolity of consuming numerous digital images, means that an artwork can sometimes only receive a passing glance from a viewer.
Teja’s personal path to date has influenced this current awareness. Her studies have led her to believe that creators from historical native cultures had great knowledge and understanding and that we, today, are lost in the modern world with substance of learning lacking. This belief is balanced with appreciation for more modern creators such as Mark Rothko, whose work Teja feels she can easily step into. Also, Auguste Rodin’s sculptures that are steeped in emotion and passion and Constantin Brancusi, who touches on unconscious patterns that we all have in common.
This commonality again feeds into Teja’s own work and is based on a celebration of the fact that all humans are linked, and all are integrated into and from nature. Within nature you find laws, order and patterns that are reproduced within humanity and it is this oft invisible world that inspires Teja. By paying attention to the relationship between positive and negative spaces she explores the idea that everything that surrounds us is negative, and is changing continuously. A concept that means that we leave traces of our presence in space even when we've physically left it. This is quantified by the fact that everything is moving and changing in nature: a constant metamorphosis. The invisibility of which are not traceable by a human’s five senses, however Teja recognises they are there and works to capture this within her paintings. And it doesn’t stop with the natural world:
“It is similar with human relationships. I am grateful to all individuals with who I established intimate relationship, as all the beauty, tension, passion and pain I received from them, expanded the spectrum of my perception.”
The response of an individual to art and how society has meant that many people were raised to act and think inside of ‘known’ structures, patterns and schemes contributes to Teja’s desire to engage with her audience. The significance of encouraging creative, divergent thinking on all levels of life is what she wishes to emphasise. But there is another aspect too: by offering variations and possible alternative facts within a work of art enables the viewer to make an independent and individual decision and response to it.
This desire to want people to be present, to pay attention links back to Teja’s awareness of the fragility and frivolity of the human within this so-called digital era. Questions arise of what happens when we try to get close to digital images: the answer being that due to the pixilation you run into a wall of coloured digital squares. Within Teja’s interactive works she challenges this pixilation and plays with the blurred borders between an image broken into square fragments and the classical visual form. The difference between the digital world and a world of live experiences.
Today we live in a diverse environment, abundance and saturation of visual stimuli often leads to disinterest and a lack of concentration that feeds through to the appreciation of 'fine art'. Teja asks herself how could contemporary art work, built on traditional mediums, not just hold the view of a person, but invite and integrate them into the process of a live experience. All On Right Place, Meditation In Blue, Sunset Through My Favourite Window and By The River Unica all require direct contact from the viewer that triggers a two-way conversation. When the audience gets to physically touch an artwork, they leave their distinct mark on it and naturally the next person continues the process: a relay of creation. This way communication and unity runs through all that are involved in this form-making activity.
Teja’s recognition of her own role within this process leaves impressions within her paintings of her own experiences, whether visual, auditory or tactile. This aspect of theoretical contemplation and free expression of feelings is allowed through her personal creative process and she embraces this alongside the reality it creates. A reflection of the treasure trove that is the world: a creative circle of life.
Teja Tegelj is a member of the Slovenian Association of Fine Arts Societies and an artist member of WITP Art Organisation that enables artists to exhibit without compromise to their artistic exploration and development. | https://wsimag.com/art/25434-mindfulness-through-art |
The case can be made that Allan Kaprow was an important influence on public art. But you’ll never get there if you ignore his influence on ’70s feminist performance (as does, for example, the ambitious but flawed exhibition on Los Angeles currently at the Centre Pompidou). In the time’s messy and interrelated worlds of Conceptual, performance, feminist, Marxist, and community-based art, Allan went beyond simple issues of equity to set the stage for a populist inquiry into the possibilities and limitations of art made in public.
When I was Allan’s student at CalArts during the ’70s, women students were drawn to the history and practices of what he termed “lifelike” art, where artmaking was a function of a reflective life, not a skill set. As he described it at a symposium on public art in 1991, artists from the late ’50s and ’60s “appropriated the real environment and not the studio, garbage and not fine paints and marble. . . . They incorporated behavior, the weather, ecology, and political issues. In short, the dialogue moved from knowing more and more about what art was to wondering about what life was, the meaning of life.”
This vision of art as a kind of “research” offered a significant aesthetic way out for young women artists whose identity politics and critical stance vis-à-vis culture demanded the production of an activist avant-garde: art that went beyond simple protest politics and engagedthe public sphere in multiple and open-ended ways. He provided permission to frame life—domestic, political, relational, and public life—as art. When I developed Three Weeks in May, a 1977 piece about rape in Los Angeles, it was Allan’s theories that allowed me to move into the public, using the frame of the city to contain a variety of “acts,” from reflective conversations to media interventions. His ideas, originally meant to challenge the art establishment, were mined by artists moving from the body to the body politic.
Allan’s impact on public art is especially evident in three ways. First, he emphasized the importance of processas the “product” of art, something particularly relevant to public art that engages multiple audiences: “The artwork,” he said, “becomes less a ‘work’ than a process of meaning-making interaction.” Second, in his commitment to what he called an “ambiguity of identity and purpose,” he set up an important parameter distinguishing art from politics. What is often missed in the examination of performance-based public artists is the fundamental role of ambiguity and questioning in the structure of their work, because the content or topic—whether race relations or global warming—is so prominently positioned. (It is not surprising that political entities distrust the arts, since most artists can’t deliver the canon even when projecting clear political intention.) Finally, Allan provided a platform for criticism: “Once art departs from traditional models and begins to merge into the everyday manifestations of society itself,” he wrote, “artists not only cannot assume the authority of their ‘talent,’ they cannot claim that what takes place is valuable just because it is art.”
While his own practice might appear distant from current public art, in fact he approached all meaning-making activities similarly: with respect, curiosity, and attention to what he could learn. We talked often about the skills artists need in the public sphere, relationships between men’s and women’s art, issues of scale, and what constituted political relevance—not with judgment but to clarify underlying meaning. “Open-endedness, to me, is democratic and challenges the mind,” he said of his ethical struggle with the artist’s role.
Anyone who looks at the ’60s will see that these ideas were in the air. Artists from Argentina, Japan, Denmark, England, and France, theater directors like Brazil’s Augusto Boal, and American activists like Abbie Hoffman were all breaking the boundaries between art and life. But Allan—who once proudly told me that Hoffman had called to consult on one of his political actions—was central to the formation of that time, and his great contribution came precisely from his curiosity and his ability to articulate the ferment around him. His influence on contemporary art will no doubt be traced in the coming decades, now that he is no longer with us, but the historicizing gaze can betray the fluid interactions of an era. Let the long-overdue legacy making begin, remembering that it will be an incalculable loss if this tracing is not as broad, generous, and relationally based as was the man himself.
Suzanne Lacy is an artist and Chair of Fine Arts at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles. | https://www.artforum.com/print/200606/suzanne-lacy-43571 |
For the Love of Books
From the coffee table to the gallery: a new exhibition shows that art books aren’t just a way of presenting artwork – they’re works of art themselves.
For the Love of Books at the Huyton Gallery in Merseyside explores the fusion of image, text, graphics and the physical form.
Opening on April 30, the exhibition traces the history of art books. Early examples on show include publications by Edward Lear, the author and illustrator of the Owl and the Pussycat and a selection from Manchester Metropolitan University’s special collections.
The traditional bound volumes will be exhibited alongside the works of artists like Jenny McInally, Lucy E Wilson and Elizabeth Willow who push the boundaries of what is considered an art book. Each artist deconstructs and then reconstructs books to create sculptures and installations.
Curated by Tina Ball, the gallery hopes the exhibition demonstrates the power of the book to provoke an emotional response, even in the digital age. | https://www.designweek.co.uk/issues/december-2011/for-the-love-of-books/ |
Before Twitter came into your life, what did you do?
I’ve always been someone who had the desire and passion to create something. My primary focus has been on visual art, poetry, and music. For the past several years I’ve been integrating elements from all of these disciplines into my art.
Prior to my involvement in Twitter I was working on public art projects, developing a new series of mixed-media artwork, and completing a limited edition spoken word and music CD, among other creative ventures.
I’ve always been interested in multiple forms of expression. Recently I’ve been integrating the various mediums, in an attempt to blur the boundaries between art, poetry, music, “Symbol Art” etc. It’s a very exciting time to be producing artwork and developing my interdisciplinary projects.
Antes de Twitter entró en tu vida, ¿qué hiciste?
Siempre he sido alguien que tenía el deseo y la pasión para crear algo. Mi enfoque principal ha sido el arte visual, la poesía y la música. Para los últimos años he estado integrando elementos de todas estas disciplinas en mi arte.
Antes de mi participación en Twitter estaba trabajando en proyectos de arte público, el desarrollo de una nueva serie de obras de arte mezcla de medios de comunicación, y de completar una edición limitada de la Spoken Words y CD de música, entre otros proyectos creativos.
Siempre he estado interesado en las múltiples formas de expresión. Recientemente he sido la integración de los distintos medios, en un intento de borrar las fronteras entre el arte, la poesía, la música, “Symbol Art”, etc. Es un momento muy emocionante para producir obras de arte y el desarrollo de mis proyectos interdisciplinarios.
Tell us about your background in the arts.
My background in the arts started at a very early age with my interest in drawing and writing. Over the years I began to develop my own unique visual vocabulary that soon transcended everything that I was working on. This vocabulary consists of things such as general patterns, marks, mark making, juxtaposition of shapes, symbols and numbers. Because of my various interests in many forms of art, after accomplishing a certain level of expertise in a particular medium I then searched for another area to develop. This quest to explore ultimately has become the foundation for my visions as an interdisciplinary artist.
Háblenos de su experiencia en las artes.
Mi experiencia en las artes comenzó a una edad muy temprana con mi interés en el dibujo y la escritura. Con los años empecé a desarrollar mi propio vocabulario visual única que pronto trasciende todo lo que yo estaba trabajando. Este vocabulario se compone de cosas tales como las pautas generales, las marcas, marca de toma, la yuxtaposición de formas, símbolos y números. Debido a mis intereses distintos en muchas formas de arte, después de haber logrado un cierto nivel de experiencia en un medio en particular Entonces buscó otra área a desarrollar. Esta búsqueda para explorar en última instancia, se ha convertido en la base de mi visión como artista interdisciplinario.
Do you have a direct relation with net art?
My connection to net art began about one year ago when I was introduced to twitter. It was an evolutionary process that developed from basic conversations, to poetry, to text art, to what I refer to as “Symbol Art”. In the early stages there were only a handful of individuals exploring the boundaries of this medium as a graphic art form. I become intrigued with pushing the boundaries of twitter and allowing the medium to communicate with people from around the world regardless of their language. Symbol art allows one to communicate across language barriers in a new, refreshing way.
¿Tiene usted una relación directa con el net art?
Mi conexión con el net art comenzó hace aproximadamente un año cuando me presentaron a Twitter. Fue un proceso evolutivo que se desarrolló a partir de conversaciones de base, a la poesía, el arte de texto, a lo que yo me refiero como “Symbol Art “. En las etapas iniciales sólo había un puñado de personas a explorar los límites de este medio como una forma de arte gráfico. Me sentí intrigado con empujar los límites de twitter permitiendo el medio para comunicarse con personas de todo el mundo, independientemente de su idioma. “Symbol Art” permite comunicarse a través de las barreras del idioma de una manera nueva y refrescante.
What is the process to create each tweet?
My process for creating tweets varies based on if I’m interested in generating “Symbol Art “ or poetry based “Text Art”. For example, if I’m working on symbol based art I will generally select an initial type of character; such as curves, straight, or calligraphic styled characters. I like to think of the process like music. I create a beat that carries the general feeling of my idea, and then I add various layers over it to create an essence. Overall, it’s an organic process, which I enjoy. It’s a way for me to generate ideas very quickly that may inform larger more serious artwork in many different types of mediums.
¿Cuál es el proceso para crear cada Tweet?
Mi proceso de creación de tweets varía en función de si estoy interesado en la generación de “Symbol Art” o la poesía basada en “Text Art”. Por ejemplo, si estoy trabajando en el “Symbol Art” basado en lo general, yo selecciono un tipo inicial de carácter, tales como curvas, rectas, o caracteres de estilo caligráfico. Me gusta pensar en el proceso como la música. Puedo crear un ritmo que lleva el sentimiento general de mi idea, y luego añadir varias capas sobre ella para crear una esencia. En general, es un proceso orgánico, que me gusta. Es una manera para mí para generar ideas muy rápidamente de que podrá informar grandemente obras de arte más grave en muchos diferentes tipos de medios.
My background in the arts started at a very early age with my interest in drawing and writing. Over the years I began to develop my own unique visual vocabulary that soon transcended everything that I was working on. This vocabulary consists of things such as general patterns, marks, mark making, juxtapositioning of shapes, symbols and numbers. Because of my various interests in many forms of art, after accomplishing a certain level of expertise in a particular medium I then searched for another area to develop. This quest to explore ultimately has become the foundation for my visions as an interdisciplinary artist.
Mi experiencia en las artes comenzó a una edad muy temprana con mi interés en el dibujo y la escritura. Con los años empecé a desarrollar mi propio vocabulario visual única que pronto trasciende todo lo que yo estaba trabajando. Este vocabulario se compone de cosas tales como las pautas generales, las marcas, marca de toma, yuxtaposición de formas, símbolos y números. Debido a mis intereses distintos en muchas formas de arte, después de haber logrado un cierto nivel de experiencia en un medio en particular Entonces buscó otra área a desarrollar. Esta búsqueda para explorar en última instancia, se ha convertido en la base de mi visión como artista interdisciplinario.
How did you start using Twitter?
A friend of mine who is very involved in technology based business and social media, introduced me to twitter about a year ago. As an artist, the majority of my attention was, and is, on developing my artwork. Initially my only goal was to use Twitter to dialogue with other artists. Soon my creative impulses had me sharing poetry, and developing my own graphical explorations and visual language.
¿Cómo empezastes a usar Twitter?
Un amigo mío que está muy involucrado en la tecnología de la industria y los medios de comunicación social, me presentó a Twitter hace aproximadamente un año. Como artista, la mayoría de mi atención,fue y es, en el desarrollo de mi obra de arte. Inicialmente, mi único objetivo era usar Twitter para el diálogo con otros artistas. Pronto mis impulsos creativos me hizo compartir la poesía, y el desarrollo de mis propias exploraciones gráfica y el lenguaje visual.
What does Twitter offer to you?
Twitter has been an enormous catalyst for introducing my artwork to numerous extremely interesting, creative people from around the world. It’s also serves as a sketchbook, diary, and journal for my ideas, and conceptual explorations. In addition, because it is a medium in which people can ‘retweet’ my work, or comment about my work on their timelines, it offers an amazing opportunity to realize the impact that my art has with the viewer.
¿Qué ofrece Twitter para usted?
BEAT MAGAZINE featuring the “Twitter Art” of Guy-Vincent.
BEAT MAGAZINE / Electronic Music, Art, and Culture from around the world.
The dialogue with the technology seems to permeate all your artwork: do you believe in the possibility of art without technology?
My primary interest as an artist is developing a unique visual language that effectively communicates and articulates my specific concept. Less important are the tools necessary to realize that concept. I’ve learned to adapt and manipulate the available tools to obtain my desired vision.
What really makes you believe that the art isn’t finished?
I've always believed in the transformative power of art from my earliest memories to the present. Throughout the ages, art continued to change and be redefined, but the essential elements of art making have remained. Part of our human experience is to create, communicate, and search for meaning. Art provides a significant portal for us to view the past, present, and future in new and exciting ways. Our desire to create and manifest our visions provides tangible evidence of societies existence and quest to define who we are.
The technique = technology does that make the art that we see in all places somehow too commercial & even disposable?
In our society there is certainly a component of disposability. This exists not only in art but also in many aspects of modern life and culture. Perhaps the disposability of art begins with the intention of the artist. Generally I create two and three-dimensional works of art that are designed to last for many years. An exception to this is my “Symbol Art” on Twitter (@GuyVincent). I use Twitter as a tool to communicate poetry and graphics very quickly to a global audience. Although Twitter has a disposable aspect to it, I’ve decided to document select “Symbol Art” images on my website to allow the viewer to see how I intended the images to look. If you visit my twitter home page (http://twitter.com/GuyVincent or @GuyVincent) you can see a historical account of my work and conversations.
Science when discovers something new, discards what was suggested before. In this way technologic art didn't makes the poetry [the poetry that there is in it] one thing too transitory?
In my view, the essence of poetry and art can be found nearly everywhere. The things I look for are elements such as; balance, structure, patterns, rhythm, modulations, contrast, etc. The arts and science share many common characteristics each discipline influences the other with their discoveries. It is during the process of discovery that I look for poetry. For example, when looking at the leaves on a tree gently swaying back and forth, it may inspire the rhythm of a poem or movement in a painting. It is in this moment of attention to nature, to surroundings, to self, that reveals the quiet poetry available for all to see.
How could we understand your aesthetics?
Perhaps the easiest way to understand my aesthetic sensibilities is to visit my website at (http://www.guyvincent.net) to get an overview of the various mediums and materials I use as part of my artistic vocabulary. Because I work in many different mediums my art contains specific visual characteristic unique to the final material or combination of materials. When I look at my overall body of work there is a consistency of patterns, design, imagery, and words that serve to unify the artwork from my earliest beginnings to present day.
Does your art have some political speech?
Yes, at times my work has a very specific political intention, but most often my work connects with the viewer from an aesthetic viewpoint. I prefer that my images provide contemplation over an extended period of time, revealing subtle movements, and several interpretations. The mystery of finding deeper meaning within the artwork is something that I also enjoy while viewing or living with art.
I’ve just produced a signed limited edition CD of spoken word and music “Soul Letters” featuring my poetry and original electronic music compositions. I have at least two other volumes of poetry ready to be released soon. I’m exploring unique ways to present my poetry besides the traditional poetry book format. This CD is an example of my overall creative interests, it was a way for me to express myself and share my poetry in a more dynamic and intimate way.
The European way of life and especially post-modern and post-Christian, founded an autonomous art (separate) from the previous aesthetic movements? If that is the truth, to what degree does that impact your artwork?
Life and art are interconnected in numerous ways with things like my past, scope of knowledge, experience, and intuition, quest for knowledge, desire and passion. All of these experiences in some degree play a role in what I create. Whatever I’ve been exposed to leaves a trace in my conscious or subconscious mind. Before I begin the process of making artwork, I meditate and try to clear my mind of the past and only focus on the present moment, leaving myself open to receive and create the purest art that I can make.
What are your influences and fundamental readings in the formation of your Weltanschauung (vision of the world)?
Perhaps, the greatest influences of my visual art come from my interest and passion for poetry. I especially admire the work of Charles Baudelaire, Lao Tzu, Rumi, and Jack Kerouac. These poets combined with painters such as Van Gogh and several other contemporary visual artists have provided me a historical reference in order to understand and present my vision of the world. For me, the most fulfilling aspect of creating art is within the art making process itself. From concept to development, to the final artwork, it’s a very intimate and organic process. After the work is completed, I view it as my “gift to the universe”. It takes on a different meaning, being perceived and discussed by others whom I don’t know personally. I find the entire process an extremely fulfilling and fascinating experience providing new challenges and opportunities.
Which advice would you give to the youth’s artists of all the times?
My advice to young artists is to understand the historical significance of art so it can serve as a foundation upon which to move forward. Authentic creativity comes from the inner desire of the individual to express, communicate, and push the boundaries of their vision. Even if you feel out of sync with your contemporaries, continue to seek clarity in your artistic vision and endeavors. The journey of life as a contemporary artist is a unique, complex, and magical opportunity for self-discovery and contributions to society.
How did you come across Twitter?
I was introduced to Twitter by a friend who is extremely passionate about social media and technology. Our conversation and my curiosity to integrate new mediums led to my exploration of Twitter.
Were you already experimenting or creating ANSI or Unicode Art before?
Many of my earliest artworks referenced literature, poetry, and the written word. Incorporating text-based xerography in the form of collage paintings and creating “concrete poetry” was an early interest of my creative journey. My work is not directly correlated with ANSI or Unicode art as it’s currently defined.
When did you see the potential of the microblogging platform as an art medium?
I’ve been aware of the power and potential of blogging for many years, but I’ve never been interested in spending the time needed to write a traditional blog. Microblogging is the perfect medium for me to express creative short bursts of poetry, graphics, thoughts, and observations. I’ve also found that it’s an excellent way to direct people via links to view my fine art on my websites.
What do you try to express with your Tweets? What is the concept, if any, behind it?
As a multidisciplinary artist, I look at all forms of communication, technology, and art as a potential source of inspiration. Twitter has become a very effective tool to communicate with individuals from around the world. Generally the conceptual content expressed in my tweets follows the specific thematic work in which I am involved. Some of my favorite graphical twitterART incorporates both words and symbols.
How do you see, from the point of view of a creator, the attention that TwitterArt has been getting?
As an artist, I’m focused on creating innovative work that utilizes any medium that enhances and helps articulate my particular conceptual direction. For me, the most fascinating element of twitter is its ability to connect, share, collaborate, and inspire people within a global capacity. Generating twitterART offers me an opportunity to spontaneously create and connect with others who conversely connect and inspire. As far as the recent twitterART attention, it’s positive from the viewpoint that it enhances an artist’s visibility, and in turn may lead to more worldwide emphasis on the arts.
Due to the extreme viral nature of Twitter, are you concerned with copyright issues?
Based upon my experience on twitter, the overwhelming majority of individuals are very conscientious in providing credit to the original source of the content whether it’s twitterART, quotes, original poetry or other creative or intellectual material.
What is the value of a Tweet containing TweetArt? Have you ever thought about it?
The value of tweet containing “twitterART, has two principal components. The first deals with my interest in visually expressing and pushing the boundaries of an idea within the limitations of 140 characters. For individuals who have twitterART streaming across their computer, it activates the screen in a very fresh and stimulating way. I’ve been thanked numerous times for providing distinctive visuals to a wide range of people using twitter on a regular basis. I certainly appreciate their positive feedback and view my twitterART contributions as only one part of the overall experience generated by people on twitter.
With Twitter’s new TOS, and the rumors that it opens the doors to advertising being included on Tweets, do you think that companies will try and use the same of Graphic based Tweets? What is your stand on this? Would you work for a company to make their brand more graphic on Twitter?
Regarding twitter’s new Terms of Service and the impact of advertising being part of twitter’s future, perhaps Biz Stone would be better suited to discuss their business model directions. If it does happen, advertisers will use whatever means are available for them to target their audience. If that includes graphic based tweets I’m certain they will utilize them. I haven’t investing my energy on the subject of advertising, but if a company asked me to collaborate on a graphic brand strategy, now we’re talking business, not art. I do twitterART because I want to. Doing it for someone else is an entirely different conversation. For me, twitter is an extension of my artistic process, a process based on being organic and having the ability to change direction with fluidity.
How do you see TwitterArt evolving knowing that is constrained by the UTF-8 code? | http://guyvincent.net/press |
Borderless is a collaborative project with a collective of artists in residence at the 2019 MI-LAB programme from the USA, Ireland, Korea and the UK. Borderless is an artist’s book edition of 8 sumi ink mokuhanga prints presented in a scroll, conceived at a time of growing political divide and separation. The collaborating artists are Katie Baldwin (USA), Patty Hudak (USA), Mariko Jesse (UK), Kate MacDonagh (Ireland), Yoonmi Nam (Korea/USA), Mia O (Korea/Japan), Lucy May Schofield (UK), Melissa Schulenberg (USA).
Borderless is formed of an emakimono scroll, referencing the ancient format originally intended to provide cultural information and teach moral values. Scrolls spanned a ‘great variety of subject matter, from political commentary to epic romances and religious tales, allowing readers to immerse themselves deep within the narratives’. Historically scrolls were also used to reflect an artist’s criticism of certain government’s tactics or policies.
Borderless is a visual and emotional correspondence between artists across three continents. This dialogue in print is motivated by the desire to connect beyond the experience of the artist’s residency, creating an intersection to comment and converse on the state of division in the artists’ respective countries. In part it is a response to the UK’s choice to leave the European Union and the US presidential administration’s policy to build a wall between the United States and Mexico. Borderless is a vehicle to express an alternate narrative to the culture of separation prevalent in the current political climate.
A scroll lacks limits or boundaries, the images flowing from one page to the next, across time and space. These prints, created independently in the artists’ studios, give rise to the meeting of 8 different universes, conversing to create one. These prints celebrate the diversity of style, line, form and interpretation of each contributing voice; an organic, serendipitous culmination of narrative. The scroll resists a constructed, pre-conceived reading, allowing the viewer space for contemplation and to make connections across the borders. Borderless is a place where each artist has come together, through a shared love of mokuhanga, to create a bridge between our independent practices, and socio-political concerns by communing with one another. | http://2021.mokuhanga.org/2021/10/04/borderless-a-collaboration-across-continents/ |
The National College of Art and Design is currently presenting the Ireland Glass Biennale 2019; a juried exhibition of work from some of the world’s most innovative glass artists, designers and craft practitioners. This exhibition includes sculpture, jewellery, photographic prints, stained glass, video and neon light installations, encompassing the diversity of glass-making techniques. Curated by Dr Caroline Madden, she tells THE GLOSS more about the exhibition.
What was the starting point for this exciting exhibition?
The National College of Art and Design Ireland Glass Biennale 2019 (IGB) is a continuum of an ongoing project that serves two primary purposes. One is to continue building awareness for studio glass in Ireland, and the second is to create an anchor event here that occurs with a regular frequency in order to feed into other networks nationally and internationally. IGB 2019 was made possible via an invitation from Karen Phillips, the Director of North Lands Creative, to collaborate in a Creative European application for funding to underwrite a project entitled, Imaging a Sustainable Glass Network in Europe (ISGNE).
The panel of jurors is very international – can you tell us about the selection process?
In order to capture the diversity of thinking and creativity involved in glass curatorship, three jurors were invited to select work for the Ireland Glass Biennale 2019. Each juror was purposely invited to contribute their specific expertise of contemporary glass practices to the jurying process. Reino Liefkes, Head of the Ceramics and Glass collections at the Victoria and Albert (VA), London, England is responsible for evolving an extensive international collection of contemporary glass at the VA. The Director at the Toledo Museum of Glass, Diane Wright, oversees the second largest collection of contemporary glass in the United States. Paula Stokes, originally from Ireland, is a cofounder of the Method gallery in Seattle and has played a pivotal role in many US-Irish contemporary glass exhibitions and events over the last 30 years. The selection process of the artists can best be summed up in the words of juror Reino Liefkes who states; “We jurors are looking for works or artists who really have something to say or who push the boundaries and contribute to the development of glass as a medium of artistic expression, and in doing so, make work that is powerful and new. In the best and most interesting work, the artist’s concept is perfectly matched with the formal aspects of the work and the possibilities of the medium. And the possibilities of the medium are expanding as the historic boundaries between art, craft and design continue to dissolve.”
The exhibition brings together emerging and established artists. Can you tell us about some of the Irish participants?
Sinéad Brennan is a significant Irish artist. Her work, Charming woman, dangerously attractive, explores concepts of female empowerment, objectification and suppression. More specifically, Brennan examines how the roles of women have been constructed, through advertising in Western society. Her forms reference traditionally gendered objects used in weaponry and cosmetics. Another significant aspect of her work is that she upcycles discarded waste glass objects to create through traditional processes of cutting, grinding and polishing.
Róisín de Buitléar’s work Islanders, is a collaborative piece bringing together 51 artists from all over the world to participate in making one large light projected artwork formed from small individually created glass works. This was recently shown as part of Venice Glass Week, 2019. This project crosses cultural boundaries and brings together aspects of culture in a positive form of community building.
Luke Holden’s mixed media sensory work Tension Cracks is all about bringing the viewer into the present moment and sharing his curiosity and intrigue in reflecting on what can happen when water and glass interact. Holden’s work is a reaction to the increasing lack of real time human interaction arising out of the prevalent use of technological devices which has meant that a person may be physically present but mentally elsewhere.
I believe some of the works are available to buy – why do you recommend investing in glass works?
I recommend investing in glass because it is still accessible at many price points. The diversity of artists engaging with glass as expressive material offers the buyers a variety of choices. The studio glass movement in the USA has advanced the experimental and artistic potentials of glass beyond the rigour of craft. Works conceived by contemporary artists like Jim Dine, Kiki Smith and Fred Wilson have done much to sustain the fine art label and price tag that works in glass now endeavour to command.
Have you any favourite exhibits – if so why?
I am particularly drawn to the work Drill Bits by Gayle Matthias as it brings together mixed media pregnant with layered narratives that unfold the longer you spend with the work. At first glance, it appears to be a series of car parts hanging on the wall of a male workspace but on closer viewing, one sees that the innards of the individual components’ are constructed of elements normally associated with a ‘traditionally’ female domestic setting.
Also, the Call of the Curlew by emerging artist Katie Spiers eloquently captures the essence of these birds by mapping their movement in space in a manner that is only possible when one is passionately engaged with the subject matter. Spiers was initially drawn to understanding the reasons behind the decline of curlews in Ireland and sought to record their activities before their extinction became a reality.
Need to Know: “Ireland Glass Biennale” is at Coach House Gallery, Dublin Castle Gardens, Dame Street, Dublin 2, until January 7, 2020 at 5pm; Admission is free; www.dublincastle.ie
Main featured image photographed and designed by Laura Quinn. | https://thegloss.ie/artistic-license-ireland-glass-biennale-2019/ |
Strip everything back to the very essence of a concept. Telling a story.
Whether it’s sharing a political viewpoint, evoking an important cause or creating a fantasy world, every piece of artwork has layers of story telling.
Often without a word count, the depth of these narrative layers are what create that third dimension. But what makes it even more incredible is the combination of minds. When the viewer becomes the narrator, their interpretation is on face, influenced by what the artist has to say about the piece, but much more than that is the addition of their own layers – their life experiences, their journey.
When forming Nua Collective, I was conscious not to feature artist’s biographies as a litany of credits and artist statements that are often inaccessible and incomprehensible. I wanted to ensure that our audience would want to read each of our artist’s profiles and while doing so, not only learning about the artists but connecting with their journey.
Experiencing a gallery space engages all the senses. The atmosphere is alive. This is a major disconnect when experiencing something within the confines of a screen (and they’re only getting smaller!). Giving artists the opportunity to tell their stories, provides the viewer with visual, sensual hooks. When we start to visualise the scenes they describe, we create images in our mind and then subconsciously add this layer of insight when exploring the artist’s artwork.
Keep it simple. Keep it accessible. We want to engage the audiences who adorn the art galleries, but more importantly we want to expand beyond this circle; to break down what can often be perceived as pretentious and exclusive; to open the gallery gates to the wider world.
We want to share the significant voices of our world’s most intuitive, the observers, the artists, the storytellers. | https://nuacollective.ie/simplifying-matters/ |
Drawing is the foundation of my work and my approach. I like its dynamic sensibility, its ability to capture not only the anatomy of the subject but also the body language which reveals the unique essence of the subject. It is also about the dilemmas and solutions of space with its physical and psychological implications, and the possibilities to frame, detain, and project a subject.
Standing Woman 7 is a painting from my Woman Series that addresses self-consciousness and, in this particular piece, memory. We move, multiple times in every moment, within the framework of what we have done, what we are doing, and what we are going to do. In all these states we carry our emotions and our history: what we feel about our actions, how we hope to feel in the future.
While women share with men some of the universal aspects of self-awareness – the singularity of existence as well as the camaraderie, our collective and personal anxieties and affiliations – a woman’s relationship to scrutiny, both emotional and physical, are different. The women in my Woman Series of paintings are exposed to the viewer in these unique aspects.
The views expressed by our artists in their artist statements do not necessarily represent the views of our art galleries. Artists can be visually expressive but may verbally misrepresent their true intentions or ideas. Please note that we support expression, whether it is controversial or not, but our intention is never to offend.
If you are passionate about art collecting and would like to buy this beautiful artwork, give our Los Angeles art galleries a call. Our art gallery is a wonderful place for art collectors.
Our owner and curator is photographer Linnea Lenkus who has a passion for high quality art. | https://linusgallery.com/juried-exhibitions/emotion-artist-eva-nicolait-standing-woman-7/ |
The Public Eye is a quarterly magazine published by Political Research Associates. It has featured over 200 authors and numerous artists and continues to be the gold standard for researchers, activists, academics, and others concerned with how the Right is influencing our daily lives.
Since a re-design in 2013, The Public Eye has featured the work of activist artists both on the covers and inside. Here’s a look back at what some of our featured artists had to say about the “Art of Activism”:
For more than 30 years, David Bacon (whose photography is featured in our Fall 2014 issue) has been writing about and photographing people who are displaced by poverty in Mexico and choose to cross into the United States in search of a better life. David writes: “For me, photography is a cooperative project. For over a decade, I’ve worked with the Binational Front of Indigenous Organizations, a Mexican migrant organization, and California Rural Legal Assistance to document this contradiction…I believe documentary photographers stand on the side of social justice—we should be involved in the world and unafraid to try to change it.”
Nansi Guevara (the cover artist for our Winter 2017 issue) frequently incorporates bright colors, resisting Eurocentric design traditions, and weaves together multiple languages in her art. She sees the creation of new worlds through art as something that’s also essential to activism. Socially conscious artists are at the forefront of movements and change, pushing boundaries and bringing the seemingly invisible to light. They “are the pulse of the community and art has the power to help us imagine a better world. It is essential in our fight for justice because we need to be able to first imagine change in our minds in order to create it.”
Negative media representations of Arabs and Arab Americans influenced Helen Zughaib’s art (featured in our Spring 2015 issue) especially while President Obama was running for office and frequently labeled a Muslim. “I think that many artists are activists in some way or another,” Zughaib says. “They reflect their times, their environment, visually recording what happens around them. The work that becomes important has its finger on the critical issues of the day.”
Spinney’s work (featured in our Fall 2015 issue) often approaches serious issues—such as religion, sexuality and identity—informed by their own experiences; their style is a mix of dark topics and more humorous innuendos. When asked about the connection between their art and activism, Spinney said, “My art primarily investigates issues of queerness at the moment. I’m very invested in cultural production—whether or not it appears to possess an immediate focus on tangible change—because I think that to create cultural matter [and] art is to partake in a huge force that can work to shift our society over time.”
Meredith Stern (whose artwork is featured on the front cover of our Winter 2015 issue) embraces the “act locally, think globally” ethos. Stern has had a lifelong connection to grassroots activism but didn’t always feel that movements welcomed art. “It seemed that within activist circles, art and culture were dismissed as unnecessary,” she explains. “But art does play a role in promoting ethics, as a moral compass, and a reflection of society and the people within it.” She believes that with the rise of Occupy and Black Lives Matter, social justice movements are beginning to make room for art. “I’m pretty excited that people are starting to see art and culture as part of social movements. To see that it’s all connected,” she says.
Joshua MacPhee (our Winter 2016 cover artist) didn’t go to a traditional art school to learn his craft, but rather what he calls “the punk rock school of art,” where he became part of a politicized sub-culture and learned to work in a wide variety of media.
“For me making art is part of a practice of trying to change the world for the better,” said MacPhee. “Sometimes that’s simply constructing an image, sometimes it’s building a big social project that engages directly with lots of participants, sometimes it’s not making art at all, but just going on a demonstration, giving a little money to an organization doing important work, or using the platform art can provide to discuss important issues often not aired in the public sphere.”
Asad Badat (the artist behind the cover of the Summer 2015 issue) writes “If art can get you to change your mind about something or inspire you to have some sort of change in yourself or effect some sort of change in your community, that’s powerful.” These sparks can become the conflagrations of movements.
We look forward to showcasing more activist art in the forthcoming issues. Want to contribute to The Public Eye? Check out our submission guidelines. To subscribe, click here. | https://politicalresearch.org/2017/04/20/the-artists-of-the-public-eye |
Two weeks ago, Hyperallergic had the opportunity, to interview Robert J Lang, the origami artist who, along with several others, has filed a lawsuit against painter Sarah Morris the artist who, they say, infringed on their copyrights when she produced 24 of her Origami paintings based on crease patterns.
In the following article, gleaned from some of Lang’s lengthier responses to our questions, we are treated to insights regarding Lang’s art, the many forms and practices of origami artists now and in the past, and the diversity of its uses.
The article, comprised of Lang’s responses, is followed by a transcripted interview in which Lang addresses, among other things, his lawsuit against Sarah Morris.
Robert J. Lang Discusses Cranes and Flowers
Origami, the traditional Japanese art, existed as not much more than cranes and flowers for a couple of hundred years. Then, in the mid-20th century, several Japanese artists began developing their simple folk art into something new.
One man, more than any other, set origami on its new trajectory: that was Akira Yoshizawa, who is now widely regarded as the father of modern origami. He created thousands of new figures, but, as importantly, his works were artistic, lifelike, graceful, and so established origami as something worthy of respect and pursuit.
He also established the notation that has been adopted worldwide as the lingua franca (or “lingua folda”) for communicating origami folding sequences. Yoshizawa’s work kicked off a worldwide renaissance of folding arts that led to the creation of thousands of new designs — but even more importantly, to entirely new techniques for design.
A Brief History of the New Oragami
There are new patterns — 95% of all published origami designs are less than 50 years old — but most of those patterns were made possible by new techniques.
Let me back up and give a little history to explain why:
We find the roots of many of these new design techniques in works created as far back as the 1950s. But beginning in the 1970s and 1980s, we saw the stirrings of a new school of origami: so-called “technical folding,” or “origami sekkei.”
This school of folding began investigating the fundamental laws that define what is and is not possible with folding. Through a combination of mathematical laws and geometrical concepts, some explicit, some intuitively understood, modern folders began to create figures that were literally orders of magnitude more complex than the traditional designs: instead of taking two or three minutes to fold, some of them took days of continuous folding.
The technical revolution started origami on an exponential growth curve that continues to this day. The things people are doing today would have been thought impossible ten years ago; and the ten-years-ago figures would have been considered impossible ten years before that. There is no sign of a plateau ahead of us, and so it is a heady time to be an artist in this field.
Lang and his Peers
I think I was fortunate to come into the field right at the knee of the curve: I took up folding in the 1960s, when origami in the West was in its infancy, and got to observe, meet, and interact with some of the early pioneers of Western folding (and eventually, the pioneers of modern Japanese folding).
During the 1990s, I was one of several people who were really pushing the techniques for designing, an exploration that took place in both the West and Japan. My 2003 book, Origami Design Secrets, describes many of those techniques. But I was not alone in this exploration; there were many other origami artists who were advancing the art in various ways, including my colleagues Kawahata, Kamiya, Hojyo, and Meguro, in Japan, and Montroll, Brill, Joisel, LaFosse, and others, in the West.
Complexity and Beauty
Now, a lot of the changes that took place were innovations in pure design: the ability to create greater complexity and sophistication. Complexity is not at all the same as artistry; something complex is not necessarily something beautiful or meaningful. But we created tools and put them into people’s hands, and as they learned to use those tools, artists did indeed create works that are beautiful, meaningful, and, we hope, artistically significant. Whether an artwork is any of those things is of course a subjective assessment, but the audience response we’ve seen to exhibitions in traditional art venues such as MOMA would tend to support that notion.
The Many Origamis
One thing to understand is the diversity of modern origami. There is not a single thread of origami: rather, it is an art form that radiates in many directions at once as it grows, and the different rays of growth may propagate in different, or even opposite, directions.
So there is still origami on the level of “cranes and flowers” that is practiced for its own sake, its practitioners seeking nothing more than the simple joy of creation.
There are artists who set their own boundaries of complexity as artistic limits and then work within those boundaries to achieve their results, while others try to push as far into complexity as the properties of the paper and their understanding will allow them.
Subject matter varies; there is representational origami, still probably the most common subject matter; some representational origami artists strive for complexity and richness of texture and line, some strive for spare, minimalist lines.
There is also purely abstract origami that looks like nothing in particular but that appeals to the human response to pattern and form and the associations we make with those. Geometric origami, for instance, draws upon mathematical structures that reside within the richness of geometry and polyhedra.
And then there is origami that explores conceptual limits: is it possible to create something meaningful with only a single fold? (Yes, if you’ve seen the “postmodern” one-crease work of Paul Jackson.) If we want to fold with “no cuts,” then can we eliminate even the cutting that creates the original square and achieve a positive result?
Origami’s “Tendrils”
Further, there are the tendrils that origami extends out of the conceptual box of “folded paper” to include connections to technology and the study of the underlying mathematics of folding as a formal discipline, which can be wholly divorced from the manipulation of paper.
Origami conceived in higher dimensions, or curved spaces, can only be described in a mathematical or conceptual way, and is, at best, only approximated by physical objects.
And there is also an extension to new media where works are folded from other materials such as leather, plastic, metal, or mesh. From there, the use of patterns and forms that begin within origami can grow as artworks outside of that form: rendering a folded shape in metal or ceramic.
Then there are the patterns themselves, that arise through the process of origami design, which can be used as pictorial artworks in other ways, such as design motifs, or as stand-alone artworks. The use of crease pattern designs as stand-alone graphical art by myself, by my collaborators, and by many of my fellow artists falls into this last category.
So, the main false impression I would like to correct is the notion that origami can be pigeonholed into a small box or a simple category. It is a broad and diverse field, with many practitioner artists, and many forms of expression. And crease patterns, in particular, cannot be pigeonholed as having a single, simple intention.
The Art of the Crease
If one takes the narrowest possible dictionary definition, a “crease pattern” (CP) would be “a set of lines that is a representation of some subset of folds in an origami shape, real or imagined.”
But the deeper question is, what does a crease pattern represent to some person? And that answer varies with the person.
At one extreme, and at the most personal level, to an origami designer, it is an extrinsic form of memory: a way of recording one’s ideas and the relationships among those ideas in a level of detail too great to carry around all at once in one’s mind.
To a (fairly small) community of folders, it is a guide for how to fold an object; a CP does not include all of the creases in the folded artwork, so it is something more than a hint, but something less than a full plan, and not all that many people can make use of it in that way.
To a broader community, which includes both folders and nonfolders, it can be a “proof certificate”: an indication that a folded object really is what it claims to be; even though the observer can’t make the connection between specific lines in the pattern and folds in a figure, he or she knows that such a connection exists and that any given line, if investigated deeply enough, would correspond to something in another representation of the subject of the fold.
That proof certification can be appreciated even if one does not see the folded object or even if the object does not yet exist: there is the knowledge that it is connected to something immanent. Along the same lines, a CP serves as yet another way of representing an object or concept, just as the folded form is, itself, a representation of an object or concept.
And then, to the largest community, the lay observer, a CP is a beautiful pattern whose subpatterns and symmetries evoke memories and associations, an evocation that is made richer by the knowledge that the lines are not random, but in fact follow some inner order. The observer may not know the rules of the inner order, but at some level, he or she can perceive that an order is present, and that knowledge can enhance the overall visual experience.
And it almost goes without saying that these roles for a CP are by no means mutually exclusive; any given person might well experience the same CP on multiple levels. I’m probably the only person who experiences my own CPs in that first sense, but I also experience it in all of the other ways as well to varying degrees — and, I imagine, those who’ve seen my CPs in exhibitions probably experience them in ways I haven’t anticipated here. And, I expect, other artists would describe their own relationship to their and others’ CPs in different ways as well.
* * *
Interview With Robert J. Lang
Cat Weaver: Does your personal practice differ from other origami artists?
Robert Lang: Of course, it has to. Think of any artist: would a painter say that his or her practice is the same as other painters? Every artist pursues his or her art for unique reasons, and those reasons, plus one’s own aesthetics and skills, dictate what one creates and how one goes about creating.
I personally am interested in pushing limits of complexity and realism in my representational work, and in creating new forms that haven’t been realized in the past (and that people might have thought were unrealizable) in my abstract/geometric work. Because I am fairly comfortable with mathematical techniques, and I recognize that using such techniques can take me much farther than I could go working on my intuition alone, I tend to use mathematical concepts and tools more than most other origami artists. But I would say that we all view ourselves as different from all the others in some way.
CW: I noticed that you call your works “compositions.” Is the crease pattern a composition?
RL: Yes.
CW: Or is the 3D folded object a composition?
RL: Yes, the folded object is a composition, too.
CW: You sell crease patterns as art, by themselves, without the folded object. Is there an active market for such work?
RL: Yes. I have my own customer list. I can’t speak for my artist colleagues who sell their own crease patterns, but I imagine they keep customer lists as well.
CW: Do you think that the market for paintings like the ones Sarah Morris did overlaps with the current market for your own work?
RL: I don’t know her market very well, so I can’t say. I imagine that information will become better known in the future.
CW: May I ask how much they go for?
RL: Less than Ms. Morris charges.
CW: Do you ever use color? How?
RL: I’ve always used color in my CPs, both as a decorative element, to make them more visually interesting, and to signify levels of information that are not easily conveyed in other ways.
CW: Do you use a computer program to generate your crease patterns?
RL: I create the original designs using some combination of pencil and paper and computer tools; but pretty much everything that I’ve published has reached final form via a drawing program, typically Adobe Freehand.
CW: How does it work? Is it rocket science? Or could I learn to do it?
RL: I think that anyone could learn to design origami, and that’s really the point of [my book] Origami Design Secrets. ODS teaches people how they can design their own original CPs and original origami figures, and I’ve heard from a fair number of origami artists that they learned how to make their own designs from ODS.
There’s a certain irony in the situation that some of the artworks at issue here are examples presented in ODS — when the techniques to create something truly original are in that same source, there for the learning.
CW: Most people think of origami as starting from a square piece of paper. Do you ever cut paper or start with alternate shapes?
RL: Yes. I like to try new things and have dabbled, at the least, in nearly all genres of origami, including cuts, non-square paper (one of my mentors used a lot of rectangles, and I still do so too, now and then), and multiple sheets (known as composite or modular origami, depending on the style). Most of my work is no-cuts, single-sheet, from-square; that’s what holds my interest longest. My only hard-and-fast rule in my folded work is to “say what you do” — if I use weird shapes, or multiple sheets, it will say so in the “medium” part of the work’s description. If it’s a single uncut square, it will say that, too, as most of them do.
CW: What has been your most ambitious piece to date?
RL: One that I still haven’t finished folding. (Alas, I don’t like to say what I’m working on till it’s ready, so the subject will have to remain a secret, for now.)
CW: When you create an original origami piece, do you always publish the crease patterns, or do you keep some secrets?
RL: I don’t publish them all, but it’s not so much that I want to keep things a secret; I’m only going to publish a CP if it is visually interesting and of decent quality. I value CPs for their own appearance; I try to design works whose CP is interesting as well as the folded form. If the CP is boring, I still might fold the work it is connected to, but if the CP is interesting, that’s a big plus, and increases the likelihood that I’ll publish it. If it’s something that’s not interesting, or is just a scribbled sketch and I haven’t gotten around to making a nice-looking representation, I won’t publish it.
CW: Origami crease patterns have been compared to architectural drawings; do you agree to the similarity?
RL: I see similarities: both are a partial representation of another form of artwork; both can be artworks in their own right. I’ve seen architectural renderings exhibited as standalone artworks in museums. There are differences, though: in an architectural rendering, once can usually perceive the 3D finished form, while in CPs, the connection to a 3D form is more opaque, and so to most people, the pattern must be interpreted and appreciated on its own terms.
CW: I see them more as a Sol LeWitt line drawing. He gave instructions for producing them and they could be made by anyone, but they remain Sol LeWitts.
RL: I could do the same thing as what you describe; I could supply a digital file of my design to someone else and ask them to render it and still call the work my own. When I’ve sold limited edition CPs, I’ve worked both ways; I’ve had a third party create prints from my digital file for some; for others, I’ve printed them myself. I am, of course, already relying on others for many aspects of my art (as is the case with most artists). Someone manufactured the pencil and paper with which I composed a crease pattern. Someone programmed the computer that I use to create an electronic drawing. Someone created the paper from which the work is folded.
CW: Why are you so sure crease patterns can be copyrighted?
RL: That’s because copyright law protects “original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression, which can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated,” including “pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works.” Our crease pattern artwork meets that definition: they’re original works of authorship (by us); they’re fixed in a tangible medium of expression (paper and/or electronic media) that can be perceived, reproduced, and communicated; and they are pictorial and graphic works.
CW: Why did you choose to sue Sarah Morris?
RL: She was the creator of the infringing artwork, even if she hired others to do the work.
CW: How did you decide who would sign on to the suit?
RL: If an artist had created a work that Ms. Morris had (apparently) infringed, he/she could join the suit.
CW: So, how is the case is going?
RL: It’s at the very beginning, so there have been no notable developments. (Note: Lang notes on his site that: “As of May 4th, 2011, Ms. Morris has not answered the complaint. We have identified 24 of her works that are unauthorized copies of origami crease patterns by modern origami artists.”)
CW: Do you expect to go to court?
RL: Yes, that was the purpose of filing the complaint, and I expect that is where the matter will be settled.
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Art Radar introduces three young artists whose performance art is shaking up the Indonesian art scene.
Kelvin Atmadibrata, Aziz Amri and FJ Kunting exploit the body to explore ideas of identity, lived experience, and tangible and invisible boundaries in today’s world.
How can art function as a tool to communicate both microscopic and macroscopic ideas in relation to the body, space and life itself? Is there the potential to understand something new through an applied shift in perspective? Identity is a multifaceted composition, which consists of culminations of a lived experience through relation to boundaries made visible by demarcations – such as borders and legislations, among others. Regulations possess immediate amendment to understanding the way the body exists in the world, considerations of location-specific works, social practices and internalised ideas. These concepts are manifested in the multimedia boundary pushing works of emerging Indonesian artists Kelvin Atmadibrata, Aziz Amri and FJ Kunting.
The concerns of these artists living and working in Indonesia today are societal, personal, immediate and expansive. Social and participatory elements are core components of their works. Atmadibrata, Amri and Kunting all push beyond traditional materialisations in their art practice. This is evident in the incorporation of multiple media including painting, photography, sculpture and live performance pieces to explore the conceptual concerns central to their works. Each of the artists creates work domestically within the context of their shared home, Indonesia, as well as internationally. The international festival participation permits the exchange of ideas, methodology and approach, among others. A shared element of collaboration in these artists’ works are manifested on both the performer’s and the audience’s end.
1. Kelvin Atmadibrata: a dialogue in movement
Kelvin Atmadibrata (b. 1988) lives and works in Jakarta, Indonesia. He studied at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, where he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Interactive Media from the School of Art, Design and Media. His interdisciplinary practice primarily incorporates performance and sculpture. He explores identity in relation to bodily shifts, as seen in puberty, as well as the societal in regards to the perpetuation of erotica and masculine ideology, among others. In his works he creates a dialogue rooted in movement. Atmadibrata’s work has a resonance far beyond the initial encounter of the performance. He pushes the limits of his body, through both physical and psychological applications. His actions are realised with an immense level of precision, graceful and contained. Despite the intensity of the physical tasks he takes on, the strain of his postures are somewhat masked by the serene expression on his face. The work of Atmadibrata urges the viewer to consider their own bodily relationship, specific to location of the encounter where he and the audience coexist. Recent performances include his participation in the Performance Art Resource Orchestrator (PARO) International Festival in Singapore (2017).
2. Aziz Amri: encounters between private and public
Aziz Amri (b. 1994) lives and works in Jakarta, Indonesia. He received his Bachelor of Computer Science and is pursuing his Masters in Design at the Institute of Technology of Bandung. Amri is also co-running Sepersepuluh, a gallery focused in showing performance. He is a multidisciplinary artist, working in illustration and graphic design, whose works often take form in live performance. Amri’s works are visually arresting, and deal with responsiveness to encounters where one comes of age and the silence around issues. The images provide the space for a viewer to contemplate life, death and moments in-between. He embraces the tension between private and public spaces, as he presents works both within the context of the gallery as well as outdoor venues. Through sharing photographic documentation of his domestic projects, his works can be experienced by audiences beyond Jakarta, sometimes in real time through live video feeds. In a recent durational project entitled Laurel Wreath, Amri exerts his body in diverse actions. Through the application of focus and balance, he is able to alter the viewer’s perceptions. The images are surreal and evocative of cycles in life, suggesting Amri’s coming to a new realisation, akin to a rebirth, or his move towards another phase in his life and practice.
3. FJ Kunting: endurance of the body
FJ Kunting (b. 1982) lives and works in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. His practice comprises performance and painting. He is most interested in experimental ways of working, such as the ideas that took on variant forms as seen from the artists in the Fluxus movement. His works are conceptually born, and are concerned with varied levels of relationships that the body can have at any given time and site. Dealing largely with identity and ideology constructs, Kunting utilises endurance as his primary tool in his live performance works. His works are realised in both gallery spaces or in the public squares to permit different levels of audience engagement. Over extended intervals of time, he repeats difficult actions, which are made more difficult as the work continues.
Evidenced in the documentation of his performances in the international festivals PARO, Performance Art Resource Orchestrator in Singapore, and KIPAF, Kolkata International Performance Art Festival in India, Kunting wore a plastic hat filled with bubble fluid and breathed into it through a straw device. It can be seen in these images that a large amount of breath was exerted. The result was the cause and effect relationship of the body to the object, which resulted in an overflow where the fluid bubbled over, down Kunting’s body and onto the floor. This is a poetic metaphor for sexuality and identity, among other references. There is a serene quality to the work. One can see the massive amounts of energy Kunting exerts to produce such a minute result, and for that, it becomes monumental.
Chelsea Coon
2085
Related Topics: Indonesian artists, body, performance, emerging artists
Related Posts: | https://artradarjournal.com/2018/05/12/3-emerging-indonesian-performance-artists-to-watch/ |
Accepting and managing the loss of independence and mobility
We all want to age gracefully and maintain our independence for as long as possible. Unfortunately, a loss of independence and mobility can occur at one time or another in our lives. This can come as a genuine blow, often accompanied by feelings of denial or even anger. When confronted with such feelings, how can those around the person offer their support and help make sense of this new situation without making things worse?
Accepting a loss of independence takes time and effort. However, through a combination of attentive listening, respect and patience, it is possible to provide support to those going through it without being overprotective of them.
What does “loss of mobility” mean and is it possible to delay it?
In the case of seniors, a loss of mobility is naturally age-related. It isn’t unusual to observe a reduction in physical and cognitive capacities starting around the age of 65, and there are various factors, including muscular degeneration, illness and accidents, that can exacerbate the problem. The resulting motor impairment can complicate even the most mundane daily activities: getting dressed, eating, personal grooming, housework, etc. All of the tasks that seniors used to be able to do by themselves suddenly require the assistance of another person.
Is it possible to delay this problem? Physical activities such as yoga, walking and swimming can help maintain muscle mass. Proper nutrition is another factor that plays an important role. A diet that’s balanced, varied and healthy can be adapted to meet each person’s specific needs. Maintaining cognitive function, on the other hand, relies on the person’s social life and intellectual stimulation, which can be provided through conversation, board games and cultural outings.
Since a loss of independence is nearly impossible to predict, seniors and their loved ones shouldn’t be afraid to discuss it, even if there aren’t yet any signs. It will be easier to have this delicate conversation while everything is still going well, and doing so will help maintain a harmonious relationship by avoiding unnecessary tension and frustration down the road.
Accepting the loss of independence and supporting the senior
It’s vitally important to listen to seniors and consider their opinions. By explaining the situation and emphasizing that they won’t be forced into anything, you’ll build trust and help promote a positive, constructive approach. This approach not only preserves seniors’ dignity but also makes the situation easier for the family and loved ones providing care, as it encourages healthy, honest communication without treating the seniors like children.
Acceptance is a lengthy process. Therefore, patience and indulgence are valuable assets. When offering to help, you should be prepared to face some reluctance, which is perfectly normal. With time, it’s easier for seniors to accept and understand that the intention isn’t to take away their remaining independence but rather to allow them to focus on the things they are still capable of doing.
In fact, even if the loss of mobility is significant, encouraging seniors will empower them and fortify their aptitude to take control of their space. There are solutions for rearranging their homes, making them easier to live in. Additionally, in-home services should be considered in order to help seniors maintain their quality of life. In this case, their loved ones should explain how the arrival of these “strangers” could be beneficial. Privacy is very important, and violating it can provoke legitimately fearful reactions. Once again, initiating a dialogue can help seniors understand and accept each stage.
The team at Elite Comfort Health Care applies this compassion to everything they do. These professionals know how demanding the challenges related to advanced age can be, not only for the people facing them but also for those around them. That’s why all of their services are based on trust. As a result, everyone involved can make their voice heard and receive the support they deserve.
Sources:
Comparateur Dépendance Sénior. La perte de mobilité des seniors : comment la gérer ? (The loss of mobility in seniors: how to manage it). 2021.
Maintien à domicile. Dépendance des personnes âgées : comment l’accepter ? (Senior dependence: how to accept it). 2015. | https://confortelite.ca/en/managing-loss-independence-mobility/ |
Do American Indian students benefit from having American Indian teachers?
Academic research says that the answer is likely yes, while not an iron-clad rule. But when the topic came up at a recent legislative hearing in Montana, a handful of Republican legislators pounced on the notion that American Indian students learn better from American Indian teachers.
“I take great offense to this,” said Rep. John Fuller, a Kalispell Republican and former teacher who previously served on the Board of Public Education. “If you want to perpetuate racism, take that attitude.”
However, several educational experts said that not only is the attitude not racist, but that trying to change racial discrepancies between teachers and students can lead to positive academic outcomes.
Salish Kootenai lobbyist Jordan Thompson made the original comment during a Feb. 20 hearing before the House Education Committee about a bill designed to address teacher shortages, especially in rural schools and reservation schools, by improving access to teacher training for those with rural roots.
“Students do better when teachers look like them and/or understand them,” he said.
Rep. Brad Tschida, a Missoula Republican, made an unusual request for a personal comment to address Thompson’s testimony after the hearing.
“Sometimes we have to be cautious about how we approach things,” Tschida said.
Fuller's comments came during a Feb. 22 vote on the bill.
The responses show a reluctance to embrace intertwined racial and policy issues in education.
“Those who suggest culture and politics are not embedded in schooling are refusing to listen to years of research which support this,” said Montana State University education professor David Henderson in an email.
'A real mismatch'
Jioanna Carjuza asks her classes each year: How many teachers of color did students have during their K-12 schooling?
“It’s never more than four or five, no matter where they went to school, Chicago or Livingston, Montana,” she said.
Carjuzza, a Montana State University education professor, runs a group for American Indian students pursuing teaching degrees in addition to teaching duties.
She backed up what Thompson had tried to convey during the legislative hearing; that academic research shows that black students who had at least one black teacher during their schooling had better academic outcomes — and that the research can likely apply to American Indian students.
“There’s no question we have a real mismatch here,” she said.
Montana’s teaching force is 2.3 percent American Indian. About 14 percent of students identify as American Indian.
There are cultural connections that American Indian teachers will likely find easier to make on a personal level, and what they’re teaching will already be filtered through that cultural lens before it reaches the student.
Carjuzza said that many people have a skewed perception of “neutral” in a classroom; in Montana, they were most likely white students with mostly white peers and a white teacher.
White students, she said, see themselves reflected in the classroom and what they’re learning “every day, all the time.”
That doesn’t mean that white teachers can’t be great teachers for American Indian students. Both Henderson and Carjuzza said that high-quality training is important, regardless of race. But it’s complicated.
Henderson cited a trio of studies emphasizing the importance of teachers understanding a “culturally responsive pedagogy” — teaching within a student’s cultural framework.
“Can a middle class, white person be a great teacher in a school on the reservation? Yes. Is it harder? Yes," Henderson said. "Can they ever really understand an AI kid's story? No. So can they build the trust necessary for great learning to happen? Yes. Does the fact that an American Indian person is a teacher automatically make them a great teacher on the Rez? No.”
Research
This is hardly the first time the topic has come up in Montana; a 2016 Slate article posed the very question while highlighting efforts at one school to recruit more American Indian teachers.
Thompson distributed a handout after the hearing to committee members that included information about a study with African-American students and another study showing that African-American teachers had higher expectations of African-American students than white teachers did.
Another study in Tennessee found that black and white students had better test scores when paired with a teacher of their own race.
“When you look at the research, it’s there, right? I don’t know why there was kind of this backlash of comments on it,” Thompson said.
Fuller called the handout an “alleged resource” when voting on the bill.
“Students learn from good teachers,” he said. “Good teachers come in all sizes, shapes, and colors.”
Tschida again spoke on the issue, citing a Frederick Douglass imitator he’d seen recently.
“We have to understand that if we eliminate as much of the things that divide us and focus on the things that unite us we’ll be better off," he said.
Rep. Jacob Bachmeier, a Havre Democrat studying to be a teacher at the University of Montana, pushed back.
“I think we can be united in our differences as well,” he said. “I also can’t help but think that all my teachers looked like me. … Education can uniquely be socio-cultural.”
Thompson said he spoke with Tschida after the first hearing, emphasizing that he didn’t think the research precluded white teachers from effectively teaching American Indian students.
“I don’t think that would be the end-all to the education gap,” Thompson said. “I think one of the causes (of the gap) might be that we just need more Native representation in our schools.”
When the committee voted on the teacher shortage bill, it passed, 10-7. Tschida voted no. Bachmeier voted yes. Fuller, in a vote critical to the bill's passage out of committee, broke with most Republicans on the committee to vote yes.
The bill has been referred to the House Appropriations Committee. | https://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/govt-and-politics/does-a-teacher-s-race-matter-debate-on-racism-research/article_63d64079-5c6c-5dd0-a545-ffea666191b1.html |
It's never easy to approach someone about a difficult subject. But it's often necessary to overcome issues at work, home or school. Here's a guide to help you hold a difficult conversation.
Ask before you begin. As much as a difficult conversation may be necessary, a person may not always be ready to handle it. That's why it's a good idea to ask someone's permission before holding a difficult conversation. Find out if it's a good time to talk about your concerns and if it's not, walk away with the resolve to try again another time. Both parties need to be open to having a difficult conversation if you have any hopes of a successful outcome.
Use a gentle approach. Don't spring a harsh comment on an unsuspecting person. Instead, approach difficult conversation gently. Ease into your concerns, speak genuinely and demonstrate your interest in helping the person to make the necessary changes.
Keep other people out of the conversation. At all times, you need to keep difficult conversations professional. Even if everyone else has the same opinion as you, speak only for yourself. Don't involve anyone else in the conversation except those immediately present. It's a professional approach that will earn you the respect of all those involved.
Get to the point. If you find the need to discuss a difficult topic, don't beat around the bush. Be as straightforward and direct as you can when voicing your concerns. The sooner you get to the point of a difficult conversation, the sooner it will be over. So gently focus in on the problem right away so that everyone knows what needs to be dealt with.
Reach an agreement. Before you end a difficult conversation, ensure that you have reached your goal for the discussion. Come to an agreement with the other person that both of you are happy with. Talk about how he will change his behavior if that was your concern. Or make an action plan that has a reasonable deadline. And lay out your decision in writing. That way, both parties will take the difficult conversation seriously.
Follow up. Although you may feel like you want to crawl under a rock after having a difficult conversation with someone, you can't. You've got to make sure that your points were received and acted upon. For this reason, you need to follow-up on the results of your difficult discussion. Make sure that the other person is holding up his side of the deal. If not, you may need to revisit the difficult topic with him. | http://www.howtodothings.com/family-relationships/how-to-hold-a-difficult-conversation |
Imagine walking into work on Monday morning and being greeted by your boss.
“First order of business,” she barks, “I need this spreadsheet done by 5 pm.”
How do you think you would feel?
Now compare this with another scenario: your boss looks up with a smile and asks you about your weekend. “Did you see that movie you mentioned last week?”
If you’re like most people, the first scenario would make you stressed. To illustrate my point a little better, let me pose another example.
Do you prefer meetings where people jump straight into giving ideas and solutions? Or would you rather chat a little about your commonalities and discuss what you deem important?
Prioritizing relationships over content (the facts, tasks, and details of your work) can have many benefits. Both are important, of course, but it’s rare that a “straight to work” attitude is the best way to begin a collaboration.
Whether you invite a quiet teammate to share their opinions (“What do you think?”) or start with a simple hello, taking the time to connect with others can help you establish a solid base for the rest of your interaction.
This blog will explore the Connect style of interacting and introduce you to five coaching tips to help you leverage it more effectively. If you want to strengthen your ability to build strong working relationships with this influencing style, read on!
What Is The Connect Style?
Connect is one of the twelve influencing styles in the Sphere of Influence 360.
This style involves identifying the wishes, needs, and interests of those you are collaborating with and involving everybody in conversations, so they have a say.
Adopting a Connect style involves skills such as:
- Actively seeking win-win situations
- Discovering and emphasizing your similarities
- Checking if everyone is aligned in terms of interests, goals, and ambitions, and
- Building on one another’s ideas and contributions.
If you feel this style is one that you’d like to develop further, the good news is that it’s easy with practice. Here are five exercises you can try out to become a strong Connector!
1. Involve People In Conversations
Successful collaborations are those in which everyone is involved and actively participates. When everyone has a chance to not only speak, listen, and adapt, collective intelligence is highest—that means better outcomes and happier, more engaged team members,
Utilizing a Connect style in these contexts is important because it helps you involve teammates who might find it hard to speak up, which creates equal participation.
Here’s how you can help the “quiet ones” have a voice in your next meeting:
- Pay attention to which team members are actively involved in the conversation and which are more reluctant. The challenge here is to observe your team members carefully during the meeting and note down their participation style in the table below.
- Once you’ve identified your more reluctant teammates, invite them to participate more. (Note: Ease them into it—try to avoid putting them on the spot during heated discussions or when the topic at hand is out of their comfort zone.)
- Use or adapt these example sentences when you invite others to take part:
- Do you have anything to add?
- What do you think about …?
- Can you share your thoughts about …?
2. Bring Up Common Interests
Clarifying everybody’s interests is essential if you want a win-win solution to challenges. By sharing your interests with others—and discovering theirs in turn—you can find out more about what matters to them.
These three steps can help you:
- Identify and share your interests: What matters to you in the current collaboration? Write down your answer and try the “Four Why” technique. For example: “I really want our customers to be satisfied with this new feature, because I want our ratings to improve. I want our ratings to improve because I want our product to be compared favorably to our key rival…” And so on! Once you’ve identified the core of what is important to you, share it with your conversation partners.
- Find out what is important to your teammates. Use the same “Four Why”technique, but start with the following question: “What is important to you in this collaboration, situation or assignment?”
- Find out which interests you have in common and share them. Your common concerns, interests, and goals are the building blocks of successful solutions and win-win outcomes!
3. Emphasize Your Similarities
The right mindset is critical when you are acknowledging what you have in common with your conversation partners.
The following tips might help you spot similarities more easily:
- Make a sticky note that reads “Emphasizing Similarities” and keep it somewhere visible..
- Remind yourself to focus on similarities before you go into a meeting.
- Choose a prop such as a stapler, pen, or water bottle that represents your goal. Bring it to your meeting and place it in front of you so it constantly reminds you to focus on similarities.
Once you’ve identified what you and your teammates have in common, share those things out loud! The following sentences may help you:
- “I feel the same about…!”
- “It looks like we both appreciate…”
- “I think we share the same interests in…”
- “I recognize that!”
- “Like you, I think it’s important that…”
4. Check That You Are On The Same Page
When you and a teammate are aligned, you share the same amount of knowledge about a topic, think alike about it, or understand it in the same way as they do.
You can make better decisions by getting aligned beforehand. This means sharing all the information you have about a topic and not assuming that others know what you do about a project’s goals, the available information, or what has already been discussed.
Second, you need to make sure that you find out what the other person knows—here are some sentences you can use to find out this information:
- Have I missed anything?
- Does anyone want to add anything to this discussion?
- What hasn’t yet been mentioned?
5. Listen Actively
Active listening involves making a deliberate effort to understand what your conversation partner is trying to say—the message behind their message. It requires you to pay your full attention to their words but also what they aren’t saying, e.g., their body language and what they are leaving out.
Interpreting nonverbal communication can be the trickiest part, so here are a few tips to help you:
- Observe! During your next five to ten conversations, your challenge is to observe your conversation partner’s facial expressions, gestures, and movements. What do you notice about their tone of voice, movements, and posture? Do these support what they are saying or are they telling a different story?
- Share what you see with your conversation partner, for example by pointing out what you notice: “You’re saying ‘Yes’ but I notice you’re crossing your arms.” Be aware that this approach can be somewhat confrontational, so use it wisely. The trick is to describe what you have observed in an unbiased way—try to avoid interpreting their behaviors or jumping to any conclusions.
- Give them a chance to react. You may find out more about their perspective than you thought you would! | https://sphereofinfluence360.com/want-to-connect-better-with-others-heres-how/ |
Writing a paper is a tedious task for any student, researcher, or employer. However, the same simple matters when you are asked to complete a winning essay. If you do not know how to write a captivating piece, consider these tips to help you get started essay writer.
A good research topic must be first interesting to you. Then, define your assignment and explore it by finding relevant information to back your opinion. Find multiple pieces of evidence to support your stance and find the best approach to develop a thesis.
Note that an excellent and interesting topic is essential if you want to write a winning essay. However, you can also define your assignment and choose a focused topic. both of these approaches require ample time to investigate and find relevant information. It helps a lot to be sure of the type of paper you want before you begin writing. Doing this allows you to determine the amount of time you require for each piece.
Composing an Outline
An outline is a framework that helps an essayist organize your work. It allows you to decide how you will arrange the paragraphs in your essay. For instance, you can structure your sentences in the introduction, body, and conclusion. It also gives you a logical review of your main points to make a coherent piece.
Write the Introduction
While talking about a particular topic in your paper, provide necessary information to help the reader understand the main issue. Provide enough information to help the reader understand why you selected that specific topic and the importance of it. Finally, end your introduction with a thesis statement. It is the last part that the reader reads.
What to Include in Your Paper
Ensure that your introduction is catchy to pique the reader’s interest. You can also include a thesis statement in the introduction. It gives the main argument of your essay and clearly defines the direction you have taken.
Develop an Outline
An outline contains vital information to support your writing process. Here are some of the essential elements that should not miss in your outline:
- A title
- Thesis statement
- Body Paragraphs
- Conclusion
These elements are essential if you want to make a quality paper. If you do not know how to include them in your outline, ensure that you find suitable replacements.
Write the Introduction
It is the first section the reader reads and must have a hook. It helps the reader to keep reading the paper to motivate them to keep reading.
Useful resourcers:
Pay Someone to Write My College Essay: Who to Select! | https://www.mindtalk.com/channel/naturephotography/post/simple-steps-for-writing-a-top-notch-paper-1392777578644771058.html |
Whether you suspect a loved one is self-harming or they’ve opened up to you about it, knowing what to do next can feel tricky. Here, we explore some essential ideas on how you can be there for them
The act of self-harm, when someone intentionally hurts themselves, is often shrouded in shame and stigma. A lack of understanding from others, combined with a deep psychological pain from within, makes it difficult to bring out into the open. It’s often done in secret, with the self-harmer going to great lengths to hide what they’re doing. Lies become second nature for many – I remember blaming everything from a drunken stumble, to my cat for my scars (sorry, Tigger).
Like most things steeped in shame, the key to overcoming it is releasing it – telling someone what’s going on and admitting you need help. This can be difficult though, and the role of loved ones can’t be underestimated. Whether it’s to give the gentle nudge someone needs to reach out for help, or simply to be a listening ear as they navigate recovery, your support could be integral. If you’re keen to be there for someone who’s self-harming, learning about self-harm is your first step.
Understanding self-harm
It can be difficult to comprehend why someone would want to cause themselves pain, but being able to support someone in this position requires you to educate yourself on self-harm. Lukas Dressler is a psychologist and integrative psychotherapist who supports children, adolescents and young people with a range of concerns, including self-harm. Noting the stigma attached to this issue, Lukas encourages us to recognise self-harm for what it truly is.
“If you suspect a friend or loved one might be self-harming, and you want to encourage them to talk about it, you must understand that self-harm is usually a coping mechanism,” Lukas says. “Deliberate self-harm is most often carried out in secret, so the stigma of it being ‘attention-seeking’ or that it’s ‘the behaviour of a drama queen’ seldom applies.”
What can I do if I suspect a loved one is self-harming?
When it comes to broaching the subject of self-harm with someone you love, it’s important to do so in a way that will help them open up, rather than retreat. Therefore, Lukas says your attitude towards the conversation is key.
“If you hold a non-judgemental, open, and supportive attitude, and genuinely want to support the person who might be self-harming, they will be able to feel this. Your compassionate attitude will put them at ease, and encourage them to open up.”
As well as having a supportive approach, Lukas notes you shouldn’t be afraid of addressing the topic head-on, as long as you do so in a calm and compassionate manner.
“If you want to do this, try to create a situation where you genuinely believe the other person will feel safe and comfortable to open up,” Lukas says. “You might then say something like: ‘I have been worried about you. Can I ask you if you have been self-harming?’ Self-harm often occurs with feelings of shame and guilt, so they may not open up straight away. Patience, compassion, and kindness are key.”
What can I do if a loved one has opened up to me about their self-harm?
Whether you’ve been the one to encourage them to open up, or they’ve come to you on their own, when this happens it’s an incredible step. Lukas suggests acknowledging that opening up is brave, and explaining that you’re there to listen and support.
“And this is exactly what you will then do. Provide a safe and non-judgemental space for the other person to open up. You can also ask them: ‘Do you know if there is something I can do to help? What do you need from me?’”
Because deliberate self-harm is often a sign of underlying mental health difficulties, Lukas highlights the need for professional input.
“Ask the person if they would like support from you in finding a professional to talk to. Please do not feel that it is your responsibility to help them stop self-harming.”
You could offer to accompany them to a GP appointment, or help them find a private therapist online. You could flag resources such as harmless.org.uk (a Community Interest Company supporting those who self-harm and their loved ones), and nshn.co.uk (an online support forum related to self-harm).
How can I be there for them during their recovery?
When your loved one is in recovery from the underlying cause of the self-harming behaviour, Lukas says ideally you’ll receive advice from their mental health professional on how to continue supporting them.
“Generally speaking, continue to be kind and supportive. If you know of some of their non-harmful coping strategies, try to support them in using those,” Lukas says. “Be patient and allow the person to process what they’re going through at their own pace – with their professional support in place. Provide as much of a safe haven to talk to as you are comfortable with.”
"Whether it’s to give the gentle nudge someone needs to reach out for help, or simply to be a listening ear as they navigate recovery, your support could be integral"
It can be helpful to also bear in mind that recovery is rarely linear. As tempting as it may be to think that once they have professional support in place, everything will be OK, unlearning these coping strategies can be tough. Relapses may happen and this can feel frustrating, but remember your loved one is doing the best they can. As Lukas says, patience is paramount.
Taking care of you
Throughout all of this, it’s important to ensure you’re taking care of yourself. It’s admirable to support others going through a difficult time, but you can’t underestimate how the situation affects you. In order to truly be there for them, Lukas reminds us that making sure we’re looking after ourselves is just as important as helping others.
Try to check-in with yourself regularly, and ask yourself what you need. Remember, there is support available for friends and family of those who are self-harming – you may find it helpful to join a support group and chat with others in a similar boat. Carve out space for self-care, and keep in mind that this ultimately helps you be a better support.
Being in this position is difficult for everyone involved. Therefore, treating both yourself and your loved one with radical kindness is essential. Having these difficult conversations, releasing the shame, and bringing our dark parts into the light, is how we heal. So keep talking, keep supporting, and keep shining that light. | https://happiful.com/how-to-help-someone-whos-self-harming/ |
HH ANSWER:
Have to first wonder why they are “demanding” bar shifts? Have they been filling in?
Have you been using them to fill holes / good in a pinch but not a perm solution? In other words, is their dissatisfaction and ultimatum the manifestation of a bigger staffing and/or culture issue?
Would also need to know more specifics with regard to their respective histories...but, based on the brief description of the scenario, I’d say that generally speaking: if any member of your staff isn’t happy in the position you want / need them in and you’ve seriously considered putting them in an alternate position - with an open mind - yet still remain convinced that the business is best served by them using their strengths in the position(s) you’ve designated for them; you should make it clear that you appreciate their work and want them to stay in the position you believe they are best suited for - period.
No specifics necessary...or recommended BUT, don’t hesitate to tell them that if they’re going to be happier working in a different position, then you not only understand, but you will help them / do anything they think might help to assist them in finding such an opportunity with another operator in or near town since the one the opportunity they want doesn’t exist for them in your establishment.
Keep the reason why SHORT & SWEET. Something along the lines of:
“We need you playing this position. That’s where we think you’re strongest.”
That’s it. The less said the better. You do not want to get into a back-and-forth or point / counterpoint discussion.
At the end of the day, you should genuinely want your staff to be happy and fulfilled - and you probably do.
Remember, sometimes you’re the only one (or the one who’s best equipped) to encourage your staff to strive for more in life and to do what will make them happy.
I’m sure you know as well as I do that sometimes this industry provides employees with a surrogate family that takes better care of them than their own family does or can...and you may be in that unique position where you’re the only one (or one of a few) to support their aspirations / going after what they want in their life...and I wouldn’t take that lightly.
That being said- offering that kind of support and concern for their well-being / interests should NEVER come at the cost of the business.
I wouldn’t look at it so much as them trying to hold you hostage (because no one holds you hostage) as much as I would look at it as an opportunity to show them that you genuinely care about them and what they want / need to be happy.
In fact, them that- that you want them to be happy with how they’re spending their days and nights.
And if they leave, it may pose a temporary hardship but also an opportunity to refresh and reprogram additional staff and add new energy to the mix.
I think if you approach this in an open, honest and head-on way, you either get their support while you look to hire and train their replacements...or they leave you short-handed. Either way, you win. Not only by taking the higher road and being a decent guy 1st, but by enduring that the people you have working for you are people who want to be there.
If they leave, it’s far better, IMHO, to be short-handed with the right staff that wants to be there vs being fully staffed with people who are toxic...and who will most likely negatively affect guest experiences and/or other employees (especially if they’re “organizing” already).
Don’t hesitate to reach out and share more details.
Cheers! | https://www.hospitalityhelpline.com/labor/2019/2/22/when-employees-hold-themselves-hostage |
Mental health in the workplace can be a touchy subject in some businesses. Do we want to know that John in Accounts is going through a rough patch, or we might be scared that if we speak to Claire in IT, we’ll be roped into helping her all the time? For businesses, a decision has to be explicitly made as to whether they include mental wellbeing in the core of their ethos, pay lip service to mental wellbeing, or retain an archaic approach and do, well, nothing. But, it is the first type of business that we all want to work for, surely?
The mental health stigma still stands to some degree; subconsciously, or maybe otherwise. But, whether it is in an employee-employer relationship or peer-to-peer, we’re still struggling to talk openly about mental health in the workplace.
In a study conducted by Mind.org; less than half of individuals diagnosed with mental ill health had disclosed this to their manager. But why?
For the purposes of this piece, I wanted to concentrate on the employee-employer relationship… yes, we’re going in the right direction, but many of the fears around speaking about mental health in the workplace are still at play from both the employee and the employer.
The employee fears that they will face negative repercussions by letting the employer know of their struggle. Anxiety creeps in as to whether their competence will be questioned, will that big client be taken from them, what happens if the trust is lost?
The employer fears that by asking employees about their mental wellbeing, they’re entering an HR no-man's-land. What if they’re having a ‘bad day’, can I say this, is it best left unsaid and avoided, surely they’ll be back to “normal” soon?
So we don’t talk about it. We avoid making eye contact and we question, vaguely, whilst awkwardly talking about our weekend plans.
Yet in my experience there's been an opportunity to bridge the gap between the employees’ vulnerability and the employers reluctance to ask whereby the employee lets the employer know that they are struggling and to bear with them whilst they work through their fight, and the employer genuinely cares about the employee’s wellbeing.
This is the workplace that we must strive for. Whereby a casual conversation about which therapist you’re seeing is the norm over lunch, and the employer asking the question ‘how are you outside of work?’, and taking a genuine interest is standard and encouraged(!) in a 1-2-1.
Mind.org: “people can worry about how to approach a conversation about a person’s mental health but there are no special skills needed – just the ones you use every day as a people manager like common sense, empathy, being approachable and listening.”
To achieve this, we need to push mental health awareness to the forefront and keep on discussing it.
It is the employers’ responsibility to provide a genuinely caring environment where employees feel safe - and confident enough - to bring their struggle to the surface knowing that they will be respected and heard. But, it is the employees’ responsibility to give their employer the chance to listen.
In a world where it is commonplace to enlist the help of a personal trainer to help get our bodies in shape, surely we can be as open about seeing a therapist to get our mind in shape? | https://reason.co/blog/mental-health-2018/ |
Happy Wednesday, everyone! Working from home sure hasn’t changed how quickly a week seems to go by. I hope that wherever you are and whatever state of quarantine or gradual re-opening your community is going through, you’re finding joy and gratitude in each day.
As many workplaces in my home province (New Brunswick) are re-opening, the time feels right to explore the nitty-gritty of talking about mental health with employees who are stressed out and/or experiencing other mental health challenges. I’ve spoken to many people who described feeling excited and relieved, and looked forward to returning to a more normal work routine with great anticipation; then suddenly, like flipping a switch, were hit by a sense of overwhelm, apprehension and anxiousness. This experience is common, largely because there are so many unknowns about what the “new normal” will look like and the associated level of risk. Leaders must be patient, understanding and supportive during this process as everyone mentally adjusts. If you notice signs that someone might be having a particularly hard time, address it – don’t wait. So how exactly should you breach the subject? Read on for some specific tips on approaching an employee or co-worker who might be struggling.
1. “Is everything ok?”
This sounds vague, but it’s definitely a non-threatening way to start. Ideally, talking about mental health will feel as relaxed as a conversation about a head cold or a flu bug. Beginning with an open-ended question gives a person the space to disclose anything they wish to without the pressure of a more direct inquiry.
2. “I noticed ‘XYZ’ so I thought I’d check in.”
Citing observable behaviour may help to highlight that you’re genuinely worried, not judging. “I noticed you didn’t speak up in our last two staff meetings” is objective and specific, as opposed to “you’ve been quiet lately.” Do be sure it's clear that you're bringing it up out of concern for their wellbeing, not flagging a job performance issue.
3. “I know things are stressful right now.”
Acknowledge that things aren’t normal and validate the stress that, to some degree, just about every member of your workforce is feeling. Let your team know that there’s no right or wrong way to feel, that present circumstances are challenging and that you’re ready and willing to support them in whatever way you can.
4. “I’m worried about you.”
If someone’s not 100% at ease talking about mental health they may downplay it by making a joke or changing the subject. While being careful that the focus of conversation stays on that person (not you and your feelings), you can let them know the changes you’ve noticed in them are concerning and that you’re taking the situation seriously.
5. “Do you know about our EFAP?”
If a person doesn’t feel comfortable opening up to you, that’s ok. The important thing is making sure they have access to support. Whether a person’s sharing a lot or a little (or nothing at all) it never hurts to let them know about a credible resource or two. If your organization has an Employee and Family Assistance Program, be sure to pass along the details.
6. “Let me know if you ever want to talk.”
Reiterate that there’s no time limit on your offer to help the person, or even just to be their sounding board. A better approach than leaving the ball in their court is for you to make it a point to check in regularly and gently remind them of this.
Remember, these conversation starters are just that: starters. You may well have to gently revisit the topic more than once in order for a person to feel at ease enough to acknowledge they’re having a hard time or accept help. You might also find that in a single conversation you’re using multiple phrases from the above list, or even all of them. Like developing any other skill, it takes a bit of time and practice to feel completely comfortable having discussions like this. I promise you, the toughest thing is getting the conversation started. Your job is to open up the door and get the ball rolling, giving the person a safe space to share what’s going on. You might be surprised how much a person will open up if you set the tone by letting them know you’re not afraid to talk about mental health.
Take good care everyone, and thanks for reading!
#resilientemployees #thrivingworkplaces #employeewellness #conversationstarters
Elizabeth Eldridge is a Psychological Health & Safety Consultant based in southern New Brunswick, Canada. In addition to keynote speaking and corporate training on workplace mental health she is the owner/operator of Arpeggio Health Services, Atlantic Canada’s largest provider of public mental health trainings. Learn more at elizabetheldridge.com, summitcorporatewellness.com and arpeggiohealthservices.com. | https://www.elizabetheldridge.com/post/conversation-navigation-6-concrete-ways-to-discuss-mental-health-at-work |
Lots of teachers ask me how to engage their reluctant writers.
It’s like they know my secret when they ask me.
The secret that my family know only too well:
I, Riss Leung, am a reluctant writer.
(Well actually, I’m a writer who experiences reluctance.)
I loathe writing my weekly blog.
I whinge and drag my sorry body all over the house on Friday and Saturday, groaning about having to sit down and write it every Sunday.
Each week when I sit down to write, I imagine I’m wrestling a wild tiger. The tiger is my idea. I need to get it focused and stop it lashing about all over the place. I need to tame it into being controlled and manageable.
Sometimes the tiger comes into the wrestling ring pre-sedated and ready to make writing easy for me (eg. my post on genre vs the traits).
Other times though, like last week, we wrestle for round after round, and I end up getting pinned to the ground, almost out for the count.
Is it any wonder I’m reluctant to sit at my computer and go back into the ring time and time again!?
Let’s be real: We’re all reluctant writers
Every single one of us is a reluctant writer at some stage.
Don’t believe me?
Think about your dread at report writing time (or newsletter writing time if you’re in leadership).
Think about all the procrastination tactics you employ- the cleaned oven, the vacuuming, the cupboard sorting.
You are engaging in reluctance.
The best thing you can do to help support the reluctant writers in your class is to reflect on your own reluctance.
When and why were you reluctant?
- What did you do to overcome it?
- You’ll soon realise that reluctance comes in many forms and there are many strategies you can use to overcome it.
Here are some of my main reasons for reluctance, along with the strategies I use to try and overcome them.
reason: I can’t work out what to write about.
This is real and valid.
The world has a bazillion possible topics floating around in it and I have to select just one of them.
I know that my topic choice impacts how much I write, how passionate I am and how interested my reader will be.
Sometimes this choice is overwhelming.
Strategies:
- I go back to the list of possible topics I created months ago, read through the list and see which one strikes me today.
- I ask teachers (my audience) what they’d like to read about.
Teaching implications:
- Teach students about the writer’s notebook list writing strategy. Even if you don’t use a writer’s notebook with your students, they can still use this strategy. It is so simple, yet so effective.
- Encourage students to talk to their audience (or their peers) to help develop ideas for topics. Crowd-sourcing is a perfectly acceptable (and authentic) way to find a topic.
Reason: I can’t narrow my topic down to be something that’s tight and manageable.
Ahhh the wild tiger. We meet again!
Sometimes I have so many things I want to say about a topic that it would be more of a book chapter than a blog post.
Good writing though is about ‘doing less and doing it well.’
Strategy:
I talk it out; either with myself or someone else (usually my long-suffering husband).
To talk it out with myself: I go for a walk, run or ride (somewhere where there aren’t a lot of other people) and I have a conversation with myself out loud. I interview myself about the topic. I compose potential sentences and go through the structure of the piece.
Doing this out loud better enables me to think it through. I can test how it sounds, decide if I have enough information and hear if there is a good flow to the ideas.
Teaching implications:
Encourage students to talk before they write- either with themselves or a partner.
Have their partner interview them about the topic so they can practise talking about it out loud. Get them to jot down their thoughts in dot point form after they talk.
Model this conversation and process for them first though, to help them understand what it looks like and how it helps.
Reason: The size of the task is overwhelming
Have you ever felt the overwhelming weight of 20+ student reports looming over you?
It’s crushing.
So crushing, in fact, that it can sometimes stop you from starting.
Strategy
I try and break the task into much smaller chunks.
I promise myself that I just need to write the introduction today and then I can come back tomorrow to work on the first argument etc.
Usually, making this commitment is enough to get me started and then I end up doing more than I committed to anyway.
The trick is to get yourself off the starting blocks: Action eradicates overwhelm.
Teaching implication:
Break the writing task into short and manageable chunks.
Do students really need to write the WHOLE narrative or persuasive piece in this one lesson? Is there a smaller goal they could aim for?
Sometimes just talking out the plan for getting this work done is enough convince yourself the task is achievable and get yourself off the starting blocks.
Reason: I’m paralysed by the pressure of trying to produce the perfect piece
I think this is one of the main reasons students demonstrate reluctance to write- especially those with poor spelling.
I am the one responsible for putting the pressure for perfection on myself.
This pressure empowers my internal critic- who loves filtering words and sentences before they get a chance to hit the keyboard.
As I always say, ‘You can’t revise what you haven’t written.’
A page of shitty writing is MUCH better than a page of no writing at all.
Strategy
I give myself permission to just get ANYTHING down; the revising can (and will) come later.
Sometimes, when I’m really struggling with allowing my internal critic to delete too many words and sentences, I use the speech-to-text function on my computer to at least get some words and sentences on the page. That way, I don’t have to despair over all the lost effort when I eventually delete them.
When I do get some writing on the page, I can finally start to shape it. And maybe, just maybe, there’ll be a nugget in there that sparks inspiration or thinking for what I’m supposed to be writing about or how I can turn it into a powerful piece.
Teaching implication
Let students know that having an internal critic is normal – all writers have them. Share your experiences with yours and then share your strategies for quietening them down and/or taking away their power.
Because we never talk about this part of writing, students often think they’re the only ones going through these internal struggles, they start to think that they’re not normal and that there must be something wrong with them as a writer.
We can remove this stress and worry simply by being open and honest about our own experiences.
Another helpful strategy is to allow students to type their writing directly on to a computer.
And teach them how to use the speech to text functions on their devices (Google Docs and Microsoft office both have effective versions of this).
As I’ve learned through writing every week, the more you recognise and reflect on your own reluctance as a writer, the better you’ll be able to support the reluctance of the writers in your class.
What are the reasons for your reluctance?
What are your strategies for overcoming them?
Share your experiences in the comments below or join in the conversation on the Oz Lit Teacher Facebook Group. | https://www.ozlitteacher.com.au/2021/03/14/strategies-for-supporting-reluctant-writers/ |
Reasons to tell people about it
Whether or not you discuss your condition with family, friends or coworkers is a personal decision. You may find it hard to talk about your diagnosis, or you may be concerned about how others will react. Ideally, the people around you will accept your illness and be encouraging. Bear in mind that they might not know very much about your condition. While they may want to help you, they may not know the best way to help. You can give them a better chance to support you by thinking ahead about how to tell them about your mental illness.
Why to tell
One reason to tell others about your mental illness is to receive encouragement. Talking to a sympathetic friend or loved one can reduce your stress level and improve your mood. You may no longer feel like you are keeping a secret. You may also want to ask for concrete support, like help finding treatment or rides to appointments. Or, maybe you want to share your crisis plan with a trusted family member.
When to tell
Telling people is a very personal decision and should only be done when you’re ready. It might help to practice how you tell people with a professional, such as a therapist. You can discuss your worries and how to react to issues, questions and comments that might arise. Practicing may help you clarify how you feel about your condition and inform who you want to tell.
Make sure you are in a calm environment when you introduce the topic and give the person time to adjust to the idea, especially if he or she don’t know a lot about your condition.
If you are compelled to tell people during a period where you are unwell, try to locate the most supportive person in your life for support as you go through the process.
Who to tell
You are the expert on your condition and can decide for yourself the right or wrong number of people to tell. Some people will benefit from telling many family and friends. Others may benefit by telling a couple of close friends and waiting to tell others.
Make a list of the people you’re considering telling and include those closest to you. Also list the most emotionally skilled people you know, even if you don’t know them that well.
Personal relationships
When telling family, friends or someone you are in a romantic relationship with about your condition, their response will generally go in one of three directions:
- The person is genuinely comfortable with your disclosure and things stay the same
- The person is very uncomfortable and ends or changes the relationship
- The person says he or she is fine with it, and then does a fast or slow fade from your life
Coworkers
In a job, you have to weigh the advantages against the disadvantages of being open. Weigh the potential negative impact on things like stigma from coworkers against your need for special accommodations, which are considered part of your civil rights. Before you share information about your condition, you should learn about your legal rights and also take into consideration your work environment. Consider approaching your Human Resources contact to gather support.
Once you’ve told someone, you’ll understandably be concerned about their reaction. One sign they can handle it is if they treat you the same during or after the disclosure. Friends stay friends. Colleagues stay polite and interested. If you continue to get the same “vibes” from people, you can be pretty sure that your disclosure has not changed the relationship for worse. And that is the best outcome of all.
Knowing that certain people are aware of an important part of your life and that they accept you and support you can be incredibly helpful and liberating. While some people may disappear, it’s better to have strong social supports around you.
Being able to offer emotional support is not something that everyone knows how to do. It’s a skill that takes practice. Some people may not be able to offer emotional support. If you have relatives or friends who lack this skill, that doesn’t mean they don’t love you. Most likely they don’t understand or fear they may say the wrong thing.
Remember that some conditions may cause you to not want to reach out for help. Sometimes the help from others is exactly what is needed to move toward recovery.
What to talk about
You can get the best support possible by planning the conversation. Consider including three items:
- “Process” talk
- Specific problem
- Suggestions for how loved ones can help
“Process” talk means “talking about talking,” rather than talking to share information. Prepare your listener for an important conversation by using “process” talk. Here are some ways to begin a process talk:
- “I want to talk to you about something important. I’m not sure how to talk about it, though. Can you just listen to me and try to understand? I’m hoping I’ll feel better after talking about it with someone, but I need you to be patient.”
- “There’s something going on in my life that’s bothering me. I think I need to talk to someone about it. I feel embarrassed about it, though, so please don’t laugh it off or make a joke out of it.”
- “I’m not sure if this will make sense. I feel uncomfortable talking about it, but I want to tell someone.
Concrete examples of what you mean by “mental illness.” Every case of mental illness is different. To get the best support possible, share one or two examples of what’s causing you stress:
- “I think something’s wrong because I can’t sleep more than a couple hours at night. It’s hurting my work and I feel out of control.”
- “I’ve started skipping classes sometimes. I’m worried I’ll stop leaving the apartment if I don’t get help.”
- “The doctor said I have bipolar disorder. Sometimes I feel like things are getting out of control and I’m not sure how to keep myself together.”
Suggest ways to support you. Family and friends may not know what they can do to help. You can get the best support by asking for specific types of help:
- “I’m scared to make an appointment because that’s like admitting there’s something wrong. But I need to see a doctor. Can you help me find one and follow through?”
- “I’m not thinking clearly these days. I’m getting treatment for a mental illness, but it might take a while to feel right. Until then, when I do something that makes you uncomfortable, can you please tell me what I’m doing instead of getting freaked out?”
- “I’m not supposed to drink alcohol with my medications. I’m going to try not to drink at parties, but I need my close friends to encourage me and help me keep my social life.”
- “I’m feeling better. But once in a while, can you tell me you’re there for me and give me a hug?”
- By telling the right people and suggesting ways for loved ones to help, you can start building a strong social support network. At first, you might be afraid to talk about your experiences. But don’t give up looking for support and encouragement from others. You’ll discover that many people want to help you.
You don’t have to share everything. Decide in advance what parts of your experience you’ll talk about and what parts you won’t. Stand by your decision. It’s perfectly understandable to answer a question with a statement like “I’d rather not talk about that right now.”
Keep in mind
Share the good things. Explain how your illness has taught you new things, or about experiences you were able to have in spite or, or because of, your illness.
Set boundaries. Be clear with people about when you want their advice and when you just want them to listen. Also realize that people come with their own opinions, informed and otherwise, so be patient when explaining. If they try to discredit you, gently remind them that you are the one living with the illness, and you know yourself best.
Let them know how they can support you. Everyone has different needs, and different people respond in different ways. Think about your needs ahead of time, and about whether this person can support you, if there are resources that would help her or him understand what you’re going through, or if she or he says no. Some people may not be able to handle disclosure, so it may be difficult to expect support from them. There are many people who will probably feel honored that you shared this with them, and whom will be happy to do what they can.
Help is available. For additional information, visit MagellanHealth.com/MYMH
Source: NAMI
This document is for your information only. It is not meant to give medical advice. It should not be used to replace a visit with a provider. Magellan Health does not endorse other resources that may be mentioned here. | https://magellanhealthinsights.com/2019/02/18/living-with-a-mental-health-condition/ |
Project description:
The investigation reveals the failure of the Egyptian government, through the Ministry of Youth and Sports, to provide a suitable environment for Egyptian women to play sports in youth centers. This happened in various governorates of Egypt, specially in rural areas and Upper Egypt where there are rarely alternatives, and is discriminatory against women as it deprives them of the opportunity to play sports. Although youth centers account for 85% of all sport facilities in Egypt, there was a clear absence of strategies needed to be taken by the government to increase women’s participation in sports in youth centers.
Impact reached:
The investigation caused discussions to arise in the athletes’ community and those responsible for sports in Egypt. In response to his statement in the plenary session of Parliament, MP Sahar Talaat Mostafa used the most prominent figures in the investigation to ask the Minister of Youth and Sports about the steps needed to correct the situation and create a suitable environment for women to increase their turnout in youth centers. This is a big shift after this topic was under-reported and did not receive much attention in the media or in government plans and statements regarding women’s sports.
Community wise, the investigation created a different narrative from the mainstream and stereotypical one that states that Egyptian women are not that interested in sports exclusively because of customs and traditions. By analyzing government data from the past 10 years, the investigation proves that the negligence of women in youth centers contributed to their reluctance to benefit from their activities and facilities. It is important to note that youth centers represent 85% of all sport facilities In Egypt, and they didn’t provide privacy for women while practicing sports nor did they provide a training team of women. This contradicts the legal definition of these centers, which exist to serve youth without discrimination while providing their activities for a symbolic fee.
Most importantly, the investigation turned an issue that was on the sidelines into the spotlight and it became a debatable topic during the questioning of the Egyptian parliamentarians to the Minister of Youth and Sports under the dome of Parliament. It also created awareness of a fundamental part of the problem regarding the reluctance of many women to practice sports in youth centers, which are the most widespread sports facilities In Egypt with affordable prices for most citizens.
Techniques/technologies used:
I used the OCR application and data scraping programs from PDF files like Tabula to scrape sports activity data related to youth centers during a time period of 10 years. This data gets annually published by the Central Statistical Organization in Egypt. Using Microsoft Excel, I cleaned and organized the data, then I analyzed it to answer the basic questions of the investigation. Using phone interviews and Microsoft Excel again, I created a database with a sample of youth centers in Egypt to reveal that at least half of them did not provide sport activities for women over 18 years old.
I then used Flourish’s website to create graphs for the investigation, and through several phone calls and field visits (within the limits of what was possible due to the COVID-19 pandemic), I managed to speak with a number of sources related to the story, like affected women, experts on the topic, and government officials. Lastly, I used Google’s advanced search to find studies or previous journalistic stories that support this investigation’s hypothesis and its results, as well as to help put the topic in a logical context to explain the results of the data analysis.
What was the hardest part of this project?
The most difficult part was developing a methodology where the hypothesis of the investigation could be proven. It was a challenge to prove that women were descrimnated against and neglected by not having a suitable environment for them to practice sports in youth centers. Although most public data available from official statistical centers in Egypt prove that this problem existed, I still had to prove that the reason behind women’s reluctance to join youth centers was the negligence of the administrators.
Using a database provided by the Ministry of Youth and Sports that included the names and locations of youth centers across Egypt, I chose a sample of 54 youth centers across 14 governorates using the random multistage sampling method and contacted them to ask about the sports activities available for a girl over 18 years old. The results revealed that at least more than half of them didn’t provide activities for women and didn’t account for them.
Then came the hurdle of finding enough information to explain the results of the data analysis, like the reason behind why the number of female athletes is affected by the number of female coaches, or the correlation between their reluctance and the number of changing rooms available to them. This was specially difficult because of the scarcity of studies that dealt with the issue of female athletes in Egypt. However, through extensive search, I was able to find enough information and resources to support and explain the results of the story. Besides extensive search, it helped to find the suitable sources and affected cases that have experiences that match the data. This also gave the story a human voice and amplified the results and helped audiences relate to the story and understand what it meant for women.
What can others learn from this project?
Working on data-driven investigations requires persistence and hard work and needs intelligence, flexibility, and planning. In countries where data on social and economic situations is not readily available, you must find alternative ways to collect data to complete your story, and you must ensure that your methodology will support your hypothesis and prove it.
Additionally, it is important to start with the story and not the data. What is your big question about this phenomenon? And how can you answer this question using data? In the case of the youth centers investigation, there were dozens of tables across 10 years from the official statistics, if I had followed the data before putting my basic questions out, it would have taken me a long time to realize that I needed other data to prove the hypothesis of the investigation. Therefore, writing questions first helps save a lot of time and effort.
It is important to remember that data analysis does not always help and can sometimes mislead you without context. We cannot understand the data and the results of its analysis accurately expressing reality without collecting sufficient information about this reality first. This means reading other stories and talking to colleagues who worked on similar stories and listening to your sources, especially the ones affected by the phenomenon you are investigating. Yes, they may not have the data and information you have, but they live with what this data reflects every day.
For example, while analyzing the data for my story, I found a weak correlation between the numbers of women in youth centers and changing rooms, and without talking to my sources and knowing that they use alternative rooms to get changed, I would have concluded that changing room didn’t affect their turnout for the centers.
Project links: | https://sigmaawards.org/youth-centers-drop-women-athletes-from-their-list-of-concerns-by-hager-hisham/ |
We had a troubleshooting call with Patrice regarding my 3 and 5 year olds sleep, chaotic bedtimes and early mornings. After filling out diary and questionnaire, Patrice was well prepared for our call and gave very helpful and useful advice in a non-judgemental, supportive way. After implementing some changes, we saw a big improvement in sleep, with less stress at bedtime and not as many early mornings. Thanks so much Patrice from delighted parents.
Catherine Delahan Dublin August 2020
I highly recommend Patrice's sleep guides. I was so happy when I recieved my sleep guide for 0-6 months from Patrice. I loved how honest she is about her own experience as a new mam. We all have our struggles as a new mam. Patrice explains things in a very clear and understanding way. She has given me loads of very helpful tips. My now 5 month old son, only ever slept short cat naps during the day, he is now going for longer naps, thankfully and just started sleeping through the night now also.
Thank you Patrice
Catherine and Oran
Danielle Walsh and Lorcain Watt September 2020
I just want to take a couple of minutes to thank you Patrice in helping myself and Louie with his sleep he's really doing wonderful now all thanks to you very helpful techniques one very happy Mammy and Daddy here we feel great getting a good night sleep thanks again Patrice Lorcain Danielle and Louie
Sarah Verso Ryan February 2021
I've known Patrice personally for a number of years through work, we were both Nannies is the same suburb and met regularly at playgroups and kids activities, so when I was having doubts about my own newborn sons sleep and nap patterns, she was the first person who came to mind to help us. She is such a calming influence and very knowledgeable on all things sleep, I felt instantly calmer about everything after watching her talk on naps, to share so much information at such a great price point means that her and her knowledge are accessible to all. If you want a sleep coach that doesn't use a "one size fits all" approach, don't hesitate to contact Patrice at Gentle Little Sleepers.
Gemma Lambourne March 2021
Patrice is great, scheduled a call to suit me in New Zealand so I didn’t have to be up super early or late even though she is in Ireland. So helpful for me and my family and also helped hugely to put my mind at ease that what I’m doing is right for us. Great advice for going forward on our sleep journey to hopefully make any changes gently and respectfully to our little one. It was wonderful to talk to someone who understood that crying it out was absolutely out of the question. With her help I can parent how I want to and still get some sleep!
Yvonne Heery April 2021
Patrice was a great help to our family when we hit a rough patch with are Son's sleeping. She really helped us set up good foundations and after just a few nights we noticed a real improvement. I'd definitely recommend her services if you're looking for a gentle approach to helping your little one (and yourself) get better sleep.
Amy Vero May 2021
Patrice is worth her weight in Gold.
I was very nervous about getting help with my babies sleep. I needed someone who was going to listen to us as a family and help figure out what we needed. Patrice did this and more.
The support Patrice provides is next to none. she's is available and extremely helpful. She's is genuinely interested in how things are going and is keen to help adjust issues to get the best outcome.
I would highly recommend Patrice and won't hesitate to contact her again in the future.
Stephanie Fleming April 2021
Patrice is so patient and supportive and very knowledgeable. She doesn't just help you with managing sleep she helps you to cope when sleep is going badly for you. She's so lovely and gentle, highly recommend!
Sarah Culhane June 2021
Patrice is a very caring and compassionate sleep consultant who takes a completely holistic approach. She fully engages with her clients and is genuinely interested in your individual situation. After carefully listening to the challenges we were facing she provided us with a detailed, but realistic and flexible plan that has allowed us all to get more sleep. If you're looking for someone who can help you to cut through the noise of all the confusing (and somewhat misleading) sleep related information available online, Patrice's research backed approach to infant/toddler sleep is refreshing and a great support for new parents.
Amy Fogarty September 2021
Patrice is an absolute pleasure to work with. She is exceptionally professional, diligent and unbelievably clear in all of her messaging. When it comes to Infant Sleep, she is a fountain of knowledge and she is absolutely brimming with passion. The way she speaks about the topic of sleep, is almost akin to being wrapped up in a warm hug. Patrice is the kind of sleep coach that looks at the big picture and truly advocates for the developmental needs of the infant, whilst showering parents with compassion, support and guidance. Her knowledge is not one dimensional either – she is knowledgeable in many areas and skilfully signposts group participants to a variety of non-sleep related research when required. Patrice presented to our Infant Mental Health Learning Network, in Dublin North East. This group consists of a wide range of health, education and social care professionals. The group members thoroughly benefitted from and enjoyed all of Patrice’s insight and expertise. I look forward to working with Patrice again in the future. | https://www.gentlelittlesleepers.com/copy-of-contact |
How can I approach an adult? They’re successful, they’re busy, and they’re doing really cool things. Why would they want to talk to me? When you approach from a place of service — whether it be for internships, connections, or just to learn more about a field — you can quickly build rapport with others. Don’t take it from me. That’s what Ted Koutsabous, VP of the DC Penn Alumni Group, said: a simple phrase builds relationships. “You may not be able to be of service right now, but you need to have that mindset.” Having this mindset allows you to showcase your most important currency in the networking game: “personal currency.” Lots of people are genuinely happy to help, but they also want to see your ability to care for others too. Try using:
this phrase more often, thinking about how you can serve a person or organization as opposed to how good it would be to have such-and-such as a LinkedIn connection or how flashy it would be to have this internship on your resume. Just as an example, if during your informational interview the person expresses interest in a topic, the next time you see an interesting article on that topic, you could share it with them. It’s a little thing that shows you’re interested in developing a relationship, not just getting something from them. The other thing you bring to the table is your enthusiasm. You should make it clear that you are really interested in what they do and how they do it and you would love to learn more about them. That will make them feel good, which is a nice thing that you are doing for them. So don’t worry that the person you’re reaching out to is too busy to talk to you. If they are, they won’t agree to chat. If they do agree to chat, remember that while you are absolutely benefiting from the conversation, so are they.
Next week: What’s your personal currency? | https://www.piw.sas.upenn.edu/2021/03/11/tip-1-ask-is-there-any-way-i-can-be-helpful/ |
If you’ve had a positive experience with a particular mental health treatment, it can be tempting to want to nudge your loved ones along that same path, so that they can reap similar rewards. But how can you do it sensitively, and what happens if they aren’t interested?
When we see our nearest and dearest struggling emotionally or physically, it is in our nature to want to help. Such compassion and concern should be admired, but there are times when it can also be problematic.
You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink, as they say. Likewise, you can want to support your loved one, but they just might not be ready or open to the treatment that you so earnestly believe could help. And that’s tough. You care about your loved one so, of course, you want what’s best for them. It can be really difficult to understand and appreciate why they are not leaping at the chance to engage with a particular therapy or treatment that you believe might help.
So, how can you navigate this situation with sensitivity and support?
1. Provide them with (expectation-free) information
Providing a leaflet, website details, or positive feedback about your own therapy experiences can be a really great place to start. Done respectfully, and without ultimatums or expectations, this can open up further discussion about treatment options, which can be helpful for both parties – they gain useful information they may not have previously considered, and you may feel a little less helpless by being able to provide it.
2. Be mindful of any hidden messages
When suggesting that a loved one may benefit from having professional support, you may well be meaning to convey the sentiment, “I love you and I want what is best for you.” But there is always the possibility that they may perceive your persuasion for them to have therapy as an accusation along the lines of, “You need fixing.” They might react defensively, even when you have the warmest of intentions. It may sound obvious, but reassuring your loved one that you simply want to help them be the best they can be, and not to intrinsically ‘change’ them, can go a long way.
3. Consider what the ‘issue’ really is
Take a moment to step back and reflect on the apparent ‘problem’ that you feel needs addressing. Does your loved one even consider this an issue? Is this something that bothers you more than it bothers them? And, if so, might you benefit from working this through with a professional from your own point of view instead?
4. Listen to them
Often we can get so involved in our own narrative that we forget other people also have theirs. If a loved one is expressing reluctance to try a certain approach, hear them out! Try to understand (or to at least listen to) why they are not instantly as keen as you would like. Perhaps this might open up areas for further dialogue that you could talk through together (“I’m just a bit worried about trying something new,” for example). Or perhaps it might not (“It’s just not for me; back off”). Either way, that is their narrative and they are entitled to it.
5. Look after yourself
Just as your loved one has every right to decline your well-meaning invitations for them to consider a particular therapy, you too have every right to your own feelings about this. Feelings of helplessness and frustration are normal in such situations, and deserve space and recognition. Remember, you are a person in your own right, and you are not responsible for your loved one. Your own self-care is important. So whether it’s meditation, gardening, your own therapy, or simply screaming into a pillow, do what you need to do to look after your wellbeing. After all, we can’t look after others if we don’t look after ourselves first. | https://happiful.com/my-loved-one-needs-therapy-what-do-i-do-next/ |
Neuroimaging continues to be an exciting and rapidly evolving research field producing findings to inform clinical medical practice. Neuroimaging research has enabled a better understanding of in vivo structural, functional, and molecular neuropathology. Moreover, it has the potential to improve clinical care, where clinical assessment alone is sometimes insufficient to provide accurate diagnosis and prognosis. The future direction of neuroimaging is likely to focus on identifying imaging biomarkers suggestive of underlying preclinical disease, understanding the temporal progression from preclinical disease to overt clinical manifestation, and monitoring the therapeutic efficacy of potential disease-modifying agents.
A wide variety of brain imaging modalities have been utilized to investigate the most common mental disorders in the elderly, namely depression and dementia. Indeed, advanced brain imaging has been instrumental in elucidating similar patterns of structural and functional brain abnormalities between the two conditions (Jiang et al., Reference Jiang2014). A key requirement for future research is to translate promising progress in these brain imaging studies into clinical practice, although integration of neuroimaging into clinical practice may be impeded by economic considerations and patient acceptability. Economic barriers to integration include the potential cost to healthcare systems of modern imaging modalities. Therefore, studies focused on determining the minimal number of imaging modalities to provide clinically meaningful information and the added value of each brain scan are needed to address this question. Moreover, the increasing sensitivity of imaging to detect abnormal findings with uncertain significance may be psychologically distressing to patients and reduce their willingness to undergo such investigation.
In this edition, in their paper entitled “The psychological impact of disclosing amyloid status to Japanese elderly: a preliminary study on asymptomatic patients with subjective cognitive decline,” Wake et al. (Reference Wake2017) explored the short-term psychological impact of disclosing Amyloid-β (Aβ) positron emission tomography (PET) results in 42 asymptomatic Japanese adults with subjective cognitive decline. Importantly, all participants underwent pre-imaging counseling/education detailing the role of Aβ in the evolution of cognitive decline and the interpretation of PET results. Out of the 42 participants, 10 had an Aβ positive result and 32 had an Aβ negative result; no between group differences were noted in measures of anxiety and depression at pre- and post-disclosure of amyloid neuroimaging status. Moreover, mean state anxiety and depression scores were below the normal limits in the pre- and post-disclosure in Aβ positive and negative groups. Full disclosure of Aβ positive status did not cause a greater change in anxiety and depression measures than negative results after a six-week period. This study attempts to address the psychological safety of full disclosure of positive neuroimaging results detected by advanced neuroimaging techniques, a concern that has become a major ethical issue due to the increasing application of amyloid imaging in disease-modifying clinical trials in Alzheimer's disease (AD). These reassuring findings replicate earlier studies addressing this important question in cognitively normal older adults in the USA but do so in a cohort of participants from a different ethnic and cultural background to previous studies (Lim et al., Reference Lim2016). Furthermore, this is the first study to investigate this question among individuals with subjective cognitive decline, who may be potentially more anxious about their self-perceived risk of cognitive decline. This study suggests that clinicians may fully disclose positive amyloid scan results without inducing any negative psychological sequelae, providing the necessary groundwork of pre-scan explanation has been completed.
In an investigation addressing the important health economics question about the best use of limited healthcare resources and the value of additional neuroimaging to provide clinically meaning information, Guinane and Ng (Reference Guinane and Ng2017) recruited a convenience sample from their memory clinic. Specifically, they explored the beneficial role of additional MRI and/or SPECT brain imaging to routine diagnostic workup to improve diagnostic accuracy in a memory assessment encompassing a non-contrast CT brain. Over a 12-month period, 66 out of 253 patients were referred for additional imaging with participants undergoing MRI only (n = 15), SPECT (n = 6), and MRI and SPECT (n = 29), and 16 being excluded. The overall referral rate for additional MRI and/or SPECT in this study was modest at 26%, likely because participants had all had structural CT. Diagnostic amendments occurred in 11/44 (25%) of participants with MRI scan and 9/35 (26%) where SPECT was used. Those who were referred for additional imaging were significantly younger, more educated, and more likely to have a head injury. Previous studies have reported a higher referral rate for and a positive outcome rate using MRI and SPECT imaging in a clinical setting (Borghesani et al., Reference Borghesani2010). This study suggests that in selected cases there can be added value to such additional imaging but the scope to which this study is applicable to a clinical setting remains limited. However, it does highlight the need for further research in this area to inform future clinical guidelines for diagnostic imaging in the memory clinic.
Tau imaging is an exciting research area, and in addition to enlightening the early stages and progress of the tauopathy of AD, this imaging modality will inform us about other forms of tauopathy. In their paper, Takaya et al. (Reference Takaya2017) examined two patients with frontotemporal lobe degeneration (FTLD) associated with different types of aphasia. They used 18F-THK-5351 PET to identify tau deposits in two participants with variants of primary progressive aphasia (PPA) who had also had negative amyloid imaging assessed using Pittsburgh compound B (PiB). Both participants also underwent MRI imaging and FDG-PET imaging, demonstrating frontotemporal atrophy and concomitant cortical hypometabolism consistent with frontotemporal dementia-related PPA. Based on current diagnostic criteria, one patient was diagnosed as semantic variant of PPA, a subtype of FTLD and the other as logopenic PPA.
Previous studies on late-life depression have identified widespread functional connectivity alterations (Kenny et al., Reference Kenny2010), and in this edition of International Psychogeriatics, Zhu et al. (Reference Zhu2018) advanced our understanding by applying a graph theoretical approach to assess the role of the default mode network (DMN). Specifically, they examined whether resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) could detect alternations in functional connectivity and topological organization of the default-mode network (DMN) in patients with remitted geriatric depression (RGD) compared with healthy controls. In comparison to the 31 healthy controls, the 33 RGD showed reduced functional connectivity in the posterior regions of the DMN and abnormal global topology of the DMN. Neuropsychological measures of processing speed and executive function correlated with network abnormalities noted on fMRI. Longitudinal studies have previously shown the patients with RGD have an increased risked risk of cognitive decline (Jiang et al., Reference Jiang2014). Given the correlation between neuropsychological measures and resting-state fMRI measures of the DMN, these network measures could be used as a potential biomarker of cognitive impairment in RGD.
Vasudev et al. (Reference Vasudev2017) assessed the role of ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vMPFC) in regulating emotional control in late-life depression as assessed using emotional valence to blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) fMRI and the burden of total brain white matter hyperintensities (WMH). This study differed from prior studies in this field by examining the role of the vMPFC in both genders and by using a combination of structural and functional brain imaging. In this small cross-sectional study, 16 participants with mild to moderate late-life depression were compared to 14 aged-matched healthy controls. As expected WMH volume was greater in the late-life depression group than in the health controls. There was no difference in BOLD activation between groups in terms of emotional valence contrast but interestingly, a gender difference was noted with female participants with late-life depression (LLD) having both more WMH volume and reduced BOLD activation in the vMPFC than controls. The results of this study concord with a prior work with female LLD patients showing reduced activation of the vMPFC to negatively valenced word in an fMRI task (Brassen et al., Reference Brassen2008). The findings of this study are intriguing and require confirmation in a larger study.
In conclusion, the five papers outlined above illustrate the increasing capabilities of sophisticated brain imaging techniques and reassure that disclosure of imaging findings after appropriate patient education is not detrimental to the psychological well-being of patients. Advanced imaging techniques are capable of uncovering the relationships between cognitive impairment, depression, gender, and brain network alterations. Brain network alterations in the DMN have the potential to be a biomarker of cognitive dysfunction among RGD patients. Reduced activation of the vMPFC among female patients with LLD is an interesting finding that needs to be explored in a larger sample size. In the clinical setting, there may be added value of MRI and/or SPECT to current diagnostic work-up in a memory clinic, but further studies in field would be required, and the application of tau imaging among the rarer clinical phenotypes of dementia has much potential. While these studies show some of the opportunities, the translation of research findings into routine clinical care will be a painstaking process and progress will continue to be incremental. | http://core-cms.prod.aop.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-psychogeriatrics/article/translating-progress-in-neuroimaging-into-clinical-practice/28A8E7F8E809538BC9B5EB4019E8C325 |
Some traumatic brain injuries can be seen on an MRI scan. Many, however, cannot. The structural damage caused by the trauma is just too subtle. Of course, even subtle changes in brain structure can cause profound changes in brain functioning. Simply because the brain injury cannot be seen on an MRI, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.
While an MRI (upper photo) shows abnormalities in the brain’s structure, a PET scan (lower photo) shows abnormalities in the brain’s functioning. PET scans do this by measuring the distribution of metabolic activity in the brain. The parts that are not experiencing the expected biochemical activity have a functional abnormality. The PET scan, then, can serve as objective evidence of a brain injury that can’t be seen on an MRI.
PET scans can help prove that a victim has suffered a traumatic brain injury. But before a judge will allow the jury to see the PET scan, he has to be convinced that the PET scan reliably depicts what the testifying expert says it depicts,. The judge will also need to be convinced that PET scanning is widely accepted in the medical community.
Doctors frequently use PET scans to find changes in brain functioning in an Alzheimer’s patient or an epileptic. They less commonly use them to diagnose victims of traumatic brain injuries. This is one reason why some judges are reluctant to allow PET scans to be used in a trial of a traumatic brain injury case. These judges, however, are often more willing to allow the PET scans to be shown to the jury when the scan was ordered by the victim’s treating doctor for the purpose of diagnosis or treatment – before any lawsuit was filed. | https://www.capersonalinjurycaselawnotes.com/2009/07/brain-injuries/mris-pet-scans-and-traumatic-brain-injury/ |
Turku PET Centre neuroscientists are happy to annoucnce the first-ever PET-MRI neuroimaging course. This course will give a hands-on overview on the basic brain imaging analysis techniques applicable to PET as well as structural and functional MRI data. The course is aimed for PhD students, post-docs, and scientists working on medical, cognitive, and computational neuroimaging. Participants are assumed to have rudimentary knowledge of neuroimaging and working with PET and MRI data, but this is not strictly necessary. After the course, the participants should be able to process and analyze the data that has been retrieved from MRI scanner / PET camera independently. Analytic pipeline will focus on the PET Centre data analysis framework but can be adopted to any MRI / PET analysis platform.
The course is free but registration is mandatory. Registration is on first-come-first-served basis with priority to Turku PET Centre scientists and students. We can accommodate a maximum of 40 participants. | http://emotion.utu.fi/neurocourse/ |
Accuracy of dementia brain imaging must improve (University of East Anglia release):
“A report published today in The Lancet Neurology evaluates for the first time how well different types of brain imaging tests work to detect Alzheimer’s and predict how the disease will progress.
The results show that the accuracy of brain imaging must be improved before it can be rolled out on a scale that could be useful to healthcare providers and patients.
The number of new diagnostic and prognostic tools for dementia is steadily increasing and here are a lot of different scanning techniques currently being used in clinical research settings. These include different types of MRI scans, which use strong magnetic fields and radio waves to produce detailed images of the inside of the brain, and Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scans, which use a small amount of a radioactive drug, or tracer, to test how tissues in the brain are actually functioning.
“We wanted to find out which procedures are useful for patients and which ones are not”…The results of this review are promising, but the downfall is that none of these methods are sensitive or accurate enough to be rolled out into primary care. We want to see diagnostic biomarkers with a sensitivity of over 90 per cent, and specificity near 100 per cent to be reliable.
“They would also need to be non-invasive, easy, time efficient and inexpensive,” he added.
Study: Multimodal imaging in Alzheimer’s disease: validity and usefulness for early detection (The Lancet Neurology)
- Summary: Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that typically manifests clinically as an isolated amnestic deficit that progresses to a characteristic dementia syndrome. Advances in neuroimaging research have enabled mapping of diverse molecular, functional, and structural aspects of Alzheimer’s disease pathology in ever increasing temporal and regional detail. Accumulating evidence suggests that distinct types of imaging abnormalities related to Alzheimer’s disease follow a consistent trajectory during pathogenesis of the disease, and that the first changes can be detected years before the disease manifests clinically. These findings have fuelled clinical interest in the use of specific imaging markers for Alzheimer’s disease to predict future development of dementia in patients who are at risk. The potential clinical usefulness of single or multimodal imaging markers is being investigated in selected patient samples from clinical expert centres, but additional research is needed before these promising imaging markers can be successfully translated from research into clinical practice in routine care.
To learn more: | https://sharpbrains.com/blog/2015/09/02/study-brain-imaging-not-accurate-or-sensitive-enough-yet-to-detect-alzheimers-disease-in-primary-care-settings/ |
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Article
Peer Reviewed
Highly adaptive tests for group differences in brain functional connectivity.
Kim, Junghi
Pan, Wei
Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative
et al.
UC Irvine Previously Published Works
(2015)
Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) and other technologies have been offering evidence and insights showing that altered brain functional networks are associated with neurological illnesses such as Alzheimer's disease. Exploring brain networks of clinical populations compared to those of controls would be a key inquiry to reveal underlying neurological processes related to such illnesses. For such a purpose, group-level inference is a necessary first step in order to establish whether there are any genuinely disrupted brain subnetworks. Such an analysis is also challenging due to the high dimensionality of the parameters in a network model and high noise levels in neuroimaging data. We are still in the early stage of method development as highlighted by Varoquaux and Craddock (2013) that "there is currently no unique solution, but a spectrum of related methods and analytical strategies" to learn and compare brain connectivity. In practice the important issue of how to choose several critical parameters in estimating a network, such as what association measure to use and what is the sparsity of the estimated network, has not been carefully addressed, largely because the answers are unknown yet. For example, even though the choice of tuning parameters in model estimation has been extensively discussed in the literature, as to be shown here, an optimal choice of a parameter for network estimation may not be optimal in the current context of hypothesis testing. Arbitrarily choosing or mis-specifying such parameters may lead to extremely low-powered tests. Here we develop highly adaptive tests to detect group differences in brain connectivity while accounting for unknown optimal choices of some tuning parameters. The proposed tests combine statistical evidence against a null hypothesis from multiple sources across a range of plausible tuning parameter values reflecting uncertainty with the unknown truth. These highly adaptive tests are not only easy to use, but also high-powered robustly across various scenarios. The usage and advantages of these novel tests are demonstrated on an Alzheimer's disease dataset and simulated data.
Article
Peer Reviewed
Cascaded Multi-view Canonical Correlation (CaMCCo) for Early Diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease via Fusion of Clinical, Imaging and Omic Features.
Singanamalli, Asha
Wang, Haibo
Madabhushi, Anant
Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative
et al.
UC Irvine Previously Published Works
(2017)
The introduction of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) as a diagnostic category adds to the challenges of diagnosing Alzheimer's Disease (AD). No single marker has been proven to accurately categorize patients into their respective diagnostic groups. Thus, previous studies have attempted to develop fused predictors of AD and MCI. These studies have two main limitations. Most do not simultaneously consider all diagnostic categories and provide suboptimal fused representations using the same set of modalities for prediction of all classes. In this work, we present a combined framework, cascaded multiview canonical correlation (CaMCCo), for fusion and cascaded classification that incorporates all diagnostic categories and optimizes classification by selectively combining a subset of modalities at each level of the cascade. CaMCCo is evaluated on a data cohort comprising 149 patients for whom neurophysiological, neuroimaging, proteomic and genomic data were available. Results suggest that fusion of select modalities for each classification task outperforms (mean AUC = 0.92) fusion of all modalities (mean AUC = 0.54) and individual modalities (mean AUC = 0.90, 0.53, 0.71, 0.73, 0.62, 0.68). In addition, CaMCCo outperforms all other multi-class classification methods for MCI prediction (PPV: 0.80 vs. 0.67, 0.63).
Article
Peer Reviewed
Basal forebrain degeneration precedes and predicts the cortical spread of Alzheimer's pathology.
Schmitz, Taylor W
Nathan Spreng, R
Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative
et al.
UC Irvine Previously Published Works
(2016)
There is considerable debate whether Alzheimer's disease (AD) originates in basal forebrain or entorhinal cortex. Here we examined whether longitudinal decreases in basal forebrain and entorhinal cortex grey matter volume were interdependent and sequential. In a large cohort of age-matched older adults ranging from cognitively normal to AD, we demonstrate that basal forebrain volume predicts longitudinal entorhinal degeneration. Models of parallel degeneration or entorhinal origin received negligible support. We then integrated volumetric measures with an amyloid biomarker sensitive to pre-symptomatic AD pathology. Comparison between cognitively matched normal adult subgroups, delineated according to the amyloid biomarker, revealed abnormal degeneration in basal forebrain, but not entorhinal cortex. Abnormal degeneration in both basal forebrain and entorhinal cortex was only observed among prodromal (mildly amnestic) individuals. We provide evidence that basal forebrain pathology precedes and predicts both entorhinal pathology and memory impairment, challenging the widely held belief that AD has a cortical origin.
Article
Peer Reviewed
Random forest prediction of Alzheimer's disease using pairwise selection from time series data.
Moore, PJ
Lyons, TJ
Gallacher, J
Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative
et al.
UC Irvine Previously Published Works
(2019)
Time-dependent data collected in studies of Alzheimer's disease usually has missing and irregularly sampled data points. For this reason time series methods which assume regular sampling cannot be applied directly to the data without a pre-processing step. In this paper we use a random forest to learn the relationship between pairs of data points at different time separations. The input vector is a summary of the time series history and it includes both demographic and non-time varying variables such as genetic data. To test the method we use data from the TADPOLE grand challenge, an initiative which aims to predict the evolution of subjects at risk of Alzheimer's disease using demographic, physical and cognitive input data. The task is to predict diagnosis, ADAS-13 score and normalised ventricles volume. While the competition proceeds, forecasting methods may be compared using a leaderboard dataset selected from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) and with standard metrics for measuring accuracy. For diagnosis, we find an mAUC of 0.82, and a classification accuracy of 0.73 compared with a benchmark SVM predictor which gives mAUC = 0.62 and BCA = 0.52. The results show that the method is effective and comparable with other methods.
Article
Peer Reviewed
Preserved Structural Network Organization Mediates Pathology Spread in Alzheimer's Disease Spectrum Despite Loss of White Matter Tract Integrity.
Powell, Fon
Tosun, Duygu
Sadeghi, Roksana
Weiner, Michael
Raj, Ashish
Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative
et al.
UC San Francisco Previously Published Works
(2018)
Models of Alzheimer's disease (AD) hypothesize stereotyped progression via white matter (WM) fiber connections, most likely via trans-synaptic transmission of toxic proteins along neuronal pathways. An important question in the field is whether and how organization of fiber pathways is affected by disease. It remains unknown whether fibers act as conduits of degenerative pathologies, or if they also degenerate with the gray matter network. This work uses graph theoretic modeling in a longitudinal design to investigate the impact of WM network organization on AD pathology spread. We hypothesize if altered WM network organization mediates disease progression, then a previously published network diffusion model will yield higher prediction accuracy using subject-specific connectomes in place of a healthy template connectome. Neuroimaging data in 124 subjects from ADNI were assessed. Graph topology metrics show preserved network organization in patients compared to controls. Using a published diffusion model, we further probe the effect of network alterations on degeneration spread in AD. We show that choice of connectome does not significantly impact the model's predictive ability. These results suggest that, despite measurable changes in integrity of specific fiber tracts, WM network organization in AD is preserved. Further, there is no difference in the mediation of putative pathology spread between healthy and AD-impaired networks. This conclusion is somewhat at variance with previous results, which report global topological disturbances in AD. Our data indicates the combined effect of edge thresholding, binarization, and inclusion of subcortical regions to network graphs may be responsible for previously reported effects.
Article
Peer Reviewed
Comparison of Visual and Quantitative Florbetapir F 18 Positron Emission Tomography Analysis in Predicting Mild Cognitive Impairment Outcomes.
Schreiber, Stefanie
Landau, Susan M
Fero, Allison
Schreiber, Frank
Jagust, William J
Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative
et al.
UC Berkeley Previously Published Works
(2015)
The applicability of β-amyloid peptide (Aβ) positron emission tomography (PET) as a biomarker in clinical settings to aid in selection of individuals at preclinical and prodromal Alzheimer disease (AD) will depend on the practicality of PET image analysis. In this context, visual-based Aβ PET assessment seems to be the most feasible approach.To determine the agreement between visual and quantitative Aβ PET analysis and to assess the ability of both techniques to predict conversion from mild cognitive impairment (MCI) to AD.A longitudinal study was conducted among the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) sites in the United States and Canada during a 1.6-year mean follow-up period. The study was performed from September 21, 2010, to August 11, 2014; data analysis was conducted from September 21, 2014, to May 26, 2015. Participants included 401 individuals with MCI receiving care at a specialty clinic (219 [54.6%] men; mean [SD] age, 71.6 [7.5] years; 16.2 [2.7] years of education). All participants were studied with florbetapir F 18 [18F] PET. The standardized uptake value ratio (SUVR) positivity threshold was 1.11, and one reader rated all images, with a subset of 125 scans rated by a second reader.Sensitivity and specificity of positive and negative [18F] florbetapir PET categorization, which was estimated with cerebrospinal fluid Aβ1-42 as the reference standard. Risk for conversion to AD was assessed using Cox proportional hazards regression models.The frequency of Aβ positivity was 48.9% (196 patients; visual analysis), 55.1% (221 patients; SUVR), and 64.8% (166 patients; cerebrospinal fluid), yielding substantial agreement between visual and SUVR data (κ = 0.74) and between all methods (Fleiss κ = 0.71). For approximately 10% of the 401 participants in whom visual and SUVR data disagreed, interrater reliability was moderate (κ = 0.44), but it was very high if visual and quantitative results agreed (κ = 0.92). Visual analysis had a lower sensitivity (79% vs 85%) but higher specificity (96% vs 90%), respectively, compared with SUVR. The conversion rate was 15.2% within a mean of 1.6 years, and a positive [18F] florbetapir baseline scan was associated with a 6.91-fold (SUVR) or 11.38-fold (visual) greater hazard for AD conversion, which changed only modestly after covariate adjustment for apolipoprotein ε4, concurrent fludeoxyglucose F 18 PET scan, and baseline cognitive status.Visual and SUVR Aβ PET analysis may be equivalently used to determine Aβ status for individuals with MCI participating in clinical trials, and both approaches add significant value for clinical course prognostication.
Article
Peer Reviewed
A semi-mechanism approach based on MRI and proteomics for prediction of conversion from mild cognitive impairment to Alzheimer's disease.
Liu, Haochen
Zhou, Xiaoting
Jiang, Hao
He, Hua
Liu, Xiaoquan
Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative
et al.
UC Irvine Previously Published Works
(2016)
Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a precursor phase of Alzheimer's disease (AD). As current treatments may be effective only at the early stages of AD, it is important to track MCI patients who will convert to AD. The aim of this study is to develop a high performance semi-mechanism based approach to predict the conversion from MCI to AD and improve our understanding of MCI-to-AD conversion mechanism. First, analysis of variance (ANOVA) test and lasso regression are employed to identify the markers related to the conversion. Then the Bayesian network based on selected markers is established to predict MCI-to-AD conversion. The structure of Bayesian network suggests that the conversion may start with fibrin clot formation, verbal memory impairment, eating pattern changing and hyperinsulinemia. The Bayesian network achieves a high 10-fold cross-validated prediction performance with 96% accuracy, 95% sensitivity, 65% specificity, area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.82 on data from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) database. The semi-mechanism based approach provides not only high prediction performance but also clues of mechanism for MCI-to-AD conversion.
Article
Peer Reviewed
Dual-Model Radiomic Biomarkers Predict Development of Mild Cognitive Impairment Progression to Alzheimer's Disease.
Zhou, Hucheng
Jiang, Jiehui
Lu, Jiaying
Wang, Min
Zhang, Huiwei
Zuo, Chuantao
Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative
et al.
UC San Francisco Previously Published Works
(2018)
Predicting progression of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) to Alzheimer's disease (AD) is clinically important. In this study, we propose a dual-model radiomic analysis with multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression models to investigate promising risk factors associated with MCI conversion to AD. T1 structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and 18F-Fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET) data, from the AD Neuroimaging Initiative database, were collected from 131 patients with MCI who converted to AD within 3 years and 132 patients with MCI without conversion within 3 years. These subjects were randomly partition into 70% training dataset and 30% test dataset with multiple times. We fused MRI and PET images by wavelet method. In a subset of subjects, a group comparison was performed using a two-sample t-test to determine regions of interest (ROIs) associated with MCI conversion. 172 radiomic features from ROIs for each individual were established using a published radiomics tool. Finally, L1-penalized Cox model was constructed and Harrell's C index (C-index) was used to evaluate prediction accuracy of the model. To evaluate the efficacy of our proposed method, we used a same analysis framework to evaluate MRI and PET data separately. We constructed prognostic Cox models with: clinical data, MRI images, PET images, fused MRI/PET images, and clinical variables and fused MRI/PET images in combination. The experimental results showed that captured ROIs significantly associated with conversion to AD, such as gray matter atrophy in the bilateral hippocampus and hypometabolism in the temporoparietal cortex. Imaging model (MRI/PET/fused) provided significant enhancement in prediction of conversion compared to clinical models, especially the fused-modality Cox model. Moreover, the combination of fused-modality imaging and clinical variables resulted in the greatest accuracy of prediction. The average C-index for the clinical/MRI/PET/fused/combined model in the test dataset was 0.69, 0.73, 0.73 and 0.75, and 0.78, respectively. These results suggested that a combination of radiomic analysis and Cox model analyses could be used successfully in survival analysis and may be powerful tools for personalized precision medicine patients with potential to undergo conversion from MCI to AD.
Article
Peer Reviewed
Study of amyloid-β peptide functional brain networks in AD, MCI and HC.
Jiang, Jiehui
Duan, Huoqiang
Huang, Zheming
Yu, Zhihua
Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative
et al.
UC Irvine Previously Published Works
(2015)
One medical challenge in studying the amyloid-β (Aβ) peptide mechanism for Alzheimer's disease (AD) is exploring the law of beta toxic oligomers' diffusion in human brains in vivo. One beneficial means of solving this problem is brain network analysis based on graph theory. In this study, the characteristics of Aβ functional brain networks of Healthy Control (HC), Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), and AD groups were compared by applying graph theoretical analyses to Carbon 11-labeled Pittsburgh compound B positron emission tomography (11C PiB-PET) data. 120 groups of PiB-PET images from the ADNI database were analyzed. The results showed that the small-world property of MCI and AD were lost as compared to HC. Furthermore, the local clustering of networks was higher in both MCI and AD as compared to HC, whereas the path length was similar among the three groups. The results also showed that there could be four potential Aβ toxic oligomer seeds: Frontal_Sup_Medial_L, Parietal_Inf_L, Frontal_Med_Orb_R, and Parietal_Inf_R. These four seeds are corresponding to Regions of Interests referred by physicians to clinically diagnose AD.
Article
Peer Reviewed
Shape abnormalities of subcortical and ventricular structures in mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease: detecting, quantifying, and predicting.
Tang, Xiaoying
Holland, Dominic
Dale, Anders M
Younes, Laurent
Miller, Michael I
Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative
et al.
UC San Diego Previously Published Works
(2014)
This article assesses the feasibility of using shape information to detect and quantify the subcortical and ventricular structural changes in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients. We first demonstrate structural shape abnormalities in MCI and AD as compared with healthy controls (HC). Exploring the development to AD, we then divide the MCI participants into two subgroups based on longitudinal clinical information: (1) MCI patients who remained stable; (2) MCI patients who converted to AD over time. We focus on seven structures (amygdala, hippocampus, thalamus, caudate, putamen, globus pallidus, and lateral ventricles) in 754 MR scans (210 HC, 369 MCI of which 151 converted to AD over time, and 175 AD). The hippocampus and amygdala were further subsegmented based on high field 0.8 mm isotropic 7.0T scans for finer exploration. For MCI and AD, prominent ventricular expansions were detected and we found that these patients had strongest hippocampal atrophy occurring at CA1 and strongest amygdala atrophy at the basolateral complex. Mild atrophy in basal ganglia structures was also detected in MCI and AD. Stronger atrophy in the amygdala and hippocampus, and greater expansion in ventricles was observed in MCI converters, relative to those MCI who remained stable. Furthermore, we performed principal component analysis on a linear shape space of each structure. A subsequent linear discriminant analysis on the principal component values of hippocampus, amygdala, and ventricle leads to correct classification of 88% HC subjects and 86% AD subjects. | https://escholarship.org/search/?q=author%3A%22Alzheimer%E2%80%99s%20Disease%20Neuroimaging%20Initiative%22 |
Though science may speed along a bit fast to ‘catch’ on audio, you can also listen to me read this article on #MEAction’s Soundcloud here.
We are pleased and proud to announce that our two research fellows, Sydney A. Brumfield and Paula S. Lara Mejia, have written and released their first professional science articles about myalgic encephalomyelitis in conjunction with their mentor Michael B. VanElzakker. The article, Neuroinflammation and Cytokines in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS): A Critical Review of Research Methods, was published in Frontiers on January 10.
VanElzakker, Brumfield and Mejia’s article is a critical review of cytokine and neuroinflammation literature in ME research. The article’s main premise is that neuroimaging has not always been employed appropriately in order to spot issues within the brainstem where, they feel, abnormalities are most likely to be found.[pullquote align=”full” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]We argue that the vast majority of ME/CFS neuroimaging has failed to use optimal techniques for studying the brainstem, despite its probable centrality to any neuroinflammatory causes or autonomic effects.[/pullquote]
They also argue that, due to several different factors, it is unlikely that a true “cytokine profile” will ever be discovered in people with ME — or in any other group of individuals.
What’s the issue with neuroimaging in ME?
VanElzakker et al. discuss three potential issues that must be addressed in order to move forward in neuroinflammation research in ME:
• How would a measured component of neuroinflammation lead to [the] symptoms [seen in people with ME]?
• How do we accurately measure that component of neuroinflammation?
• What can and cannot be concluded from the chosen method?
Today we’ll talk just about their observations on PET, or positron emission tomography.
PET scanning
PET scans are a type of imaging used to examine metabolic processes, in this case those in the central nervous system. PET scans are often viewed as having more potential for discovery than scans that solely allow the clinician to view static morphology. However, they are also more expensive and therefore more of a challenge to fund at a rate that will allow the researcher to reach statistical significance with what he or she finds.
The brainstem is key
The authors then argue that traditional neuroimaging was not intended to study the brainstem, where issues in people with ME may lie.
When performing neuroimaging, software lines up the anatomy of each participant’s brain to that of others. Unfortunately, most neuroimaging is focused on the parts of the brain responsible for ‘higher’ cognitive processes, rather than autonomic function (control of breathing and heart rate, e.g.), arousal, pain, and neuroimmune functions, which are all associated with the brainstem. These are arguably some of the most important things to study in people with ME.
The brainstem is made up of many small areas responsible for very different things, and small imaging errors can lead to significant interpretative issues. The authors note the problems must be remarkable to show up anyway, as they did in Nakatomi’s 2014 imaging study. Software to ensure that brainstem aligned with brainstem person to person would likely be revealing.
The brainstem also pulses with every heartbeat, and is therefore very prone to movement-related imaging errors. By measuring heartrate in conjunction with the scan, it is possible to compensate for this issue as Barnden et al. did in their 2016 study. The authors note that Barnden’s studies and also Costa’s, which focused specifically on the brainstem and used more appropriate imaging techniques, did find abnormalities such as brain stem hypoperfusion.
Using the right marker for neuroinflammation
Radioligands are radioactive substances that bind to particular tissues and receptors, lighting them up on scans like PET. Some radioligands are a single, radioactive isotope — like the iodine used to image your thyroid — and others are proteins geared to bind to very particular receptors.
Nakatomi et al. (2014) used a radioligand specifically keyed to neuroinflammation, but VanElzakker et al. point out that the ligand used was not very specific — that is, it may have bound to other things in the body. Also, it may have some trouble getting into the brain in the first place, making imaging challenging.
Second-generation ligands now exist that are more specific and have higher penetrance.
Brains may not be perfectly healthy in one spot and notably inflamed in another
The authors note that, in order to determine neuroinflammation, most studies compare one part of the patient’s brain to another part of the same patient’s brain: the cerebellum is typically used as the reference/control. However, there is no reason why there shouldn’t be a generalized increase in neuroinflammation in people with ME, with some parts of the brain more affected than others. This decreases the chances of spotting the neuroinflammatory ‘signal’.
The metabolism of the radioligand
Multiple studies have now shown that people with ME have different overall metabolism from that of healthy controls — from processing of sugars versus fats versus proteins, to overall metabolic rate. If these preliminary findings are correct, then the radioligand might be metabolized more slowly in people with ME, leading to an accumulation of the radioligand over time. This problem would be complicated by the poor penetrance of first-gen radioligands: more and more radioligand would be taken up very slowly by people with ME, but perhaps would not be broken down at the same rate. This would make it appear as though people with ME had more neuroinflammation than healthy controls, but in fact could be a sign of slowed metabolism, instead.
Second-gen radioligands wouldn’t completely eliminate this issue, but they would make it less of a problem by entering the brain in greater profusion in both groups. The chance of buildup over time in people with ME would still be present, but the proportional difference would not be as dramatic. Finally, using A-line sampling to determine how much radioligand is “left” in the blood at intervals could eliminate the problem almost entirely.
Binding of the radioligand can be influenced by the patient’s genetic code
There are SNPs that can affect how well a radioligand binds to receptors; the patient should be tested for these variants before a scan.
That’s it for today, folks, but I hope to cover their observations on the MRI process soon. We are very proud of Paulita and Sydney’s progress and of all their hard work! | https://www.meaction.net/2019/01/14/neuroinflammation-and-cytokines-research-fellows/ |
Reduced functional activation is linked to reduced cortical thickness in the brains of patients with bipolar disorder, a new study reports.
The research, using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), found the abnormalities in patients not currently experiencing depression or mania, which suggests that there is a structural basis for altered neural processing that may help explain why cognitive deficits persist even during periods of normal mood.
The study is an elegant synthesis of task fMRI and structural MRI that shows a unique relationship between structure and function in bipolar disorder, Dr. Cameron Carter, Editor of Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, in which the paper was published, noted.
In the first study to assess the relationship between structural and functional MRI data in bipolar disorder, Dr. Shantanu Joshi and his colleagues at the University of California, Los Angeles focused on brain regions that play a role in mood disregulation in the disorder. They examined the brains of 45 patients with bipolar disorder who were between mood episodes and 45 controls.
While performing a task intended to activate specific regions of the brain, patients had reduced activation, when compared to the control group, in two brain regions critical for inhibitory control: the inferior frontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex.
The patients also had reduced activation in the superior frontal gyrus, a region important for motor planning and decision making.
Until this study, researchers had little insight into the underlying causes of abnormal functional brain activity in the disorder.
“These brain areas may underlie some of the cognitive difficulties experienced by bipolar patients independent of mood,” Dr. Joshi commented.
The findings support the idea that reduced activation in brain regions responsible for inhibitory control could explain impulsivity traits present in bipolar disorder.
“Since these changes were seen in remitted patients they may reflect an ongoing vulnerability related to the pathophysiology of this common and disabling severe mood disorder,” Carter added.
Shantanu H. Joshi et al. | https://reliawire.com/structural-deficits-bipolar-disorder/ |
We inherit our genetic material from our parents - 23 chromosomes from our mother, and 23 chromosomes from our father. Research has shown if we are related to someone autistic, there is a higher chance of members of the family developing the disorder. Autism is more common in boys than girls.
Concordance studies (the extent to which a pair of twins share similar traits) are often used to determine the extent to which a condition is inherited.
Genetics- Siblings
Folstein and Piven (1991) reported a concordance rate for autism at 2-3% for siblings, which is much higher than the general population. However, the strongest evidence for genetic factors comes from twin studies, some of which indicate the concordance rate for monozygotic (Mz/ identical.) twins as high as 96% and a concordance rate for dizygotic (dz/non identical) similar to that of ordinary siblings.
Genetics - Folstein and Rutter 1977
AIM- a twin study to investigate the genetic cause of autism
METHOD- co-ordnance rates for autism were investigated in 21 pairs of twin boys, 11 MZ twins and 10 DZ twins
RESULTS- concordance rates for MZ twins was 4 out of the 11 pairs, and with the DZ twins it was 0 out of the 11 twins. In the non concordant MZ group, many brothers did have a milder form of autism and their symptoms became more apparent with age. Concordance using a wider criteria for MZ twins was 90%.
CONC- this study provides some evidence for a genetic cause of autism.
EVALUATION- the milder symptoms experienced in the non concordant MZ group suggest autism might be best explained with respect to be a broader phenotype, which is consistent with the idea of an autistic spectrum.
Genetics - evaluation
o Twin study evidence suggests a strong genetic basis for autism
o Twins share the same environment and therefore any similarities may be due to environmental factors
o The suggest
Ion that autism has a genetic cause is consistsent with the findings that show a strong link between autism and other genetic disorders - eg, it's been found 10% of children with autism have a chromosome abnormality (fragile x syndrome) Bee 1989.
o autism has also been associated with other genetic disorders, such as Tourette's. Comings and Comings (1991) noted sufferers of Tourette's and autism show many similar symptoms, such as ritualised behaviours and stereotypical movements.
o Chromosomal analysis studies are as yet inconclusive.
Neurological correlates - basic overview
This theory proposes that autistic individuals have one or more abnormalities in the brain. The area of the brain damaged, or with structural abnormalities in children diagnosed with autism appears to correlate with those areas responsible for the development of normal communication, social functioning and play.
Neurological correlates- post mortem studies
This is an invasive method after the individuals death. Such studies show abnormalities in the frontal lobes (planning and control) the limbic system (emotional regulation) brain stem and cerebellum (moot co-ordination.) from these studies no single abnormality has been found and it is uncertain which are specific to autism. Also,
o most post mortems are performened on adult brains, so it's hard to tell cause and effect
o abnormalities in the brain may be a result of life injuries, like knocks on the head, and not necesarily autism.
Neurologial correlates - PET scan
(positron emission tomography)
Slightly radioactive glucose is injected into a patients arm. Once in the blood stream, it gets carried to the brain and sensors in the PET scan can detect the radioactivity as it moves through the brain. PET can provide image of blood flow which gives reliable measure of brain activity - rested or stimulated. It also gives a very sensitive analysis of the brain.
ZIBOVICUS ET AL (2000) used PET scan in his study. He found 75% of the autistic children examined had functional abnormality in the temporal cortex but, a mentally impaired comparison group showed no abnormalities.
As PET scans require blood samples, and radiation, SPECT scans are preferred for children.
Neurological correlates - SPECT scan
(single photon emission computed tomography)
Practically the same a PET scans but use less radiation. ONISHI et al (2000) used SPECT and identified different regions of the autistic brain. A positive correlation was observed between:
o Impairments in communication, social interaction and blood flow in the frontal cortex
o Obsessive desire for sameness and blood flow in the right hippocampus and the amygdale (parts of the limbic system)
The usually high blood flow in these parts was interpreted as being a cause of the qualitative impairments in social interaction seen in children.
Neurological correlates - MRI scan
(magnetic resonance imaging)
MRI is the most used scan for children as they have no radiation effect - magnetic fields and radio waves produce high quality 3D images of the brain.
MRIs have found abnormalities in the cerebellum - the area thought to be involved in the control of attention, and this abnormality could explain why autistic people struggle to focus.
COURSCHEME ET AL (1994) looked at some autistic patients and found a significant reduction in vermal lobules size in the cerebellum of autistic people, with or without mental retardation.
Further studies have supported the findings that the cerebellum and brain stem are significantly smaller in autistic individuals.
PIVEN ET AL (1995) measured brain volume using MRI. autistic people had a notably larger total brain volume (when compared to a control group.) As a result, that has been replicated a number of times since and there is now converging evidence that autistic individuals have brain enlargement.
Neurological correlates - evaluation
o The advance in technology allows researchers to fully investigate the brain and it's structures in more detail, and findings give more info on autism and it's biological causes and have provided evidence for differences between autistic people and 'normal' people.
o The different techniques have their own merits but MRI is the most advanced and allows more sensitive observations.
o Scans are hard do and the participant has to stay still for a long time, meaning that most studies use small samples so it's inappropriate to generalise results to all cases of autism.
o Advances in technology have allowed us to identify regions of the brain which may be responsible for autistic symptoms eg, social impairment, but none of the studies account for the full range of symptoms.
o Methological factors can confound the comparison of studies as factors such as age, gender and IQ differ greatly between autistic samples and controls both within and between studies
o Most evidence is correlational and we cant assume cause and effect from correlations. | https://getrevising.co.uk/revision-cards/biological_explanations_of_autism |
Libertarianism is defined as “an extreme laissez-faire political philosophy advocating only minimal state intervention in the lives of citizens.” Laissez-faire stresses the abstention of government interposition in business, and the rest follows the idea that the government should have negligible involvement in affairs outside of economics. Inspired by the tyranny of absolute monarchists in the 1600’s, libertarianism rose to become what it is today because it limits the power of one person, or even a group of people in the best interest of a certain country or territory. Libertarianism is a simple yet intriguing form of management which, in a world with increasing uncertainty and new problems arising daily, should be considered as viable and possibly even a messiah in a time of such distress. This highly misrepresented political theory emphasizes freedom above all other values, but still prioritizes integrity, respect and other related ideals.
One of the key concepts that falls under libertarianism is individualism. Each individual citizen has the freedom to make all of their own decisions provided that they do not violate the rights of others. Each citizen is rendered equal and as such deserves equal liberties, a progressive and valuable point. What libertarians consider to be God-given entitlements encompass many areas and are not situational by any means. These rights are protected by a constitution in most cases, and can only be taken away in the circumstance that one has infringed upon another’s rights. This belief is known as the Rule of Law and is held closely by many as one of the principle pillars of libertarianism. Subsequently, libertarians highlight the sustenance of peace under nearly all conditions to be of utmost importance as well.
The second most defining characteristic of libertarianism is the weight on limitation of government. The limitation of government, according to the libertarian train of thought, allows for the protection of privileges, keeps the power from being vested in too few people, and brings into play the free market. Libertarians believe that a free market is necessary for an economically prosperous population because more liberty, in their eyes, equals more success. One’s original plan might alter to fit the natural order of the free market, but this is worth it in the overall scheme of things, and will end up in general flourishment for those who work hard and emit intelligence.
Because of the obvious statement that not every citizen contains the same amount of potential, the inevitable social and political hierarchy that will form needs to be addressed. Said hierarchy will evolve innately, and it will be crucial for universal thriving. The natural order which comes into play is so very complex, intricate and permeable, that movement between classes and other healthy sensations can easily occur without disturbing structure across the board. Libertarianism relies on the upper strands to support the lower strands in times of direness, and statistics support that the upper brackets will do so if needed.
As stated, the three central pillars of this free political system are individualism, the limitation of government and a natural and capricious social order. While socialist and communist views are being pushed into the agenda of modern states and countries, the possible saving grace of libertarianism should absolutely be further explored by policy-makers and diplomatic influencers. | https://universityschoolnews.com/3743/oped/assessing-libertarianism/ |
Boaz addresses the question of whether libertarianism must rest on the Objectivist philosophical system.
I thank Bob Bidinotto for his many generous remarks about Libertarianism: A Primer, and I congratulate Bidinotto and the Institute for Objectivist Studies for their continuing commitment to a constructive dialogue between Objectivists and those libertarians who are not Objectivists.
I might begin by noting that the very notion of a conflict “between libertarians and Objectivists” is flawed, as it seems to me that all Objectivists are necessarily libertarians, though not all libertarians are Objectivists. That is, anyone who believes in individual rights, free enterprise, and strictly limited government—and I assume that includes all Objectivists—is a libertarian. An Objectivist libertarian might well not belong to any particular party and might part company with some other libertarians on a wide range of philosophical and other issues, but at the level of political philosophy Objectivists are libertarians.
And that gets us the crux of our disagreement. Should all libertarians be Objectivists? Or, put another way, must libertarianism rest on the Objectivist philosophical system? I believe that libertarianism, as a political movement and a political philosophy, is a sort of coalition. Libertarianism is compatible with a wide variety of philosophical, ethical, and religious beliefs. It is clearly compatible with Objectivism. It is also compatible with most religious faiths, as many libertarian Jews, Catholics, evangelical Protestants, and Muslims can attest. And certainly there are libertarians who feel a primary moral commitment to the value of individual freedom itself.
None of this is to argue that there isn’t a best defense of capitalism and individual rights, or that one philosophical defense of individual rights isn’t ultimately true, or that Objectivism is not that truth. The argument here is simply that people of different moral values can agree on libertarianism as a political philosophy so long as they don’t want to impose their religious or moral values on others by force. I have argued that libertarianism should be a “second-best” political philosophy even for people who would like to impose their own moral philosophy on others. One could very well reason, “I would like to make religious fundamentalism [or secular humanism, or worker solidarity, or anti-clericalism] the law of the land, but I may not have the political power to do that. If so, I would rather live in a libertarian society than in a world where my cultural or moral adversaries can impose their values on me.”
In Libertarianism: A Primer, I wrote, “Libertarianism is a political philosophy, not a complete moral code. It prescribes certain minimal rules for living together in a peaceful, productive society—property, contract, and freedom—and leaves further moral teaching to civil society.” I think that’s the proper defense of a political philosophy of liberty, and I think it’s one that Objectivists should feel comfortable embracing, even as they believe firmly in the importance of the correct derivation of libertarianism.
I agree with many of Bidinotto’s points, and sometimes I’m not sure I see the disagreement that he perceives. For instance, Bidinotto writes, “By insisting that liberty requires a proper base rooted in morality, … Boaz concedes the fundamental point that Rand and other Objectivists have been making all along.” But where is the concession? As Bidinotto writes in the next sentence, “This view is widely shared by other leading libertarian thinkers and writers.”
Bidinotto complains that my “key concepts of libertarianism”—individualism, individual rights, spontaneous order, the rule of law, limited governments, free markets, the virtue of production, natural harmony of interests, and peace—are not presented as “building blocks in a structured argument.” Well, I do see a degree of progression here: from individualism to individual rights to the rule of law to limited government. A second line of argumentation, positive rather than normative, flows from spontaneous order to free markets.
But the key concepts do contribute to libertarianism in complementary ways, and I think that’s a strength. Objectivists have tended to put too much emphasis on conceptual analysis and logical deduction and too little on experience, history, and social science. I agree with Objectivists that we can outline a proper rights theory from basic principles. But many of the elements of a free society cannot be deduced; they have developed through experience. Federalism and the separation of powers, for instance, are important aspects of a free society that were not the products of logical deduction; they are a product of history, of trial and error, of learning, and of reflection on that experience. The importance of the rule of law rather than reliance on the benevolence of properly educated rulers is something we have learned through hard experience. The American Founders derived much of their political philosophy from their reading of history. We have more historical experience to examine now, and we can refine their concepts of freedom and limited government. Of course, philosophy gives us a conceptual framework within which to analyze history.
The different arguments for liberty reflected in that list of key concepts should be seen as a strength of the case for liberty, not as a failure to put everything into a hierarchy. As my colleague Tom Palmer wrote in his bibliographical essay in the companion volume, The Libertarian Reader,
The source or justification of rights has always been a contentious issue among libertarian thinkers. Whether individuals have rights in virtue of their utility, their correspondence to the demands of pure reason, divine revelation, or for some other reason may indeed matter in debates over particular policy issues, but rather than seeing different kinds of justifications arriving at the same general conclusion as a problem, I prefer to see it as a kind of “fail-safe” mechanism: If many different non-exclusive arguments all converge on the same conclusion, we can be more sure of its truth than if only one of those arguments led us there, and the others led to other conclusions.
In any case, in the history of political thought, “natural law” arguments and arguments from “utility,” for example, were not generally seen as in opposition, for one comes to understand nature only indirectly, through experience, whether in the physical sciences or the moral sciences, and the sign of a good institution is its good consequences, or utility.
On the issue of rights, I agree with Bidinotto—and, I might add, Immanuel Kant—that “the moral principle of rights is the conceptual bridge between individual and social ethics, between personal and public morality.” I’m not sure what his distinction between “objective” and “inherent” rights is. Rights are not metaphysical essences, they are moral principles. They define our relationships with one another, and in the libertarian conception they are necessary to make peaceful human interaction possible. I am frustrated by the inability to persuade most people to believe in rights as I understand them; and much as I admire Ayn Rand’s essay “Man’s Rights,” I find that it rarely persuades people who do not already “intuitively” grasp the case for individual rights. (But I am very sorry that the Estate of Ayn Rand would not allow me to include “Man’s Rights” in The Libertarian Reader; it’s a very unfortunate absence.)
As for Bidinotto’s complaint about the word “other” in my sentence, “The ethical or normative basis of libertarianism is respect for the dignity and worth of every (other) individual,” I concede that that formulation fails to achieve what I had intended, and I am grateful to Bidinotto for bringing its inadequacy to my attention. Certainly I believe that each person should believe in his own worth. My intent there was to point out that a free society requires us to respect not only our own dignity but also that of every other individual. A purely egoistic theory has to answer the challenge, Why is it good for me to respect your rights? Why shouldn’t I achieve my values by aggression if I can get away with it? Bidinotto legitimately challenges me to offer a better defense of some of my arguments; I wonder whether Bidinotto has a compelling answer to this challenge to egoism.
Finally, I agree with Bidinotto that non-Objectivist libertarians and Objectivist libertarians can work together, with both contributing their particular strengths to the struggle. I hope many Objectivists will become professors of philosophy, promoting and further developing Rand’s philosophy in the academy. I hope they will also draw on history and economics, on Smith and Hayek and Friedman and Jefferson and Madison and, yes, even Hume, in making the argument for a free society. And I hope they will join non-Objectivist libertarians in the political movement for a free society known in our time as libertarianism.
Meanwhile, non-Objectivist libertarians should remember the importance of a moral defense of liberty, and we should draw wisdom and inspiration from Ayn Rand’s powerful and passionate presentation of the morality of freedom. | https://www.libertarianism.org/publications/essays/objectivists-libertarians |
A question frequently asked in libertarian circles is “what is the best way to advance liberty?” Some claim that the Libertarian Party is the best vehicle for spreading libertarian ideas. What should be considered, first and foremost, is to understand what liberty is, and why the Libertarian Party can’t deliver it.
Libertarianism is a way of life, a philosophy about leaving others be, and interacting with them in a peaceful manner. At its core, libertarianism is about property rights and self-ownership. This is why libertarians are for limited, or the lack of, government. This is why they support free-market economics (not to be confused with the “free market” economics that many conservatives claim to support but yet still make excuses for government intervention here and there). It is why they support the Non-Aggression Principle.
Rep. Justin Amash recently declared his independence from the Republican party at the time of this writing. As I read his reasons for leaving, I couldn’t help but notice how he put, with much more eloquence, my own thoughts into words as to why I left party politics almost a decade ago.
Like me, he looked to both Washington’s Farewell Address and to the corruption of the two largest parties in America. President Washington recognized that political factions ran counter to liberty. Rather than being bastions of free thought and advancing liberty, they would inevitably become corrupt and erode our rights. The last 200-plus years has shown that to be sickeningly true. Both Republicans and Democrats have, time and again, throughout our nation’s history, expanded the size of government and its intervention in our lives, trampled our rights, and controlled the minds of the masses through the same propagandistic tactics that Marxists and fascists used in the last century.
This doesn’t happen in America only, just look at any other nation with a democratically elected government and political parties. It is the same old story anywhere you go. Why then should we believe that it couldn’t happen to the Libertarian Party?
Aside from their stance on slavery, the Democratic party, prior to William Jennings Bryan, was essentially a libertarian party. Look at that same party now and see how far they have fallen. To believe that the LP is incorruptible, or that it can’t fall the way the once classically liberal Democratic Party fell, is folly. Putting your trust in any political party is unwise, they will all disappoint, and they will all try to expect a certain group mentality from their supporters. Libertarianism cannot be properly represented by a political party because it is a mindset, a way of life, a choice to be made by free-thinking individuals. Political factions destroy liberty. Liberty cannot be confined.
I’ll leave you, as Rep. Amash did, with some of the words from Washington’s Farewell Address:
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.
Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.
It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.
There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in governments of a monarchical cast, patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume. | https://think-liberty.com/opinion/libertarian-party-doesnt-matter/ |
CLIMATE SCIENCE V XR Is a tipping point close or is the emergency contrived?
RENEWABLE ENERGY Whatever happened to the World Solar Challenge?
ASIAN AFFAIRS How long has China's Red Dynasty really got?
HUMOUR Vote 1 for the Troposphere
MUSIC Genre fatigue: Jazz rock arrived with a bang, left with a whisper
CINEMA Terminator: Dark Fate: The heart that makes us human
CINEMA Ride Like a Girl: Celebrating family, faith and fortitude
BOOK REVIEW Quirky look at grand-scale egoism
BOOK REVIEW Clear critique of flaws of globalism
POETRY
LETTERS
NATIONAL AFFAIRS Cardinal Pell's appeal to go to High Court
Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 2016 Paperback: 277 pages Price: AUD$32.99
Book description
Libertarianism wants government out of your wallet and out of your bedroom.
Libertarianism – the philosophy of government that pairs free market economics with social liberalism – presents a vigorous challenge and viable political alternative to the old Left-Right partisan shouting match. It offers new solutions to stagnant policy debates over issues such as immigration and civil rights, and provides a framework for tackling contemporary problems such as privacy, religious liberty, the environment and technological change.
In The Libertarian Alternative, Chris Berg offers a new agenda for restoring individual liberty in Australia, revitalising politics and strengthening our sagging economy.
About the author
Chris Berg is a columnist with ABC’s The Drum and has been published in major papers in Australia and internationally. He is a senior fellow at the free-market think tank the Institute of Public Affairs and is one of Australia’s most passionate voices for free markets and individual liberty. | http://newsweekly.com.au/book.php?bookid=531 |
by Kenneth Gary Talbot, Ph.D.
President & Professor of Theology and Apologetics, Whitefield Theological Seminary
Board Member, American Vision, Inc.
The late Rev. R. J. Rushdoony once wrote, “Few things are more commonly misunderstood than the nature and meaning of theocracy. It is commonly assumed to be a dictatorial rule by self-appointed men who claim to rule for God. In reality, theocracy in Biblical law is the closest thing to a radical libertarianism that can be had.” The term “theocracy” is, indeed, a misunderstood concept even among historic Orthodox and Evangelical Protestant Christianity. The misunderstanding is especially true in the 21st Century with the rise of “radical fundamentalism” among various world religions. Such radical movements have always given rise to “dictatorial” rule.
Theocracy, however, as properly understood in terms of Biblical law within the context of Hebraic and Christian theology denies the right of the dictatorial rule by one or a few men. The context must be understood in light of the Old and New Testament, God alone, as Creator, has given His Law-Word to rule and judge all men and nations. The question might naturally occur to a thinking individual, why did Rev. Rushdoony make a comparison then of “theocracy” with “radical libertarianism?” If one reads his article carefully in which this comparison is given, it will become evident as to his meaning. However, before we clarify this expression, we first need to understand the historical context and the development of political libertarianism.
The Historical Development of Libertarianism
It is helpful to understand the etymological development of a term, its historic context in which it was coined, and the ideology which it represented at that particular time. Yet, it is important that we remember terms eventually come to mean a variety of things, some not so closely associated with their etymological beginning. According to Webster’s 1828 dictionary, the word libertarian is derived from the Latin term liber meaning free or libertas which means liberty. The term means “pertaining to liberty, or to the doctrine of free will, as opposed to the doctrine of necessity (or determinism).” The term libertarian as it represents a political theory was derived from the French cognate Libertarie meaning anarchist meaning “the absence of governmental authority or the state of lawlessness.” Libertarian political philosophy as we know it today has its roots in the classical liberalism of the European political philosophers. Some of these philosophers inspired the post-revolutionary governments of the latter 18th century in both the United States and France.
The basic tenets of this classical liberalism can be summed up as follows: Every individual person has a right to be left alone, to live out their lives independent of government and other individuals, just as long as they do not interfere or infringe on the rights of others so that they can legitimately pursue their lives independently of other individuals and the state. Thus, the only valid reason for the existence of government is to protect these rights of the individual citizens so that they can pursue, without interference or infringement, their desires and actions in an autonomous manner. The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy defines ‘libertarianism’ as a philosophy that, “… advocate[s] the maximization of individual rights, especially those connected with the operation of a free market, and the minimizing of the role of the state.”
The historical context in which this political-economic system is developed is critically important. What needs to be considered is that classical libertarianism must be considered in its historical context. Libertarianism originally was the term coined in 1857 by the Frenchman Joseph Déjacque (born December 27, 1821, in Paris, and died in 1864 in Paris) applying it to himself in defense against Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. The term itself was representative of his libertarian anarchical political philosophy. However, this is not the first time the term libertarian was used. The term itself was used during the final years of the Enlightenment where the term was used philosophically to represent those who held to free will over-against determinism.
Classical Libertarianism: What does it teach?
In classical libertarianism, the main concept that is promoted is that of freedom of the individual over against any and all forms of determinism. Libertarianism, we maintain, contains the idea that man is free from all external constraints be it an over-powering individual or individuals (Dictatorial Rule) or an over-powering state (National Collectivism) or an over-powering church or God (Theocracy). Historically, the term libertarian is used in a variety of ways: first as representing classical liberalism; second as representing libertarian socialism or communism; third, a substitute for anarcho-communist; or as a synonym for anarchism.
The early libertarian movement represented a view that man had the absolute authority over his decisions. His decisions were an extension of his rights to be absolutely free from any form of infringement or constraint that would hinder him from choosing or determining for himself! Dagobert Runes in his Dictionary of Philosophy writes that freedom of the will meant, “The freedom of self-determination consisting in decisions independent of external constraint but in accordance with the inner motives of ideals of the agent.” This type of ‘freedom of self-determination’ is nothing more than humanistic autonomy. It is individualism taken to the extreme. Even in matters pertaining to economics it is unbiblical. Dr. Rushdoony wrote:
Man without God seeks to expand his power exponentially, whereas, man under God seeks to place his entire being under the law of God. Statist power will increase and develop to the degree that the state and its peoples are not Christian. The non-Christian who wants to limit the power of the state will seek then to increase his own. Humanistic libertarianism is an exceptionally good critic of state power, especially in the economic realm, but it then warps its own position too commonly by replacing the power of the state with the power of the individual to be lawless sexually; homosexual freedom has become basic to all too many libertarians. The Marquis de Sade pursued the logic of libertarianism, or anarchism, relentlessly. Total freedom for the individual means total power to do anything; every man as his own god means every man as his own law and judge. Karl Marx understood that this anarchism undermined socialism and communism, which presupposes a common order, and hence his bitter attack on Max Stirner for his radical anarchism. Without God and His law man and the state will expand their powers ceaselessly. Total statism and total anarchy are the outcomes.”
Dr. Rushdoony demonstrates that the classical usage of the term libertarianism is to be rejected because it views man as “god” and promotes “lawlessness.” In this same context he also states: “Thus, libertarian economics, which holds strictly to totally private property, leaves property as rootless as does socialistic economics: it divorces it from the past and the future. Property then becomes existential: its meaning is limited to the meaning the existentialist individual gives to it, and no more. Socialism, and also existentialism, ties property to the existence of the state.”
The point is that libertarianism, in and of itself, which operates with the philosophical ideology that man is to be self-determining with absolute power and authority over his own life and choices (rights) is to be rejected by Christians as being just as horrific as an ungodly statism. Why? It is because both notions are antithetical to biblical law and fails to understand God’s absolute right of ownership and therefore to rule over His creation. Libertarianism in and of its self is not Christian! However, in the right context of a theocracy, that is, where God’s law is properly instituted in our society, there are libertarian concepts that are comparative in principle and if modified by the Word of God, do closely align with the Scripture.
Libertarianism is not Christian
It is in this context that we can now understand the use of the term Libertarianism in Rushdoony’s language when he says “In reality, theocracy in Biblical law is the closest thing to a radical libertarianism that can be had.” It is not that theocracy as expressed in biblical law is libertarianism, not at all! Rather, a Christian theocracy in the context of applying biblical law, where God has, through Jesus Christ’s redemption, freed man from sin to serve God according to His Law-Word (self-government), and restricts the power of government as originally intended by Him. St. Paul says in Romans 13 that all power and authority comes from God alone. Government is under the authority of God and His Law-Word.
The purpose of Government is to punish evil and promote and protect the good, not as the state defines evil and good, but as God defines them in the Holy Bible. In this way man is freed from unbiblical restraints of an oppressive state and yet is restricted from excessive individualism that seeks to free him from God’s rule. Dr. Rushdoony states:
There is another important aspect to God’s law. It may seem to a modern lawyer or judge that 613 laws are too few. The truth is even more radical. As we shall see, of the 613 laws, many are not enforceable by man, but only by God. This means that the jurisdictions of church and state are very limited. We have here a godly libertarianism which severely limits the powers of all human agencies. Biblical law seems oppressive only to those who want freedom to sin. God’s laws have as their purpose our good. In Deuteronomy 10:13, God orders us through Moses: “To keep the commandments of the Lord, and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good.”
Now the opening statement by Dr. Rushdoony is in the context of what the meaning of “theocracy” is and he states that most people today do not understand what the term itself implies. They see it as a “dictatorial rule” of a few over the whole. Then he makes a comparison: “In reality, theocracy in Biblical law is the closest thing to a radical libertarianism that can be had.” It has a strong emphasis against an oppressive dictatorial rule by men. In this sense, it is just the opposite! The closest thing to compare a Biblical Theocracy would be a “radical libertarianism.” God’s Word clearly advocates a limited state power and authority. The Bible also speaks to the rights of the people to be self-governing, but only within the context of His Law-Word. What classical libertarianism lacks is “Biblical law” and that is why it is rejected by Dr. Rushdoony, and rightfully so.
Conclusion
Libertarianism today is not Christian. Modern libertarianism does seek “a form” of self-government and seeks “to limit” the power of the state or government, but it does not do so in terms of God’s law, but rather in the declaration of the absolute rights of men. Therefore, both authoritarian statism and authoritarian individualism always eventually leads to tyranny in one form or another; and in relation to God’s law they are both anarchist! Once example of this can be contextualized when Libertarian Ron Paul was asked – what influence would Christianity have on his political decision making? His answer was clearly humanistic. Paul stated: “Well, my religious beliefs wouldn’t affect [my presidency]. My religious beliefs affect my character in the way I treat people and the way I live. The only thing that would affect me in the way I operate as a president or a congressman is my oath of office and my promises that I’ve made to the people.”
While I have a great deal of respect for Rep. Ron Paul, and hold too many of his recommendations about changes that need to be made in our country, his Methodist “semi-pelagian” theology is bankrupt as to how, as professed Christian, he should govern our nation if chosen to be President. This is the problem. This kind of libertarianism has no biblical world and life view which sees all things under the absolute power and authority of Jesus Christ our Supreme King. I doubt that Rep. Paul has any idea that he is promoting a humanistic political-economic theory. However, if he does, then he is simply advocating the “pretended autonomy” of man and while it is conservative, it is not Biblical. While much of his ideas would be pragmatically helpful, they are not the biblical solutions to solve our nation’s problems. For the Christian, the answers to America’s problems cannot be found in an unbiblical statism or individualism, but only from the Law-Word of God.
The warnings are given to us in Proverbs 14:34: Righteousness exalts a nation, But sin is a reproach to any people; and in Psalms 9:17: The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God. The blessings of God cannot come when a nation refuses to follow the Law-Word of God. The blessings of God only come when those who honor Him and His Law-Word are being implemented into our society. The Wise King Solomon wrote in Proverbs 29:2: When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; but when a wicked man rules, the people groan. As Bible-believing Christian we desire neither a humanistic libertarianism nor humanistic statism. Rather, our desire is for a Christian Republic where true justice is rightfully understood in light of the “crown rights of King Jesus” that is, where all men stand equally before the Moral Law of God and where that Law is rightfully enforced. | https://americanvision.org/5681/libertarianism-vs-theocracy-is-libertarianism-a-christian-political-philosophy/ |
The term “libertarianism” denotes a family of ideas, ranging from the philosophical to the political. The spectrum of libertarianism – which includes anarcho-capitalism, anarchism and individualism – is united by the concepts of individualism, rule of law, free markets, the natural harmony of interests and peace. The Libertarian Party (LP) of the United States has over 600,000 voters, but holds only 310 elected seats and none of them are federal or state governorships.
The LP generally supports fiscally conservative and socially liberal policies that prevent government intervention in the private lives of its citizens. The LP wants to codify same-sex marriage, improve public education and legalize victimless crimes such as prostitution, preserve the 2nd Amendment and maintains a pro-choice attitude towards abortion. Additionally, the LP seeks to establish a laissez-faire economic system, abolish the Internal Revenue Service, institute free market healthcare and promote sensible usage of natural resources. These are only a sampling of LP stances and do not fully encompass different facets of libertarianism.
Its range of stances should, in theory, appeal to a myriad of voters but at such a divisive time in the two-party American political system, the LP is not a viable option. The party must stop wondering why it isn’t attaining elected positions and begin reform. In principle, the LP is good; in practice, it is a reactionary form of utopianism full of contradictions.
The non-aggression principle –- a cornerstone of the LP – is a concept in which aggression against an individual, their property or contracts is inherently wrong. Its issue lies in inconsistency. With the current perception of it, something like driving would be illegal since it causes pollution, therefore encroaching upon someone’s individual property rights. A self-regulated market would steer capital towards the wealthy and halt equal income distribution. Self-regulated markets would also prevent any regulations against illicit financial practices.
Total Libertarian governments and societies do not exist because they are not stable. As a Libertarian, I recognize that the LP rests upon the far-fetched concept that a society can completely reform itself, which is impossible. At this point, our current political society is not operational but libertarianism as we know it will not fix it. | https://chargerbulletin.com/in-criticism-of-the-libertarian-party-by-a-libertarian/ |
Another aspect of the individualism noaz libertarians is their belief that the individual, rather than the group or the state, is the basic unit in terms of which a legal order should be understood. Lists with This Book.
Libertarianism: A Primer by David Boaz
Lbertarianism editors will review what you’ve submitted, and if it meets our criteria, we’ll add it to the article. Defensive or retaliatory violence may be justified, but, according to libertarians, violence is not valuable in itself, nor does it produce any additional benefits beyond the defense of life and liberty. The first well-developed statement of libertarianism, An Agreement of the Peoplewas produced by the radical republican Leveler movement during the English Civil Wars — The first time the word was used was in a work published by a libertarian communist.
It compares freedom against restrictive government.
libertarianism | Definition, Doctrines, History, & Facts |
His writing is not equivocal as current politico trends are using these redefined categories. Yeah, congratulations, there’s a country where people libertzrianism together and built lighthouses, but it was the country that controlled the seven seas for a few centuries. As a libertarian, it strengthened my belief system and offered libertarian alternatives to contemporary topics.
He makes a concise argument about the benefits of foreign trade and debunks the myth of the trade balance.
More About Libertarianism 5 libertarianidm found in Britannica articles Assorted References neoliberalism In neoliberalism political philosophy In political philosophy: Economic efficiency, while increasing productivity and in some cases human progress, is not the only thing human beings care about, and rightly so.
So a market economy works via billions of such win-win transactions and gets us to a place where a planned economy could never go. Libertarian scholars, activists, and political leaders also played prominent roles in the worldwide campaign against apartheid and in the construction of democratic societies in eastern and central Europe following the collapse of communism there in — In essence he demands a strong but limited state to protect basic personal liberties but seems to care very little about the protection of whole communities and groups of people who have had their individual liberties trampled by the excesses and corruption of corporations.
I found the book interesting and thorough. During the 19th century, governments based on traditional liberal principles emerged in England and the United States and to a smaller extent in continental Europe.
A long-standing criticism of libertarianism is that it presupposes an unrealistic and undesirable conception of individual identity and of the conditions necessary for human flourishing.
According to libertarians, free markets are among the most important but not the only examples of spontaneous order. Who protects the environment?
Libertarianism: A Primer
While deriding Karl Marx throughout, Boaz is striking similar to Marx in his economic determinism. Liberals reject economic freedom while conservatives reject social freedom, but Libertarianism rejects both rejections. The new liberalism was exemplified by the English philosophers L.
Libertarianism and liberalism both arose in the West, where the division of power between spiritual and temporal rulers had been greater than in most other parts of the world. The first time the word was used was in a work published by a libertarian co Pretty much an introduction to “libertarian” ideas, which was nothing new to me.
Libertarianism
They are, of course, the “liberals. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in learning more about this philosophy. English language, West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family that is libertariansm related…. Liibertarianism his most far-fetched claim is that Libertarianism’s greatest triumphs were the abolition of slavery and the eradication of Jim Crow while neglecting the fact that the both of these were due to the strongest forms of federal government intervention; war and a federal civil rights act.
Liberals reject economic freedom while conservatives reject social Libertarianism isn’t just a political philosophy, it was the philosophy upon which the Founding Fathers battled for. Thank you for your feedback. Community, libertarians believe, is best served by freedom of association, an observation made by the 19th-century French historian of American democracy Alexis de Tocquevilleamong others. Thus, they argue that environmental pollution could be minimized in a free market if property rights were properly defined and secured.
With the exception of equality of rights, libertarians realize that equality is not going to happen because we all desire and assess differently. If you’re looking for a well-written introduction to libertarianism this is your book. The Cato Insitute’s David Boaz has written an engaging and thought provoking book with The Libertarian Mind yet his logic and arguments fail to convince in the end. | https://testtestestestst.info/libertarianism-boaz-13/ |
What does Nozick mean by self ownership and the right to property?
Self – ownership , thought Nozick , means that we own our labor. This also allows for legitimate transfer of goods as we own ourselves and through our actions with other items in the world we justifiably come to own them as well.
What is the philosophy of libertarianism?
Libertarianism is one of the main philosophical positions related to the problems of free will and determinism which are part of the larger domain of metaphysics. In particular, libertarianism is an incompatibilist position which argues that free will is logically incompatible with a deterministic universe.
Is libertarianism left or right?
Although libertarianism originated as a form of left-wing politics, the development in the mid-20th century of modern libertarianism in the United States led several authors and political scientists to use two or more categorizations to distinguish libertarian views on the nature of property and capital, usually along
What is a libertarian leftist?
While all libertarians begin with a conception of personal autonomy from which they argue in favor of civil liberties and a reduction or elimination of the state, left-libertarianism encompasses those libertarian beliefs that claim the Earth’s natural resources belong to everyone in an egalitarian manner, either
What do Rawls and Nozick agree on?
In response Nozick agrees that a Rawls -like difference principle is morally acceptable after all, what he terms “rectification,” on the premise that those currently least-well-off have the highest probability of being descended from previous victims of injustice. ( Nozick p.
What do Kant and Nozick agree on?
Nozick takes his position to follow from a basic moral principle associated with Immanuel Kant and enshrined in Kant’s second formulation of his famous Categorical Imperative: “Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never as a means only.” The idea here is
What is Nozick’s theory?
According to Nozick , anyone who acquired what he has through these means is morally entitled to it. Thus the “entitlement” theory of justice states that the distribution of holdings in a society is just if (and only if) everyone in that society is entitled to what he has.
What’s the difference between a conservative and a libertarian?
Libertarians favor both personal and economic freedom and oppose most (or all) government intervention in both areas. Like conservatives, libertarians believe in free markets. Centrists favor a balance or mix of both freedom and government involvement in both personal and economic matters.
What country is the most libertarian?
2020 rankings In the 2020 index, New Zealand is ranked most free overall, while North Korea is last. Hong Kong was ranked most free in economic liberty, while Norway was ranked most free in the social liberty category.
Is anarchy left or right?
As an anti-capitalist and libertarian socialist philosophy, anarchism is placed on the far-left of the political spectrum and much of its economics and legal philosophy reflect anti-authoritarian interpretations of left-wing politics such as communism, collectivism, syndicalism, mutualism, or participatory economics.
Do Libertarians believe in socialism?
Libertarian socialism is anti-capitalist and can be distinguished from capitalist and right-libertarian principles which concentrate economic power in the hands of those who own the most capital. Libertarian socialism aims to distribute power more widely among members of society.
What is a Libertarian in simple terms?
Libertarians believe that no person can justly own or control the body of another person, what they call ‘self-ownership’ or ‘individual sovereignty. ‘ In simple words, every person has a right to control her or his own body.
Can you be a socialist and an anarchist? | https://www.castela.net/philosophy/self-ownership-philosophy.html |
Do Libertarians Have Answers?
Libertarianism: If Not Now, Then When?
Joel S. Hirschhorn
With the meltdown of the American economy, what better time to ask: Can libertarianism come to the rescue?
Perhaps the most interesting statement in the Wikipedia discussion of libertarianism is that
There is no single theory that can be reliably identified as the libertarian theory, and no single principle or set of principles on which all libertarians would
Nevertheless, I think it is fair to say that libertarianism includes the belief in economic freedom that emphasizes removing corporate subsidies and other favoritism to special interests and provides maximum freedom to individuals to pursue financial success and security. It also seems to me that authentic libertarians would be agonizing over the current historic growth in governmental ownership of what we thought were private, corporate enterprises.
We seem to be seeing more authoritarian government being justified by the current economic recession and the public demand for rescue of the economy and alleviation of the considerable pain inflicting so many millions of Americans. What I find myself intrigued by is this central question: In these terrible economic times, is it not reasonable to think that if libertarianism was ever to have a chance of attracting very broad public support as an alternative to what the US has had for many, many decades, would this be the time? That is, if American capitalism that has prevailed for so long with the support of the two-party plutocracy-run government has clearly failed, then why not demand a fundamentally different paradigm?
After all, what we are witnessing right now is the demise of “free enterprise” and the growth of more authoritarian government. Government, through the Federal Reserve, is eager to print and borrow more money, with no limits in sight. Not exactly what libertarians would prefer. So I have been examining websites with a libertarian orientation to see whether there is a serious effort to offer an alternative to what President Obama and Congress seem totally committed to do with the aim of stimulating the collapsing US economy.
I found a very thoughtful article by Sheldon Richman in The American Conservative critiquing the New Deal that current politicians seem intent on replicating. Here is an excerpt from it:
Yet with all this government activism, the U.S. economy, despite halting attempts at recovery, could not shake the Depression. In 1937 and 1938, the financial system went into an unprecedented secondary depression, with a new stock-market crash and unemployment climbing back to over 20 percent.
Jim Powell notes in FDR’s Folly that the New Deal further eroded the banking system; raised taxes; made hiring workers, particularly unskilled blacks, prohibitively expensive; increased the price of most goods, including food; and discouraged investment. This is hardly the New Deal we’re taught in school. As historian David Kennedy put it,
Whatever it was, [the New Deal] was not a recovery program, or at any rate not an effective one.
…The New Deal did not, therefore, end the Depression. …What can we learn from all this? That money is too important to be left to the state. One way or another, government mismanagement of the monetary system wrecked the U.S. economy. It’s happening again now. The only permanent way to avoid a repetition is to place the system where it belongs: in the free market. … individual liberty is the first casualty when bureaucracy expands to manage the economy.”
If minimizing the role of government in our lives and economy is an essential feature of libertarianism, then it does not that appear to be much public or political interest in it. If greed and irresponsible economic behavior by both government and private entities in past years has brought us to the current awful recession, then is anyone interested in selling a libertarian alternative based on sound money and free markets?
Who better to look to than Ron Paul. He recently addressed the House Financial Services Committee’s hearing on the Madoff Ponzi scandal. He noted out that Bernard Madoff was operating under the supervision of the SEC, that more regulation will only make the fraudulent operations easier because they can claim to be approved by the government, and that two of the biggest government-run Ponzi schemes are the Social Security system and even the monetary system itself. Paul supports abolishing the Federal Reserve and the SEC, and returning to an honest monetary system based on gold and/or free competition in currencies. He says outright that
we need to get rid of the bad policies, the monetary system, and these mountains of debt. …we’re gonna hire more bureaucrats and we’re gonna appropriate more money we don’t have. …We’ve been doing this for 78 years, and we’ll do it again, but believe me, this will not solve our problems.
I did not notice any significant media coverage of Paul’s views and certainly no rush of politicians with far more power to him or his views. In other words, if Paul is probably the best spokesperson for libertarianism in the country, and if he is right, then there clearly is no significant public or political interest in libertarianism in these historic and terrible economic days. Personally, when Paul said:
We could return to sound money. We could balance our budget. There’s a lot of things that we can do. But the worst thing that we can do is perpetuate the bad policies that gave us this trouble in the first place. And that is that we no longer, over the last quite a few decades, believed in free-market capitalism.
I think he got it right. But I am forced to conclude that libertarianism is dead as a door nail and doomed to remain a marginalized and insignificant movement offering a home for the relatively few that seek intellectual shelter in a true alternative to the current dominant economic system. Paul’s revolution is going nowhere, yet another marginalized effort that does not threaten the status quo plutocracy. After all, when the US economy splinters, as it already has, and the nation does not turn to the one true alternative to it, what else can we conclude? | https://discuss.epluribusmedia.net/commentary/do-libertarians-have-answers |
That is dead wrong. The fact is that libertarianism was the gist of the philosophical foundation of the American political system. Natural individual rights! Limited constitutional government! Free markets! Due process of law!
All these were there at the start, and today’s libertarians simply want to restore them to prominence. But of course The New York Times cares nothing for historical accuracy. It wishes, evidently, to demean the ideas that both the American founders and libertarianism’s most high-profile advocates champion. No wonder, since the Times loves big governmen and extensive interventionism, both domestic and international.
It is also quite evident that the Times has a very distorted view of its own readership, as if they had no other sources of historical information aside from that of the editors of the Times. What was central to the founders is, to the Times, fringe!
Shame on them. | http://blog.heartland.org/2014/01/ny-times-wrong-about-rand-paul-libertarianism-being-on-the-fringe/ |
|The tertials on this individual appear to be fairly new and fresh. Notice how they're elongated, covering the bases of the primaries. |
Morro Bay, CA; 18 Jan 2010.
|3rd cycle type Western Gull. Morro Bay, CA; 18 Jan 2010.|
Techinally, the tertials qualify as flight feathers, but functionally, they protect other flight feathers such as the bases of the primaries and parts of the secondaries when the wing is closed; thus, they act as coverts just as much as they do flight feathers.
While studying a group of several hundred "parking lot" Ring-billed Gulls the other day, I encountered this 2nd cycle with black-marked tertials:
|Tinley Park, IL; 9 Sept 2011|
If the tertials are the innermost secondaries, then one should be able to see this black mark in flight when the wing is completely spread, yes? Here's a flight shot of this same bird:
I was expecting to see these black-centered feathers at the proximal part of the wing, just where the secondaries meet the body. I was obviously missing something and needless to say, this bird started driving me nuts! I watched it land again and again making sure it was indeed the same individual that I followed in flight - there was no doubt that it was. It was obvious that the tertials were tucked away somewhere, but where? I went home and consulted several sources and finally found my answer in Grant's identification guide: "Note that the scapulars extend back as the wing is opened, covering the tertials completely in flight" (p.25).
The scapulars, along with the interscapular area known as the mantle, are what we typically call a gull's back. The scapulars cover the gap between the bird's wings and body. The 3-4 longest scapulars, also known as subscapulars, extend far enough when fully grown so that they line up with the trailing edge, and occassionally beyond. Species with small scapular crescents show a noticeable break in white along the trailing edge as the inner secondaries approach the body.
A gull with a notable scapular crescent will show more white along the part of the trailing edge that meets the body. such as in this adult American Herring Gull (L.a. smithsonianus):
In flight, the wing is occassionally manuvered so that the tertials are shifted out from underneath the scapulars, or, the scapulars are compressed so that part of the tertials are revealed. It is here that one can start to see a few traces of the black markings on the tertial centers of the Ring-billed in question:
As it opened and lifted its wing, it became easier to see exactly where these marked tertials were tucked:
I think I may have overlooked Grant's note because the scapulars - on the standing bird - don't seem long enough to cover the tertials. However, once the wing is spread, the tertials are pulled in and the scapulars are extended back, forming two layers of feathers with the scapulars on top and the tertials underneath. My mystery was solved! | http://www.anythinglarus.com/2011/09/case-of-hidden-tertial.html |
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Kolkata Birds - Exotic birds index
Category: Animals and Nature > Exotic Birds of India
Date & country: 27/09/2013, IN
Words: 108
1
2
Next
Adult
Mature, Capable of breeding.
Aerial
Making use of the open sky.
Altitudinal migrant
Moving between high mountains and lower foothills.
Apical
Outer extremities, particularly of the tail.
Aquatic
Living on or in water.
Arboreal
Living in trees.
Axillaries
Underwing feathers at the base of the wings, forming
Basal
Innermost extremities, particularly of the tail.
Biotope
Area of uniform environment, flora and fauna.
Buff
Yellowish white with a hint of pale brown.
Canopy
Leafy foliage of treetops.
Cap
Upper part of head.
Carpal
Bend of a closed wing, sometimes called shoulder.
Casque
Growth above bill of hornbills.
Cere
Patch of bare skin on upper base of bill of raptors.
Colonial
Roosting or nesting in groups.
Commensal
Living together with man for mutual benefit
Confiding
Not shy.
Coverts
Small feathers on wings and base of tail.
Covey
Small group of partridges and allied species.
Crepuscular
Active at dusk (twilight) and dawn.
Crest
Extended feathers on head.
Crown
Upper part of head.
Culmen
Ridge on upper mandible of bill.
Diagnostic
Sufficient to identify a species or sub-species.
Dimorphic
Having two forms of plumage.
Diurnal
Active during daytime.
Drumming
Rhythmic territorial hammering on trees by woodpeckers
Eclipse
New dull plumage after breeding season, especially in ducks.
Endemic
Indigenous and confined to a place.
Eyestripe
Stripe through eye.
Family
Specified group of genera.
Feral
Escaped, and living and breeding in the wild.
Fledged
Having just acquired feathers and ready to leave nest.
Fledglings
Young birds which have just acquired feathers.
Flight feathers
Primary and secondary wing feathers.
Flushed
When disturbed into flight at close quarters.
Form
Sub-species.
Frugivorous
Fruit-eating.
Fulvous
Brownish-yellow.
Game birds
Pheasants, partridges and allied species.
Gape
Basal part of the beak (mainly for young birds and raptors).
Genera
Plural of genus.
Genus
Group of related species.
Gorget
Band across upper chest.
Granivorous
Grain-eating.
Gregarious
Sociable. Living in communities or flocks.
Hackles
Long and pointed neck feathers.
Hawking
Capturing insects in flight
Hepatic
Rust or liver coloured plumage phase, mainly in female cuckoos
Hunting party
Group of birds usually of different species, seeking food.
Immature
Plumage phases prior to adult
Iris
Coloured eye membrane surrounding pupil.
Irruption
Mass movement of a population from one place to another.
Jizz
Essence or striking characteristics of a species;
Juvenile
Immature bird immediately after leaving nest.
Leading edge
Front edge of wing.
Lobe
Fleshy extensions to side-edges of toes of some birds.
Local
Unevenly distributed.
Lores
Area between eye and bill base.
Malar
Stripe on side of throat.
Mandible
Each of the two parts of bill.
Mantle
Back, between wings.
Mask
Dark plumage round eye and ear-coverts.
Migration
Seasonal movement between distant places.
Mirror
White spots in wing-tips, mainly of gulls.
Morph
One of several distinct types of plumage in the same species.
Moult
Seasonal shedding of plumage.
Nape
Back of neck.
Necklace
Narrow line round neck.
Nocturnal
Active at night.
Nomadic
Species without specific territory except when breeding.
Nominate
First sub-species to be formally named.
Orbital ring
Narrow ring of skin or feathers round the eye.
Order
Group of related families.
Passerines
Perching and song birds.
Pectoral
Breast area.
Pied
Black and white.
Plumes
Long, showy feathers, acquired during the breeding season
Precocial
Young hatched sighted and down-covered, e.g. ducklings.
Primaries
Outer flight feathers in wing.
Race
Sub-species.
Raptors
Birds of prey and Vultures, excluding owls.
Record
Published, or otherwise broadcast, occurrence.
Resident
Non-migratory and breeding in same place.
Rufous
Reddish brown.
Rump
Lower back.
Scalloped
Curved markings on edges of feathers.
Scapulars
Feathers along edge of mantle.
Secondaries
Inner wing feathers.
Speculum
Area of colour on secondary feathers of wings.
Streamers
Long extensions to feathers, usually of tail.
Sub-species
Distinct form that does not have specific status.
Sub-terminal band
Broad band on outer part of feather.
Supercilia
Plural of supercilium.
Supercilium
Streak above eye.
Terminal band
Broad band on tip of feather or tail.
Terrestrial
Ground living.
Tertials
Innermost wing coverts, often covering secondaries.
Trailing edge
Rear edge of wing. | https://www.encyclo.co.uk/local/22219&page=0 |
BAE Systems and the University of Manchester have successfully completed the first phase of flight trials with MAGMA, which could change the future of aircraft design.
The small-scale unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), which will use a unique blown-air system to manoeuvre the aircraft, paves the way for stealthier designs.
The new concept for aircraft control removes the conventional need for complex, mechanical moving parts used to move flaps to control the aircraft during flight.
This could give greater control as well as reduce weight and maintenance costs, allowing for lighter, stealthier, faster and more efficient military and civil aircraft in the future.
Clyde Warsop (pictured above), engineering fellow at BAE Systems, said: “The technologies we are developing with The University of Manchester will make it possible to design cheaper, higher performance, next generation aircraft.
The two technologies to be trialled first using MAGMA are Wing Circulation Control, which takes air from the aircraft engine and blows it supersonically through the trailing edge of the wing to provide control for the aircraft; and Fluidic Thrust Vectoring, which uses blown air to deflect the exhaust, allowing for the direction of the aircraft to be changed.
The flight trials are part of an ongoing project between the two organisations and wider long-term collaboration between industry, academia and government to explore and develop innovative flight control technology.
If successful, the tests will demonstrate the first ever use of such circulation control in flight on a gas turbine aircraft and from a single engine. | https://www.businesscloud.co.uk/news/bae-systems-tech-to-change-future-of-aircraft-design |
Helis, February 18, 2022 - In three demonstrations during the same flight, the Lockheed Martin Sikorsky-Boeing SB>1 Defiant helicopter demonstrated it is not only maneuverable, survivable and fast, but also provides the critical external lift capability of traditional rotorcraft.
With Defiant X, the team’s offering for the U.S. Army’s Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA), crews will deliver troops and cargo to the objective in future combat at twice the speed and range of the current fleet.
Slalom maneuvers
The SB>1 Defiant continues to preform mission exercises completing slalom maneuvers at speeds between 60-100 kts proving how the helicopter will give soldiers the edge in future battles and help them evade enemy forces.
External load
In external load flight profile demonstration, the SB>1 Defiant flew a 3,400 lbs ( 1,500 kgs ) sling load at nearly 100 kts ( 185 km/h ) with a 20-degree angle of bank demonstrating the lift capability and maneuverability of the X2 technology that will allow soldiers to build combat power during the long-range assault mission.
Single engine
The twin-engine SB>1 Defiant was also piloted with one engine idling completing an approach, hover and landing
Sikorsky Boeing SB>1 Defiant first lifting external load flight
This article is listed in : | https://www.helis.com/database/news/defiant-sling-load-first-flight/?noamp=1 |
Movement of a vehicle through the atmosphere at a speed appreciably below that of sound waves. Subsonic flight extends from zero (hovering) to a speed approximately 85% of sonic speed corresponding to the ambient temperature. At higher vehicle velocities the local velocity of air passing over the vehicle surface may exceed sonic speed, and true subsonic flight no longer exists.
Vehicle type may range from a small helicopter, which operates at all times in the lower range of the velocity scale, to an intercontinental ballistic missile, which is operative throughout this and other velocity regimes, but is in subsonic flight for only a few seconds. The design of each is affected by the same principles of subsonic aerodynamics. Subsonic flow of a fluid such as air may be subdivided into a range of velocities in which the flow may be considered incompressible without appreciable error (below a velocity of approximately 300 mi/h or 135 m/s), and a higher range in which the compressible nature of the fluid becomes significant. In both cases the viscosity of the fluid is important. The theories which apply to compressible, inviscid fluids may be used almost without modification in some low-subsonic problems, and in other cases the results offered by these theories may be modified to account for the effects of viscosity and compressibility. See Transonic flight
A typical subsonic wing cross section (airfoil) has a rounded front portion (leading edge) and a sharp rear portion (trailing edge). Air approaching the leading edge comes to rest at some point on the leading edge, with flow above this point proceeding around the upper airfoil surface to the trailing edge, and flow below passing along the lower surface to the same point, where the flow again theoretically has zero velocity. The two points of zero local velocity are known as stagnation points. If the path from front to rear stagnation point is longer along the upper surface than along the lower surface, the mean velocity of flow along the upper surface must be greater than that along the lower surface. Thus, in accordance with the principle of conservation of energy, the mean static pressure must be less on the upper surface than on the lower surface. This pressure difference, applied to the surface area with proper regard to force direction, gives a net lifting force. Lift is defined as a force perpendicular to the direction of fluid flow relative to the body, or more clearly, perpendicular to the free-stream velocity vector.
The wing, as the lifting device, whether fixed, as in the airplane, or rotating, as in the helicopter, is probably the most important aerodynamic part of an aircraft. However, stability and control characteristics of the subsonic airplane depend on the complete structure. Control is the ability of the airplane to rotate about any of the three mutually perpendicular axes meeting at its center of gravity. Static stability is the tendency of the airplane to return to its original flight attitude when disturbed by a moment about any of the axes. | https://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/subsonic+flight |
Questions tagged [slats]
For questions about those devices that swing forwards and downwards from the leading edge of an aircraft's wings, allowing them to produce more lift without stalling. Questions about high-lift devices in general should use "high-lift-devices" instead.
16 questions
10
votes
2answers
699 views
Why are Krueger flaps called flaps and not slats?
I always thought that flaps are trailing edge high lift devices and slats are leading edge high lift devices. This is also confirmed by the accepted answer for What is the difference between flaps and ...
8
votes
3answers
1k views
How do slats reduce stall speed?
I've read in PHAK that slats reduce stall speed, but in what way? Is it because of the increase in surface area?
2
votes
1answer
160 views
Would adding a slat and a slotted flap increase the max CL of a multi element airfoil to 6.5?
Would adding a slat and a slotted flap increase the of a multi element foil to 6.5? I understand, as a general rule, the max $C_L$ for a classic NACA airfoil is as follows: Base: 1.5 Slat: + 0.7 ...
0
votes
1answer
78 views
Materials for temporary dent repair?
On a recent commercial flight (A320neo), I noticed some materials attached to the leading edge of a slat (no photo available). The attached material was not smooth, it rather looked like a small ball ...
4
votes
2answers
159 views
Meaning of XX below Slat FLap Trim on A350 with flap setting 1
What is the meaning of the 'XX' in amber below the 1 (in green) within the Slat Flap Trim section on the A350 PFD when the flaps are set to 1 with the correct speed (below 255kts)? See picture ...
4
votes
1answer
135 views
Difference between multi slats and three slats on B737 ? (leading edge devices)
What is the difference between multi slats and three slats on a B737 ?
25
votes
2answers
7k views
Why didn't the Concorde have flaps or slats?
It's well known that the Concorde had no flaps or slats. The lack of high-lift devices considerably reduced lift at low speeds, requiring the Concorde to take off and land at higher speeds and angles ...
5
votes
1answer
397 views
What would be the effect of skinning over the gap in fixed leading-edge slats?
The Zenith STOL CH-750 experimental aircraft uses a modified NACA 650-18 airfoil (having a 17% fatter-than-normal thickness) with a fixed leading-edge slat. In an effort to reduce drag and improve ...
12
votes
3answers
2k views
When does a 'flaps/slats misconfiguration' warning sound during takeoff roll?
If a flight crew begins their takeoff roll and don't have slats and flaps configured properly, when does the system know when to sound the alarm? If it actually sounds during the roll itself, that ...
3
votes
1answer
293 views
What effect do slats have on descent rate?
During descent, assuming the same speed and idle thrust, is the rate of descent greater in a clean configuration or with slats?
14
votes
3answers
1k views
Why are the outboard Krueger Flaps retracted before the others on the B747?
In this video, I noticed that the outboard Krueger Flaps on this Boeing 747 were retracted while the middle and inner sets remained extended (refer to 3:22 - 3:30 in the video). My questions are: ...
3
votes
1answer
777 views
How to calculate the lift coefficient of a multi element airfoil?
How to calculate the lift coefficient of an airfoil section with flaps and slats if we know the Cl for the individual elements, like Cl of wing, Cl of slat and Cl of flap?
7
votes
2answers
2k views
What is this tiny slat for?
The one labeled as "1" in the picture. And I'm having doubts about "2", it is an air supplier for cabin, right? Or am I wrong? Thank you.
2
votes
1answer
735 views
What high-lift devices are used on the Bombardier Dash 8 Q400?
What type of flaps, slats or other high-lift devices are used on this aircraft?
0
votes
1answer
468 views
Does the Piper Aztec have flaps and slats and if so what kind?
I was just wondering if any one knows if the piper Aztec has flaps and what kind. Also if the piper Aztec has any other high lift devices.
11
votes
2answers
6k views
What are the benefits of using Krueger Flaps?
I mean why using Krueger flaps in some aircraft instead of using slats all over the leading edge? | https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/slats |
In aviation, a stall is an aerodynamic condition in which an aircraft exceeds its critical angle of attack, and can no longer produce the required lift to maintain normal flight. While they use the same word, a flight stall is drastically different from an engine stall, which aircraft, as well as automobiles, can experience. An engine stall is a mechanical failure, while a flight stall is an aerodynamic failure and loss of lift.
The most critical component of a stall is a wing’s angle of attack, which is measured by the angle between the chord line (the imaginary line leading from the leading edge to the trailing edge of the wings) and the relative wind. The angle of attack is dependent on the shape of the airfoil, including its platform and aspect ratio. At a high angle of attack, the airflow over the wing is disrupted, and at the critical angle of attack, the airflow over the wing is disrupted enough to inhibit lift, resulting in the nose of the aircraft falling. The critical angle of attack for an airfoil never changes, but factors like weight, control surface configuration, and load factor, can change the airspeed at which an aircraft can stall.
In a stall, lift drastically decreases, which is reflected by a sudden pitch down of the nose of the aircraft. This can feel like the aircraft is falling and has no lift, but it is actually just a decrease in lift and a change in the aircraft’s level. A stall can be accompanied by a roll or yaw to one side if the aircraft is uncoordinated. If this happens and recovery procedures are not initiated, the aircraft can enter a spin, which is much more difficult to recover from.
In a stable aircraft, the nose dropping is often enough to regain the proper amount of lift for the airfoil. If this happens the aircraft is easily recoverable just by lowering its pitch attitude and increasing airspeed. Unstable aircraft, however, have more difficult stall-recovery requirements.
Stalls typically occur at slow airspeeds. For this reason, slow-speed flight, especially during approach and departure, are critical phases of flight, and pilots must be very careful during these moments to prevent a stall. However, stalls can occur at any airspeed, regardless of altitude.
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The key duty of teachers in further education is responsibility for the provision and control of the conditions for effective and successful learning. So the teacher shall consider and understand important answers and recommendations given by educational psychology to key question: How do people learn?
Educational psychology is concerned with an investigation of the psychological foundations and characteristics which appear to form the teaching-learning process.
Behaviourist psychology considers that outer, enviromental factors are shaping behaviour; it is about measuring input and output of information . Learners may as well be a machine and it does not consider what actually happens in their mind. The essential forms of learning are stimulation and response, repetition, reinforcement and conditioning. The learning processs is like a systematic conveyor using successful strategies of learning according to repeated outcomes.
Purposive and neo-behaviourists suppose that people respond to a purpose, or act as if they have a purpose, and so the input output strategies also manipulate the purpose that individuals have. Human mind is selective in its actions and not just responsive. Neobehaviourists suggested hierarchical learning behaviour, one step leading to the next one. In a teaching situation it means getting the right new information in as successfully as possible, measured by outcomes and maintaining these outputs. This learning theory is associated with Pavlov, Watson, Thorndike, Skinner and Gagne.
When using behaviourist response to stimuli approach in lesson planning a teacher should consider reinforcement in the way of frequent feedback on learning or delayed feedback with trial and error. Praise, marks and prizes are used as positive or negative (low marks, lack of prizes, punishment) reinforcement.
Programmed learning was derived from behaviourist theories. This suggests the following:introduction on what exactly studets should learn by the lesson's end, the learning should progress in steps, feedback is given at each step; a contract of learning to end with a reward is negotiated and short term frequent immediate rewards to motivate learners.
The positive side of behaviourist approach is that it makes teachers think in detail and plan the learning process and assessment rationally.
This sets the guidelines for teaching methods. Learning objectives can run from designers to teachersand then to students and also become foundation for individual learning.
The weakness of this theory is that human behaviour and learning can't be reduced to conditioned reflexes, inputs and outputs. Criticism is regarding non consistency about where objectives derived and too defining objectives can limit learning, create tendency to easier, trivial objects and using them. Some subjects find criteria as a result of learning not before it. People's behaviour is not the same thing as knowledge. It makes teachers process rather than think.
Cognitive psychology is about understanding the internal processes of learning, understanding, motivation and retention. The mind is broad and complex into which event-responses are absorbed. The brain and mind is the centre of an organism changing and being changed by the environment in a reciprocal manner. It's one's own experinces which leads to crucial changes. The individual is certainly purposeful, but interacting and reacting. Readjusting means growth and we adjust best in adolescence when minds are plastic and attitudes flexible. For teaching, it is where fresh insights and new meanings modify previous important insights in a democratic setting. Having an existing understanding is crucial to receive new understanding. All the insights develop the individual as a whole and there are layers of knowledge - knowing about and knowing to do ("cognitive", "psychomotor"). Students create meaning from what the teaching means to them. This can happen in leaps and starts and developing language is crucial. The culture of society is taught as meaningful to the student, and the student adopts culture through which the whole human being develops. Representative theorists are Bruner (functionalism), Piaget and Ausubel, also Vygotsky.
Criticism is regarding how measurement can take place of what is happening - the inputs should still lead to teacher intended outputs. Also it can enlarge the students' contributions in learning from life and reduce the adaptive role of the teacher.
How students receive and arrange knowledge in individuals' heads. Individual understandings will vary. Dewey - learning to think and reflecting. Teacher plans for effective learning. Bruner says teachers must teach how to think and analyse. Dewey linked learning and social growth. Teaching facts will be forgotten but generalities will do if applied to a number of situations.
Bruner: new information is transformed into existing knowledge and checking against the new situation. There is process and prediction. Bruner speaks of "inquiry training".
Ausebel says new learning gets related to existing cognitive structures, so students must have "advance organisers" to bridge what they do know to what they must know next. In other words, description of the new material comes before a lesson so that it can be prepared cognitively for acceptance within the lesson.
So it is like behaviourism except the focus now is on the process not the inputs and outputs. (page 111) It is an active mind process.
In lesson plans:
Use the subject's own structure and stress relationships within the material.
Humanistic psychology is where students make conscious choices. Learning and teaching focusses on relationships and values. Experience is already valid. Intrinsic learning (Maslow) rejects drilling and repetition of what are to the student arbitrary meanings and responses. Learning is instead about wisdom and broad life skills. Humans have needs, from the simplest through to the most fulfilling. For teaching, it means facilitating because education relates to counselling, guiding and helping to develop potential and insight. Education should be experiential in order to be successful and fulfilling. The inner being becomes harmonious with the external world. Education is spiritual and people are essentially good (and eager to learn). Knowledge can be beautiful (and people respond to beauty). So the teacher should build a learning atmosphere, clarify the purposes of learning, rely on students' motivations, provide resources, accept content and feelings of students, learn along with the students, share feelings and accept their limitations. Representative theorists are Dewey, Neill, Maslow and Rogers.
Criticism is that motivation isn't so forthcoming (people are not so intrinsically good) and learning can end up being very limited. It is also anti-objective regarding knowledge.
Education of the whole person matters more than subjects. There is student participation in shaping the curriculum and attendance. Freedom is stressed as is (page 112) dignity and self-esteem. Maslow hierarchy of needs means a student who feels theatened learning cannot achieve through learning - this first need must be tackled and so improve the learning environment. Rogers pushed student centred learning by active self discovery - learning by doing - and not stimulii. People have a positive desire to develop and the environment should be prepared for this to happen. Learning is experiential - involvement, feelings, thinking, self-initiative and self-evaluation. Students should create their own learning programmes at their own speed; it is autonomy rather than control from others (last part page 113, back to 112...).
Involved is own personality, moving towards independence and self-decision, self-generated goals, development, self-growth, search for meaning, understanding the environment and social setting for learning.
(page 113) In lesson plans:
Students must not begin with knowledge misconceptions before constructing knowledge concepts. Some may have to be changed or lost before proceeding. The following from Driver and Bell, 1985.
Whether right or wrong what the students believe is important
In lesson plans (this is me):
Check learning first
Which psychology learning theories and methods a teacher should use depends on the nature of the subject and the students in the room. Cognitive methods are preffered for theoretical learner (reading); behaviourist and humanist approaches are useful for pragmatist (tasks, case studies); humanist approaches are attractive for reflective learners (group discussion).
Elena Worsfold
Armitage, A., Bryant, R., Dunhill, R., Hammersley, M., Hayes, D., Hudson, A., Lawes, S. (1999) Teaching and Training in Post-Compulsory Education, Open University Press.
Curzon, L. B. (1997). Teaching in Further Education: an outline of principles and practice, (5th ed.). London: Cassell.
Gross, R. (2005) Psychology: the Science of Mind and Behaviour, (5th ed.). London: Hodder and Stoughton.
Hillier, Y. (2005). Reflective Teaching in Further and Adult Education. London: Continuum International Publishing Group - Academia.
LeFrancois, G.R. (2000). Psychology for Teaching (9th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Marshall, L., Rowland, F. (1998). A Guide to Learning Independently, (3rd ed.). Buckingham: Open University Press.
Petty, G. (2004). Teaching Today: A Practical Guide. (3rd ed.). Cheltenham: Nelson Thornes Ltd
Reece, I. and Walker, S. (2000). Teaching, Training and Learning: a practical guide. Sunderland: Business Education Publishers.
Rogers, A. (1996). Teaching Adults, (2nd ed.). Buckingham: Open University Press. | http://pluralist.co.uk/learning/howteach/elpgcepsycho.html |
It has been several years since Priestnall School first introduced student passports. Gareth D Morewood explains why they continue to help secure better outcomes.
We have been using student passports at Priestnall School for almost a decade now, and the reason for using them has never been clearer. Previously there has been a direct comparison to IEPs, but it’s important to realise that while an IEP is a fixed statement, a student passport can be much more than that. It can inform a continuing discussion with the student about their needs in relation to the curriculum and learning, and encourage metacognition.
Why has the passport been so useful?
I know many colleagues from across the UK and further afield who have used the student passport (or a variation of it), and found it useful. It is simple, accessible and really pins down the particulars of a student's needs and outcomes.
It also supports post-2014 SEND reform, keeping the child central to the process and incorporating their views. This means ensuring that the move away from fixed positions and medicalised processes can support the student directly but also ensure teachers and support staff have a good understanding about the individual.
What has changed in how we use the passport?
At Priestnall, little has changed in how we use the passports. This may be a sign of a robust system, especially after changes to the curriculum. Rather, the discussions that inform the passport have evolved significantly.
Initially the conversations were about practical strategies; now they are more sophisticated, and mainly about learning and processing. With some students I have had discussions in which I ask them to think about how they learn best, in one or two cases even going as far as to consider how applying cognitive science can improve the quality of learning.
Some young people have a remarkable, unquestionably powerful understanding of themselves, articulating what they find difficult and what solutions might help. The passport is a valuable means of encapsulating this learner-led enquiry.
What information should be on the passport now?
Some colleagues have adapted the template to suit their needs, and I’ve always said it isn’t the actual document that matters but the process it facilitates. One aspect that will vary from school to school is the data and attainment information. This is partly because, with the removal of national levels, each school is now expected to adopt its own assessment system and use a variety of measures.
Additionally, the section on access arrangements has become increasingly important and often links to other school documents.
How can schools make the passport a 'living document' (not something that's filled in then forgotten about)?
Most schools upload the passports to a central IT network, with the expectation that teachers will refer to them as part of their lesson planning and teaching. This can make a significant difference. I know headteachers who have introduced student passports across the school, and linked them to strategic objectives. As with any systems, if they are embedded as part of a whole school approach they have more impact.
One school I have worked with introduced the student passport in October. They subsequently made the use of the passport to inform teaching and learning a component of the staff observations and appraisals. In other words, every teacher has a ‘SEND target’. This is something positive, not punitive; teachers choose their own target and use the passport throughout the school year.
While I am aware that one size never fits all, the approach worked very well in this particular school. When I returned in May, the feedback from staff, students and parents/carers was overwhelmingly positive.
Assess: gauge the effectiveness of your current systems.
Plan: trial student passports with small group of students, parents and carers.
Do: implement passports for a larger cohort – students with EHCPs, for example.
Review: after half term, ask all stakeholders to evaluate the impact of using passports on the quality of teaching and learning.
Whatever approach you take, however you adapt the passport for your own setting, it’s important to keep the main aims clear: positive engagement in discussions about SEND and learning are fundamental in improving outcomes for all. | https://blog.optimus-education.com/revisiting-student-passport |
Why do we give students exams? What can a well-crafted exam tell instructors about student learning? As instructors, an important goal is for students to develop and utilize a range of cognitive processes in their learning. However, many exams and assessments only require students to employ lower-order cognition, such as remembering and understanding.
In this workshop, we will use Bloom’s Taxonomy for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment to build exams that give students opportunities to employ higher-order cognitive skills, and that provide meaningful information about student learning. We will also discuss ways to help students improve their study skills and enhance their metacognition. To do this we will work through three stages: 1) constructing a stronger exam by considering cognitive levels and question types, 2) using exam results as feedback to inform instructional choices and pedagogical practice, and 3) helping students become more aware of their own thinking and the required cognitive processes in order to better answer questions and improve learning.
*You are encouraged to bring a recent copy of an exam to evaluate. | https://cte.tcu.edu/events/build-a-better-exam-using-blooms-taxonomy051419/ |
This handbook is still under construction. If you have questions about something you see in here, please post on the Forums or visit us on our IRC channel.
What is Tamriel Rebuilt and what does it seek to do?
Tamriel Rebuilt is a fan-based project which modifies The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. The goal of the project is to expand the original game in a manner consistent with the intention, style and vision of the original game designers, Bethesda Softworks.
The Elder Scrolls III was initially meant to be set in the fictional land of Morrowind, but only a portion of the province was depicted in the actual game - the central island of Vvardenfell. Tamriel Rebuilt is producing additional content to create a gameplay experience which includes the entire province (chiefly by adding and integrating the province’s mainland areas to the game).
What are the vision and goals of TR?
Tamriel Rebuilt seeks to produce a unified gameworld, without the artificial separation of vanilla content and our own. It aims to provide a seamless player experience, in the same vein the original game did. In essence, Tamriel Rebuilt is not to be seen as a separate addition or expansion of the original game, but a reimagination of it, had it included the entire landmass. This will require some measured changes to existing game content, both in terms of narrative, and implementation.
While we aim for compatibility with existing modules, our creative vision should always take precedence. Maintaining compatibility with other modules should never limit our vision, nor our vision should make excessive changes to original content (or create unnecessary conflicts) if it can be avoided. Any changes made to the original game will always be documented, and well-based in our narrative vision. When possible, we will also reach out and work with other content authors to minimize the impact of any potential (and inevitable) conflicts.
Understanding the principles of good design is fundamental to producing quality content, and such, anyone interested in working for Tamriel Rebuilt should read this document. A project like this requires a good deal of planning and preproduction before actual production can begin. In broad strokes, this document establishes the metrics and principles by which we can design future content, a blueprint. As such, it is also often an analysis of the existing game, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, and its thematic, technical and design-related strengths and weaknesses, many of which only become apparent from the perspective of a project that tries to build upon that game's legacy.
Why are we planning instead of giving developers total freedom?
While Tamriel Rebuilt always values the principles of individual creativity, we also seek to create a cohesive gameworld, that is consistent with the quality of the original game. While there is always room for diversity and developer freedom, content should always derive from an overarching plan that establishes thematic and visual consistency between the various parts and elements of Morrowind. This is not possible if we give individuals carte-blanche to make whatever they want in whatever style they wish, and has been problematic in TR’s past development. Having established guidelines prior to implementation also frees the developer to creatively interpret the project’s vision in their own way, without sacrificing the project’s overall vision and continuity.
A project that seeks to build upon Morrowind’s legacy needs to attain an understanding of the fundamental themes and motifs that are prevalent in the game’s setting - the province of Morrowind. Every single aspect of the game we want to build upon draws upon these themes and motifs, no matter how disparate each individual aspect may seem from one another. To this end, Morrowind is actually a world that is unified through the disparity of its constituent parts.
In broad terms, Morrowind should be portrayed a very garish land, both visually, and in the rather esoteric mannerism of its inhabitants, the dark-skinned race of elves known as the Dunmer, or Dark Elves in Western Tongues. It is a world that is characterized by enigmas and anomalies, one that defies traditional fantasy tropes, and is very different from the rest of Tamriel.
It is a world of “savage beauty”, one that is alien, even withiin the context of high fantasy, a world full of strange things and customs unlike any other. Yet despite this, somehow this world still retains elements and characteristics which makes it relatable to our own. Much like our own world, its people are driven by their own motivations, where a system of complex belief systems can often clash. It is this duality and intricacy that makes experiencing and discovering the world of Morrowind enjoyable.
In terms of narrative, The Elder Scrolls III is a vignette of a particular time period in the history of the Dunmer. Emphasis should be put on the tragedies and tribulations the Dunmer nations have faced in their history, and that the player is playing a small (but rather significant) role in this tale, which occurs during a key turning point in Morrowind’s history. Themes of prophecy and destiny are often interwoven into the story, and are recurring motifs.
The player is meant to be a lens on a particular series of events, which underscore major upheavals in Dunmer society. Without getting into specifics, a careful balance should be struck between the player’s impact on the world (through the choices they make), and making sure that the player does not become the epicenter of the narrative, but rather an agent of said narrative.
What makes Morrowind’s story so beautiful is that it’s crafted in a way that makes you feel rather insignificant in the greater scheme of events. You as a player have agency to influence certain events, but in the end, it’s not about you. It was never about you. Morrowind isn’t a story about the Nerevarine, nor Dagoth Ur, nor was it about the fall of the Tribunal. It isn’t about the player climbing the ranks of a particular faction. It’s about so much more than that. This is a world where there are no heroes and villains, and nothing is ever black and white.
It’s about the challenges the nations of Morrowind face during this tumultuous time period, and how the Dunmer must find a way to adapt to the changing fabric of their society. Everything they’ve known and grown accustomed to is crashing down around them. All the events that happen in the game portray this in different ways. The Sixth House conflict is only one of them. And that’s what makes this game so compelling: the fact that after so many years, there are so many stories yet to be told. It’s a tale that’s so layered, you couldn’t possibly experience it all in a lifetime. You live and breathe this epic tale, one that is tailored and influenced by your own choices and perspectives.
One of the most important things to consider when creating a vast, open-world game such as Morrowind is our approach towards level design. Fundamentally speaking, a more appropriate term would be world design. The world is one of the two major pillars of creating a believable world, the other being narrative. One can not exist without the other, and the two inform each other simultaneously.
Exploration is a major aspect of gameplay, and without it, the game would get boring very fast. The world provides the stage for these narratives to unravel, and it is important to keep this in mind when creating the world. Morrowind’s combat system is inherently weak, so emphasis on level design being a gameplay mechanic should be increased to compensate.
Morrowind is an RPG. As such, the focus is generally on allowing players to create and develop their own characters, providing a world and plot for those characters to interact with, and very importantly -- wherein the challenge lies -- providing feedback to the players’ action as a way of acknowledging the role they have decided to play.
In exterior worldspaces, design should focus on providing the player with a breathtaking atmosphere. Roads should be planned and placed with a purpose (leading to a dungeon, or a point of interest), since players will be inclined to follow them, and assume they lead somewhere. Players should be rewarded for going off the beaten track, though they must also face challenges. In order to create a sense of atmosphere, it is also important to ensure creature placement is done in a manner that does not detract or distract from the player/character absorbing the world around them. Landscapes should be designed with the creation of visages in mind. Factors such as player line-of-sight should also be taken into account when landscaping and placing objects in the worldspace. What do we want the player to see when they are at a given area? What important visual cues should we consider to achieve this sense of believability? There should also be a lot of diversity in exterior worldspaces, to keep things interesting. This can be achieved through different assets, creatures, flora, etc.
In wilderness interior worldspaces, design should be goal-oriented. Space is usually much tighter, and the player usually goes into an interior with a particular goal in mind, whether it’s to find loot, level up, or interact with a quest objective. Hostiles should provide a challenge to the player in reaching their objectives, with the intent of making reaching the objectives feel all the more rewarding. Spaces should not be made too tight due to the height constraints of Morrowind’s interior tilesets. It is also important to give the player multiple pathways. While not every dungeon should be complex and mind-boggling, care should be taken to ensure every dungeon exploration is rewarding, and engaging, otherwise, there is no real reason for the player to visit the space. Level design in dungeons should focus on narrative elements as well, as many dungeons have a story, and their own unique inhabitants (who oftentimes are influenced by the space itself).
Interior world spaces in cities should focus primarily on narrative, mostly because there are many of them. In cities, interiors usually belong to someone, either as places of dwelling, or where people work and conduct affairs of state. While settlement interiors are usually simpler in terms of physical structure, care should be taken to ensure each of these interiors is unique, and tells the player something about who dwells in them. Depth and originality should be created not by size, but by object placements and arrangements.
In all three instances, it is also appropriate to use environmental cues, such as sounds and lights, to further create depth and atmosphere. Interactivity is a big aspect of modern gameplay, so be sure there is enough for the player to interact with (whether it’s a lever or crank to open something, or just containers/plants for the player to rifle through and pick) It is also very important to ensure these levels are playable from a technical standpoint. Placement of objects should not inadvertently obstruct or obfuscate player vision or movement (don’t cram a ton of rocks in cave passages, unless you actually want to block the player). Care should be taken not to over-detail things, in order to ensure all our levels have an appropriate frame rate, both exterior and interior.
There are two basic kinds of environments that the player interacts with in a game of Morrowind: wilderness environments & settlement environments. The wilderness, which occupies the majority of the worldspace but is less densely populated with interactive elements than the settlement environments, is the space in which the player primarily interacts in an adventure-combat oriented mode. Most encounters in the exterior overworld in wilderness environments will be with aggressive creatures or NPCs who will not engage the player in dialog. Settlement spaces allow the player to gain direction or resupply their survival resources. They are more densely populated, are often home to key characters, and often feature heavily in important storylines.
Backcountry: Backcountry areas represent the most hostile and isolated areas of Morrowind. They are generally hostile, and are oriented towards combat and exploration. They form the majority of Morrowind’s wilderness areas.
Countryside: The countrysides are the areas of wilderness that are considerably less hostile, closer to settlement spaces, and are more populated. Most of these areas are along the fertile hills and river valleys of Central Morrowind. They are oriented more towards exploration, atmosphere, and portray how the people of Morrowind utilize the land around them.
Dungeons: Dungeons are specific locations that are most often hostile, though some are not. They are mainly oriented towards combat, exploration, and loot hunting.
Submerged Areas: These areas are distinct in a sense they have different gameplay considerations, due to the player’s water meter. They are generally hostile, and very difficult to explore, giving the player a new challenge when it comes to worldspace exploration.
Like similar RPGs, Morrowind operates on a level system. As the player plays the game, the character improves in relevant skills and becomes stronger, represented by increases to the player's level and skill numbers. Player opponents and tasks the player needs to accomplish are set so that some are appropriate for lower-level player characters and some are appropriate for higher-level player characters.
Rather than have opponents generate at indiscriminate levels, or have all opponents scaled through leveled lists so that they are always the same level as the player, Tamriel Rebuilt has opted to use a level zoning system so that some parts of the game will have lower-level opponents and some will have higher-level opponents. As a rule, the further one gets from the player's starting point, the more dangerous the area is. This is not measured strictly in terms of absolute distance, but is based on distance along naturalistic routes of travel that the game will encourage the player to take.
For the purpose of this low-level planning, a broad category of leveling on a scale from 1 to 4 (1 being the lowest and 4 being the highest) has been employed to create an impression of the level zoning. Greater granularity shall be implemented at later stages of implementation. Attachment A depicts the broad level zoning of the project, subject to deviation and modification during later stages of implementation, based on the topology of Morrowind.
Fertility: A valuable indicator of difficulty is the region's fertility. Regions in which one could imagine someone starting a farm tend to be less dangerous than regions which are either very arid and bleak or impenetrably swampy. Only certain parts of Morrowind support agriculture, and these tend to be the safest places for the player to travel. The rest of Morrowind is mostly desert, with a small number of bog areas as well.
Population: Regions which have more people should be safer. Areas near Tier I & II settlements, or with many Tier V settlements, are more likely to be low level zones than high level zones (see the next section for more information on settlement tiers).
Rock type: Sedimentary rocks are formed by water; the main river systems are in the safest parts of Morrowind. Igneous rocks are formed by tectonic activity; the least safe parts of Morrowind are those with volcanoes. Though Morrowind need not follow the rules of earth science strictly, or classify each rock carefully in analogy with real rocks, rocks which seem like sedimentary rocks – light in color, featuring layers of different material – should exist in safer regions, whereas rocks which are more igneous – dark in color, with the appearance of being volcanic in origin – should exist in more dangerous regions.
Weirdness: Morrowind is a very weird place, featuring fields of ash and salt, giant mushrooms, and many large land arthropods. Generally, the more unlike a real environment a region is, the more dangerous it is. This is especially true if its weirdness is unsettling. Regions which are intended to be the most dangerous should be the most strange. However, different features of strangeness map across the worldspace differently – ash is concentrated in certain areas, sadrith mushrooms in others, et cetera. Only area- appropriate weirdness should be applied to regions to make them seem stranger.
Caves: Bandit caves, and caves which are the home to some sorts of animals, are the easiest sort of dungeon. Some, though, contain necromancers or other kinds of opponents that could be more dangerous. To avoid the player mistakenly entering an overly dangerous situation, these more dangerous caves should – on the whole – be found in the more difficult regions.
Ancestral tombs: Home to undead monsters who guard the Dunmer dead, these are more dangerous than caves. Usually, though, the undead in these tombs are not especially challenging for players of higher levels, unless something special & nefarious is occurring in that tomb.
Dwemer ruins: Filled with centurions built by the vanished Dwemer, these ruins of the long-dead Dwarves are usually for at least mid-level players. Difficulty varies considerably though, and should be indicated to some extent by the exterior.
Strongholds: Stronghold ruins, which have been taken over by outlaw groups, present a difficult challenge for the player.
Daedric ruins: Containing Daedra and their worshipers, these ruins are only for very high level players.
While wilderness environments exist for adventuring, settlement environments exist to facilitate the player's adventuring by providing them resources, information, and direction. They are populated by non-player characters who can barter with the player or give them valuable information through dialog. They are also the primary location that quest initiators, especially those associated with multi-part questlines such as factions, can be found.
Both settlements and non-player characters have two fundamental determinant variables (subject to further variation and granularity at later stages in the production process). First, each is assigned a faction-trope1 which gives it a sense of identity separate from other components of the game. Second, each character is assigned a type, determining how they interact with the player, and each settlement is assigned a tier, determined by how many characters, and of which type, that settlement contains.
1. The Five Houses: Dark Elves (and, in some cases, other characters) may be associated with the five Great Houses of Morrowind. The houses are advanced, elaborate clan networks, and each acts as local government in a different portion of Morrowind.
Dres: Of southeastern Morrowind, the Dres are traditionalists and slavers.
Hlaalu: Of southwestern Morrowind, the Hlaalu are untrustworthy, avaricious merchants.
Indoril: Of central Morrowind, the Indoril are extremely pious and value law & order.
Redoran: Of northwestern Morrowind, the Redoran are warriors with a strong sense of honor and kinship.
Telvanni: Of northeastern Morrowind, the Telvanni are iconoclastic wizards who value absolute autonomy and the will to power.
Temple Clergy: The priests of the Temple, which is the absolute authority in Morrowind, are officially unassociated with any great house. They have particular characteristics.
Ashlanders: The Ashlanders are not associated with other Dark Elves, they are nomadic peoples who live on Morrowind's unpopulated fringes.
Kwoomriders: The Kwoomriders are a band of semi-nomadic warrior tribes living in the wastelands of Southern Morrowind, and they ride Sand Kwooms.
Tongs: The tongs are the various Dunmer guilds that operate outside Great House jurisdiction. They often practice a particular trade or skill.
3. Imperial Institutions: Morrowind is mildly integrated into the Empire of Tamriel, with certain reserve sovereignties held by the Temple and the Houses. Some settlements and characters represent the institutions of the Empire, which have been set up in Morrowind to a limited extent.
Imperial Legion: The legion has several forts throughout Morrowind and provide security in outlander settlements where they exist.
Imperial Cult: The Imperial Cult is a missionary in support of the Nine Divines. They have few followers and none of the power of the native Tribunal Temple.
Trade Institutions: The Empire maintains several institutions that regulate trade both within the Empire, and in Morrowind. The largest of these institutions is the East Empire Company, which deals primarily with Morrowind's mineral wealth. Smaller, independent charter companies also exist.
Settlers/Outlanders: Most non-natives in the province are outlander settlers who have come into Morrowind as a part of a recent policy of encouraging settlement in Morrowind by the Empire. Now, about 30% of the province's people are outlanders.
Imperial Guilds: The three imperial guilds – of Fighters, Mages, and Thieves – have a presence in Morrowind not only in settler cities but also in many Dunmer cities. While they primarily provide quests and resources to the player, guild membership can give some NPCs an identity and purpose.
The Different Races: Different races will tend to have similar backgrounds for how and why they are in Morrowind.
1 The use of the term faction-trope here is to differentiate these “factions” from the player-joinable factions; often these two concepts share an identity, but they are distinct from one another in their game function.
In order to create a sense of world scale, settlements are of different sizes. Some settlements have dozens of buildings in them, with over a hundred NPCs, and a wide variety of shops for the player to barter at. Some, on the other hand, have only a handful of interiors and a small trading post – if that. It is important that these settlements be divided across the map in a reasonable way. Certain areas of Morrowind are more densely populated than others (a vague population density map is attached as Attachment B).
Tier I: The largest settlements, predetermined, are the faction capitals and other uniquely important cities in Morrowind. These are Almalexia, Baan Malur, Narsis, Necrom, Old Ebonheart, Port Telvannis, Tear, & Vivec.
Tier II: These settlements have a large number of interiors (40+). They probably feature imperial guilds & they have a wide variety of traders and multiple beds to let. They will definitely be on a fast travel route. There are only a small number of Tier II settlements for each faction.
Tier III: These settlements are small, but will have more barter options than just a single trading post, they may have some sort of faction presence, they are likely to be on a fast travel route, and there is probably a bed to let in the city.
Tier IV: These are the smallest settlements that could still be called “towns.” They are only on fast travel routes if it is necessary to connect two more major settlements. They have only a trading post, if that, and usually no faction questgivers.
Tier V: These settlement-spaces are generally isolated and are specific to a particular faction. They are a special category reserved for Imperial forts, Indoril chapel-estates, and the clansteads of House Dres families.
Tier VI: These settlements are either extremely inconsequential shack villages or the private property of a single individual or group. They are accounted for only to keep track of them. They will have almost no barter options and they are not on fast travel networks. These are locations players are sent to from major settlements, not locations of real interest.
Since the province of Morrowind is so vast, it is important the player has ways to navigate the expansive worldspace. The primary methods of travel are the player moving on their own steam, or fast-travel. Both types of travel will be addressed below.
Player travel is the most common way for someone to traverse the worldspace, most often done by foot through roads. As mentioned in the Level Design section, pathfinding is a key component of world design and exploration, and helps the player navigate the world, guiding them to objectives and points of interest.
The major method of pathfinding and exploration is the strategic placement of paths that form Morrowind's road network. Roads are excellent for pathfinding, as they stand out as manufactured juxtaposed on the natural landscape. They are well-marked, were obviously placed for a reason (conceptually), and thus the player will assume they lead somewhere. There are various types of roads, of varying degrees of importance, and all have different purposes and characteristics that define them.
Main Roads: Main roads form the backbone of the road network, and are important travel routes within the province. They cross the entire province, and link (most of) the major towns and cities together. They should be wide, well-lit, signed, and use the specificed main road texture. It is generally assumed that as long as a player stays along these main arteries, they are generally safe. Main roads are the easiest and fastest way for a player to go from Point A to Point B on the map, with minimal distractions (though distractions should be visible from the main road at several points to tempt the player).
Side Roads: Side roads are often offshots that branch from the main roads. These often connect smaller settlements and important landmarks and places to the main road network. They are travelled, though less frequently than main roads. They should still be well-maintained, continuous, and use the specified dirtroad texture.
Footpaths: These aren't roads in a traditional sense, as they are generally unmarked and exist for the purpose of pathfinding. These paths often take the form of natural depressions or gorges in the landscape that lead to a particular destination, usually hostile. Examples of footpaths would be the rough guar trails of the West Gash that often lead to caves, tombs, and ruins, or the foyadas that crisscross Red Mountain, that act as a way for the player to traverse the interior regions of Vvardenfell.
In addition to road travel, it is also possible for the player to fly or levitate over landscape obstacles, drastically opening up possibiltiies for player exploration. That being said, this often does not usually happen until the player has reached a more advanced level, as most levitation spells are of fixed duration, and are not designed as a means of sustained travel and exploration (with the obvious exceptions of artifacts and players exploiting game mechanics). Obstacles such as tall hills and mountains exist to encourage players to follow general pathways that lead them to particular destinations.
Another alternative to foot travel is the option to use fast-travel methods to get between Point A and Point B quickly, often at the expense of time and player resources. Unlike fast travel in later installments of the Elder Scrolls, TESIII's fast travel network is fixed, and planned. The player may not arbitraily jump between places, and fast travel is limited mostly between established settlements. The cost of fast travel in the early game is also an early impediment that prevents the player from abusing the option early-on, forcing them to discover and explore areas prior to using fast travel (again with exceptions). Like the road network, the implementation of fast travel routes should be based on conceptual justifications, as well as technical ones. In Morrowind, there are many different ways to travel, based on numerous factors such as regional geography, faction identity, and trade routes.
Silt Striders: Silt Striders are giant insectoids with long legs. They are a common method of travel, and are generally suited for overland transport in lowland areas. Their tall legs make it awkward for them to traverse hilly and mountainous landscapes, so the Strider network is limited to the flatlands of Central Morrowind, and the western lowlands of Vvardenfell.
Boats: Boats are another major method of transport in Morrowind, and are obviously suited for transport in coastal and insular waters and riverways. They are often used in trade, and as such, boat networks operate most around the major trade routes in the Thirr River and the Inner Sea. The treachearous meinhir field of the Azura's Coast makes them less prominent in the east however.
Riverstriders: River striders are another giant insectoid that glides over water. They were initially domesticated by the Telvanni for limited transport between their settlements and towers. They are small and agile, and well suited for the harsh, rocky coastlines of their district. They have also been introduced as a means of transport within the underground waterways under the Deshaan Plains.
Guild Guides: The Mages' guildhalls operate a limited network of magical relays that instantaneously transport the player between their guild chapters. Due to the magical nature of this transport, geographical considerations are not a major factor in their network. Instead, the guild guide networks are localized to chapters in a particular political district (Telvannis, Mournhold, Deshaan, etc.), and connected through a central hub in Vivec.
Skyrenders: Skyrenders are giant flying wasp-like insectoids that are indigenous to the Deshaan. They are wild, but have been tamed by some clans as a means of flying transport over the harsh salt flats below. They are a secondary localized travel network that connects some of the interior clansteads together, and to Almalexia and Narsis.
Hoomsleds: The Redoran and Nords of the Velothi Mountains have devised a way to traverse the passes and ridges in the northern fringes of their territories. A sled is attached to the Mountain Hoom, which have been domesticated, and are well suited as beasts of burden, and to the local climate. This network is limited to the northern settlements of the Velothis.
Palanquins: This is another localized transport, used by Indoril nobles to traverse the countrysides of their territory. Palanquins are mounted on a (yet to be conceptualized) anthropod that is native to the Indoril areas.
Propylons: The ancient Chimer constucted many fortresses along the byways of Resdayn's trade routes. These wayposts were often used as rest stops for the weary, nomadic Chimer. Proplyons offer a way of transport between these waystops, but can only be used to traverse to the two neighbouring strongholds. The travel network is roughly designed in concentric rings around the major waterways of Morrowind's past. One major ring exists along the historic Thirr River (which now forms the western Inner Sea). Another ring exists around the Deshaan-Andaram basin, which was once a huge lake. A third ring joins the other two rings in a rough circle around the ashflats surrounding Red Mountain. Propylons are a good way for the player to travel around Morrowind's interior areas, but require a special index to operate. As such, they are designed for use in the late-game. Some Dres clansteads have repurposed their old propylons, and these are connected to the network.
Prison: When a player commits a crime, and is caught, they have an option to surrender and serve a prison sentence. This transports the player to the nearest location that has a prison marker. Due to the convoluted nature of justice in Morrowind, and conflicting Imperial and native justice systems, where the player is brought upon arrest will vary greatly. In Hlaalu and Redoran areas that have an Imperial presence, one is often brought to the nearest Legion fort to where the arrest was made. In more insular areas in the east, that have a minimal presence, the player will instead be taken to a dungeon that is administered by the local house, which may have their own unique methods of applying justice (we can and should get creative here).
Divine Intervention: Divine Intervention is a spell that is cast that will automatically transfer the player to the nearest Imperial shrine. While in the current iteration of Morrowind, this means an Imperial Cult Shrine, TR has the opportunity to get creative here. This spell, along with its native counterpart, is useful for players to extricate themselves from difficult situations, and get the player back to a relatively safe location.
Almsivi Intervention: Similar to Divine Intervention, Almsivi Intervention, once cast, will bring you to the nearest temple shrine. In the vanilla game, this was always a settlement. Once again, TR can get creative here. This spell, along with its Imperial counterpart, is useful for players to extricate themselves from difficult situations, and get the player back to a relatively safe location.
Mark & Recall: Another spell that allows for instantaneous travel. It differs from the previous spells in a sense that the player can define where they are teleported once the recall spell has been cast. A Mark spell is cast to achieve this, and only one marker may exist in the entire game at any given time. This is often used as a convenient way to return to a quest giver from a remote location, relatively quickly, saving time on the return journey.
Special Items: Another possibility when it comes to fast travel is fast travel that derives from the magical power of special items. These are rare, and often offer travel to a fixed point that has a relationship to that item. Examples of this wouild be Barilzar's Mazed Band, or vampire amulets.
One of the most instrumental aspects of telling a story is the characters that inhabit the world we are making. Their mannerisms, stories and perspectives influence those of the player, and factor into the decisions they make. In a diverse world such as Morrowind, many different views and perspectives exist, and the characters must reflect that diversity appropriately. NPCs must not be seen as tools that dispense information and quests for the player, but as living, breathing entities in a believable world. Similarly, it is also easy to break that immersion and believability if every NPC is given too much exposition through dialogue. A careful balance must be struck. One can say so much, without saying anything at all.
As such, Tamriel Rebuilt will build upon the design approach taken in the vanilla game, which is to flesh out and write the most important characters, while keeping generic characters more generic. However, we will improve the characterization of characters in the vanilla game, through compelling dialogue that makes these characters memorable and iconic, rather than being forgettable paper cutouts.
The characterization of characters encountered in the game will be coloured by multiple facets, ranging from the faction-trope a character is assigned, the type of NPC/role they play in the story, and factors such as their race or disposition towards the player. This in turn will affect their class, mannerisms, and determine what they have to offer to the player. These factors, and their defining characteristics are outlined in greater detail in the sections below. However, it is also important to understand not all NPCs should be rolecast or typecast into these general tropes. In fact, most NPC characterization will be a mixture of these characteristics, and defy these tropes entirely.
Generic Commoner, Farmer, Herder, Hunter, Miner, Noble, Pauper, Slave These characters provide no special interaction with the player unless they are a part of a quest. They are the majority of characters in the game.
Guard Guard, Ordinator These characters enforce the law, restricting the player's ability to steal or attack non-aggressive characters. They typically are not unique.
Traders & Trainers Alchemist, Apothecary, Bookseller, Clothier, Drillmaster, Enchanter, Merchant, Pawnbroker, Priest, Smith, Trader, Wise Woman These characters will barter with the player or train them in a skill for money, or provide another service such as potion making or enchanting.
Publican Publican These characters offer the player a bed to let.
Fast Travel Caravaner, Gondolier, Guild Guide, Shipmaster These characters will offer the player fast travel services to other settlement locations in the game.
Savant Savant These characters have an exceptional variety of dialog topics and can give the player game- relevant or background information. Though all characters provide the player some amount of information, savants are the players' go-to encyclopedia characters.
Scout Scout Scouts, like savants, give the player additional information about the gameworld. Specifically, they give the player directions to other locations and descriptions of nearby areas to help them navigate the game.
In addition to faction tropes and character types, another factor that may define a character's personality and mannerisms is their race, and where they come from. It is also to be noted that each race (outlanders in particular) have various roles in Morrowind and reasons they are there. They can often (but not always) be categorized into particular race tropes. A rough outline can be found below, but should not be a base in which characters are written on, as Characters will almost always not always fit into these tropes fully.
Argonians: Argonians in Morrowind are most often found as slaves. The native Dunmer see them as property, rather than sentient beings, and there is no love lost. They can be found all across Morrowind, wherever slaves are owned and used. A higher concentration of them exists in the Deshaan, where the Dres use them to till the salt in putrid conditions. Sparse bands of indigenous, free Argonians still roam the southern border regions with Argonia. Free Argonians can also be found in Imperial settlements where they are protected by the Empire's laws, particularly in Old Ebonheart, where a small diaspora exists. Free Argonians often occupy a variety of roles, ranging from mages, scholars, officials, and thieves. They are particulary adept at the latter.
Quests are a way of giving the player something to do without the player having to come up with it themselves. This is very valuable to the gameplay experience of the player. Not only does it avoid them having a problem of too many choices, it also directs them toward tasks which are consistent with their current level. As sets of events which occur sequentially, quests are also a key way of engaging with the player in a narrative sense & building the story of their game experience. This section will focus on the ways that quests contribute to the game's narrative.
Exploring the World: Some of the most unnoticeable narrative developments to the player are those that come from the quests' having them explore the world. They give the player direction in how to travel across and view the worldspace itself, allowing the game to build its narrative without even communicating with the player through language. A good example of this is the “Report to Caius Cosades” quest at the beginning of the original Morrowind. The path between Seyda Neen & Balmora is designed such that the player passes through key locations – the Imperial settlement of Pelegiad, the ashen desolation of Foyoda Mamaea – which develop key concepts in the way that Morrowind is intended to be perceived.
Background Exposition: Incidental encounters with the gameworld aren't enough to give the players knowledge of the rich background lore that the game is built on. Quests can also be a good way of giving this knowledge to the player in a more engaging and in depth manner than just having it exist in the gameworld or described in in-game books that most players will not read. The “Antabolis Informant” & “Gra-Muzgob Informant” quests do this, providing background information on a lot of the lore: they give information about the Nerevarine & the Sixth House which is relevant to the quest, but they also give a good deal of background on the Dwemer and on Dunmer burial practices, being the primary way that players learn about these things.
Storytelling: Probably the most obvious way that quests build a sense of narrative is by containing their own stories. All quests tell a story to some extent, but some have a stronger narrative than others. While some quest might tell a very basic story that resolves quickly, others might be more complicated, nuanced, or epic. The thematic elements and tropes in these stories also vary considerably. An example is not included here because this is a very straightforward thing for a quest to do.
Identity Construction: Through choices provided by quests, players have the ability to construct a particular identity for their character. At the simplest level, this could be a choice of which quests to do – is the character faithful to the Temple or Imperial Cult or one of the Daedra? Which great house does the player support? Is the player a member of the Legion? The Morag Tong? However, this can also be constructed through the inclusion of choices within quests – which side of the faction does the player support? Does the player do the thing which is more honorable but less profitable? The Bloodmoon Main Quest provided a certain degree of this by allowing the player to become a Werewolf or to fight them, but this is something we can improve on over the original game.
Player-Influenced Events: The players' choices may not only provide a way to construct an identity for their character, but may also have consequences for the gameworld as a whole. In the original game the player's ability to change things was limited – either it was on a single track (such as the main quest, which had somewhat substantial consequences), or it was limited in scope – such as the House strongholds or the construction of Raven Rock. Allowing the player to shape the narrative and world is empowering and much more impactful than presenting it to them without a sense of interaction for the player.
The narrative devices, plot types, and tropes that a quest could contain are so vast as to encompass the majority of literary possibility, so we will not attempt to systematically discuss them here. All we would add is that quests, as actual narrative events, are one of the most straightforward ways to introduce the games' themes to the player. Not all quests need to be “on theme,” the themes discussed in Section II are not universal to all events in the game, nor are they strictly binding on what can and cannot happen, but by introducing certain narrative consistencies into the game – especially those that operate at a level below the surface – we can make a game that is about something even though the player has complete freedom in how they interact with it. Certain parallels should be put into certain quest lines – for example, the fact that 4 of the 5 heads of houses are not actively involved in the management of their house for one reason or another.
The different quests need to be monitored to ensure that their structural and thematic elements balance well against each other. It would be problematic if in the final content, all of the quests which gave lore were quests about a certain subject, or if all the quests by which the player could change the world were quests that would only appeal to a certain kind of player (or a certain character identity the player could want to construct). It would be similarly problematic if a certain area was full of scorned lovers, another full of cheated business partners, another full of gentlemen bandits.
At this stage of implementation, no particular structure or sorting of quests by these elements is suggested. Instead, TR must monitor these elements in each quest line, and modify them as necessary to ensure a good game balance. Each quest should be tagged with which of the narrative structures play most prominently in it, and a brief summary of the narrative devices it employs. At more advanced stages of implementation, it may also be appropriate to develop some schematic or structure for at least a sub-section of the quests in the game outlining which will play which roles. | https://www.tamriel-rebuilt.org/content/tamriel-rebuilt-master-plan |
Research has shown that some 50% of a child's brain capacity is developed during the first 3 years of his life. We strive to provide an environment which contains materials that are stimulating, challenging and enriching to help a child achieve his fullest potential. Our objective is to improve parenting skills of toddlers and to provide an environment that is secure and stimulating to allow the parents and children an opportunity to reach out and explore.
Doing - Toddlers learn best when they are engaged actively in challenging and meaningful activities, such as dressing up in hats and scarves to pretend to be mommy in the dramatic play area or using a paintbrush and paper to create a rainbow in the art area. The Learning Garden provides toddlers with lots of opportunities to engage in singing, dancing, reading and jumping.
Observing - Toddlers learn "how the world works" by observing and interacting with objects around them. For instance, boats in a tub of water will stay on top (float), but a toy car falls to the bottom (sinks). Our facilitators provide an environment that allows toddlers to make observations and ask questions about the world around them.
Playing - Play is a child's work. Play is the way children make sense of their world and is the natural way to learn. Play is self initiated, spontaneous, a way of finding out about people, a way of learning to interact with people, a means of thinking, a means of developing and practicing skills, a way of nurturing creativity and a means of self-expression. | http://thelearninggarden.com.my/main.php?id=12 |
As many of you know, I have a P3 student here at PKS, and a 2 year old son whom I hope will join us when he is old enough. Both kids were in the car with me on Thursday morning as I tuned in to the Judiciary Committee hearings in which Dr. Christine Blasey Ford courageously told her story. I found myself feeling confused, and a bit helpless, as I tried to balance my civic impulses and my fatherly impulses.
Almost ten years ago, I wrote an article titled "Academic Rigor and Student Engagement: A Perfect Match." While many feared that they would need to sacrifice student engagement in the service of academic rigor, I argued strongly that academic rigor could ONLY genuinely come together with student engagement, and that truly rigorous learning at its core needed to be about exploration, discovery, creativity, inquiry, and pattern recognition.
PKS was invited to Washington, DC as part of a symposium on immersion education. Seven of our faculty members visited four schools, deepening their knowledge of best practices while sharing some of their own unique insights. Our expertise on how to integrate Mandarin immersion within a progressive framework was noted as "the only model out there combining data-based immersion practices with rigorous PBL."
Our community celebration welcoming the Year of the Dog was PKS's largest-ever Chinese New Year event, with almost 900 people in attendance. Organized over the course of several months by a parent-led committee chaired by Monica Savini, the event featured art, activities, food, fun, and at the center of it all, the joyous performances of each PKS class on stage in the beautifully restored venue adjacent to our campus, Saint Joseph's, where we were hosted by proprietor Ken Fulk.
The benefits of a bilingual education (and of a bilingual brain!) are well-documented. They range from positive correlations with executive functioning in the brain to advantages in staving off the devastating effects of Alzheimer’s disease.
Head of Preschool Simona Chongo and Oaktree (P2) teacher Cecilia Wang facilitated a session for parents focused on understanding children’s mathematical development in the preschool years.
Our goals each year include problem solving, critical thinking, and improving social skills. We provide ample opportunities for children to do hands on projects, based on their own interests, we provide children with engaging materials, and ask them questions to provoke their thinking.
With the same nurturing and joy embodied in our mission and experienced in our classrooms, we involve parents in the cycle of inquiry through small group activities that provide an experience similar to their child’s.
I am absolutely thrilled at the prospect of becoming your next Head of School in July 2018. I would like to thank all of the students, teachers, staff, parents and board members that took the time to meet with me during my visit to school and with whom I have interacted over the last few weeks. I especially appreciated the time I spent in Chinese answering the most challenging questions of all – from the PKS third graders!
Chris Livaccari, a distinguished language immersion educator, Mandarin scholar, Mandarin speaker, and author, has been named our next Head of School by unanimous vote of the Board of Trustees. Among the highly talented candidates who visited the school in recent months, Chris stood out for his commitment to educational excellence and his deep knowledge of and involvement in Mandarin language learning on an international scale. Chris’s bright vision for PKS’s future and his inquisitive, warm, down-to-earth style made him the ideal match for our school.
There is no instruction manual on how to teach children. Children don’t need to follow anyone to explore the world. Instead, we focus on children’s learning processes and experiences, not on pushing children to remember all the academic material. Teachers and children observe, find questions, search for the result and solve issues together; building knowledge and gaining new experiences while learning from each other.
Concurrent with the ongoing Rectory renovation project, the PKS Master Plan team has recently kicked off the architectural schematic design work for the new Front and Back buildings that will surround the main campus courtyard. We look forward to sharing these designs in the coming months. | https://www.presidioknolls.org/news/tag/Preschool |
Learning a foreign language is good for cognitive skills. Is immersion best?
Learning a foreign language is healthy for you in that it is good for your cognitive abilities, memory and thinking skills. But, is total immersion or are traditional grammar -focused methods best, or some combination of the two? I say the combination is best for adults. Thoughts?
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/sep/04/what-happens-to-the-brain-language-learning
Apr 26, 2020 12:54 AM
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Hello Steven, I agree with you. I think a combination of immersion and grammar is good. You may have heard of the linguist Stephen Kaufmann? He has a number of videos on youtube that might be of interest to you. He argues that, in the initial stage of language learning, listening and reading to material that interest you are the most important skills to work on. He argues that we can acquire grammar through recognising patterns through repeat exposure. Of course he doesn't dismiss grammar completely (there may be specific things we need to check out). But rather, states that the emphasis should be on comprehensible input with stimulating material. It's an interesting topic.
April 26, 2020
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Yes Steven. I have studied Russian for 3 years in classes and with Italki and with online friends through Italki. In Oct/November I had 3 weeks language class in Belarus and their style is immersion, but I didn't realise that until I was there. It was good for me, to expand my listening and processing skills and to explain my answers/responses. However for a beginner it was a case of being lost with a long lead time to find her feet.
We, ourselves, we choose our learning style and material. If a certain class doesn't work out, we change it, and over the years I notice I am happier to read more now, reading more Wikipedia in Russian and speaking more R with friends.
Beginners need a structure to build the language in their minds. Immersion takes too long for beginners and is frustrating. Just like some Spanish speaker I answered just now, but lives in the US.
April 26, 2020
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Phillip, yes I totally agree. There’s an individualism about language learning you have to recognize. It’s not a „one size fits all“ method. Find what works most efficiently for you and go with it. That’s how I see it. After the first two years of university study, I was ready for total immersion in my target language and it worked well for me.
April 26, 2020
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Phillip, I agree with you. Total immersion doesn’t work for learners. I think the first two years or so should be a mix of the target language with the native speaker‘s language . However, after that it should be total immersion.
April 26, 2020
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Not for beginners. I have seen the stress and frustration of it, and was glad that I could understand half of what was being taught, but my fellow student, had arguments with the teacher every 2 days "Can you please explain it in English..."
See others' experiences here: https://www.italki.com/discussion/235508
So, according to the article if I study a language my brain will grow. If my brain is twice the size of a chimp's then I am twice as intelligent, but if it is the same size as a gorilla's.?? Darwin's rubbish, measuring skulls of native peoples and assuming that equates to intelligence.
April 26, 2020
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Steven
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Dutch, English, German
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Interact with native speakers around the world. | https://www.italki.com/post/discussion-235961?hl=en |
Infants need safe spaces to grow and learn, at home and away from home. Our Infant Program is committed to providing a nurturing environment that meets our family’s expectations as well as the needs of the children enrolled. As infants grow and change, we make changes too, so development and learning unfold naturally. As our infants discover the world around them, we are delighted to share these moments with families.
Toddlers are explorers on the road to learning. They walk, eat table food and often take just one nap a day. Our Toddler Program guides children through planned and emergent experiences that enrich their lives. In our safe and nurturing program, toddlers find their voice, make new friends and develop confidence in their newfound abilities. While acclimating to a more structured setting, our toddlers grow and learn through experiencing creative activities and colorful stories.
At this stage, children are learning through exploration. We help children develop independence and confidence in a setting that encourages a sense of community. In our Twos Program, we plan activities based on proven early learning principles. These young learners will increase their language ability, practice early math skills and learn to interact more as a group. They will take on greater challenges and begin to communicate more effectively.
Preschoolers are in the process of becoming confident learners. They begin to recognize their name in print, show an interest in reading books with others and recall events from previous activities. Preschoolers are ready for more structured learning activities that integrate early literacy, math, science and social studies. Our stimulating Preschool Program balances these areas with opportunities for independent exploration and a healthy dose of running, jumping and dancing. | http://www.stpaulabq.org/new-page-1/ |
Jason Sorens has posted a very thoughtful review of Ralph Raico’s outstanding recent book, Classical Liberalism and the Austrian School.
I admire the post and learned from it, but I’d like to differ with Sorens on two points. He suggests that methodological individualism is vulnerable to criticism. “We can know that firms try to maximize profit even if we do not have a good explanation for why each individual firm tries to maximize profit, or why individuals have chosen so to organize themselves. ” He appeals here to what Bob Nozick called a “filtering device.” The explanation, I take it, is roughly this: to the extent that firms engage in profit maximization, they will tend to supplant firms that don’t.
But this explanation is entirely consistent with methodological individualism. This doctrine does not require that social outcomes be reducible to the motives of individuals. To the contrary, appeals to “the results of human action but not of human design” are quite common among Austrian methodological individualists. In thinking that use of “filtering devices” in Nozick’s sense, irreducible to the psychological motives of individuals, conflicts with methodological individualism, Sorens has I think wrongly taken over Nozick’s unduly restrictive account of that doctrine, in his essay “On Austrian Methodology”
Sorens also remarks: “However, what I have heard from contemporary Austrian economists such as Peter Leeson is that Mises himself was not opposed to hypothesis testing, even using statistical methods. He was merely opposed to Popper-style falsificationism (i.e., that every element of a theory must be falsifiable), which has in any case been superseded in mainstream philosophy of science. ”
Certainly, Mises did not oppose hypothesis testing in applying economics to historical issues; but in economic theory itself he was very much an apriorist. Mises himself is a much better guide to his views on method than “contemporary Austrian economists”; and if one consults Mises, whether he was an apriorist is not a difficult question to answer. | https://mises.org/wire/sorens-raico |
Career Opportunities for Economists
Why Study Economics?
With an economics degree, your career options are endless. The general applicability of economics is one reason why it has become the most popular major at some of the nation’s most elite colleges and universities. Economics training enhances logical reasoning and analytical skills, skills that are useful in a wide variety of occupational fields, including general business, government, law, securities, banking, insurance, and real estate. Additionally, a bachelor's degree in economics provides excellent preparation for graduate school and law school.
What is Economics?
Economics is captivating because of its breadth. Like the psychologist, the economist is concerned with individual behavior. Like the sociologist, the economist is concerned with the behavior of groups. Like the political scientist, the economist is concerned about how the laws and policies generated by legal and political institutions affect our lives. Like the historian, the economist is concerned about how the past affects and gives context to the present. Like a natural scientist, the economist seeks an understanding of how the resources and processes of the natural world affect humans. Like the mathematician, the economist uses quantitative tools to describe and analyze. There is little entirely outside the scope of economics.
Yet, economics does have a focus. The fundamental economic fact is that resources are scarce. Natural resources, our time, and our money are all scarce relative to their potential uses. Economics is a field of study focusing on the implications of resource scarcity. The fundamental implication of scarcity is that it forces people to make choices about how to “allocate” the scarce resource. Economics is broad in scope because economic concepts apply to any situation where a choice is made. Examples include:
- choices made by individuals to work, to play, to buy and to sell;
- choices made by firms to purchase productive inputs (labor, capital, and raw materials), to carry inventories, to move to a new location, to develop new technology, and to sell products;
- choices made by governments to tax, to spend, to change laws, and to regulate.
In addition to a focus on choice, economics has also had a tradition of focusing on the processes through which individuals and groups interact and affect each other. In 1890, Alfred Marshall defined economics as “a study of mankind in the ordinary business of life.” Economists develop models of social processes and use these to forecast the outcomes experienced by those involved.
Careers and Salaries for Economists
Economists apply economic analysis to research and analyze economic issues. This involves the analysis of data using various statistical techniques and may include conducting cost-benefit analyses, interpreting and creating forecasts, or conducting economic impact analyses. Frequently, policy recommendations are derived from economic analysis.
According to a study published in 2015, the median annual salary for economic majors is $76,000 and $75,000 for business economic majors in 2013. Below is the median yearly salary for all business majors.
- Information systems and statistics: $77,000
- Economics: $76,000
- Business Economics: $75,000
- Finance: $73,000
- Accounting: $69,000
- General Business: $65,000
- Marketing: $63,000
- International Business: $60,000
- High School Graduate: $36,000
Carnevale, A. P., Cheah, B., & Hanson, A. R. (2015). The economic value of college majors. Georgetown University, Center on Education and the Workforce. McCourt School of Public Policy.
Below are the eight common jobs for individuals with a degree in economics, according to payscale.com, along with the average annual salary.
- Data Scientist: $92,000
- Management Consultant: $83,000
- Project Manager: $72,000
- Operations Manager: $68,000
- Data Analyst: $60,000
- Financial Analyst: $60,000
- Business Analyst: $59,000
- Research Analyst: $54,000
Other career options include:
- Actuary
- Lawyer
- Credit Analyst
- Financial Advisor
- Bank Examiner
- Environmental Researcher
- Health Economist
- Market Researcher
- Stockbroker
- Business Reporter
When thinking about looking for an internship or a job, your first stop should be the College of Business Career and Corporate Outreach Center.
Links for economic-related job listings:
Employers who have hired University of Nevada economics majors include: America West Airlines, Bank of America, Boomtown, Inc., Brass Craft - Division of Masco, Lucini & Associates, Casino Data Systems, Circus Circus, Clark County, City of Las Vegas, City of Reno, City of Sparks, Comstock Bank, Dean Witter Reynolds, Inc., Delta Airlines, Federal Aviation Administration, Fibercraft Inc., Hibbs Law Offices, IBM Corporation, IGO.com, Jake's Crane & Rigging, Inc., Merrill Lynch & Company, Metropolitan Life, National Automobile Museum, Nevada Bell, Nevada Gaming Control Board, New Mexico State University, Port of Subs, Prudential-Bache Securities, Realty 500, Sherwin-Williams, Sierra Pacifica Power Company, State of Nevada, Tung Hua University, United States Government, University of Nevada, Reno, University of Pacific, University of Wisconsin, Walther, Key, Maupin et. al., Washoe County, Washoe Legal Services, Weber State University, Wells Fargo Bank.
Economics at UNR
At the University of Nevada, Reno, we offer two different degrees in Economics. Both degrees are designed to prepare students for positions as economic and statistical analysts in business, government, and non-profit organizations, and graduate school.
For those who are interested in learning about economics, but not seeking a career in economics, we offer two types of minors.
UNR also offers the only Ph.D. program in Economics in Nevada as well as two different Master degrees
Good preparation for graduate school or law school
Because economics is broad, economics training enhances a variety of skills, including
- Critical thinking
- Deductive and inductive reasoning
- Research ability
- Quantitative communication and analysis
- Written communication
People trained in economics are trained to recognize the costs and benefits associated with alternative choices. In addition to this type of critical thinking, deductive and inductive reasoning skills are developed in the process of examining “cause and effect” economic relationships. Economic analyses involve data collection, a literature review, theoretical analysis, quantitative analysis, or some combination of these. The results obtained from economic research are usually communicated in writing, with the form of the write up depending upon the intended audience.
According to a 2018 study published in The Journal of Economic Education, students who majored in economics performed significantly better on the LSAT than students with all other majors. Additionally, a 2015 student found that the average annual earning of U.S. Lawyers who majored in economics is $182,359, which is the second-highest ranked earning when classified by
major. This is evidence that economics training provides a good foundation for those students who desire to go on to law school. Moreover, an economics degree is more marketable than any other degree chosen by those who attend law school.
Graduate school in economics is another option. Most people working as professional economists or economic analysts have a graduate degree—either a master’s degree or a Ph.D. For undergraduates considering the pursuit of a graduate degree in economics, quantitative training is more important. | https://www.unr.edu/business/departments-and-disciplines/economics/careers |
Human perceptive faculties consist of 5 senses: visual, auditory, olfactory, taste, and tactile sense. Visual is the most powerful sense for human perception followed by the auditory sense. This article attempts to find the connection between the visual and the auditory senses. In particular, the aim is to convert sound to color based on human perception. Natural sounds were selected as stimuli and analyzed by sound color and psychoacoustic factors. In addition, subjective perception was evaluated, and electroencephalogram (EEG) was measured using psychophysiological methods in 20 participants. From the factor analysis results of subjective responses, 4 factors were determined: Emotion, Action, Atmosphere, and Strength. To convert sounds to colors, a multidimensional scale analysis was performed using the results of the EEG responses. Bird sound was converted to green, wave sound to red, and rain sound to red-purple. The results were presented by textile designs. From these results, the ability of natural sounds to convert to colors was proven, so that the transformed colors can be used to help design textiles. | https://yonsei.pure.elsevier.com/en/publications/measurement-of-human-sensation-for-developing-sensible-textiles |
In our everyday environment, objects and events usually stimulate a variety of sensory modalities simultaneously. These are fused into a multisensory percept that allows us faster and more accurate perception of the world so that we act appropriately. Therefore, it is important to understand the conditions in which the brain integrates the different sensory information guiding our attention and the supporting mechanism.
The proposed project aims to determine how sound facilitates visual perception by comparing machine learning models for image recognition and human performance. More specifically, their ability to recognise ambiguous images in the presence or absence of sound information will be examined. They will be tested under different conditions: with a sound that is semantically related to the category of the image, with a semantically unrelated sound, with random noise or without any sound.
To start the project, a dataset consisting of images and audio stimuli will be prepared. Ambiguous images will be made by introducing a degree of visual noise. A human observer study will be conducted in which audio-image pairs will be presented to participants, who are then asked to indicate the category of the image. It is predicted that performance will be best when the accompanying audio stimuli is semantically related to the image category but will drop with unrelated sounds and drop further with random noise or no sound. Meanwhile, a machine image classifier will be adapted to utilise both audio and visual information for image classification. The classifier will rely on separate analyses of audio and visual information which are combined to generate a final prediction. The same performance pattern is expected from the machine model as in humans. Accuracy advantage over a no-audio condition will be compared with the different audio conditions between humans and machine model. If consistent, the machine model can be dissected to give insight into possible mechanisms by which sound facilitates visual perception. The results of the project will be reported in a written report and poster presentation. As the entire project relies on online materials (if necessary, the human observer component will be delivered online), any COVID restrictions would not affect it.
This project may have implications for health and wellbeing. Understanding how auditory information interacts with vision can help create more sophisticated prostheses to help visually impaired people enrich their experience of the world. Furthermore, whereas natural spaces have a positive impact on mental health, urban spaces tend to have a negative impact. Varying the perception of these spaces through information from a different sensory modality could modulate these effects. For example, listening to sound from nature may reduce the negative impact urban spaces on mental health. Finally, an understanding of how sound facilitates visual perception could be used to improve the multisensory experiences in virtual reality methods which are more frequently used in rehabilitation after stroke. | https://laidlawscholars.network/posts/how-does-sound-facilitate-visual-perception-initial-research-proposal-2 |
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Abstract
Evidence of human creativity and artistic expression goes back more than 40,000 years. Understanding the evolutionary precursors of these human cognitive capacities has increasingly focused on comparative investigations testing animals. Here we review new evidence about triadic chord perception in pigeons to evaluate their auditory and cognitive mechanisms for potentially experiencing musical-like sequences. Pigeons add an important perspective to comparative investigations because they are a nonsongbird with an unlearned vocal repertoire. Using observations collected using a relational same/different discrimination, pigeons showed a capacity to discriminate five chord types. The relative similarity perceived among the chords was similar to that previously found in humans. Further analyses of this discrimination suggest pigeons may possibly process the individual tones that compose the larger harmonic structure of the chords. The results reveal that pigeons can discriminate, remember, and compare sequential harmonic structures over several seconds. Despite these auditory capabilities, doubts are raised as to the ultimate “musicality” of these kinds of discriminations in this particular bird species.
Keywords: auditory perception, auditory discrimination, pigeons, chord perception, music
Author Note: Robert Cook, Department of Psychology, Tufts University, 490 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA 02155.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Robert Cook at [email protected].
Acknowledgments: This research and its preparation was supported by a grant from the National Eye Institute (#RO1EY022655). I express my appreciation for the contributions of Emily McDowell, Ryan Oliveira, Matthew Murphy, Daniel Brooks, and M.A.J. Qadri to various parts of this research effort. Home page: www.pigeon.psy.tufts.edu.
Evidence of human artistic and creative expression stretches back more than 40,000 years (Morriss-Kay, 2010). Over this period, a number of recognizable expressions of art and aesthetics have been found, stemming from the imagination and technical skills of the human ancestors producing it. This expression is easily visible in the plentiful sculptures and cave paintings left by our predecessors. Whatever their motivations for creating these “art”-ifacts at the time, the cognitive activity underlying their design, and the likely emotional resonance they may have generated, are hard to deny.
Slightly more perplexing to interpret are the historical remnants of the different instruments presumably used to generate musical sounds (Conard, Malina, & Münzel, 2009; Sachs, 2012). The ephemeral and momentary nature of sound and music makes for a particular challenge to understanding the meaning and function of such instruments and their contributions to creating sounds. Given the universal nature of music in modern human culture, it is easy and natural to presume that our ancestors were engaged in this activity. How the different artifacts identified as musical instruments were used to produce specific sounds and their relationship to the forms of music we understand today remains elusive. A wide variety of approaches, ranging from archaeology to psychology, have been brought to bear toward understanding the origins and manipulation of sound and its musical impact within the human experience (Wallin, Merker, & Brown, 2000).
Because understanding the evolution and development of musicality is a central part of these issues, comparative approaches examining different animals make valuable contributions to answering such questions (Fitch, 2006; Hauser & McDermott, 2003; Hoeschele, Cook, Guillette, Brooks, & Sturdy, 2012; Hoeschele, Merchant, Kikuchi, Hattori, & ten Cate, 2015; Marler, 2000). Musicality attempts to identify the basic cognitive, biological, developmental mechanisms that contribute to more formal activities like music (Honing, ten Cate, Peretz, & Trehub, 2015). This is a useful distinction; it is unlikely that music emerged in our hominid ancestors fully formed and invites a more comparative approach looking at such capacities in nonhuman animals. By understanding the cognitive and biological precursors of musicality that might exist in different classes of animals that are similar and dissimilar to humans, it should contribute insights as to how music, language, and cognition arose within our hominid lineage.
The ubiquitous nature of bird vocalizations has always made this group of animals particularly attractive for such comparisons. The complexity of these vocalizations and their activation of our internal appreciation of tonality and musicality has even resulted in calling them “songs.” Although these vocalizations serve clear mating and territorial functions and are not as open-ended as true human music or language, the fact that many birdsongs are learned and modified after birth in many species makes understanding how birds process complex sequences of sounds a compelling area of investigation (Bolhuis, 2013). For example, Patel’s recent hypothesis regarding the relationship between music perception, beat induction, and vocal learning is one of several ideas that has put bird vocalizations in the theoretical spotlight (Patel, 2008). He suggested that vocal learning is fundamental to the ability to understand and process beat-based rhythms from complex sound sequences. His reasoning is that this type of musical entrainment may rely on the same tight linkage between the auditory and motor circuits used in vocal learning. One implication of this vocal learning in rhythmic synchronization hypothesis is that animals that do or do not learn their vocalizations may differ in their capacity to process auditory sequences with a musical-like entrainment (Hagmann & Cook, 2010; Patel, 2014; Patel, Iversen, Bregman, & Schulz, 2009; Schachner, Brady, Pepperberg, & Hauser, 2009).
One portion of the research in my laboratory has focused on testing auditory processing in pigeons. Some of these investigations have included auditory stimuli that involve music-derived elements (Brooks & Cook, 2010; Hagmann & Cook, 2010). Because of the proposed impact of vocal learning on auditory perception and potentially understanding music, we have focused on pigeons precisely because they do not learn their limited number of vocalizations (Baptista & Abs, 1983). By looking in detail at the auditory behavior and cognition of a nonvocal learning bird species, like a pigeon, and comparing its abilities to those species that do learn their vocalizations, we can gain further insight into what aspects of sound and music are critically tied to experience, vocal learning, and the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying auditory processing.
What is currently known about auditory and musical processing in this common bird species? It has been known for some time, for example, that pigeons can discriminate among musical compositions created by different composers. Porter and Neuringer (1984) found that pigeons could be eventually trained to discriminate extended pieces of music by Bach from those composed by Stravinsky. This discrimination seemed independent of note sequence and overall intensity. Following this training, the pigeons also categorized novel excerpts of music along lines that matched human judgments of the same excerpts. Given the considerable differences in musical style, instrumentation, and other distinctive elements of these composers and the specific musical compositions tested, the actual musicality of the pigeons’ discrimination is difficult to interpret. Nonetheless, this intriguing finding provides a foundation for exploring this general topic in more detail.
The complexity of music is one of its creative wonders but simultaneously its greatest challenge to experimental analysis. Rather than attempt to investigate the discrimination of music in its totality, we have concentrated instead on looking analytically at several separate and essential components or building blocks of music. Broadly, these components examine the processing of rhythm, harmony, and melody within extended auditory sequences. By examining each of these domains in relative isolation, we can better identify those features or components of auditory and musical-like processing that pigeons may or may not share with humans and other animals (Brown & Jordania, 2013; Honing & Ploeger, 2012). When these domains are then collectively examined together, the results should help clarify how top-down cognitive and bottom-up auditory mechanisms interact to produce the acoustic experience of this avian species and any potential musicality it may or may not possess. Within this larger framework, the present article focuses on discussing new information related to the relational processing of harmonic structure by pigeons. Specifically, this article examines how concurrent tones that fit the human notion of musical triads or chords are processed by these birds.
The vast majority of Western musical conventions’ basic structure centers around the notion of chords and their relations. Chords are created by the simultaneous sounding of multiple notes (arpeggios being “broken” chords in which the notes are played in succession). The major triad is a chord built from three notes. These notes consist of the first, third, and fifth notes of the diatonic musical scale. It is the composition of the intervals between these notes that gives this musical structure its distinctive and stable musical structure that can be recognized across different tonal centers or keys. Major chords are often recognized as stable anchors in a piece of music and generally associated with melodic and emotionally happy motifs. Other types of chords can be created from this basic structure by altering different notes by a half step or a semitone. A minor chord can be created by lowering its third by a semitone relative to the major chord. This type of chord is often associated with sadder emotional states. A suspended fourth or sus4 chord can be created by raising the third by a semitone. A flat five chord can be created by lowering the fifth by a semitone, whereas an augmented chord can be created by raising the fifth by a semitone. The major, minor, sus4, and augmented chords regularly appear in different types and genres of music, whereas the flat five chord is typically played in musical contexts by also including the seventh to create to a minor seventh flat five chord. Humans can easily hear and respond to the distinctive qualities of these harmonic structure. The notes of these five chord types are depicted in Figure 1 using standard musical notation (audio examples of these five chords are also included).
Our original question was whether pigeons could do so also. Brooks and Cook (2010) found that pigeons, like humans, could learn to discriminate among these different types of musical triads. Using a go/no-go discrimination task, the pigeons received food during trials when a C-major chord was being played from two speakers located in the testing chamber’s right and left walls by pecking at a centrally located purple square on a frontally placed computer monitor. This major chord was the S+ stimulus in this study, and pecking during it was compared to the four other described chord types and that were played as negative S– stimuli on other trials. On those S– trials, the pigeons received no food for pecking during the presentation of a minor, sus4, augmented or flat five chord. All of these chords were created in the key or tonal center of C.
They found in their first experiment that the majority of pigeons could learn to discriminate among these chords. All four S– chords elicited significantly fewer pecks in comparison to the rewarded S+ major chord in three of the five pigeons tested. Further, manipulations of the fifth as expressed in the flat5 and augmented chords supported better discrimination than did the comparable manipulations of the third in the minor and sus4 chords. As measured by the differences in peck rate during their presentations, the augmented chord was seemingly perceived as being the most dissimilar from the major chord, whereas sus4 chord was perceived to be the most similar. These outcomes generally align to the similarity judgments of humans comparing such chords (Hoeschele et al., 2012; Roberts, 1986). The results were also consistent with the possibility that the pigeons were sensitive to the consonance and dissonance of the chords, as sus4 and minor chords are typically judged to be more consonant or smoother sounding than the other two types of chords, which are perceived as having a rougher or clashing quality.
These pigeons were then shifted to a new root or tonal center based on a D diatonic scale and tested with these chords. By shifting the chords to a new root, the relative interval structure of the chords remains constant, but the absolute frequencies involved are changed. In this second experiment, they generally performed more poorly than the first. They showed little immediate transfer from the previous C-rooted training despite the same harmonic relations present in these D-rooted chords. With additional training, the pigeons did eventually learn to discriminate at above-chance levels, but the learning process was clearly difficult and not robust, with most of the learning occurring primarily with the chords containing manipulated fifths.
Unlike the pigeons, humans readily show transfer in such shifted situations (Hoeschele et al., 2012). This ease results from our sensitivity to relative, but not absolute, pitch. This allows us to be flexible and hear transpositions of music across different musical keys (Dowling & Fujitani, 1971). Hoeschele et al. (2012) also found that chickadees more readily learn this type of root shift than did the pigeons. Overall, it seems that pigeons were not as flexible in recognizing this type of harmonic information across these different pitch contexts. One distinct possibility is that pigeons may rely on attending to more of the absolute pitch properties of these complex auditory stimuli to discriminate them (Murphy & Cook, 2008). If so, this would limit any capacity to relationally shift or modulate to a new root or other values (e.g., Friedrich, Zentall, & Weisman, 2007; Hulse & Cynx, 1985; Weisman, Njegovan, Williams, Cohen, & Sturdy, 2004). In this special issue, Hoeschele nicely reviews the evidence on how birds use both relative and absolute pitch information in learning a variety of discriminations.
With visual stimuli, several factors seem to influence whether pigeons use absolute and relational features in learning discriminations (Cook, Levison, Gillett, & Blaisdell, 2005; Cook & Smith, 2006; Cook & Wasserman, 2006). When given a few exemplars or highly repetitive training, pigeons in visual tasks are readily able to memorize the absolute properties of stimuli (Cook et al., 2005). Stimulus control of this type is reflected in poor transfer or generalization when tested with novel stimuli. In contrast, when consistently challenged by larger sets of exemplars, pigeons are able to abstract also the relational properties of visual stimuli by exhibiting excellent transfer to novel stimuli (e.g., Katz & Wright, 2006). Thus, the nature of training is one important influence on what birds learn in visual discriminations. By extension, these same factors likely influence the relative use of relational and absolute factors in auditory discriminations (Cook & Brooks, 2009; Murphy & Cook, 2008).
Within the auditory modality, one good example of relational discrimination learning by pigeons involves their behavior in a sequential same/different (S/D) discrimination. Cook and Brooks (2009) found that pigeons could be readily trained to discriminate among same and different sequences of sounds. Using large sets of tonal (e.g., single notes from different instruments) and complex stimuli (e.g., recorded bird songs), pigeons discriminated sequences where a randomly selected sound was repeated 12 times in succession (a same trial) from sequences that consisted of 12 different sounds sequentially presented (a different trial). Using a go/no-go discrimination, the pigeons were rewarded for pecking during trials with different sequences (S+) being played but not during same sequences (S–). Finally, in this procedure, a small fraction of different trials were programmed not to be rewarded. These probe trials allowed peck rates to be measured without the contamination of eating from the food hopper or being signaled by the hopper (all discrimination results presented subsequently are derived exclusively from such probe trials).
In the S/D procedure, the pigeons learned to differentially peck during these two sequence types and exhibit good transfer of this learning to sequences composed of novel auditory stimuli of different types. This successful transfer indicates a discrimination learned by comparing the same and different auditory relations of successive sounds. This flexibility created opportunities to explore not only same/different learning but also how animals process different types of auditory stimuli (cf. Cook, Qadri, & Oliveira, 2016; Dooling, Brown, Klump, & Okanoya, 1992; Dooling, Brown, Park, & Okanoya, 1990; Dooling, Brown, Park, Okanoya, & Soli, 1987). The latter emphasis was used here to further explore how pigeons process harmonic information in chords.
A Relational Same/Different Approach to Chord Discrimination
Here, the S/D discrimination approach is used to examine several questions opened up by Brooks and Cook’s aforementioned research on pigeon chord perception. One of the more important of these questions concerned whether the pigeons could discriminate chords based on the relational structure of the intervals composing a triad. The limited transfer found when their birds were shifted from C- to D-rooted chords suggests that absolute factors may have been importantly involved in learning the discrimination. To examine the issue properly, it is necessary to test chord perception relationally by changing the tonal center or absolute pitch information within a session. This was not the case in Brooks and Cook’s experiments, where only one tonal center was tested at a time. By having unpredictable tonal centers, the pigeons are required to process the interval relations within the chords rather than relying on absolute properties, as might have been encouraged by Brooks and Cook’s (2010) use of a single tonal center and limited number of stimuli.
A second and related question was tied to revealing more about the perceived similarity structure among chords. Brooks and Cook’s (2010) procedure revealed similarity relations only relative to the major chord. It would be valuable to know how each of the different chords is perceived relative to one another. For instance, Dooling has used multidimensional scaling procedures to fruitfully investigate the similarity relations of a variety of sounds primarily in budgerigars (e.g., Dooling et al., 1992; Dooling et al., 1990).
Finally, we wanted to examine if pigeons could use short-term memory to make sequential comparisons of different chords across time. Given their design, Brooks and Cook’s (2010) pigeons heard only one chord type on each trial. Thus, their discrimination of the chords must have involved using a reference memory comparison of the currently presented chord against a long-term representation of the S+ major chord. The more immediate juxtaposition of the chords possible with the S/D approach might potentially reveal new or different aspects of the processing of these stimuli not allowed by their isolated presentation. Further, musical structures rely on this ability to remember and compare sounds over time to create rhythm, melody, and expectations. Because of its procedural flexibility and analytical tractability, the S/D task is well suited for exploring such theoretical questions.
Accordingly, we introduced and tested musical triads with four experienced pigeons already quite familiar with this type of auditory S/D task. This experience involved tests with a wide variety of simple and complex auditory stimuli. At the point where we introduced the chord stimuli, the pigeons were being tested daily with S/D trials composed from a library of 540 tonal stimuli and 72 complex sounds (26 bird sounds and 46 man-made and nonavian animal sounds). The tonal stimuli were generated from 14 musical instrument timbres and pure tones playing single notes over a range of three chromatic octaves. Some discussion and analysis of the processing of these types of sounds by the pigeons can be found in Cook et al. (2016).
At the start of these observations, these “baseline” sounds were being presented each session in different and same trials consisting of sequences of twelve 1.5-s presentations of the individual sounds. On the same trials, one randomly selected sound was repeated 12 times in succession within a trial (e.g., AAAA . . .). On the different trials, 12 randomly selected different sounds of a particular type were played once to form the 12-item sound sequence (e.g., ABCD . . .). Each 1.5-s presentation was separated by a 50-ms interstimulus interval of silence. The different trials were further composed from category-like groupings of the sounds. Thus, a different trial might consist of just tonal sounds or birdsongs, but not a mixture of the two. These acoustic groupings comprised (a) pitch differences over three octaves involving a randomly selected musical instrument timbre (labeled pitch trials), (b) different musical timbres played using the same note (timbre trials), (c) pure tones (pure tone trials), (d) birdsongs (birdsong trials) and (e) nonbirdsong complex sounds (complex sound trials). Comparisons of these five classes of different trials were made only to same sequences from the same class of auditory stimuli. Audio examples of typical same and different trials using stimuli from the bird song set of sounds are included.
All four pigeons were performing well with each of these different classes of acoustic stimuli at the beginning of these observations. Figure 2 shows baseline S/D results during the initial phase of the experiment. The pattern displayed is typical of the dynamics of within-trial discriminations observed in this type of go/no go task across both auditory and visual modalities (Cook, Kelly, & Katz, 2003; Cook & Roberts, 2007; Koban & Cook, 2009; Qadri, Sayde, & Cook, 2014). The figure shows the mean number of pecks across the serial position of the 12 sound presentations composing each trial. Because the different trials were rewarded on a variable interval schedule, peck rates during these S+ sequences are high from the beginning to the end of each trial as measured again from probe trials. Because the S– same trials were never rewarded, the number of pecks systematically decline with each repetition of the sound in a sequence. The large difference in peck rates by the end of each trial type represents clear evidence of an S/D discrimination. We have found that pigeons can reliably discriminate a wide variety of sounds in this procedure and measurably begin to do so by the third or fourth sound presentation of a sequence. Although not shown, the pattern of discrimination in this figure reflects how the pigeons do with each of the classes of auditory stimuli previously mentioned (Cook et al., 2016).
Figure 2 also shows behavior during a second type of different trial programmed to occur within a session, but with less frequency. These consisted of different sequence trials composed of only two sounds that alternated over the course of a trial (e.g., ABAB . . .). Because only two sounds are involved, these alternation trials allowed for a more precise determination of the features controlling the detection of their differences. We have found that such alternating trials consistently produce lower rates of responding within a trial than do all-different trials containing 12 different sounds. There are at least two possible reasons for that result. The first possibility is that two items are simply more difficult for the birds to discriminate than 12 different items. This might be related to their difference in acoustic entropy, for example (Wasserman, Young, & Nolan, 2000; Young & Wasserman, 2001; Young, Wasserman, Hilfers, & Dalrymple, 1999). A second possibility is that with each presentation within a trial, alternating trials also begin to have a larger two-item repeating pattern which the pigeons may interpret as “sameness.” Given their previous S– training with repeated sameness, this would correspondingly reduce their pecking similar to a single-item same trial. We do not know which of these reasons is responsible for the slightly reduced peck rate on such trials at the moment. That said, the analytic value of such alternation trials remains unchanged because of their precisely binary nature.
Prior to testing for the relational effects of chord structure, we thought it would be valuable for the pigeons to have a working familiarity with these new sounds, but without necessarily engaging in explicit training to discriminate them. To do so, we introduced the five chord types tested by Brooks and Cook into the pigeon’s daily training for an initial period of 18 sessions (the period for the baseline S/D results shown in Figure 2). The chords consisted of the major, minor, suspended fourth, augmented, and flat five triads made using a French horn timbre. Unlike long 20-s chord durations in Brooks and Cook’s procedure, the individual duration of each of the 12 chord presentation was only 1.5 s, matching the baseline stimuli duration. Finally, instead of using just one root note, four root notes were used (C, C#, D, D#), and these were tested across the three octaves with which the pigeons were already familiar from their tonal trials (i.e., pitch-only and timbre-only trials). As a result, a set of 60 chord/root combinations were available.
These chord stimuli were then used to compose different and same trials that were mixed into the ongoing baseline S/D trials. The different trials with chords consisted of a randomized mixture of 12 different chord stimuli as picked randomly from the 60 available stimuli. Thus, these trials consisted of random mixtures of the five chord types with different root notes over three octaves (e.g., D3-augmented, C5-major, D#4-sus4, . . .). Because of their prior experience with discriminating pitch in the baseline sequences, we thought that any discrimination on such trials was likely mediated by their considerable changes in pitch between stimuli rather than the unfamiliar chord structure within each sound. The same trials consisted of 12 repetitions of a chord type at one of the randomly selected 12 root values. The structure of these initial sessions consisted of 12 chord trials randomly intermixed with the ongoing baseline values of 12 bird song, 12 pure tone, 12 pitch, 12 complex sound, and 12 timbre trials. Each of these subgroups further consisted of six different and six same trials, with two of the six different trials being conducted as probe trials.
Overall, the four pigeons showed significant transfer to these chord-based S/D sequences, showing a within-trial pattern of discrimination highly similar to the baseline stimuli over these 18 sessions (not shown in Figure 2). Although the chords were being discriminated in one sense, it was not possible to determine how the trials were being discriminated given the redundant nature of these stimuli and the design of the different trials (variable root and variable chord type). The next phase of the experiment was aimed specifically at examining if just the structural properties of the chords could be discriminated in this relational S/D context.
For this, we introduced alternating AB probe tests using pairwise combinations of the five chord types. To eliminate the large within-sequence pitch differences in chord root note that were previously available, each test pair used the same root note, so only differences in chord structure were present (although the semitone pitch differences remained to define each chord type). This root note was randomly selected across trials to continue ensuring relational processing. These test sessions were conducted in four blocks of five sessions each, with a number of baseline sessions conducted between each one. Within a block, each test session tested a different chord type in combination with every other chord type (e.g., augmented vs. minor, augmented vs. major, etc.). As a result, all the pairwise combinations of the five chord types were presented twice within a block.
Figure 3 shows the discrimination of the chords by the four pigeons combined over the 20 total test sessions. The figure displays the mean number of pecks from the all-different chord trials, the probe trials with the alternating chords, and all of the same trials that were constructed from chords. As mentioned, the high peck rates to the all-different chord sequences is not particularly revealing because of the redundant differences in pitch and chord structure in such sequences. More revealing is the difference between the sequences with the alternating chords and the same trials.
The pigeons found the novel pairwise chord trials more challenging. Although the difference in peck rate is considerably reduced, the birds showed peck rate differences between these alternating different and same conditions. These differences were significant for three of the four pigeons over the last six serial presentations. The fourth pigeon showed a smaller difference than the other birds, with the alternating condition being regularly and numerically higher across bins, but statistical tests could identify only a difference that was marginally significant.
Besides the challenges related to item discriminability and any possible emergent AB “sameness” considered earlier, these alternating chord trials potentially contained additional difficulties for the birds. The pigeons never had been specifically trained to discriminate chord structure before, for example. The large and significant drop in peck rate in comparison to the all-different chord trials suggests that the large difference in root pitch among the different chords in that condition probably added a lot to the discrimination. This may even have overshadowed paying attention to the more subtle differences in chord structure as a result. Nonetheless, the pairwise differences between chords were being detected and discriminated. Moreover, this discrimination continued in a context of ongoing differences in the root note or tonal center of the chords from trial to trial. Thus, the pigeons were capable of discriminating based on just the relational differences among the chords. This extends the results of Brooks and Cook (2010) considerably, in which the pigeons did so based on only a single tonal center and with reference to only a single major chord.
Besides establishing for the first time the capacity of pigeons to discriminate chords in a relational context, the pairwise structure of the trials allows one to examine the similarity structure of the chords as experienced by the pigeons. The results found that some chord combinations were consistently easier for the birds to discriminate than others. For instance, alternating trials testing a sus4 chord produced greater peck differences when being compared to an augmented for flat5 chord than a major and minor chord. To better examine the issue of the chords’ relative similarity and its effect on discrimination given all the chord combinations tested, multidimensional scaling techniques were brought to bear on the results.
Multidimensional scaling is a data-reductive process that attempts to reveal the underlying structures within a set of data using a distance matrix. In animals, multidimensional scaling has a history of revealing similarity relations and structures in different types of complex stimuli (e.g., Blough, 1982, 1985; Blough & Blough, 1997; Dooling et al., 1990; Dooling, Okanoya, & Brown, 1989). Our goal was to generate a representation that would reveal the underlying psychological structure of the chords as judged by the pigeons.
For these analyses, we examined the number of pecks over the last four presentations for all the alternating chord trials and same trials over the 20 test sessions. We employed PROXSCAL scaling procedures to examine the average number of pecks for each pairwise combination of chords based on all four pigeons. Given their training, we used the number of pecks as a distance metric of similarity, with low peck rates indicative of “same” perception or high similarity and higher peck rates as indicative of “difference” and greater dissimilarity. We tested a variety of dimensional solutions but found little explanatory benefit for solutions with more than two dimensions.
Shown in Figure 4 is the best-fitting two-dimensional solution. Based on their behavior, the birds seemed sensitive to the frequency composition of the chords as reflected in their tonal structure. Four of the chord types fit into a relatively rectangular structure, with the major chord located internally among them. Although the identities of the underlying dimensions are not provided by the scaling solution, two candidates seem to describe the relations exhibited in this overall pattern. Located on the left side of the figure are the two chords in which the frequency of the third scale note in the triad (minor and sus4) was manipulated, whereas the two chords on the right side involved manipulations of fifth scale note (augmented and flat5) of the triad. Their relative location on the vertical axis seems to correspondingly reflect whether the altered note of each chord was increased or decreased by a half step. Thus, the two chords with the raised third and fifth notes are located toward the top, whereas the two chords with the lowered third and fifth notes are at the bottom.
It is perhaps important that the major was not precisely located in the center of the rectangle. This was true across several solutions and found for each bird. It was more consistently located nearer the sus4 for three of the birds and nearer the minor chord for the last bird. That the location of major chord was not in the center suggests that part of the discrimination of these chords was not just a simple frequency computation. Rather, the major chord’s biased location suggests it had a greater perceived similarity with the minor and sus4 chords. This outcome is consistent to what was observed in the earlier chord study in which the sus4 and minor were the most difficult for the birds to distinguish from the major chord. It is also similar to the judged similarity perception of these chords as reported by humans (Roberts, 1986).
If the major is perceived as most similar to the sus4 and minor, a possible alternative description of the horizontal axis in Figure 3 is one based on the configural concept of chord consonance versus dissonance (see Toro & Crespo-Bojorque in this special issue for more on this general topic). Support for this alternative comes from the generally more consonant chords (major, minor, sus4) clustering toward one side of the dimension, whereas the more dissonant chords (augmented and flat5) cluster toward the other end of the dimension. This interpretation would suggest that the birds perceived the harmony created by the three simultaneous notes within each chord, perhaps a feature of the simpler frequency ratios associated with consonant intervals. Whatever the mechanism, the pigeons seem to hear the major, sus4, and minor chords as being more alike than not. We have now seen this result in two separate studies testing different procedures, root notes, and pigeons.
Despite this configural possibility, the strong structural regularity within the scaling solution suggests that the frequency of the individual notes within triads was also perceived by the pigeons. Besides potentially knowing which notes were altered, they also appeared to know in which direction the note was altered. Humans readily perceive that minor and sus4 sound different from the major, for example, but it is likely that few outside of experienced musicians would recognize that these changes are by-products of half-step alterations of the third of a triad, much less whether this note was being sharpened or flattened. The same would likely apply for augmented and flat5 chords as well. Their dissonance would be readily perceived by most of us, but outside of musicians, few would recognize that this is derived from semitone alterations of the fifth. The pigeons, on the other hand, seem to readily recognize and react to this internal structure as reflected in the separation of the notes in Figure 4. This capacity suggests that the pigeons are sensitive to the individual frequencies composing the chord stimuli. If the pigeons can independently perceive or sample the individual notes, we may need to consider more elemental or featural explanations of their harmonic perception.
D.S. al Coda
The observations just reviewed reveal several new facts about pigeons’ perception of musical chords. One is the important demonstration that pigeons are not dependent on absolute frequency content to make chord discriminations. The four pigeons here were able to make chord-based relational S/D judgments within a trial over an unpredictable range of three octaves and four root notes within each octave. Thus, unlike the pigeons in Brooks and Cook’s (2010) chord discrimination experiment, these birds were more flexible over a broad frequency range with which they had prior experience. This indicates that the harmonic relations of the contrasting notes and intervals within the chords allowed the pigeons to discriminate the auditory sequences using short-term memory to make successive comparisons. This capacity is consistent with their established ability to make S/D discriminations across a wide variety of auditory stimuli (Cook & Brooks, 2009; Cook et al., 2016).
With that said, the pigeons’ discrimination with just two alternating chords did appear to be challenging. Although significantly different from same trial presentations, the differences in peck rates were not large, especially in comparison to other auditory discriminations previously investigated. As already considered, there are potentially many factors that might have directly or indirectly contributed to this difficulty. Future research will need to determine, for example, whether this is a case of chords being difficult material to discriminate or whether the absence of direct training contributed to the relatively poor discrimination of AB presentations of these stimuli caused the reduced peck rate differences. Chord discriminations of various types have not always been easy for all tested individuals of the several bird species that have been examined (Brooks & Cook, 2010; Hoeschele et al., 2012; Hulse, Bernard, & Braaten, 1995; Watanabe, Uozumi, & Tanaka, 2005). In each case, a few individuals of each species failed or had great difficulty in learning the discrimination. Thus, chords may be hard for birds to discriminate potentially because of the considerable similarity in terms of overall frequency content. Of course, of some interest is that not all the chords were equally difficulty to discriminate, with some contrasts supporting better discrimination than others. The scaling results that become available from testing S/D judgments provide some illumination.
The patterns in the scaling results are consistent with the more rudimentary findings of Brooks and Cook. Both studies revealed that the semitone manipulations of the third and fifth notes of the chords were available to the pigeons. The structural regularities in the scaling solution further suggests that the raised and lowered semitones in these different notes of the triads were also likely perceived. So in addition to the suggestion that pigeons configurally process the chord, the pigeons may also have access to the individual spectrum of the frequencies tied to specific notes within each chord. This access to the separate elements of the chords likely resulted in the regular and rectangular scaling of the chords by their third and fifth notes and their directional manipulation. If so, then the three simultaneous notes within each triad present a dilemma to the pigeons in making a S/D judgment. The two shared parts of the chords would have indicated a “same” trial. The first shared component would be the common root note, whereas the second would be the unmanipulated note. Only one note remains, differing by one or two semitones, to differentiate the two chords. As a result, most of the pitch content would be signaling the birds to respond “same,” whereas only a small portion of the content would be signaling “difference.” Thus it might not be too surprising that pigeons showed such a tendency toward “same” responding during the course of the AB probe trials.
Certainly one direction for future research is to look at the combinational and independent effects of pitch. Although our research shows that pigeons possess the ability to hear the harmonic relations among chords that has at least a surface similarity to chord perception in humans, it is not clear there isn’t more involved. We will need to see at a deeper level how the perception of the fundamental frequency of individual pitches and the composite of the entire frequency spectrum are processed by birds. It will be important to determine how these parts and wholes influence their use of relational and absolute frequency information (Hoeschele, this issue; Weisman et al., 2004). There are certainly plenty of open questions regarding how birds produce, process, and use successive and simultaneous pitch information. What has emerged from different lines of experimental work is that our own mammalian experience is not a direct guide as to the avian experience of the acoustic world.
From the current S/D research, it is pretty clear that pigeons can discriminate, remember, and compare auditory sequences at least over several seconds. These sequences can vary in both sequential and harmonic pitch content, including musical triads. Given this information, we could hypothesize that pigeons can hear a simple “melody” of notes over several seconds. These results further indicate that the capacity for vocal learning is not particularly critical to being able to hear and compare temporally extended complex auditory stimuli. Pigeons seem readily able to do that. More consistent with Patel’s original hypothesis regarding the role of vocal learning in beat induction, we have found little evidence that pigeons are particularly good at complex rhythm perception (Hagmann & Cook, 2010). Our recent excursions into auditory processing and cognition in pigeons has revealed their acoustic world to be more complex than previously assumed. It remains an open question as to whether pigeons can experience the musicality of human music. On the latter point, however, we find ourselves beginning to agree with Stravinsky—“To listen is an effort and just to hear is no merit. A duck hears also.” Although we have found that pigeons have many of the auditory capabilities needed to hear the fundamental elements of music, we increasingly suspect the latter may be beyond their cognitive grasp.
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) inspected your drug manufacturing facility, Wilson Medicine Company at Plot 24, S 361-364 Nandore, Palghar East, Maharashtra from February 26 to March 1, 2018.
We reviewed your March 16, 2018, response in detail.
1. Your firm failed to establish written procedures for production and process control designed to assure that the drug products you manufacture have the identity, strength, quality, and purity they purport or are represented to possess (21 CFR 211.100(a)).
You failed to conduct process performance qualification for your (b)(4) and (b)(4) over-the-counter (OTC) drug products. You did not demonstrate that your manufacturing processes are reproducible and controlled to consistently yield drugs of uniform character and quality. You also have not conducted equipment qualification.
In your response, you stated that you will prepare protocols for your manufacturing process validation and equipment qualification.
Your response is inadequate because you failed to provide a detailed process performance qualification protocol and an overall program for assuring ongoing maintenance of a validated process.
In response to this letter, provide your validation and equipment qualification protocols, and reports with timelines for completion for all drug products distributed to the U.S. market. Also include a detailed summary of your approach for routinely monitoring intra- and inter-batch variation to ensure an ongoing state of control.
See FDA’s guidance document, Process Validation: General Principles and Practices, for approaches that FDA considers appropriate elements of process validation, at http://www.fda.gov/downloads/Drugs/.../Guidances/UCM070336.pdf.
Analytical test methods that you used to determine acceptability of your drug products prior to release for distribution are not validated (or verified, for USP compendial methods.) These methods include, but are not limited to, assay, limit of nonvolatile residue, limit of preservative, and specific gravity.
Your response acknowledges that you lack adequate validation and verification studies. Although you committed to prepare an analytical method validation protocol by May 20, 2018, you did not specify a timeframe to complete method validation/verification or provide an interim plan of action.
See United States Pharmacopeia (USP), General Chapter <1225>, Validation of Compendial Procedures and USP, General Chapter <1226>, Verification of Compendial Procedures for typical performance characteristics that should be considered for validation and verification of analytical test methods.
An independent assessment of all test methods used by your firm to ensure they have appropriate instructions, method suitability criteria, and appropriate validation (or verification, for USP compendial methods) to determine whether they are fit for purpose.
A summary of test results obtained from testing retain samples of all drug products within expiry. You should test all appropriate quality attributes including, but not limited to, identity, strength, and purity of active ingredients and finished drug products. If your testing for any previously released batch yields any out-of-specification results, indicate the corrective actions you will take, including notifying customers and initiating recalls.
3. Your firm failed to establish and follow written procedures for cleaning and maintenance of equipment (21 CFR 211.67(b)).
You have not conducted cleaning validation studies to demonstrate that your cleaning procedures for non-dedicated production equipment are adequate to prevent potential cross-contamination between the drug products manufactured at your facility.
In your response, you stated that you will prepare a cleaning validation protocol for your manufacturing equipment. However, you failed to provide a timeframe to complete your cleaning validation, and your plan to ensure that equipment is adequately cleaned in the interim.
Your updated cleaning validationprotocol and subsequent reportfor all equipment used in the manufacture of your drugs, including results to show whether results meet established acceptance criteria. Also include updated procedures for equipment cleaning and maintenance, and details on how you will effectively train employees.
A comprehensive, independent review of your facility to identify factors that present potential risks of cross-contamination of products manufactured at your facility. Include an assessment of the suitability of your facility design to prevent cross-contamination, with an evaluation of your equipment, materials, personnel, and waste flows. Include a detailed CAPA plan with systemic remediation and timelines of improvements to your cross-contamination control strategy.
Based upon the nature of the violations we identified at your firm, we strongly recommend engaging a consultant, qualified as set forth in 21 CFR 211.34, to evaluate your operations and assist your firm in meeting CGMP requirements. We also recommend that the qualified third party perform a comprehensive audit of your entire operation for CGMP compliance, and evaluate the completion and effectiveness of any CAPA you have implemented.
Your use of a consultant does not relieve your firm’s obligation to comply with CGMP. Your firm’s executive management remains responsible for fully resolving all violations and ensuring ongoing CGMP compliance.
Failure to correct these violations may also result in FDA continuing to refuse admission of articles manufactured at Wilson Medicine Company at Plot 24, S 361-364 Nandore, Palghar East, Maharashtra, into the United States under section 801(a)(3) of the FD&C Act, 21 U.S.C. 381(a)(3). Under the same authority, articles may be subject to refusal of admission, in that the methods and controls used in their manufacture do not appear to conform to CGMP within the meaning of section 501(a)(2)(B) of the FD&C Act, 21 U.S.C. 351(a)(2)(B).
Please identify your response with FEI 3004974700. | https://www.fda.gov/ICECI/EnforcementActions/WarningLetters/ucm621038.htm |
SolarWinds Hack: Further Recommendations For Enterprises
Attacks targeting supply chains are some of the most complicated to mitigate against because usually the threat actors penetrate the environment and tamper with the company’s continuous integration processes, including digital trust and delivery of compromised software updates. Here are our recommended responses related to the recent SolarWinds hack:
Recommended Responses
The first step security professionals should take is find out to what extent their infrastructure is affected. SolarWinds posted instructions for determining which version of the Orion product you might have running.
Vulnerable versions:
- SolarWinds Orion Platform versions 2019.4 HF 5 through 2020.2 HF 1
- SolarWinds Orion Platform versions prior to 2019.4 HF 6
- SolarWinds Orion Platform versions prior to 2020.2.1 HF 2
If you are able to, check any internet web proxy, DNS proxy, or firewall logs for connections to the legitimate Solarwinds update site of downloads.solarwinds.com. This may help in identifying possible Orion Suite products. (Note, this will likely identify any SolarWinds products, not just the Orion Suite).
We then recommending saving an image of operating systems and system memory for each case where a vulnerable SolarWinds product was running, analyse for new user or service accounts, and inspect stored network traffic for indicators of compromise. Further recommendations from CISA https://cyber.dhs.gov/ed/21-01/
FireEye has also posted lists of indicators of compromise and shared a GitHub repository of free countermeasures.
The next step is to remove, upgrade, or isolate the affected SolarWinds Orion systems. CISA recommends complete removal, while SolarWinds recommends upgrading and patching. In those instances where an upgrade or patch is not immediately feasible, SolarWinds recommends isolating the system as much as possible.
Recommendations include running Orion behind a firewall, disabling its internet access, and limiting ports and connections to only those that are absolutely necessary.
Next, enterprises need to remove all compromised user accounts and communication channels, including shutting down all access to known compromised domains and IP addresses.
All credentials that the SolarWinds systems had access to should be reset, as well as all privileged accounts and authentication keys and tokens.
Sophos put out an extremely detailed incident response playbook for the SolarWinds compromise and has been continuously updating it as new information becomes available.
After the cleanup is completed, organisations can restore systems to a last known good state or reinstall from trusted sources.
Microsoft has also released a detailed SolarWinds response advisory.
For the future
To help businesses strengthen resiliency against supply chain attacks, our security team recommends the following:
- Conduct risk assessments to identify potential security gaps and weaknesses across your entire supply chain.
- For organisations that develop software, implement software procedures that require validation through multiple reviews before new code reaches production.
- For organisations with production software environments as part of their core business, incorporate periodic security testing that looks for anomalous processes and network traffic behaviours in addition to classic application bugs.
Smarttech247 will continue to support our customers, partners and the security community the best we can from threat actors who work tirelessly to steal data, extort and cause harm. | https://www.smarttech247.com/news/solarwinds-hack-further-recommendations-for-enterprises/ |
In functional data analysis, it is often of interest to discover a general common pattern, or shape, of the function. When the subject-specific amplitude and phase variation of data are not of interest, curve registration can be used to separate the variation from the data. Shape-invariant models (SIM), one of the registration methods, aim to estimate the unknown shared-shape function. However, the use of SIM and of general registration methods assumes that all curves have the shared-shape in common and does not consider the existence of outliers, such as a curve, whose shape is inconsistent with the remainder of the data. Therefore, we propose using the t distribution to robustify SIMs, allowing outliers of amplitude, phase, and other errors. Our SIM can identify and classify the three types of outliers mentioned above. We use simulation and an empirical data set to evaluate the performance of our robust SIM. | https://okayama.pure.elsevier.com/en/publications/robust-curve-registration-using-the-t-distribution |
Position Summary: OICA is seeking a Data Analyst to assist with evaluating and measuring goals and outcomes for our SOAR Reentry Programs. This individual will be responsible for collecting, analyzing, and presenting SOAR program data for internal and external projects, and providing technical assistance to program partners on data tools. The analyst will monitor and ensure data fidelity in the funder’s and OICA’s database systems. This role will also assist with the managing and maintenance of all database infrastructure used to advance the SOAR program and the organization.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities:
Manage OICA’s in-house case management and data collection system
Collect and enter data into the federal and OICA in-house database systems
Maintain data quality through data aggregation and data validation
Communicate and follow up with program sites regarding needed data corrections
Train program staff on usage of database systems
Evaluate data quality. Identify data outliers and anomalies that require resolution prior to analysis.
Conduct survey research, quantitative and/or qualitative data analysis, and assist with writing and presentation of reports to internal and external stakeholders
Advise on development and customization of program activity tracking technology solutions
Perform thorough analyses of data and produce reports that include statistical, narrative, tables, and graphic components as appropriate
Assist with writing and preparation of impact evaluations and develop progress reports (monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, and annual), for OICA leadership and the program funder
Contribute to drafting memos, reports, case studies, and presentations
Work closely with program staff to ensure project milestones (internal as well as external) are met
Support collection and documentation of success stories and lessons learned; keep current with relevant professional standards trends and issues
Perform literature and web searches, summaries and reviews in support of the SOAR program
Conduct other duties as assigned
Minimum Qualifications: | https://www.philadelphiareentrycoalition.org/single-post/oic-of-america-looking-to-hire-data-analyst |
Note: This document is reference material for investigators and other FDA personnel. The document does not bind FDA, and does no confer any rights, privileges, benefits, or immunities for or on any person(s).
I. PURPOSE
The purpose of this guide is to provide field investigators, who are familiar with the provisions of the Current Good Manufacturing Practice (CGMP) regulations for pharmaceuticals, with guidance on inspecting selected facets of topical drug product production. The subjects covered in the guide are generally applicable to all forms of topical drug products, including those that are intended to be sterile. However, this guide does not address every problem area that the investigator may encounter, nor every policy that pertains to topical drug products.
II. INTRODUCTION
This inspectional guide addresses several problem areas that may be encountered in the production of topical drug products potency, active ingredient uniformity, physical characteristics, microbial purity and chemical purity. The guide also addresses problems relating to the growing number of transdermal products. If a new drug pre-approval inspection is being conducted, then an examination of the filed manufacturing and control data, and correspondence should be accomplished early in the inspection. As with other pre-approval inspections, the manufacturing and controls information filed in the relevant application should be compared with the data used for clinical batches and for production (validation) batches. Filed production control data should be specific and complete.
III. POTENCY UNIFORMITY
Active ingredient solubility and particle size are generally important ingredient characteristics that need to be controlled to assure potency uniformity in many topical drug products such as emulsions, creams and ointments. Crystalline form is also important where the active ingredient is dispersed as a solid phase in either the oil or water phase of an emulsion, cream, or ointment.
It is important that active ingredient solubility in the carrier vehicle be known and quantified at the manufacturing step in which the ingredient is added to the liquid phase. The inspection should determine if the manufacturer has data on such solubility and how that data was considered by the firm in validating the process.
Substances which are very soluble, as is frequently the case with ointments, would be expected to present less of a problem than if the drug substance were to be suspended, as is the case with creams. If the drug substance is soluble, then potency uniformity would be based largely upon adequate distribution of the component throughout the mix.
If the active ingredient is insoluble in the vehicle, then in addition to assuring uniformity of distribution in the mix, potency uniformity depends upon control of particle size, and use of a validated mixing process. Particle size can also affect the activity of the drug substance because the smaller the particle size the greater its surface area, which may influence its activity. Particle size also affects the degree to which the product may be physically irritating when applied; generally, smaller particles are less irritating.
Production controls should be implemented that account for the solubility characteristics of the drug substance; inadequate controls can adversely affect product potency, efficacy and safety. For example, in one instance, residual water remaining in the manufacturing vessel, used to produce an ophthalmic ointment, resulted in partial solubilization and subsequent recrystallization of the drug substance; the substance recrystallized in a larger particle size than expected and thereby raised questions about the product efficacy.
In addition to ingredient solubility/particle size, the inspection should include a review of other physical characteristics and specifications for both ingredients and finished products.
IV. EQUIPMENT AND PRODUCTION CONTROL
Mixers
There are many different kinds of mixers used in the manufacture of topical products. It is important that the design of a given mixer is appropriate for the type of topical product being mixed. One important aspect of mixer design is how well the internal walls of the mixer are scraped during the mixing process. This can present some problems with stainless steel mixers because scraper blades should be flexible enough to remove interior material, yet not rigid enough to damage the mixer itself. Generally, good design of a stainless steel mixer includes blades which are made of some hard plastic, such as teflon, which facilitates scrapping of the mixer walls without damaging the mixer.
If the internal walls of the mixer are not adequately scraped during mixing, and the residual material becomes part of the batch, the result may be non-uniformity. Such non-uniformity may occur, for example, if operators use hand held spatulas to scrape the walls of the mixer.
Another mixer design concern is the presence of "dead spots" where quantities of the formula are stationary and not subject to mixing. Where such "dead spots" exist, there should be adequate procedures for recirculation or non-use of the cream or ointment removed from the dead spots in the tank.
Ideally, during the inspection, mixers should be observed under operating conditions.
Filling and Packaging
Suspension products often require constant mixing of the bulk suspension during filling to maintain uniformity. When inspecting a suspension manufacturing process determine how the firm assures that the product remains homogeneous during the filling process and audit the data that supports the adequacy of the firm's process. When the batch size is large and the bulk suspension is in large tanks, determine how the firm deals with low levels of bulk suspension near the end of the filling process. Does the bulk suspension drop below a level where it can be adequately mixed? Is residual material transferred to a smaller tank? Does the firm rely upon hand mixing of the residual material? The firm should have demonstrated the adequacy of the process for dealing with residual material.
Process Temperature Control
Typically, heat is applied in the manufacture of topicals to facilitate mixing and/or filling operations. Heat may also be generated by the action of high energy mixers. It is important to control the temperature within specified parameters, not only to facilitate those operations, but also to assure that product stability is not adversely affected. Excessive temperatures may cause physical and/or chemical degradation of the drug product, vehicle, the active ingredient(s), and/or preservatives. Furthermore, excessive temperatures may cause insoluble ingredients to dissolve, reprecipitate, or change particle size or crystalline form.
Temperature control is also important where microbial quality of the product is a concern. The processing of topicals at higher temperatures can destroy some of the objectionable microorganisms that may be present. However, elevated temperatures may also promote incubation of microorganisms.
Temperature uniformity within a mixer should be controlled. In addressing temperature uniformity, firms should consider the complex interaction among vat size, mixer speed, blade design, viscosity of the contents and the rate of heat transfer. Where temperature control is critical, use of recording thermometers to continuously monitor/document temperature measurements is preferred to frequent manual checks. Where temperature control is not critical, it may be adequate to manually monitor/document temperatures periodically by use of hand held thermometers.
V. CLEANING VALIDATION
It is CGMP for a manufacturer to establish and follow written SOPs to clean production equipment in a manner that precludes contamination of current and future batches. This is especially critical where contamination may present direct safety concerns, as with a potent drug, such as a steroid (e.g., cortisone, and estrogen), antibiotic, or a sulfa drug where there are hypersensitivity concerns.
The insolubility of some excipients and active substances used in the manufacture of topicals makes some equipment, such as mixing vessels, pipes and plastic hoses, difficult to clean. Often, piping and transfer lines are inaccessible to direct physical cleaning. Some firms address this problem by dedicating lines and hoses to specific products or product classes.
It is therefore important that the following considerations be adequately addressed in a firm's cleaning validation protocol and in the procedures that are established for production batches.
Detailed Cleaning Procedures
Cleaning procedures should be detailed and provide specific understandable instructions. The procedure should identify equipment, cleaning method(s), solvents/detergents approved for use, inspection/release mechanisms, and documentation. For some of the more complex systems, such as clean-in-place (CIP) systems, it is usually necessary to provide a level of detail that includes drawings, and provision to label valves. The time that may elapse from completion of a manufacturing operation to initiation of equipment cleaning should also be stated where excessive delay may affect the adequacy of the established cleaning procedure. For example, residual product may dry and become more difficult to clean.
Sampling Plan For Contaminants
As part of the validation of the cleaning method, the cleaned surface is sampled for the presence of residues. Sampling should be by an appropriate method, selected based on factors such as equipment and solubility of residues. For example, representative swabbing of surfaces is often used, especially in hard to clean areas and/or where the residue is relatively insoluble. Analysis of rinse solutions for residues has also been shown to be of value where the residue is soluble and/or difficult to access for direct swabbing. Both methods are useful when there is a direct measurement of the residual substance. However, it is unacceptable to test rinse solutions (such as purified water) for conformance to the purity specifications for those solutions, instead of testing directly for the presence of possible residues.
Equipment Residue Limits
Because of improved technology, analytical methods are becoming much more sensitive and capable of determining very low levels of residues. Thus, it is important that a firm establish appropriate limits on levels of post-equipment cleaning residues. Such limits must be safe, practical, achievable, verifiable and must ensure that residues remaining in the equipment will not cause the quality of subsequent batches to be altered beyond established product specifications. During inspections, the rationale for residue limits should be reviewed.
Because surface residues will not be uniform, it should be recognized that a detected residue level may not represent the maximum amount that may be present. This is particularly true when surface sampling by swabs is performed on equipment.
VI. MICROBIOLOGICAL
CONTROLS (NON-STERILE TOPICALS)
The extent of microbiological controls needed for a given topical product will depend upon the nature of the product, the use of the product, and the potential hazard to users posed by microbial contamination. This concept is reflected in the Current Good Manufacturing (CGMP) regulations at 21 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 211.113(a) (Control of microbiological contamination), and in the U.S. Pharmacopeia (USP). It is therefore vital that manufacturers assess the health hazard of all organisms isolated from the product.
Deionized Water Systems For Purified Water
Inspectional coverage should extend to microbiological control of deionized water systems used to produce purified water. Deionizers are usually excellent breeding areas for microorganisms. The microbial population tends to increase as the length of time between deionizer service periods increases. Other factors which influence microbial growth include flow rates, temperature, surface area of resin beds and, of course, the microbial quality of the feed water. These factors should be considered in assessing the suitability of deionizing systems where microbial integrity of the product incorporating the purified water is significant. From this assessment, a firm should be able to design a suitable routine water monitoring program and a program of other controls as necessary.
It would be inappropriate for a firm to assess and monitor the suitability of a deionizer by relying solely upon representations of the deionizer manufacturer. Specifically, product quality could be compromised if a firm had a deionizer serviced at intervals based not on validation studies, but rather on the "recharge" indicator built into the unit. Unfortunately, such indicators are not triggered by microbial population, but rather they are typically triggered by measures of electrical conductivity or resistance. If a unit is infrequently used, sufficient time could elapse between recharging/sanitizing to allow the microbial population to increase significantly.
Pre-use validation of deionizing systems used to produce purified water should include consideration of such factors as microbial quality of feed water (and residual chlorine levels of feed water where applicable), surface area of ion-exchange resin beds, temperature range of water during processing, operational range of flow rates, recirculation systems to minimize intermittent use and low flow, frequency of use, quality of regenerant chemicals, and frequency and method of sanitization.
A monitoring program used to control deionizing systems should include established water quality and conductivity monitoring intervals, measurement of conditions and quality at significant stages through the deionizer (influent, post cation, post anion, post mixed-bed, etc.), microbial conditions of the bed, and specific methods of microbial testing. Frequency of monitoring should be based upon the firm's experience with the systems.
Other methods of controlling deionizing systems include establishment of water quality specifications and corresponding action levels, remedial action when microbial levels are exceeded, documentation of regeneration and a description of sanitization/ sterilization procedures for piping, filters, etc..
Microbiological Specifications and Test Methods
During inspections it is important to audit the microbiological specifications and microbial test methods used for each topical product to assure that they are consistent with any described in the relevant application, or U.S.P.. It is often helpful for the inspection to include an FDA microbiologist.
Generally, product specifications should cover the total number of organisms permitted, as well as specific organisms that must not be present. These specifications must be based on use of specified sampling and analytical procedures. Where appropriate, the specifications should describe action levels where additional sampling and/or speciation of organisms is necessary.
Manufacturers must demonstrate that the test methods and specifications are appropriate for their intended purpose. Where possible, firms should utilize methods that isolate and identify organisms that may present a hazard to the user under the intended use. It should be noted that the USP does not state methods that are specific for water insoluble topical products.
One test deficiency to be aware of during inspections is inadequate dispersement of a cream or ointment on microbial test plates. Firms may claim to follow USP procedures, yet in actual practice may not disperse product over the test plate, resulting in inhibited growth due to concentrated preservative in the non- dispersed inoculate. The spread technique is critical and the firm should have documentation that the personnel performing the technique have been adequately trained and are capable of performing the task. Validation of the spread plate technique is particularly important where the product has a potential antimicrobial affect.
In assessing the significance of microbial contamination of a topical product, both the identification of the isolated organisms and the number of organisms found are significant. For example, the presence of a high number of organisms may indicate that the manufacturing process, component quality, and/or container integrity may be deficient. Although high numbers of non-pathogenic organisms may not pose a health hazard, they may affect product efficacy and/or physical/chemical stability. Inconsistent batch to batch microbial levels may indicate some process or control failure in the batch. The batch release evaluation should extend to both organism identification and numbers and, if limits are exceeded, there should be an investigation into the cause.
Preservative Activity
Manufacturing controls necessary to maintain the anti- microbiological effectiveness of preservatives should be evaluated by the firm. For example, For those products that separate on standing, the firm should have data that show the continued effectiveness of the preservative throughout the product's shelf-life.
For preservative-containing products, finished product testing must ensure that the specified level of preservative is present prior to release. In addition, preservative effectiveness must be monitored as part of the final on-going stability program. This can be accomplished through analysis for the level of preservative previously shown to be effective and/or through appropriate microbiological challenge at testing intervals.
For concepts relating to sterility assurance and bioburden controls on the manufacture of sterile topicals see the Guideline On Sterile Drug Products Produced by Aseptic Processing.
VII. CHANGE CONTROL
As with other dosage forms, it is important for the firm to carefully control how changes are made in the production of topical products. Firms should be able to support changes which represent departures from approved and validated manufacturing processes.
Firms should have written change control procedures that have been reviewed and approved by the quality control unit. The procedures should provide for full description of the proposed change, the purpose of the change, and controls to assure that the change will not adversely alter product safety and efficacy. Factors to consider include potency and/or bioactivity, uniformity, particle size (if the active ingredient is suspended), viscosity, chemical and physical stability, and microbiological quality.
Of particular concern are the effects that formulation and process changes may have on the therapeutic activity and uniformity of the product. For example, changes in vehicle can affect absorption, and processing changes can alter the solubility and microbiological quality of the product.
VIII. TRANSDERMAL TOPICAL PRODUCTS
Inspections of topical transdermal products (patches) have identified many problems in scale-up and validation. Problems analogous to production of topical creams or ointments include uniformity of the drug substance and particle size in the bulk gel or ointment. Uniformity and particle size are particularly significant where the drug substance is suspended or partially suspended in the vehicle. Viscosity also needs control because it can affect the absorption of the drug; the dissolution test is important in this regard.
Other areas that need special inspectional attention are assembly and packaging of the patch, including adhesion, package integrity (regarding pinholes) and controls to assure that a dose is present in each unit.
Because of the many quality parameters that must be considered in the manufacture and control of a transdermal dosage form, scale- up may be considerably more difficult than for many other dosage forms. Therefore, special attention should be given to evaluating the adequacy of the process validation efforts. As with other dosage forms, process validation must be based on multiple lots, typically at least three consecutive successful batches. Inspection of summary data should be augmented by comparison to selected data contained in supporting batch records, particularly where the data appear unusually uniform or disparate. Given the complexities associated with this dosage form, you may encounter tolerances and/or variances broader than for other dosage forms. In addition, batches may not be entirely problem-free. Nevertheless, the firm should have adequate rationale for the tolerances and production experiences, based on appropriate developmental efforts and investigation of problems.
IX. OTHER REFERENCES
Other relevant inspection guides that should be used in conjunction with this guide include:
- Guide to Inspections of Validation of Cleaning Processes. | https://www.fda.gov/inspections-compliance-enforcement-and-criminal-investigations/inspection-guides/topical-drug-products-794 |
My favorite places at Rutland County Humane Society (RCHS) are the cat rooms. I truly enjoy watching the comings and goings, the different personalities, and the fights and love fests as boundaries are tested and friends are made. Offering Reiki in a room with many cats can be challenging with these distractions and it is important to maintain focus during a session.
Before cats get to the cat room at RCHS they are held in kennels in the intake room. Here they are kept from the general population as their health is checked out or they await spay/neuter appointments. The cats in this room are both surrenders and strays. Usually, there is a mix with a maximum of about 15 cats. Cats are in varying degrees of stress in this room; many times they are hiding in a box or behind a towel draped over the front of the cage.
As much as I enjoy the cat rooms with their freedom to move around, I love offering Reiki in the intake room! Often, these cats are very frightened and Reiki is very soothing for them. It is also soothing for me. I find that I can go to a deeper place in this room as I don’t have cats jumping on and off my lap or worse–a cat fight!
Recently, I sat in the intake room. All the kennels were full. One had a towel over the door and I couldn’t see inside. One kennel had a box which appeared to hold a cat. Several cats were meowing and moving around in agitation. One was pushing against the cage front creating a loud rattling noise.
I like to visit each cat individually to say hello if they aren’t shy. After doing that, I sat on the other side of the room and began breathing deeply. When I felt centered, I spoke quietly without looking directly at any of the cats. After letting them know what I was up to and telling them they didn’t have to participate, I began.
Almost immediately, the room began to settle down. I waited a bit and then checked in discreetly. Some cats had gone to the back of their kennel; some came up front and were staring at me; others were dozing. The sound of many cats purring has a sedative effect on me and I found myself going deeper into my meditation. After about twenty minutes I looked up. I could see two cats were behind the towel. They were peeking around the edge. I could see one eye and one ear on each! Next door, the cat from the box had come out and was eating!
Most likely, I will meet these cats again in the general population. Often, cats who received Reiki in intake come right over and jump in my lap in the cat room. | http://shelteranimalreikiassociation.org/reiki-in-the-cat-intake-room/ |
Objective—To determine the time and financial costs of programs for live trapping feral cats and determine whether allowing cats to become acclimated to the traps improved trapping effectiveness.
Design—Prospective cohort study.
Animals—107 feral cats in 9 colonies.
Procedure—15 traps were set at each colony for 5 consecutive nights, and 5 traps were then set per night until trapping was complete. In 4 colonies, traps were immediately baited and set; in the remaining 5 colonies, traps were left open and cats were fed in the traps for 3 days prior to the initiation of trapping. Costs for bait and labor were calculated, and trapping effort and efficiency were assessed.
Results—Mean ± SD overall trapping effort (ie, number of trap-nights until at least 90% of the cats in the colony had been captured or until no more than 1 cat remained untrapped) was 8.9 ± 3.9 trap-nights per cat captured. Mean overall trapping efficiency (ie, percentage of cats captured per colony) was 98.0 ± 4.0%. There were no significant differences in trapping effort or efficiency between colonies that were provided an acclimation period and colonies that were not. Overall trapping costs were significantly higher for colonies provided an acclimation period.
Conclusions and Clinical Relevance—Results suggest that these live-trapping protocols were effective. Feeding cats their regular diets in the traps for 3 days prior to the initiation of trapping did not have a significant effect on trapping effort or efficiency in the present study but was associated with significant increases in trapping costs. (J Am Vet Med Assoc 2004;225:1403–1405)
Abstract
Objective—To determine reproductive capacity of naturally breeding free-roaming domestic cats and kitten survival rate.
Design—Prospective cohort and retrospective crosssectional study.
Animals—2,332 female cats brought to a trap-neuterreturn clinic for neutering and 71 female cats and 171 kittens comprising 50 litters from a cohort study of feral cats in managed colonies.
Procedure—Data collected for all cats included pregnancy, lactation, and estrus status and number of fetuses for pregnant cats. Additional data collected for feral cats in managed colonies included numbers of litters per year and kittens per litter, date of birth, kitten survival rate, and causes of death.
Results—Pregnant cats were observed in all months of the year, but the percentage of cats found to be pregnant was highest in March, April, and May. Cats produced a mean of 1.4 litters/y, with a median of 3 kittens/litter (range, 1 to 6). Overall, 127 of 169 (75%) kittens died or disappeared before 6 months of age. Trauma was the most common cause of death.
Conclusions and Clinical Relevance—Results illustrate the high reproductive capacity of free-roaming domestic cats. Realistic estimates of the reproductive capacity of female cats may be useful in assessing the effectiveness of population control strategies. (J Am Vet Med Assoc 2004;225:1399–1402)
Abstract
Objective—To compare seroprevalences of antibodies against Bartonella henselae and Toxoplasma gondii and fecal shedding of Cryptosporidium spp, Giardia spp, and Toxocara cati in feral and pet domestic cats.
Design—Prospective cross-sectional serologic and coprologic survey.
Animals—100 feral cats and 76 pet domestic cats from Randolph County, NC.
Procedure—Blood and fecal samples were collected and tested.
Results—Percentages of feral cats seropositive for antibodies against B henselae and T gondii (93% and 63%, respectively) were significantly higher than percentages of pet cats (75% and 34%). Percentages of feral and pet cats with Cryptosporidium spp (7% of feral cats; 6% of pet cats), Giardia spp (6% of feral cats; 5% of pet cats), and T cati ova (21% of feral cats; 18% of pet cats) in their feces were not significantly different between populations. Results of CBCs and serum biochemical analyses were not significantly different between feral and pet cats, except that feral cats had a significantly lower median PCV and significantly higher median neutrophil count.
Conclusions and Clinical Relevance—Results suggested that feral and pet cats had similar baseline health status, as reflected by results of hematologic and serum biochemical testing and similar prevalences of infection with Cryptosporidium spp, Giardia spp, and T cati. Feral cats did have higher seroprevalences of antibodies against B henselae and T gondii than did pet cats, but this likely was related to greater exposure to vectors of these organisms. (J Am Vet Med Assoc 2004;225:1394–1398)
Abstract
Objective—To characterize clinical features of avian vacuolar myelinopathy (AVM) in American coots.
Design—Case-control study.
Animals—26 AVM-affected American coots and 12 unaffected coots.
Procedures—Complete physical, neurologic, hematologic, and plasma biochemical evaluations were performed. Affected coots received supportive care. All coots died or were euthanatized, and AVM status was confirmed via histopathologic findings.
Results—3 severely affected coots were euthanatized immediately after examination. Seventeen affected coots were found dead within 7 days of admission, but 5 affected coots survived > 21 days and had signs of clinical recovery. Abnormal physical examination findings appeared to be related to general debilitation. Ataxia (88%), decreased withdrawal reflexes (88%), proprioceptive deficits (81%), decreased vent responses (69%), beak or tongue weakness (42%), and head tremors (31%), as well as absent pupillary light responses (46%), anisocoria (15%), apparent blindness (4%), nystagmus (4%), and strabismus (4%) were detected. Few gross abnormalities were detected at necropsy, but histologically, all AVM-affected coots had severe vacuolation of white matter of the brain. None of the control coots had vacuolation.
Conclusions and Clinical Relevance—Although there was considerable variability in form and severity of clinical neurologic abnormalities, clinical signs common in AVM-affected birds were identified. Clinical recovery of some AVM-affected coots can occur when supportive care is administered. Until the etiology is identified, caution should be exercised when rehabilitating and releasing coots thought to be affected by AVM. (J Am Vet Med Assoc 2002;221: 80–85)
Abstract
OBJECTIVE
To determine (1) if chemokine (C-X-C motif) ligand 1 (CXCL1), matrix metalloproteinase 8 (MMP8), interleukin-10 (IL-10), interferon-γ (IFN-γ), and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) can be detected in serum from Asian elephants, and (2) if their concentrations are significantly elevated in Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M.tb) culture–positive elephants compared to –negative elephants. CXCL1, MMP8, IL-10, IFN-γ, and TNF-α were recently identified as potential diagnostic biomarkers for pulmonary tuberculosis in experimental studies in animals and humans. Therefore, we hypothesized that they would be detectable and significantly elevated in M.tb culture–positive elephants compared to M.tb culture–negative elephants.
SAMPLE
101 Asian elephant serum samples, including 91 samples from 6 M.tb-negative elephants and 10 samples from 5 M.tb-positive elephants (none of which exhibited clinical signs of disease). M.tb status was determined by trunk wash culture.
PROCEDURES
Commercially available ELISA kits were used to determine the concentrations of each biomarker in serum samples.
RESULTS
Biomarker concentrations were below the limit of detection for the assay in 100/101 (99%) samples for CXCL1, 98/101 (97%) samples for MMP8, 85/101 (84%) samples for IL-10, 75/101 (74%) samples for IFN-γ, and 45/101 (45%) samples for TNF-α. Multiple M.tb culture–positive elephants did not have detectable levels of any of the 5 biomarkers.
CLINICAL RELEVANCE
CXCL1, MMP8, IL-10, IFN-γ, and TNF-α were not elevated in M.tb culture–positive Asian elephants compared to M.tb culture–negative Asian elephants. This may be related to disease state (ie, clinically asymptomatic). More sensitive assays are needed to better understand the role of these biomarkers in M.tb infection in Asian elephants. | https://avmajournals.avma.org/search?f_0=author&q_0=Felicia+B.+Nutter |
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Feral Cats in Australia Introduction and Background Information Cats, felis catus, have been kept as pets for their companionship and their talent for hunting vermin. Cats have dwelt in Australia for at least two hundred years, since the first European settlement in 1788. However the Aboriginal people claim that cats have been on the continent for longer. Some have suggested that traders first brought cats to Australia five hundred years ago from Indonesia and other south-east Asian countries. The late 1850s recorded the establishment of feral cat colonies.
During the late 1800s, cats were deliberately released into the wild to manage introduced species such as rabbits, mice and rats. (Department of Environment and Heritage, Aust. Govt. 2004, ABC 2009) Feral cats are lost or abandoned domestic cats that have become undomesticated after being separated from society and human interaction. It is estimated that there are approximately 12 million feral cats in Australia. Feral cats are found throughout Australia from the tropics to the harsh Australian outback.
Feral cats prefer open dry habitats such as grasslands to closed forests and are rarely found in wet rainforest areas such as Daintree in tropical Queensland. Cats are territorial creatures and will often defend their territory. However feral cats do roam around in search of food. (Department of Environment and Heritage, Aust. Govt. 2004, Native Animal Network Association, Weir, Leanne 1994,) Hunting Behaviours Cats are primarily nocturnal animals. Feral cats prefer to conserve their energy during the day and to hunt at night. Cats are natural hunters.
Females often teach their kittens how and what to hunt. Even when cats are satiated, cats will hunt for pleasure and sport rather than to consume their prey. Their acute vision helps them to identify their prey. They are also sensitive to sound and can detect the slightest movement of their prey. Their retractable claws allow cats to climb high places such as trees to acquire their quarry. Cats also possess the gift of agility and speed and are stealthy while hunting. Cats necessitate large quantities of live animals to survive successfully. Insufficient diet can regulate the survival rate of the cats.
However, cats also eat carrion if fresh meat is not available. (ASPCA 2009, Department of Environment and Heritage, Aust. Govt. 2004) Breeding Cats breed approximately twice a year usually between the months of September and March. Each litter consist typically of four kittens. However, many feral kittens do not survive as they have predators such as the wedge-tailed eagle. Success of the feral cat and the affect on Wildlife Feral cats are carnivorous creatures. Apart from rabbits, mice and rats, their diet includes native birds, reptiles, insects, fish and amphibians.
In Roxby Downs, the stomach contents of a feral cat revealed that the cat had eaten twenty four painted dragons, three bearded dragons, two earless dragons, three stripped skinks, one mouse and one zebra finch within twenty four hours. Feral cats thrive in harsh arid environments, as they do not need water to survive; instead these cats survive on the moisture of their prey. They have adapted to their environment over time making them more successful at survival. For instance desert cats are often a brown or orange to help them blend in with the environment and in doing so are more effective hunters. Australian Broadcasting Corporation 2002) Feral cats often compete with other predators such as dingos and foxes and predatory birds for food and shelter. However there is a low rate of competition and so the population of feral cats have grown. (Department of Environment and Heritage, Aust. Govt. 2004) Problems for Australian Wildlife Evidence has shown that feral cats have contributed to the decline and extinction of many Australian animals. In New South Wales, feral cats have contributed to the decline of small native animals and ground dwelling birds.
Feral cats have also jeopardised recovery programs to reintroduce endangered species such as the mala and the bilby, back into the Australian outback. However, research has also shown that feral cats in certain areas in Australia such as Tasmania and Kangaroo Island have not impacted on the decline of wildlife. (Department of Environment and Heritage, Aust. Govt. 2004) Problems for People Pet cats often cause problems for people as they often roam into adjacent houses. These cats may: * Leave their litter in the neighbours’ yards. * Prey on other pets such as pet rabbits or birds that might be kept outside.
Although these animals are often kept in cages, cats try to get through the mesh often scaring the animals to death. * Contribute to noise at night * Involve themselves in cat fights * Scratch neighbours (Fong, Lin 1994, p 5) Diseases carried by cats Feral cats can carry infectious diseases such as sarcosporidiosis and toxoplasmosis. These diseases can be conveyed to native animals, livestock as well as humans. Toxoplasmosis is a parasitic infection caused by a protozoan known as toxoplasma gond. Eating raw infected meat can transfer toxoplasmosis. Cats can get it by eating infected animals such as birds or vermin.
It can also be transferred though cat faeces. Cats are the main hosts of toxoplasmosis as the protozoan can only reproduce sexually in cats. (Cat World 2009) Sarcosporidiosis is a parasitic infection caused by a protozoan known as Sarcocystis. Eating raw infected meat can transfer it. (Health Grades Inc. 2009) Control and Management of Domestic Cats In 1994 the South Australian Government proposed “tough new laws” in regards to cats, including compulsory desexing, curfews and registration. However, nothing has been done about cat control legislation in the last fifteen years.
Many believe that compulsory desexing and registration should not take place, as it will cause a financial burden on some owners. The Cats Assistance To Sterilise is a local organisation in Adelaide that opposes the government from imposing these new laws. The Dog and Cat Management Board are undertaking further research to determine if cat management laws are necessary. Some state governments or local governments have issued laws concerning the number of pet cats per household. In the state of Victoria, each household can have a maximum of two cats. (C. A. T.
S Inc, The Dog and Cat Management Board, Aust. Govt. 2009, Weir, Leanne, 1994) The Unley Council does not have any laws relating to the management of domestic cats. However, the council encourages cat owners to desex their cats if they do not wish them to breed. Night curfews are optional but are encouraged. Unley promotes registration of pets however, unlike dogs; cats do not have to undergo compulsory registration and identification with a tag or microchip. (Unley Council) Cat owners do not often follow these recommendations. Most cats are not kept in at night but are free to roam.
Many people believe that placing curfews on cats roaming during the night is cruel. They feel that it is in the cat’s nature to roam and so will not prevent them from doing so. However cat curfews are not cruel. Restricting night time roaming will decrease the number of cat fights, protect cats from being run over by cars and will reduce predation of wildlife. Cat runs are another option that owners may consider. Cat runs will enable cats to roam around the yard but will prevent them from leaving the premises. (Fong, Lin 1994) Cat bells were first thought as a form of alerting birds in the presence of a cat.
However research illustrates that cat bells are ineffective in preventing attacks. (Weir, Leanne, 1994) Desexing Cats This is a method of sterilising the cats making them infertile. Male cats undergo castration where the cat’s testicles are removed, while female cats undergo spraying where the ovaries and a significant amount of the uterus are removed. Sterilized cats are often milder in behaviour than undesexed cats. The cats live longer and have healthier lives. Desexed cats tend to stay at home rather than wander reducing their impact on the wildlife.
However, these cats will still have a hunter’s instinct and so will continue to hunt if the opportunity arises. (Box Hill Veterinary Hospital 2009) Control and Management of Feral Cats The government has issued programs that have effectively eradicated feral cats from offshore islands such as Macquarie Island, where the population of feral cats caused a decrease and even extinction in fauna such as the red fronted parakeet. Eliminating feral cats on the mainland is harder and more costly for the government as the cats avoid human contact, making it harder for humans to catch or shoot the cats.
They are more aware of traps and do not often eat bait. (Department of Environment and Heritage, Aust. Govt. 2004) Future If the feral cat problems are not controlled or managed, many more Australian native animals will suffer the consequences. Already a great number of animals such as the mala or the bilby are facing the prospect of extinction. Although feral cats are not the only reason for the decrease in animals, it does play a significant role. Councils should also place strict laws on the management of cats such as night time curfews and compulsory registration.
Although this would not entirely solve the problem, it does help to reduce the number of cat attacks on Australia’s fauna. References ASPCA 2009, Virtual Pet Behaviourist, accessed 29/10/09, <http:/www. aspcabehavior. org/articles/102/Predatory-Behavior-in-Cats. aspx> Box Hill Veterinary Hospital 2009, Care of your Cat: Desexing, accessed 30/10/09, <http:/www. bhvet. com. au/petcare/catdesex. php#castration> C. A. T. S Inc. n. d., Legislative Control of Cats, accessed 30/10/09, <http:/www. catassist. org. au/legal. html> Cats of Australia, n. d. Outdoor Cat Run The Extention, accessed 30/10/09 <http:/www. catsofaustralia. com/outdoor_cat_run. htm> Cat World 2009, Taxoplasmosis in Cats, accessed 29/10/09, <http:/www. cat-world. com. au/toxoplasmosis-in-cats> Crouch, Brad 2000, ‘Cats killing of wildlife’, Sunday Mail, 13/10/00, p 9 Department of Environment and Heritage, Aust. Govt. 2004, Feral Cats (Felis Catus), accessed 29/10/09, <http:/www. environment. gov. au/biodiversity/invasive/publications/cat/pubs/cat. pdf> Fong, Lin 1994, ‘Keeping cats inside at night not cruel: study”, Payneham Messenger, 19/10/94, p 5 Health Grades Inc. 009, Sarcosporidiosis, accessed 30/10/09, <http:/www. wrongdiagnosis. com/s/sarcosporidiosis/intro. htm#whatis> Invasive Animals CRC n. d., Feral Cats (Felis Catis), accessed 29/10/09, <http:/www. feral. org. au/content/species/cat. cfm> Lloyd, Megan 1994, ‘Cat group flexing political muscle’, Payneham Messenger, 20/07/94, p 5 Native Animal Network Association n. d., Feral Cats, accessed 29/10/09, <http:/www. nana. asn. au/n2-ferals. htm> Northern Territory Government 2007, Feral Animals of Northern Territory, accessed 29/10/2009, | https://freebooksummary.com/feral-cats |
Your pets are welcome at our special centre for animals.
Visitors pet cats and dogs can be accommodated in our Kennel (paid service), located near the visitor’s car park. Food is included in the price.
We have a limited capacity in our Kennel and do not have a reservation service. We may refuse access to your animal in case of reaching our maximum capacity. We recommend that you make possible alternative arrangements prior your visit. | https://www.disneylandparis.com/en-ie/guest-services/pets/ |
In a country far far away, there are so many cats. The cats quickly dominate the whole area, they can even overwhelm humans! Mature cats plan to establish their own kingdom for their own kittens! The first thing to do is setting the border of their kingdom.
One day, they looked around and found $n$ beautiful bushes. They decided to use these bushes to mark the border of their kingdom.
Unfortunately, cats are not so good at geometry, they do not know any shapes except triangles. Hence, they would like to know if they can make a triangle border containing all of these bushes. The triangle border must have positive area. Please help them!
More formally, given $n$ points on a Cartesian coordinate plane, you should determine if there exists a triangle where all these points are on its sides. Points are allowed to coincide with any of the triangle’s vertices. Although all $n$ points have integer coordinates, the triangle’s vertices do not need to have integer coordinates.
Input
The input contains multiple test cases. Each test case is described as below:
-
The first line contains an integer $n$ — the number of points. $(1 \le n \le 10^5)$.
-
In the next $n$ lines, the $i$-th line contains two integers $x_ i$ and $y_ i$ — the coordinates of the $i$-th point. $(-10^9 \le x_ i, y_ i \le 10^9)$.
The input is terminated with a line containing a single $0$.
Sum of $N$ over all test cases in one input file is at most $5 \cdot 10^5$.
Output
For each test case, print ‘YES’ if there is a triangle satisfying the above constraints. Otherwise, print ‘NO’. | https://hanoi18.kattis.com/contests/hanoi18/problems/kingdomofkittens |
Council's General Provisions Local Law 2010 makes reference to the keeping of animals to ensure that the amenity of a neighbourhood is maintained and also the welfare of the animal is considered.
This page covers the numbers of animals permitted, animal housing and the secure confinement of animals within the municipality.
Under the local law, a permit is required for livestock to be kept on land of an area less than 4,000 square metres (1 acre). An owner or occupier of land on which livestock is kept must ensure that the land is adequately fenced so as to prevent that livestock’s escape from the land.
A permit is also required if you would like to keep more than:
The maximum number of cats or dogs in total that can be kept on land is five (5). (for example, with a permit issued under the General Provisions Local Law, the maximum number of cats or dogs in total could be demonstrated by having 3 dogs and 2 cats or 4 cats and 1 dog)
As part of the permit process your neighbours will be sent a Neighbour Consent Form to compete and return to Council. Your property may also be inspected by a Community Laws Officer. Permits will be valid for the number of animals specified on the permit and will be required to renewed annually.
The above information does not however apply for pigeons.
In 2011 VCAT made a ruling that a person can be in possession of up to 100 pigeons on land without a permit. It will now be recognised as being ancillary (as of right) to the land. If someone wishes to house more than 100 pigeons then a permit is required with Council's Planning department.
Contact Council for more information.
Without a permit an owner or occupier of land must not construct, reconstruct or allow to remain on that land any type of animal housing, where that housing is designed for more than the permitted number of animals.
An owner or occupier of land must maintain any animal housing on the land –
For more information about animal housing please refer to the link below. The attached document will provide information on the criteria for issuing a permit along with permit conditions. | http://www.knox.vic.gov.au/Page/Page.aspx?Page_Id=643 |
Anyone wishing to carry on the business of providing accommodation for other people’s dogs and cats, whether at a private or commercial dwelling, must obtain a licence.
When considering an application, we have a duty to ensure that the accommodation is suitable and the welfare of the animals are met. An authorised officer together with a veterinary surgeon or practitioner authorised by the Council will inspect the premises to ensure their suitability.
owning, keeping, dealing in or transporting animals under the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006.
You are advised that before submitting an application, you should contact the Licensing Section on 01443 866750 to discuss your proposals and/or seek advice.
Should a licence be granted, the number of dogs and/or cats that may be accommodated will be specified on the licence and subject to our standard conditions of licence along with any other specific conditions.
You must provide a sketch plan of the premises to be licensed. For commercial boarding applications, you must also complete the attached form for each block that will accommodate animals.
If you have not heard from us within 28 days you can act as though your application has been granted. The start period runs from receipt of all documentation and payment of relevant fee. | https://www.caerphilly.gov.uk/Business/Licences-and-permits/Animal-licences/Animal-boarding-licence |
Multiple dead cats were taken out in trash bags from a Wilmington home on Thursday, after the homeowner was hospitalized three months prior, neighbors said.
The state cannot determine the number of cats found, due to the condition of the animals, the Delaware Department of Health and Social Services said.
Animal services headed inside the house off North Monroe Street on Wednesday in response to a welfare check on the animals. No one was home, so they left a notice and tried contacting relatives, DHSS said.
One family member arrived on Thursday to open the door for animal control officers geared with gloves and masks. The team searched each room and removed the multiple dead cats, the agency said.
The Wilmington Fire Department had to air out the building before animal control could enter.
The odor from the deceased felines had plagued neighbors for months.
One neighbor's daughter, Sherel Broomer, said the smell was toxic, and at one point, she had to pour ammonia out on the street to stifle the odor.
The homeowner had lived alone with stray cats she had taken in, neighbors said. When she fell ill in January, the cats were left alone in the house, Broomer said.
A city inspector was at the house on Thursday and said the home had not been condemned.
Vash Turner, the district's councilman, said he and Wilmington's Licensing and Inspection director had been aware of the smell from neglected cats since a neighborhood February meeting.
"Hopefully, they've been following up with all of that," Turner said.
The city's Department of Licenses and Inspections has not immediately responded for comment.
DHSS is still determining if charges will be filed.
POLICE:
Delaware City man hit neighbor with shovel and bit him, police say
Wilmington police seek information about shooting of 14-year-old in March
Contact Josephine Peterson at (302) 324-2856 or [email protected]. Follow her @jopeterson93. | https://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/local/2019/04/18/remains-several-cats-found-wilmington-home/3512643002/ |
Objective—To determine the effect of number of blood samples and sampling times on plasma clearance of technetium Tc 99m pentetate (Tc99mP) and orthoiodohippurate sodium I 131(OIH).
Animals—20 dogs and 14 cats.
Procedure—Plasma clearances of OIH and Tc99mP were calculated by use of a 2-compartment model, on the basis of a 12-point curve as a reference method. Plasma clearance was calculated by use of all possible combinations of 4 to 11 samples. Time schedule yielding the smallest difference from the reference method was considered to be optimal. Regression analysis was performed between the 12-point model and models using a reduced number of samples.
Results—SD of the difference between the 12-point clearance and the models with reduced numbers of samples increased when the number of samples decreased. The SD of the difference between 12-point clearance and 4-point clearance was 4.17 ml/min for OIH and 0.94 ml/min for Tc99mP in dogs and 0.45 ml/min for OIH and 0.11 ml/min for Tc99mP in cats. Optimal schedules were distributed logarithmically and included an early sample at 5 or 10 minutes, a late sample at 2.5, 3, 4, or 5 hours for OIH, and a late sample at 4 or 5 hours for Tc99mP.
Conclusions and Clinical Relevance—Plasma clearances of OIH and Tc99mP can be accurately calculated in dogs and cats by use of a single-injection 2-compartment pharmacologic model with a reduced number of blood samples, resulting in an acceptable margin of error. (Am J Vet Res 2000;61:280–285)
Abstract
Objective—To compare the effects of propofol and sevoflurane on the urethral pressure profile in female dogs.
Animals—10 healthy female dogs.
Procedure—Urethral pressure profilometry was performed in awake dogs, during anesthesia with sevoflurane at 1.5, 2.0, and 3.0% end-tidal concentration, and during infusion of propofol at rates of 0.4, 0.8, and 1.2 mg/kg/min. A consistent plane of anesthesia was maintained for each anesthetic protocol. Maximum urethral pressure, maximum urethral closure pressure, functional profile length, and functional area were measured.
Results—Mean maximum urethral closure pressure of awake dogs was not significantly different than that of dogs anesthetized with propofol at all infusion rates or with sevoflurane at 1.5 and 2.0% end-tidal concentration. Functional area in awake dogs was significantly higher than in anesthetized dogs. Functional area of dogs during anesthesia with sevoflurane at 3.0% end-tidal concentration was significantly lower than functional area for other anesthetic protocols. Individual differences in the magnitude of effects of propofol and sevoflurane on urethral pressures were observed.
Conclusions and Clinical Relevance—Sevoflurane is an alternative to propofol for anesthesia in female dogs undergoing urethral pressure profilometry. Use of these anesthetics at appropriate administration rates should reliably distinguish normal from abnormal maximum urethral closure pressures and functional areas. Titration of anesthetic depth is a critical component of urodynamic testing. (Am J Vet Res 2003;64:1288–1292)
Abstract
Objective—To examine acid-base and hormonal abnormalities in dogs with diabetes mellitus.
Design—Cross-sectional study.
Animals—48 dogs with diabetes mellitus and 17 healthy dogs.
Procedures—Blood was collected and serum ketone, glucose, lactate, electrolytes, insulin, glucagon, cortisol, epinephrine, norepinephrine, nonesterified fatty acid, and triglyceride concentrations were measured. Indicators of acid-base status were calculated and compared between groups.
Results—Serum ketone and glucose concentrations were significantly higher in diabetic than in healthy dogs, but there was no difference in venous blood pH or base excess between groups. Anion gap and strong ion difference were significantly higher and strong ion gap and serum bicarbonate concentration were significantly lower in the diabetic dogs. There were significant linear relationships between measures of acid-base status and serum ketone concentration, but not between measures of acid-base status and serum lactate concentration. Serum insulin concentration did not differ significantly between groups, but diabetic dogs had a wider range of values. All diabetic dogs with a serum ketone concentration > 1,000 μmol/L had a serum insulin concentration < 5 μU/mL. There were strong relationships between serum ketone concentration and serum glucagon-insulin ratio, serum cortisol concentration, and plasma norepinephrine concentration. Serum β-hydroxybutyrate concentration, expressed as a percentage of serum ketone concentration, decreased as serum ketone concentration increased.
Conclusions and Clinical Relevance—Results suggested that ketosis in diabetic dogs was related to the glucagon-insulin ratio with only low concentrations of insulin required to prevent ketosis. Acidosis in ketotic dogs was attributable largely to high serum ketone concentrations.
Abstract
Objective—To determine maximum extrarenal plasma clearance of technetium-99m-mercaptoacetyltriglycine (99mTc–MAG3) and maximum extrarenal hepatic uptake of 99mTc–MAG3 in cats.
Animals—6 clinically normal adult cats.
Procedure—Simultaneously, baseline plasma clearance and camera-based uptake of 99mTc–MAG3 were determined in anesthetized cats. Double exponential curves were fitted to plasma clearance data. Injected dose was divided by area under the curve and body weight to determine 99mTc–MAG3 clearance. Regions of interest were drawn around kidneys and liver, and percentage dose uptake was determined 1 to 3 minutes after injection. After bilateral nephrectomy, simultaneous extrarenal plasma clearance and camera- based hepatic uptake of 99mTc–MAG3 were evaluated in each cat.
Results—Mean ± SD baseline plasma clearance and extrarenal clearance were 5.29 ± 0.77 and 0.84 ± 0.47 mL/min/kg, respectively. Mean extrarenal clearance (as a percentage of baseline plasma clearance) was 16.06 ± 7.64%. For right, left, and both kidneys, mean percentage dose uptake was 9.42 ± 2.58, 9.37 ± 0.86, and 18.79 ± 2.47%, respectively. Mean hepatic percentage dose uptake before and after nephrectomy was 12.95 ± 0.93 and 21.47 ± 2.00%, respectively. Mean percentage change of hepatic uptake after nephrectomy was 166.89 ± 23.19%.
Conclusions and Clinical Relevance—In cats, extrarenal clearance of 99mTc–MAG3 is higher than that of other species; therefore, 99mTc–MAG3 is not useful for estimation of renal function in felids. Evaluation of renal function in cats may be more accurate via camera- based versus plasma clearance-based methods because camera-based studies can discriminate specific organs. (Am J Vet Res 2003;64:1076–1080)
Abstract
Objective—To evaluate transurethral cystoscopy and excretory urography for diagnosis of ectopic ureter in female dogs and identify concurrent urogenital abnormalities.
Design—Retrospective study.
Animals—25 female dogs.
Procedure—Medical records of female dogs that underwent transurethral cystoscopy, excretory urography, and ventral cystotomy were reviewed for signalment, history, physical examination findings, results of bacteriologic culture of urine, and surgical findings. Videotapes of transurethral cystoscopy and radiographic studies were reviewed systematically without knowledge of surgical findings.
Results—Ectopic ureters were diagnosed in 24 of 25 (96%) of the dogs, bilaterally in 22 of 24 (91.6%) dogs. Cystoscopic evaluation yielded a correct diagnosis in all dogs when results of ventral cystotomy were used as the diagnostic standard. Cystoscopic evaluation identified a terminal ureteral opening for all ureters. Urethral fenestrations, troughs, striping, and tenting were identified. Abnormalities of the vestibule were identified in all examinations available for review (24/25). The paramesonephric septal remnant and its association with ectopic ureters were identified and characterized by cystoscopy. Radiographic findings were discordant with surgical findings and correctly identified 36 of 46 (78.2%) ectopic ureters and 2 of 4 normal ureters. Hydroureter and renal abnormalities were associated with distal urethral ectopic ureters on radiographic evaluations. | https://avmajournals.avma.org/search?f_0=author&q_0=Stephen+P.+DiBartola |
Objective—To determine whether infectious retrovirus was inactivated in bones from FeLV-infected cats after ethylene oxide (ETO) sterilization or preservation in a 98% solution of glycerol in an in vitro cell culture system.
Sample Population—Metatarsal bones obtained from 5 FeLV-infected cats and cultured with feline fibroblast cells.
Procedure—Metatarsal bones were treated with 100% ETO, a 98% solution of glycerol, or left untreated. Twenty-five flasks of feline fibroblast cells were assigned to 5 groups: negative control, positive control, ETO-treated bone, glycerol-treated bone, and untreated bone with 5 replicates/group for 4 passages. Media and cell samples were harvested from every flask at each passage to measure FeLV p27 antigen and the number of copies of provirus per 100 ng of DNA, respectively.
Results—All negative control and ETO-treated group replicates were negative for FeLV p27 antigen and provirus throughout the study. All positive control group replicates were positive for FeLV p27 antigen and provirus at passages 1 to 4. Untreated bone group replicates were positive for FeLV p27 antigen at passages 3 and 4 and provirus beginning at passage 2. Glycerol-treated group replicates had delayed cell replication and were negative for FeLV p27 antigen and provirus at passages 1 to 4 and 2 to 4, respectively.
Conclusions and Clinical Relevance—Ethylene oxide sterilization of bone from FeLV-infected cats appeared to abrogate transmission of infectious retrovirus and effectively sterilized bone allografts.
Impact for Human Medicine—Additional studies to confirm effectiveness of ETO treatment of allograft tissues for prevention of pathogen transmission via transplantation are warranted. (Am J Vet Res 2004;65:436–439)
Abstract
Objectives—To compare virucidal effects and bone incorporation properties of cortical bone allografts transplanted into specific-pathogen-free (SPF) cats. Allografts consisted of untreated bone from a SPF cat (negative-control group) and bone from 5 FeLV-infected cats that was subjected to sterilization with ethylene oxide (ETO), preservation with glycerol, or no treatment (positive-control group).
Sample Population—Bones from the aforementioned groups and twenty 8-week-old SPF cats (5 cats/group) implanted with an allograft from 1 of the aforementioned groups.
Procedure—After implantation, blood samples were collected weekly to monitor FeLV p27 antigen and antibody titers. Quantification of FeLV provirus was performed on blood samples at weeks 0, 4, and 8 and donor bone samples at time of implantation. Cats were euthanatized 8 weeks after transplantation, and graft sites were evaluated.
Results—All results for negative-control cats were negative. All ETO group cats had negative results for antigen and provirus in blood, whereas 1 cat had a low antibody titer. Although 3 ETO-treated allografts were positive for provirus, the DNA appeared denatured. One cat in the glycerol group had positive results for all tests in blood samples. All glycerol-preserved allografts were positive when tested for provirus. All results for positive-control group cats were positive. Differences in incorporation of bone grafts were not observed. | https://avmajournals.avma.org/search?access=all&f_0=author&pageSize=10&q_0=George+S.+Coronado+Jr&sort=relevance |
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