Obsessive Compulsive Behaviour In Dogs

Obsessive / compulsive behaviour are the terms used to describe a surprisingly common behavioural issue found in dogs as well as humans. More often than not this behaviour has developed simply as a learned response from human or environmental inputs. The dog develops an associated obsession towards a part of it's own body, or items within the dogs immediate environment as a response to these inputs. At first glance, some of these behaviours can appear amusing to humans, but often if left undealt with, can lead to self-harming and interfere with the dogs ability to function normally in it's social environment, detracting from the dogs overall wellbeing. In any case, provided that an underlying medical condition has been ruled out, effective behaviour modification therapy can be employed with excellent results.

This behaviour often develops in dogs who are stressed, anxious, or bored, and can be a very frustrating experience for the owner. These behaviours typically result in destruction of items within gardens, households and vehicles, angry neighbours, and sometimes uncontrollable aggression. Symptoms of include: repetitive or hallucinogenic behaviors, relentless digging, scratching, continuous biting or licking their own paws, licking the air, ground licking, tail chasing, barking at nothing, and attacking or shying away from inanimate objects.

When boredom is the cause, often presents as excessive digging, barking, tail chasing and pacing. In these situations the first step to take is to increase your dog's activity level to discharge energy both mentally and physically. A tired dog is a content dog. Simple measures such as increasing exercise, engaging in training activities, and providing interactive chew toys and recreation bones. Consider taking longer more interesting walks, and if you find your own busy schedule limits the time you have with your dog, then perhaps consider a doggy daycare or dog walking service. By expending your dog's energy through increased mental and physical exercise you not only ensure that your dog is happy and satisfied, but you also increase the bond you share with your dog, and perhaps even improve your own personal fitness along the way.

There are many other possible causes for compulsive disorders, in some cases, physical frame misalignment or an underlying medical issue may be a contributing factor. The behaviour can also be influenced by your dog's genetic make-up. Certain breeds are pre-disposed to these behaviours, such as Dobermans, who are known to suck on their skin, German Shepherds, who are prone to chasing their own tails, and English Bull Terriers, who sometimes develop a habit of sticking their heads underneath objects and freezing motionless in situ.

There can be any number of underlying reasons contributing to obsessive behaviours. As with any serious behavioural issue, if in doubt consult an expert. The good news is that any learned behaviours can be un-learned under the guidance of an experienced behaviourist. Bark Busters are the experts on dog behaviour, and have the expertise and know-how to diagnose the source of the issue and put the appropriate therapy in place to solve the problem.

For further information on dog behaviour, and to find out how we can help you with your dog

Call Kevin on Freephone 0808 100 4071 or e-mail Kevin Direct

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Lists, Lists, Lists

There are two types of creatures on this earth those that make lists and those that don’t. I am a persistent, compulsive and creative list maker. When I say persistent, I mean that my fingers claw for a pen every few hours to write another list. Whatever the task is that I need to complete, I MUST write a list before starting. This is my never-ending compulsion. Finally, when I say that I am creative at writing lists I mean that I write them with and on whatever is to hand. The back of a medical appointment letter or the front of a cereal packet it doesn’t matter. Now I have the joy of being able to compile lists on my blog. Lists regarding books, films and TV shows have given me edification today. More will follow and if like me you also enjoy lists please feel free to indulge and add your own comments to the site.


GEM - Mena House Hotel, Egypt

Pyramids - The first time you see the ancient pyramids of Giza, you'll immediately rethink civilization and the world as we know it. How were the Pyramids actually built with such large stones, at that size and with architecture allowing for hidden rooms. There are a few properties in the world where these ancient civilization icons are available with every view and the Mena House Hotel is one. Located outside of Cairo, in Giza, this hotel offers unparalleled views and access to these incredible man-made structures. Whether it's sunrise or sunset, sitting on the balcony takes you away to a time long ago, yet the comforts of today's lifestyle. There are suites located closer to the main building that have gardens with views and are traditional, however I'd opt for the new wing near the pool that are contemporary in style. The property is located within the confines of the Pyramid area so additional security points are necessary, but that also provides privileged early access as well. There are various eateries on property and a lengthy pool to enjoy. Throughout the hotel you'll find old photos of when the site was first discovered and really see the length of history that's located within view. Currently under construction but nearby is the new Egyptian Museum that will offer an expanded glimpse into the ancient past, allowing for dedicated time rather than transferring between experiences. A must-do while there is climbing into the Pyramid, although confined, well worth the crouching and heat, ultimately arriving to a room once dedicated to rituals. Often times in celebration whether national or even individually such as weddings, you'll see fireworks behind the Pyramids truly making it a sight unforgettable and all from the luxury of your room.

Global Citizen Journeys


Hind Al-Abadleh

On the Recovery of the Ozone Layer

Climate Change
Climate Change

By Hind Al-Abadleh,

Reading the news headlines1 on September 10, 2014 about the start of recovery of the ozone layer over Antarctica cheered my heart as someone who teaches about the chemistry of the ozone hole and the role that chloroflourocarbons (CFCs) played in speeding up the destruction of this ‘shield’ gas up in the stratosphere.

To place this news in the context of environmental history:

In 1974, it was scientifically established that CFCs –used in fridges, radiators, spray cans, and air conditions- are agents that can destroy stratospheric ozone, and it was 13 years after that the Montreal Protocol was established for a total global ban on the production of CFCs by the late 1990s.

This protocol is one of a kind international treaty by politicians, hosted by Canada, that sent the right message to the people of the Earth that governments care about the ozone layer.  It also sent the signal to the industry that manufactured the CFCs that you need to innovate and come up with chemicals that have useful applications to society, but would not cause environmental degradation.  In effect, the treaty revoked the social and political licenses given to industrial sectors that made the CFCs.

We’re in 2014 now, 40 years after the science was established, and 27 years after the Montreal protocol was signed.  It is in September 2014 that reports of the first signs of recovery of the ozone layer are reported.  Why? Because CFCs have a very long lifetime in the atmosphere (140 years for CFC-12 known commercially as Freon 12 or R-12), even after stopping their emissions.  This is why we’re still experiencing ozone loss in Antarctica every winter and spring time in the Southern hemisphere.  While full recovery is projected to happen in 2050, the impacts from global climate change on ozone loss are still uncertain.

Take home messages:

  • Nature has its own recovery time that is on the order of decades when humans acknowledge their negative disturbance of natural equilibrium and gather the political will and courage to act and stop further degradation of natural ecosystems.
  • Governments take a relatively long time to formulate and enforce regulations on industrial emissions.  Why?  Because they’d rather (1) wait for a significant body of scientific data to come through rather than following a precautionary principle of ‘better be safe than sorry’ when new man-made substances are manufactured and dumped irresponsibly, and (2) have unsatisfied and frustrated citizens who demand action on environmental issues that affect people on the ground.

How could we use the above success story to understand the most pressing environmental issue of our time, global climate change?  Again, a bit of environmental history would be useful:

In 1957, increasing CO2 buildup was reported as ‘surprising’ by scientists at the Scripps Oceanographic Institute working on international geophysical year projects.

In 1979, the first major international climate science conference was held in Geneva, which led to the creation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)  in 1988.  In 2013, the IPCC started releasing reports on their fifth assessment of the status of the climate.  They announced that the planet has warmed about 0.8 deg C since the beginning of the 20th century, and that CO2 buildup is happening at a faster rate than previously projected.2

There is no debate among scientists that humans are the main driving force behind a changing climate. We are currently experiencing the disruption and impacts3: faster rates of melting ice caps, ocean acidification, depletion of fresh water resources, increased severity of storms, floods and droughts with impacts on crop production, in addition to rising surface and atmospheric temperatures.

One could argue that the success story of saving the ozone layer through the Montreal Protocol is hard to replicate for solving global climate change because the industries and consumer products that were dependent on CFCs represent a much smaller sector than the gigantic fossil fuel industry that underlies our current way of life in the 21st century.

This very statement could either depress us to no action, or motivate us to rethink our current value system to innovate our way out of a fossil fuel era.  After all, humanity did not transition from the stone age because of lack of stones!  Similarly, we have the potential to transition from a fossil fuel-dependent civilization without burning every drop of oil in the ground.  It was refreshing to read about a new fossil fuel divestment group in Canada, called “Fossil Free Faith-Canada’s Interfaith Divestment Network”4 that “aims to be a source of support and resources for Canadian faith communities and their members who are committed to or considering climate action, especially around fossil fuel divestment and clean energy reinvestment.

We’re now in 2014 (57 years after reporting CO2 buildup).  Governments of the world have met many times, 4 since 2007, in Bali, Copenhagen, Cancun and Qatar, and left with no concrete steps on how to move forward.

Determined not to lose hope and motivated to work to send a loud message to politicians, people from all walks of life will be marching on September 21 during the 2014 UN Climate Summit meetings taking place in New York City.  The ‘People’s Climate March’5 is being planned by hundreds of coordinated efforts among hundreds of social and environmental non-governmental and non-profit organizations.

Peoples Climate March
Peoples Climate March

Marches around the world will also take place outside the U.S. during September as well.  The demands are clear5: “a world with an economy that works for people and the planet; a world safe from the ravages of climate change; a world with good jobs, clean air and water, and healthy communities.”  The film, Distruption,6 features leading scientists, historians, activists and faith-based leaders and documents the planning and calls to join the largest people’s march for the climate in the history of human beings.

These critical times in history challenge us to rethink who we are, where we’re going, and what ideals and ethical principles we struggle to live up to.  It is incumbent that we stand on the right side of history as concerned people who are empowered by scientific knowledge and rich inherited and collective human wisdom.

1 http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/international-action-against-ozone-depleting-substances-yields-significant-gains/index.html

2 https://www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/press_releases/pr_1002_en.html

3 ‘What We Know’ initiative on Climate Change from AAAS:http://whatweknow.aaas.org/get-the-facts/

4 http://fossilfreefaith.ca

5 http://peoplesclimate.org

6 http://watchdisruption.com

The “Muslim” response to climate change?

By: Hind Al-Abadleh

Mainly, the high carbon, consumer-driven life style powering industrial civilizations and those aspiring to catch up are saturating the planet with the junk we continue to pump into the atmosphere.   We are currently experiencing the impacts(1): faster rates of melting ice caps, ocean acidification, depletion of fresh water resources, increased severity of storms, floods and droughts with impacts on crop production, in addition to rising surface and atmospheric temperatures.

3)    Abolishing factory farming: Muslims are among the largest consumers of red meat and poultry around the world.  As a fast growing visible minority in Canada, the halal industry is expecting to grow substantially to meet their needs.(4,5)  It has been estimated that producing 1 kg of beef results in more CO2 emissions than going for a three-hour drive while leaving all the lights on at home.(6)  The root cause of the high carbon emissions is the factory farming practices driven by high consumer demands.  I’ve written before on Muslims relationship with food, and the need to care for animals’ well being and not only how they were slaughtered.(7)  This area of the economy that is driven by Muslims consumer demand for halal food present a golden opportunity to ‘vote with our wallet’ to abolish inhumane factory farming practices that are carbon-intensive, and to encourage natural and organic ways of raising animals for food.

1)    'What We Know' initiative on Climate Change from AAAS:http://whatweknow.aaas.org/get-the-facts/

2)    Through religious lens: combating climate change: http://iqra.ca/2009/through-religious-lens-combating-climate-change/

3)    Assessing “Dangerous Climate Change”: Required Reduction of Carbon Emissions to Protect Young People, Future Generations and Nature: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0081648

4)    Halal in Toronto: http://vimeo.com/16597158

5)    Canadian Halal Meat Market Study:http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs.nsf/all/afu9886

6)    Meat production 'beefs up emissions': http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2007/jul/19/climatechange.climatechange

7)    Our relationship with food – should we really care?’:http://iqra.ca/2011/our-relationship-with-food-–-should-we-really-care’/

Let’s put ‘Eco’ back into Economics

By Hind Al-Abadleh

Photo credit from The Canadian Press


Read oitpglossarymay04-TOANDYBRIDGES text version

ADSL or Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line

Commonly called DSL. Technology and equipment that allow high-speed communication across standard copper telephone wires. This can include video signals. ADSL can transmit at high rates of speed both upstream and downstream, depending on line distance. "Asymmetric" refers to the fact that ADSL is designed to deliver more speed downstream (from the central office to the customer) than upstream (the other way around).

A backbone network connects smaller networks, and backbones exist at all levels from local to national. Backbones can be deployed across many buildings (such as in a campus setting or across cities or states) or within a single building.

Also called capacity; the volume of data that an Internet connection can handle over a given unit of time. The data is usually measured in bits per second (bps).

The smallest possible unit of information, usually expressed as a simple binary choice: yes or no, on or off, one or zero. In a digital system, all information is expressed as simply very large strings of ones and zeros.

Bits Per Second or bps

In data communications, "bits per second" is a common measure of data transfer. It is used to show how many bits of information are traveling through the transmission per second. (see also kbps and mbps).

May 2009

"Broadband" is a general term referring to high speed communication, whichever medium -- fiber, wire, cable, or wireless -- is used to provide it. Precisely what speed constitutes broadband is constantly changing as technological capability, applications, and user demands evolve.

Bundled Service

Using multiple services provided by a single company. One advantage (or disadvantage, depending on perspective) of bundled service is that there is usually only one bill and one place to go for customer service regardless of how many services are ordered.

Cable Modem

Though it serves the same purpose as a dial-up modem, a cable modem is different in many ways. The biggest differences are that a cable modem is much faster and does not use a phone number to connect. A cable modem connects to a digital cable television line. Computers equipped with a cable modem have a continuous or "always on" connection to the Internet. Instead of connecting to a serial port like a dial-up modem, a cable modem connects to a standard Ethernet port with a much faster rate of data transfer.

Central Office or CO

A telecommunications term used to refer to the physical location of the local telephone company's building where home and business subscriber lines are connected to the rest of the network. For the purposes of Internet access, the central office switching equipment receives data transmission from a customer's location and then sends those transmissions to the Internet over telephone companies' or third party networks.

Connection Speed

The speed of a data communications circuit. Some circuits are symmetrical -- they have the same bandwidth capacity going to and from the network. Asymmetrical systems differ in the bandwidth provisioned. That is, more bandwidth is typically available from the network to the end-user than from the end-user to the network.

May 2009

Dial-up Access

Accessing the Internet using conventional voice telephone service. It requires the use of a modem to connect the computer to the telephone line. Dial-up speeds are up to 56 kilobits per second (kbps).

Digital Subscriber Line or DSL

DSL is a technology developed to send high-speed transmissions over standard copper telephone wires. See also Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL).

E-Rate is the commonly used name for the Schools and Libraries Program of the Universal Service Fund administered by the Universal Service Administrative Company under the direction of the Federal Communications Commission. The program provides discounts to assist schools and libraries in the United States and its territories with obtaining affordable telecommunications and information services.

A common method for connecting computers and equipment in a single location. Ethernet connects computers, printers, workstations, servers, etc. within a building to a hub or router which allows devices to communicate.

Fiber is a glass-based transmission medium (as opposed to copper). The "electronics," which use lasers to transmit optical signals, are placed at opposite ends of the path. Fiber optics can have significantly larger capacities over longer distances than copper-based electrical signals, which translates to much higher bandwidth.

Fiber Ring

A fiber ring is a circular pattern of localized fiber optic cables used to transmit data and information at very high speeds over a short distance within a specific region.

May 2009

A central location on a network that joins remote workstations or remote locations together. At the center of a Local Area Network (LAN), the hub connects network devices, including computers, printers, and servers. In a Wide Area Network (WAN), a hub can also refer to a central location.

Internet Service Provider or ISP

A vendor providing access to the Internet.

A private network accessible only by the organization's members, employees, or others with authorization.

ISDN or Integrated Services Digital Network

Refers to a set of international standards designed as an enhancement to the analog public switched telephone network (PSTN). ISDN connections consist of ISDN modems that dial-up another ISDN modem across ISDN lines.

Kilobits Per Second or kbps

A unit for expressing the speed of data transfer through a network in terms of thousands of bits per second.

Local Area Network or LAN

A computer network that spans a relatively small area connecting computers, workstations, servers, printers and other peripherals. Most LANs are confined to a single building or group of buildings. However, one LAN can be connected to other LANs over any distance creating a Wide Area Network (WAN). Any media connection type from ordinary POTS lines, ISDN, DS1, DSL, satellite, microwave or fiber-based connections can be used in a WAN.

Megabits Per Second or mbps

A unit for expressing the speed of data transfer through a network in terms of millions of bits per second. May 2009 4

Megabyte or MB

A unit for expressing the amount of physical storage on a storage device--a hard disk, for example.

The radio frequency used for communicating to and from satellites. Microwaves can also be used to transmit telephone, facsimile, video, and data in terrestrial systems.

Short for modulator/demodulator. This is a device that connects a computer to a network. Modems work at different speeds; the faster the speed, the faster that information flows to (and from) your computer. A modem's speed is measured in bits per second, or bps.

A network links devices together, such as computers and telephones. LANs and WANs are examples of networks.

Plain Old Telephone Service or POTS

Standard analog telephone service generally associated with making and receiving voice calls. The term is sometimes used in discussion of new telephone technologies in which the question of whether and how existing voice transmission for ordinary phone communication can be accommodated. For example, Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line and Integrated Services Digital Network connections provide some part of their channels for "plain old telephone service" while providing most of their bandwidth for digital data transmission.

Point of Presence or POP

Point Of Presence (POP) is a physical location where an Internet Service Provider aggregates the Internet packets from its customers before forwarding the packets to another location. Internet packets can pass through many POPs at various levels of the Internet (e.g., local, regional or national) before reaching a final destination, like a server or

May 2009

someone's laptop PC. A local ISP may have just one POP but national ISPs can have thousands.

Public Switched Telephone Network or PSTN

Refers to the local and long distance telephone system. It can refer to only one company or a collection of local, long distance, and international telephone companies.

A hardware device that separates network segments allowing only certain IP addresses to cross boundaries. Routers are typically used to connect Local Area Network (LAN) segments to a Wide Area Network (WAN) connection.

Satellite transmission

A type of transmission that sends a signal to a satellite in orbit. When the orbiting satellite receives the transmission it amplifies it and sends it back to earth. Satellite transmission can be used for high speed Internet access.

T1 (or sometimes written as T-1) is a common name for a DS1 transmission rate of 1.544 megabits per second (mbps).

Telecom transmission rates

Traditional transmission rates build in the following order: · · · · · · DS0 is 64 kbps DS1 is 1.544 mbps (one DS1 can have 24 DS0) DS3 is 45 mbps (one DS3 can have 28 DS1) OC3 is 155 mbps (one OC3 can have 3 DS3) OC12 is 655 mbps (one OC12 can have 12 DS3) OC48 is 2,400 mbps (one OC48 can have 48 DS3)

May 2009

Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol or TCP/IP

Protocols that provide communications between connected networks and between diverse hardware architectures and different operating systems. These protocols allow us to communicate with others on the Internet or World Wide Web.

There are two directions involved in delivering information over a single circuit. In a symmetrical connection, both upstream and downstream transmission speeds are the same. In an asymmetrical connection one direction can be greater than the other. Typically, the downstream side of the connection (from the network to the end user) is larger than the connection from the user to the network.

Web 2.0

Generally attributed to Tim O'Reilly, O'Reilly Media, in 2004, Web 2.0 Web sites allow users to do more than just retrieve information. Web 2.0 applications and Web sites are interactive; they encourage users to create and add content to them. Traditional Web sites limit users to viewing and the content can only be modified by the site's owner. Web 2.0 changes the Web to an interactive platform for computing. With Web 2.0 Web sites, however, users can own the data and exercise control over that data. Software applications are run entirely through the Internet browser.

As these interactive applications increase in popularity, they are also increasing in complexity which requires more and more bandwidth to run the added features. One feature of successful Web 2.0 applications is their ability to improve as users add their own content.

Wide Area Network or WAN

A network that connects two or more remote locations together. Any media connection type from ordinary POTS lines, ISDN, DS1, DSL, satellite, microwave or fiber-based connections can be used in a WAN.

May 2009

Any communications service utilizing electromagnetic waves to transmit signals. In this type of system, the most notable feature is the lack of wires connecting devices. Wireless systems can be used over long and short distances but the type of wireless system used will determine the speed and the distance possible. Wireless operations permit services, such as long-range communications, that are impossible or impractical to implement with the use of wires.

Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity) is a wireless LAN technology that lets a laptop, personal digital assistant, or other mobile device connect to another device.

Additional Resources: These tech terms were derived from the following sources. Please refer to these sources for additional information. Tech Term Glossary TechSoup Webopedia Newton, Harry. (2006). Newton's Telecom Dictionary, (22nd ed). San Francisco: CMP Books.

May 2009

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The X-Men Movies And The Case They Make For Self Contained Stories

The X-Men film universe gives me a headache.

I know intellectually that I should take them in in the same way I do comic books – not worrying about the timeline, just relaxing into the story and not questioning it – but there’s something about having an adaptation, live action or otherwise, that makes that harder. Even though I know it doesn’t make sense, I find myself questioning timelines, questioning how the thing that happened in one movie ties into what happened in the previous one, trying to find in-universe explanations for retcons or inconsistencies. I get a little tired of the constant debate of how different things – even those that are explicitly not in the same universe, like The Gifted and Legion – fit into a timeline that at best can be interpreted loosely. And that doesn’t even get into how exhausting continuity lockout can be. A movie should be a complete story on its own. It should stand alone without needing to watch three other movies and read all the companion material. A multiple part story is one thing, but even then, that story should have a clear beginning, middle, and end, based on a pre-existing plan, not an endless number of instalments tacked on, because comic book movies are not comic books. Having more self contained stories, rather than pushing the idea of a “cinematic universe”, would solve all these problems.

Having a predetermined number of movies with a clear overall arc would lessen the debate of how things fit together, because there’d be a clear answer: they don’t. If it floats your boat, you could make a case for how they could, but when it comes to the actual story, the answer is they don’t. It would allow for viewers to just go in and watch the movie or the series without having to watch a bunch more movies to avoid confusion. It would allow for more creator freedom, because their work would depend on, at most, a couple other movies in a series, not a dozen of highly variable quality and comprehensibility. For the viewer, it makes it easier to just reject what you didn’t like. It seems to me like a much more enjoyable experience.

I’m sorry, but I didn’t enjoy Logan. From my perspective, it relied too heavily on existing fondness for the Hugh Jackman Wolverine and Patrick Stewart Xavier, because neither of them were very sympathetic in the film itself. It was more manipulative than well written. I didn’t like the concept, because it felt disrespectful to all the other X-Men and Old Man Logan doesn’t do it for me. And it wasn’t particularly well thought out, either, because when asked if it was in its own universe, everyone involved gave a different answer. But you know what? If it had been explicitly an separate story – with different actors, maybe, something to show that it’s a different universe – all that could have changed.

Part of the reason it bothered me so much was because of what it means for other X-Men movies. It wasn’t all of it, but it was certainly some of it, because it meant we were never going to see the original cast again. They’re never going to get the sendoff they deserve, that I was hoping for after we saw them again in Days of Future Past. So I’ve thought a lot about what it would be like if Logan were in a different universe and hadn’t slammed that door closed. In that case, it wouldn’t have turned a whole franchise into something even more annoyingly Wolverine-centric. It wouldn’t have turned the whole franchise into a giant Shoot the Shaggy Dog story where nothing the X-Men did in past movies or will do in future ones matters. It wouldn’t have presented Logan as the most important X-Man, despite the fact he’s arguably barely an X-Man and doesn’t fit at all with the metaphor for the oppressed that they’ve been since Chris Claremont defined them. Saying, hey, this is a movie about Wolverine and Professor X that has nothing to do with those other movies about them would mean it could be judged as a story, not as an entry into a franchise, on its own merits, rather than being Hugh Jackman’s swan song. In that case, we could have learned if it was actually good beyond the emotional manipulation. I might have actually liked it.

On a similar note, we have Days of Future Past. Now, I love this movie. I think it was one of the peaks of the franchise. But it also has a lot of glaring flaws. Some of these, I think, would have been fixed by making it and First Class a separate duology, or maybe even adding a third movie to put it into a trilogy that had nothing to do with any other movie. What’s one of the biggest complaints about that movie? That’s easy: Kitty Pryde being sidelined from being the lead character of the story to being Wolverine’s Uber driver. But every time that gets brought up, people jump to defending why it “had to be Wolverine”. There are two ways they use to argue this – Watsonian or Doylist. Intradiegetic or extradiegetic. In-universe or real world.

The in-universe answer is that Wolverine was the only one alive at the time they had to go back to that could handle the trip and for the way the story’s version of time travel worked, they couldn’t send someone else. For argument’s sake, let’s ignore the fact that the writers could change those time travel rules. Setting it in a separate timeline from the other movies could make that not true – boom, done, Kitty was alive in the time she needed to go back to, she could go.

The other argument for why it “had to be Wolverine” is the real world answer – people were attached to Wolverine, not Kitty, who only had about fifteen minutes of screen time in the series. So sending back Wolverine made for a more poignant story. You know what that indicates? Precisely my problem with Logan – a story that’s manipulative and relying on existing fondness for a character, rather than actually giving them an arc that we can be invested in. If DoFP was a “standalone” (though part of its own, shorter series), none of this justification for not sending Kitty would be valid, because Wolverine wouldn’t have any more history in the story. All history would have to be built in the movie itself. Every minute would have to count. And that’s how you can tell a good story from something that’s not – a good story can make the audience sympathize and root for and feel attached to the character on its own. It doesn’t need a whole preceding series.

It’s funny – the original X-Men trilogy was hugely important for the development of superhero movies. They demonstrated how great sequels to these movies could be. They very probably paved the way for shared universes as it pertains to superheroes, all of them existing together. Without them, there would be no MCU or DCEU. It doesn’t matter whether or not you love them, you have to acknowledge that they matter. But I think they also have reached a point, eighteen years in, where they make it clear that this really isn’t necessarily the best way to go. Logan  and Days of Future Past clearly demonstrate the value of standalones.

It reminds me of something that there was a lot of debate about which on Twitter recently – Zack Snyder’s comment that, in his five movie plan, he would have killed Batman. A lot of people were shocked and glad that didn’t come to pass. But I think that’s just another indication of what Snyder’s preferred method of storytelling is. And I think that method of storytelling would work amazingly for the X-Men.

Snyder believes in story arcs, not universes. He draws inspiration from various sources, blending them into one coherent story, where instalments connect to each other, but there’s also an end in sight. His movies have very little excess bulk, with every minute of footage serving a specific purpose. He makes bold choices, such as killing off iconic characters like Bruce Wayne, in a way that all Snyder fans know would be respectful and poignant. Some people were talking about how Dick Grayson could become Batman after Bruce’s death- an idea which I love, Dick as Batman is one of my very favourite things – but I don’t think that’s the point here. The point is that Snyder’s vision wasn’t more and more instalments with more and more characters that ended up all sharing the screen. It was thinking through all the details, planning ahead, and making a story that doesn’t go on forever. It’s not really a style loved by executives in this age of sequels and remakes. It’s very different from the MCU brand. But it’s fascinating to watch. It’s a beautiful style from someone that believes in self contained stories, the kind that would be perfect for the X-Men.

The X-Men movies have felt a bit like the result of a bunch of unplanned sequels being tacked on to a finished product, for no reason other than they make money. For someone that loves the X-Men and loves quite a bit of what’s in the X-Men movies, it’s kind of heartbreaking. I know they’re going to reboot. And presumably pretty soon. I just wish that when they do, it would be in a way that follows the tradition of self contained movies or trilogies, rather than the MCU brand of sticking everything together, because who cares about art when there’s money to be made.

It’s unlikely that we’re going to go back to the age of standalones any time soon. Not after the MCU has demonstrated how much money there is to be made like this. But I hope someday we do. The cinematic universe model has been a great experiment, and it was fun while it lasted, but I really would like to go back to self contained series now.

The Strange Sense Of Elitism In Film Criticism

Meaningful Stories In Popular Media

Dismissal of Superheroes

Genre Fiction vs. Literary Fiction

An Easy Guide To Identifying the White Male Comics Geek

  1. Their favourite X-Man is Wolverine.

  2.  They think Robin is stupid.

  3. They hate Scott Summers.

  4. “The Nolan Batman movies are the best!”

Star Trek

A Manipulative Waste: Why Logan Disappointed Me

I don’t like calling things overrated. I’m not going to write think pieces on why that thing that people love is actually terrible. I’m never going to call someone stupid for liking something. Doing any of that would be mean-spirited beyond belief and I’ve experienced enough of that as a fan of the DC Extended Universe. I don’t ever want to be like the countless bloggers that spent a a solid year making fun of me and people like me that watched Batman v Superman and saw something beautiful. So, even though I didn’t really love Logan, I’m not going to say it was a terrible movie that was bad for comics fans. My experience isn’t universal, and even if it was, there were things I enjoyed about it, but more importantly, I think it’s great that other people liked it.  That being said, now that the movie has been out for five months and I’ve had a lot of time to think about it – I didn’t enjoy Logan, and I think it was a disappointing finish to a franchise that’s had both extreme highs and lows.

Reliance On Existing Goodwill

Most of the reasons I didn’t really enjoy it stem from it being part of a series, not it as a standalone movie. The movie looked beautiful. Everyone in it put in a great performance — Dafne Keen had one of the best performances I’ve ever seen from a child actor. But I think a lot of what the movie had going for it was the nostalgia factor. This was the end of an era. This was Hugh Jackman’s swan song. The X-Men movie franchise has been going on since 2000, and it’s still going on. A lot of people have grown up with this, with Jackman’s Wolverine, and seeing him for the last time, watching the character die, was an emotional experience. It was for me, too, but for me, the film relied on that, on the years of affection for the character and goodwill from the rest of the franchise, rather than creating an emotional reaction of its own. It felt manipulative, rather than something earned. I don’t like feeling used like that.

If the movie had been closer in tone to the trailer, the gorgeous one set to Johnny Cash’s rendition of Hurt, I’d have enjoyed it a lot more. It’s hard to overstate how excited I was about that trailer. That would have been the story of a Logan that has given up. That has lost everyone that matters to him. It would have been him finding hope again because of the new generation of mutants and deciding Laura is worth fighting for. It would have been a quieter, thoughtful, introspective movie. It would have been a kind of trippy story about self discovery and family. I saw that a lot of people did see that in the movie, but I didn’t. I saw an attempt, and I saw something sort of different from what had been done before, but hardly anything groundbreakingly unique.

As part of a series, it didn’t work for me. There was no real grieving for the X-Men. They were unceremoniously killed off again, and this time, none of them even got to have a part in saving their species, because their deaths were completely off screen. It made Days of Future Past redundant – what was the point of changing the timeline and bringing the original cast back to cameo if they’re all going to die within a few years anyway? And what’s the point of any future X-Men movie if we all know that it’s going to end like this no matter what they do? It would have been a good plot for a standalone, but not as part of a series.

The movie felt selfish to me. Logan seemed as if he was looking after Xavier out of obligation for giving him a place. Part of the reason he eventually had a change of heart about Laura was that they shared DNA and Xavier had wanted her kept safe. To me, it never seemed like he missed the X-Men – he was old, tired, cynical, but that stemmed from being sick and in pain and having to care for Xavier, not from having lost a family. The scene with Laura and the comic book was close, but it still came across as more bitter than anything else. I remember being surprised when I saw that in the movie, because of how different in tone it was from the way it had been presented in the trailer – Logan was clearly bitter, there, too, but he also seemed a little amused, and almost nostalgic. I liked that a lot better than him being an angry, bitter old man that made himself feel better by screaming at a child and didn’t give a damn about what the X-Men represented.

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Jean and Scott’s cameo in ‘Days of Future Past’. [Credit: Fox]

I didn’t find the plot all that emotional. I know a lot of other people did, and I’m glad. But for me, this was just rehashing what we’d already been through in Days of Future Past, except not as well. I loved Days of Future Past – I was irritated that somehow, Logan got the story that by all rights, belonged to Kitty and that Kitty got a new power out of nowhere because they gave her role to Logan and cut out Rachel, but I liked the movie. There were beautifully nuanced performances. It was a story of tired, broken, bitter people finding their way back to the best versions of themselves, a story of people making their last stand fighting for a better world. It was about mutants getting a second chance, about earning a happy ending. It handled the concepts of grief and mourning brilliantly. DoFP achieved with a scalpel what Logan did with a sledgehammer. Not a good adaptation, but a very good movie, and despite the mutants being killed by Sentinels and not corn syrup, still more subtle than Logan.

Goodbye To Original Cast

Even if this is just a movie that doesn’t tie into the continuity in any way, it still leaves a kind of bitter taste in my mouth, because it’s still our goodbye to the original cast. It’s not the ending that they deserved. They haven’t all been on screen together in eleven years. After DoFP reset the timeline so that The Last Stand could be removed from the continuity and Jean and Scott could come back to life, we didn’t get another story with them, just a weak cameo.

Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart were far from the only members of the original cast that deserved a good ending. Famke Janssen put in a spectacular performance, even with the terrible script she was handed. There’s only so much an actor can do when they don’t have support from the script. James Marsden, as well – somehow, he’s been left out of the movies where the mutants are on the brink of extinction twice, despite the fact those stories should definitely be about Scott. He’s an excellent actor that was criminally underused. Apocalypse even teased Mr. Sinister, and nothing gets the message that the makers of these movies don’t care about Scott across better than that – not one instalment in this franchise has mentioned Scott’s comic background, and in the case of the new timeline, he doesn’t have that at all. What’s even the point in bringing in Sinister if it’s going to be this much of a watered down version?

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Briefcase labelled ‘Essex Corp’ from ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’. [Credit: Fox]
This wasn’t just closing the door on Logan and the Stewart version of Xavier. If they’re not coming back, it’s almost certainly a goodbye to everyone else in the original cast as well, aside from maybe – maybe – a cameo from time to time. We got a flash of hope that we’d be getting them back in DoFP, then had that ripped away again, and it’s not even the loss of this version of the characters that bothers me so much as the loss of potential.

There was a cast of excellent actors. I mentioned Janssen and Marsden, but we certainly shouldn’t forget Ian McKellan, arguably the best actor in the entire franchise. Halle Berry, too – she’s a good actress, even if I didn’t like the little material she got and her characterization. Aside from very few of them – Stewart, McKellan, Jackman – the original cast didn’t get a chance to do their characters justice. How could they, when the movies weren’t X-Men movies as much as they were Wolverine and Friends, and most of them were just there to support Logan as the hero without storylines of their own? That cast could have made amazing movies, ones with fully realized characters that were as good adaptations as they were stories of their own. What did we get instead? Some disconnected great scenes, lines, and performances in a sea of mediocrity.

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Original cast. [Credit: Fox]
Janssen said very recently that she’d return as Jean Grey if she was asked – she’s been saying that for years. And I’d love her back. I prefer her Jean to Sophie Turner’s, perhaps just because she’s a more experienced actress that was a better fit for the character. But I very much doubt we’ll ever see her Jean again, and that’s a shame. It doesn’t feel like it’s been long enough to replace the entire cast. Ten years should be enough time, but in those ten years, some of them were around for longer, while the others made their last appearance just a few years ago. What’s more, they’re being replaced within the same series. It’s not a reboot, or a different universe.

I get that Logan was a loose adaptation of Old Man Logan. I do. I understand that. And I understand that this universe has been built around him, and that the people involved wanted the send off of the character to be just for him, and not an ensemble movie. But as a fan of the X-Men, it just felt like another slap in the face after seventeen years of slaps in the face.

I’ve never been the biggest fan of Wolverine as a character. He has his moments, and I do think he’s a better person/more engaging character in the film verse than in the comics, but he’s never been particularly interesting to me. And the seventeen years of movies have made me incredibly bitter towards him, something which finally reached a boiling point with Logan. A not insignificant part of why I didn’t love the movie was that I was so incredibly tired of the character. The X-Men are supposed to be ensemble stories. They work as a team. But the X-Men movies cast that aside for the same old Wolverine is the awesome hero, who cares about everyone else.

Viewer Fatigue

When I first saw Logan, I really enjoyed it. That’s the same experience I’ve had with most of the X-Men movies – I walk out of the theatre still excited, but when I take some time to process what I saw, to maybe see it again, I start to find more things that bother me. Logan left me cold. For me, the franchise has started to drag. I didn’t really notice it until Logan, but now they’re just making movies for the sake of it, because we’ll go to see them regardless of how little care is put into them and they’ll make a lot of money. Logan was the third Wolverine solo, when no other character even got one and he was the main character of the original trilogy as well. It rehashed the general plot of Days of Future Past without that level of beautiful focus on building a better world.

I don’t like the trend of bashing movies and claiming they’re awful solely because they weren’t to your tastes, or of saying they should be catered to you instead of to whoever they’re directed at. Not everything can be for everyone. I’m a big believer in letting people enjoy things, rather than being constantly negative and pointing out why what they love is terrible. And we shouldn’t judge movies based on whether or not they were what we wanted or expected to see, but rather on the story they tell. At the same time, I believe polite, respectful criticism is fair, so long as it’s criticism for what it is and not what you want it to be. Criticism only means something if it’s thoughtful and meant to spur conversation, not insult for the sake of it, but if it is, then it’s worth hearing.

Logan wasn’t for me, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. I know other people loved it. I may not understand why, but I’m happy for them. But I personally liked the idea of Logan more than I liked the actual movie. To me, it felt like it should have been a story about grief and loss, just as I felt TLS should have been, just like DoFP was. Instead, also like TLS, it didn’t really seem to me like a story about much of anything. Batman v Superman gets constantly berated for being “grimdark”, but if any recent comic book movie falls into that category, it’s this one. It was emotionally draining and relentlessly, pointlessly dark. It wasn’t a more mature story in any way than the previous instalments in the franchise, it just had more visceral violence and cursing.

It may not technically be the last movie in the franchise, but it might as well be, now that all the ties to the original trilogy are gone – different timeline, different cast, different characterizations. Fox is going to continue to make X-Men movies. Logan will eventually be recast, just like the other X-Men. Even so, Logan represented the end of an era, the last movie with any ties to the trilogy that arguably revived comic book movies, and to me, it wasn’t a satisfying finish.


Why Multi-Touch Attribution is critical in an economic downturn

Brace For The Economic Storm

With record high debt levels, trade tensions and the end of loose monetary policy, many economists see a high chance of a recession in the UK and other developed economies by the end of 2020.

Uncertainties over the Government’s Brexit negotiating position are contributing to apprehension and delays to investment. Given the wider economic problems within the Eurozone and global slowdown, businesses need to start making themselves recession-proof now.

Smarten Up Your Attribution Efforts

There is now an even greater need to maximize ROI across all marketing campaigns. Despite tough times ahead, businesses are able to weather the storm and increase profits through judicious and targeted strategies.

Attribution is the method of assigning proportionate value to different touchpoints in a customer journey. In our data-driven world, it is no longer an option to waste of resources to conduct campaigns without knowing which channels contributed the most to converting visitors into customers, however, our research highlighted that 46% of companies felt measuring the ROI of their campaigns was their greatest challenge.

Advances in data science over the previous decade now mean that quantitative analysis can radically transform marketing efforts and remove the guesswork.

Single-Click Attribution – An Amateur’s Game

Unfortunately, not all forms of attribution are made alike. In fact, most off-the-shelf models arbitrarily assign credit to just one touchpoint such as the first or last. Using this approach, it is almost impossible to gain accurate insights on the effectiveness of different touchpoints. In fact, our research highlighted that just 33% of companies think that they are performing accurate attribution.

Aside from the inaccuracy, single-click attribution can be an expensive error. Businesses can continue focusing on ineffective channels that are costing them, oblivious that they are not allocating budget to the better performing channels.

For instance, let’s say a business choose to use a last-click attribution model and their typical visitor engaged with the campaign across ten different touchpoints. Statistically, it is unlikely that the last touchpoint contributed to more than 10% of the overall impact but with last-touch attribution, that business would go away convinced it was outperforming the others and allocate more budget into it.

Single-click models make it impossible to identify and double down on those channels that are most effective yet they are still the status quo – in the US, 48% of companies were still using lack click attribution during 2017.

Adopt A Data-Driven Approach

Using a data-driven approach, marketers are able to understand the effectiveness of every single touchpoint and channel in a customer’s journey. Through this, they can reduce their spending on ineffective mediums while doubling down on those already delivering strong results.

Fospha’s multi-touch attribution (MTA) product delivers this. It preserves your budgets by identifying underperforming channelsand increases your ROI allowing you to create more effective campaigns.

MTA removes all guesswork, shining a light on which channels are delivering. In addition, MTA can be applied to customer journeys that failed to lead to sales, providing insight into why a conversion didn’t happen so that a marketer can adapt their overall strategy from a position of confidence and understanding.

MTA absorbs data from all active channels and devices that a customer uses, collating and analysing it all under one umbrella. It acknowledges historical data and by continually analysing the latest information, it gives highly precise and relevant insights.

MTA is not just a marginal improvement on the last-click status quo – it offers the ability to gain a competitive edge. With the economic challenges ahead of us, this edge could be invaluable.


Dr. Charles McKelvey: « Venezuela is a threat to the neocolonial world-system »

Publié le Mis à jour le

Dr. Charles McKelvey. DR.

Mohsen Abdelmoumen:  You have written a very relevant and important book to understand the Cuban Revolution: The Evolution and Significance of the Cuban Revolution. In the light of your book, can we say that the Cuban revolution was very important for the emancipation not only of the Cuban people but of all the peoples of Latin America?

Dr. Charles McKelvey: I consider the Cuban Revolution to be a paradigmatic Third World Revolution.  It has the dual character that essentially has defined Third World movements and revolutions: (1) an anti-colonial/neocolonial revolution that seeks the liberation of the nation from foreign imperialist domination, and (2) a revolution of social liberation, seeking the transformation of capitalist economic-political-cultural institutions.  Lire la suite »

Robert Bibeau: “Capitalism is war”

Publié le Mis à jour le

Robert Bibeau. DR.

Mohsen Abdelmoumen: Reading your very informative and gripping book, « La démocratie aux États-Unis, les mascarades électorales » (Democracy in the United States, electoral masquerades), a question arises: is there really a democracy in the United States and what is the use of elections in the USA?

Robert Bibeau: Yes, there is a real democracy for the bourgeoisie in the United States as in all the capitalist countries of this world. There is obviously no popular-proletarian « democracy » in the United States or any other country. Do you believe that joining a bourgeois party of a multibillionaire and its relations – given its power of pressure, of its television channel and its administrative centers – is of the same « democratic » weight as the adhesion of my neighbor – a Proletarian – to a pseudo-socialist political party? There is only the bourgeois left to let it believe. American workers know it, they do not move to vote and « to use the false power of the voting pencil » nor benefit from a fanciful electoral power exclusive to the rich. Lire la suite »

Prof. Atilio Borón: “In order to counter the imperialist created chaos honest leadership and strong institutions need to be accompanied by an intense and well organized popular mobilization”

Publié le

atilio boron 4

Prof. Atilio Borón. DR.

Mohsen Abdelmoumen: How do you explain the retreat of the left and the rise of the far right in Latin America, as we saw in Brazil with the election of the fascist and torturer Jair Bolsonaro and that of Mauricio Macri in Argentina?

Prof. Atilio Borón: There are many reasons, which I could only summarize here. First, the intensity of the American counter offensive to defeat progressive governments has been impressive. Macri was an unexpected gift, more due to the mistakes of Kirchnerism than to anything else. But the victory was very important for the US. Bolsonaro is the product of the PT demobilization  established by Lula since the beginnings, the complete corruption of the judicial system that put in jail Lula and allowed Bolsonaro not to be present in the presidential debates, the staunch support of the hegemonic media and, of course, serious mistakes of the Lula/Dilma governments which believed that social policy and the extraction of millions from extreme poverty would be enough to change popular consciousness and make those people supporters of progressive policies. Lire la suite »

Dr. Tomasz Pierscionek: “Capitalism is a failing system unable to solve major global problems”

Publié le Mis à jour le

Dr Tomasz Pierscionek. DR.

Mohsen Abdelmoumen: You have worked on the theme of the Western Left. According to you, can we say that this left is in crisis?

Dr. Tomasz Pierscionek: The past decade of austerity, which has seen the rich get richer at the expense of everyone else and demonstrated that capitalism is a failing system unable to solve major global problems, provides an opportunity for the Left to demonstrate alternate programmes that benefit the majority rather than a wealthy and powerful minority. In Western Europe and the US, affected by years of indoctrination about the ‘failures’ of socialism, left-wing politicians and parties of labour have been cautious not too appear too left-wing and face the wrath of the rich and their media auxiliaries. In this way, they have failed to realise the potential of the Left to explain and advocate for socialist ideas and directly challenge capitalism. Far from being Marxists, as demonised by the media, the leaders of the Western Left have adopted the half-baked ideas of left of centre social-democracy – ie: let’s tinker at the edges of capitalism and smooth out its rougher bits whilst leaving its fundamental principles unchanged. Lire la suite »

Dr. T. J. Coles: “Unlike war, peace is not a profitable pursuit”

Publié le Mis à jour le

Dr. T. J. Coles. DR.

Mohsen Abdelmoumen: In your masterful book « Britain’s Secret Wars », you demonstrate the hidden face of British politics and its direct involvement in major conflicts via its intelligence services. Do not you think that Britain is responsible, like its US ally, for the chaos that reigns in areas like the Middle East and the Sahel?

Dr. T. J. Coles: Yes. Britain has both historic and contemporary responsibilities for much of the carnage in the Middle East, Central Asia, and elsewhere. There are different degrees of responsibility. When a gang commits a crime, for example a murder and armed robbery, each member of the gang is sentenced by a court of law in accordance with the degree of their participation in the crime. The person who pulled the trigger is the murderer, their associate is the accomplice, and so on. The same principle applies, or if we care about morality should apply, to international affairs. At the moment, the US is the global superpower, so the US bears most of the responsibility for invading Afghanistan, firing drones at Pakistanis, Somalis, and Yemenis, invading Iraq, and using proxy terrorists in Syria and Libya. Lire la suite »

Mike Ferner: “It is a function of our lack of democracy that the U.S. foreign policy is so militaristic and destructive.”

Publié le Mis à jour le

Mike Ferner. DR

Mohsen Abdelmoumen: In your opinion, is the United States of America a true democracy or is it a plutocratic regime?

Mike Ferner: The U.S. was never intended to be a true democracy.

First of all, it is a republic, meaning elected representatives, not people directly,institute the laws.  This was modified somewhat when some states instituted initiative and referendum laws, allowing citizens to put proposed legislation directly to the voters by getting large numbers of signatures on petitions. Lire la suite »

Dr. Olivier Le Cour Grandmaison: “The pacification of Algeria was not a long calm river, on the contrary”

Publié le Mis à jour le

Dr. Olivier Le Cour Grandmaison. DR.

Mohsen Abdelmoumen: You wrote « Coloniser. Exterminer« .  In your opinion, was Algeria a colonial laboratory?

Dr. Olivier Le Cour Grandmaison: Yes, we can indeed consider that Algeria has been a kind of laboratory for the elaboration of a certain number of techniques of war that can be described as counter-revolutionary war and repressive techniques, particularly after the appointment of Bugeaud as governor general of Algeria in 1840. The purpose of the appointment is to carry out what the military and political leaders of the time have already called « the pacification of Algeria » and to do this, General Bugeaud will employ a number of methods of warfare and repressive techniques among which raids whose it must be specified that they sometimes lead to the destruction of entire villages and oases, the aim being to expel « indigenous » populations, as it is said at the time, and, as it is also very commonly said, to repress the « Arabs » to drive them out of the territories they occupied until now so that Europeans in general and the French in particular, the settlers, could settle in a « pacified » environment. Lire la suite »


Twitter response:

ADD/ADHD/Autism Testing

ADD/ADHD/Autism testing evaluations consist of collecting a comprehensive history through parent report and medical record review including prenatal, perinatal, and postnatal development, general overall health, environmental factors, medical concerns, and review of speech, motor, behavioral, and emotional development.
Throughout the evaluation the child will be observed at play and then engaged in activities which will provide insight into the child’s ability to interact, social, and communicate. In addition a neurological and physical examination will be completed along with standardized developmental assessments that will provide developmental and behavioral baselines.
At times it is also necessary to obtain medical, neurological, and genetic testing including blood tests, chromosome analysis, celiac panel (gluten sensitivities), x-ray, CT scan, and MRI’s.


Sociological Imagination – Essay Example

The paper "Sociological Imagination" is a great example of an essay on sociology.
Sociological imagination is the process of linking a person’s experience with social organizations. For example, poverty is quite often described as the result of the inability of some social organizations like the government to disperse the wealth properly. This paper briefly explains how a sociological imagination process helps to explain unemployment.
Man is a social animal and hence all of his experiences are related to some social organizations. Every human action will affect others as well. It is not possible for a person to live in a society without seeking assistance from others. “The sociological imagination enables its possessor to understand the larger historical scene in terms of its meaning for the inner life and the external career of a variety of individuals” (Mills) Sociological imagination enable a person to understand his role, rights, and obligation in his inner life as well as eternal life. As far as external life is concerned, a person has certain rights and obligations. Employment is the basic right of every grown-up person especially the educated ones. Social organizations like the government should have the obligation of providing or ensuring employment to all it’s grown up citizens. A country can develop only if all its manpower resources utilized effectively. Providing employment is the best way to ensure social security to all the citizens and also it will contribute immensely to the economic development as well.
In conclusion, sociological imagination helps an individual to identify their basic rights like employment, equality, and security in the society.


Are We at the Edge of a Parking Crisis?

In order to function smoothly, companies need to have an organized parking system that accommodates its staff. Unfortunately, the necessary space for employee parking is often underestimated by both tenants and landlords. This issue has led some to believe that a parking crisis could be around the bend.

For the most part, suburban office buildings are required to provide three parking spots per 1,000 SF of space. Keep in mind that since public transportation is much less accessible outside the city, the majority of employees drive to work. This necessitates a significant amount of designated parking spaces. Meanwhile, landlords do not maximize parking ratios, since they don’t make any money from the spots. Their focus is strictly to maximize the footprints of their buildings.

Tenants are constantly learning how to make their space more efficient in an effort to minimize real estate costs. Years ago, the average technology company allocated 250 SF per person; that number has since been cut down to 150 or 200. Despite these cuts, the parking ratios rarely change. That means that a 10,000 SF space that used to house 30 to 40 employees can now pack in 50 to 60. With an average parking ratio of 4/1,000 SF of space in the suburbs, they would be short 20 to 30 parking spaces, which could be a significant blow to any company.

Here are a few strategies to combat a possible parking crisis:

  1. Do a full review of your space and how you’re utilizing it. Keep in mind that on any given day, a company may have 80% of their employees in the office.
  2. Shift to a flexible schedule. By staggering the hours employees work, and giving the option to work from home, tenants can alleviate parking shortages.
  3. Keep communication open with your landlord. Discuss your capacity and efficiency, and see if they have any input that could help. Bring up creative options, like offering ride share incentives.

While negotiating space with a landlord can be a stressful task, remember that it’s best to consult a trustworthy real estate advisor to advocate for your company throughout each stage of the process. Having that third party to rely on can be an extremely valuable resource as you navigate your lease.

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Religious Discrimination

The Act also requires employers to reasonably accommodate the religious beliefs and practices of applicants and employees, unless doing so would cause more than a minimal burden on the operation of the employer's business. A reasonable religious accommodation is any adjustment to the work environment that will allow the employee to practice his religion. Flexible scheduling, voluntary shift substitutions or swaps, job reassignments lateral transfers, and exceptions to dress or grooming rules are examples of accommodating an employee's religious beliefs. Whether an accommodation would pose an undue hardship on the employer's business depends on the individual circumstances.

Title VII prohibits religious harassment of employees, such as offensive remarks about a person's religious beliefs or practices when these remarks are so frequent or severe that they create a hostile or offensive work environment or when it results in an adverse employment decision (e.g., being fired or demoted).

It is also unlawful for an employer to retaliate against an individual for opposing employment practices that discriminate based on religion or for filing a discrimination charge, testifying, or participating in any way in an investigation, proceeding, or litigation under Title VII.


Katie Jane
Imaginative, Creative and Unstructured play

Vision and Ethos

Vision and Ethos

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Vision and Ethos

Our aim is to acknowledge the role we play in nurturing our little people through alternative play approaches. Katie Jane offers an interesting journey through bespoke classes designed to inspire you to get creative!

There is no book for child hood

Become a story teller

Connect with nature every day

Imaginative, Creative and unstructured play

Find your rhythm

The role of attachment

Play allows for little ones to explore their creative side and imagination whilst developing their dexterity, concentration, memory, and perception as they get older. From an early age play allows for children to interact with the world around them, helping to learn how to move their bodies, supporting healthy brain development and interaction with other children.

The power of play!


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Slideshow: Thoughtful Ways To Thank a Teacher

How well does your child's school handle food allergies?

It handles them quite well. - 72.7%
It could do a much better job. - 0.3%
Mostly it does a good job, but there is room for improvement. - 0.7%

Total votes: 286
The voting for this poll has ended on: July 2, 2016

No - 37.4%
Sometimes - 25.4%
Yes - 31.6%

Total votes: 4919


3D volumetric displays could be lifesaving tools in medical applications.
No one wants to go to war, but there are technologies being developed every day that can be utilized on the battlefield to ensure the members of our armed forces are successful and return safely. One such technology, 3D display, has garnered significant attention, as many organizations are discovering the benefits over traditional 2D display technology.

3DIcon is developing a glasses-free 3D volumetric display, otherwise known as a static volume display. The display consists of a rare earth-doped transparent image chamber material and two infrared scanning lasers used to excite the rare earth ions and create visible light emission. The two lasers are computer controlled using available 3D data provided from a variety of sources. The scanning lasers create an image of the available data in the image chamber that can be observed on all sides by one or more viewers. The approach used by 3DIcon to illuminate the image chamber material with infrared radiation increases the number of light emitting voxels (volumetric pixels) to a resolution as high as 800 million, which is sufficient to provide still images, animation, and video from 3D volumetric data.

Traditional 2D displays are utilized every day, but have their shortcomings because they are not fully compatible with the many technologies creating large amounts of volumetric 3D data and images. These complex volumetric 3D datasets call for displays that can faithfully represent the data. While stereoscopic displays with 3D capability continue to improve, glasses-free 3D volumetric displays currently being developed could represent a significant advance over 3D volumetric datasets being displayed on a flat screen.

The need for additional user interactions can make it nearly impossible to use 2D display technology for real-time applications, particularly in the world of defense where decisions must be made instantaneously and lives are at stake. Imagine being able to visualize data on a glasses-free 3D volumetric display, overlaying an extraction point, a weather forecast, or a change in enemy positions – a true representation in real time of 3D data. The technology could be used in a variety of different defense applications.

Military Simulation and Training

A glasses-free 3D volumetric display would allow commanders to better prepare and perform military operations.
In military operations a commander must maintain a perspective of the battlefield at all times. Planning for combat operations and analysis of the mission, terrain, enemy, and weather must all be considered prior to committing forces, and once deployed, these same data must be continually monitored. The capabilities of the military in acquiring and delivering timely information from highly dynamic and uncertain environments to the command level is rapidly outpacing their ability to create a visual representation of these combined data for situational awareness across land, sea, space, and cyber.

As an example, defending an embassy in a hostile location would require a commander to have a thorough view of the battle space in order to properly prepare, deploy, observe, and extract forces. In the past, this preparation may include data collected from forces on the ground used to create scaled 3D models with assumptions about enemy forces and their placement. Today, real-time 3D data is available that accurately portrays the battlespace, but much of the information available is lost when viewed in 2D. A glasses-free 3D volumetric display located at the command level would allow the commander to better prepare and perform military operations at reduced risk to the committed forces, the mission, and the surrounding civilians.

Air traffic controllers are decision-makers that, similar to military commanders, operate in a highly dynamic environment that involves many actors and the ability to make difficult decisions with incomplete information under pressure and high workload. To ensure safety while providing expeditious flow of air traffic, controllers use various techniques to monitor minimum separation between aircraft – primarily through the use of radar.

Visually scanning a 2D representation of the radar data is a crucial activity of a controller, with studies showing that human factors such as boredom and age, along with the growing volume of air traffic, can influence decision-making. While the use of autonomous systems may help increase safety in the future, changes in how the radar data is displayed is a more near term solution. A glasses-free 3D volumetric display could be placed in a control center and used to monitor air traffic in 3D space. By working in teams, controllers can maintain increased awareness and benefit from the input of others monitoring a common environment.

Data from emerging 3D weather radar could be merged with air traffic to provide additional knowledge of the situation. While air traffic could be one of the greatest benefactors of glasses-free 3D volumetric displays, similar benefits exist within traffic control on the ground, at sea, or in space.


DC BUS technology enables network power line communication of Data, Voice, Music and Video by digital means over Direct Current (DC) battery power lines, like those used in every vehicle.

Yamar’s unique technology enables advanced digital communication in hostile and noisy environments such as on vehicle battery lines in a small size silicon device. Customers integrate the devices into modules utilizing their own application (e.g. within body and power train modules for in-vehicle multiplex communication networks). The DC-BUS is used in many non automotive applications too.

The same power line can be used for multiple independent networks by using different carrier frequencies.

The cable length depends mainly on an impedance @5MHz of loads connected to the power line. A 10A motor is a small load, but a filtering capacitor of 10nF is a high load.

The SIG60 has selectable carrier frequencies in the range of 4.5-13MHz and its output level is ~1.2Vpp. The SIG60 can receive a signal as low as 20mVpp. A reasonable distance is between 20m to 100m. When connected by a short distance from the battery, the communication distance will reduce further.

For more application specific information, you can contact our support team.

There is no physical limitation for the number of nodes, but in practice 16-32 nodes is a reasonable number.

The SIG60 device operates up to 115.2Kbps. The DCB1M operates up to 1.4Mbps.

The SIG60 transfers UART bytes over the power line. It gets a byte and transfers it over the power line with a latency of ~3.5 bits. Any number of bytes can be transferred. The modulation is multiple phase modulation. When operating as a network, a master-slave protocol such as LIN can be used. Semiconductor devices are in full production.

The DCB1M is a message oriented device. It gets a message of any length and transfers it over the power line to the receiving devices. The DCB1M has arbitration CSMA/CR mechanism for network operation. The interface with its ECU via UART or SPI protocol interfaces.

Yes. Two or more data buses can operate over the same power line using different carrier frequencies. The SIG60 has 7 selectable carriers.

We recommended that a “software” separator is added into the user’s protocol to avoid any leakage from one strong transmitter to another sensitive receiver using a different carrier, and vice versa.

The DC-BUS was designed to operate on ordinary wires. Using low capacitance wire such as twisted pair cables, UTP, improve the effective communication length and performance.

The communication is not affected by the diode bridge because the carrier signal level is less than 1.4Vpp and it passes through the diode bridge.

The Multiphase modulation is a unique type of PSK modulation developed by Yamar. It is based on multiple combinations of phases and provides excellent performance even when the communication channel is noisy.

The SIG60 schematic in Figure 3.3 is recommended. Don’t forget to add an inductor >22uH to your power supply before connecting it to the power line. The inductor is needed to ensure that the power supply filtering capacitor will not short the carrier signal.

Yes. Adding a coupling capacitor between the two power lines will enable communication between the SIG60 devices.

When the HDC pin is low, the HDI and HDO pins communicate with the internal registers. The SIG60 detects the uC bit rate (9.6Kbps, 19.2, 38,4, 57.6, and 115Kbps). After lowering the HDC pin, send the Read or Write command via the uC serial port as described in the data sheet.

It is important to wait until the uC finishes transferring its data bytes to the SIG60 (depending on the UART bit-rate) before raising the HDC pin. With the Read command, the SIG60 responds immediately (<1uS) after the end of the command. Check the SIG60 datasheet, at the SIG60 page or in the support page under the Datasheet section.

The easiest way is to use the message generator that Yamar supplies or, use the format as described in the SIG61 data sheet (can be found in the support page under the datasheet section).

Using discrete filters does not reduce the communication performance, because the attenuation of a discrete filter is only 3db while a ceramic filter attenuation may go to 6db. However, if several carriers are used for different power line networks, some cross talk may occur.

Yamar supplied USB driver will operate after allowing unsigned driver installation. Go to the link below and use option two: “Use an Advanced Boot Option”

Make sure the USB board is connected to the SIG60 EVB and the EVB is powered..


publications by Joseph A. Izatt.

Papers Published

  1. Choma, M.A. and Yazdanfar, S. and Izatt, J.A., Wavelet and eigenfrequency spectral analysis of color Doppler optical coherence tomography, Proc. SPIE - Int. Soc. Opt. Eng. (USA), vol. 4956 (2003), pp. 329 - 32 [12.479040] .
    (last updated on 2007/04/13)

    Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a depth-resolved imaging modality that uses low coherence interferometry to gate the time-of-flight of backreflected sample light. The heterodyne frequency of the interferometric signal can be up- or downshifted by reflection off of a moving particle (e.g. red blood cells in an artery). This Doppler shift can be resolved with a time-frequency decomposition (TFD) and displayed as a color Doppler-OCT image. Here we compare the in vitro and in vivo performance of three TFDs: the short-time Fourier transform, the Morlet wavelet transform, and the short-time MUSIC transform (STMT). The STMT is a new TFD that incorporates the MUSIC eigenfrequency estimator in a generalized short-time framework. The Morlet transform excels at identifying blood vessels, while the STMT is the most accurate predictor of Doppler shift frequency

    biomedical optical imaging;blood flow measurement;blood vessels;Doppler measurement;Fourier transforms;image colour analysis;medical image processing;optical tomography;spectral analysis;time-frequency analysis;wavelet transforms;


HIDEKI SHIRAKAWA Biography - Theater, Opera and Movie personalities

Biography » theater opera and movie personalities » hideki shirakawa

Hideki Shirakawa, co-discoverer of the field of conducting polymers, more commonly known as “synthetic metals,” was the chemist responsible in 1977 for the chemical and electrochemical doping of polyacetylene, (CH)x, the “prototype” conducting polymer. Hideki Shirakawa shared a Nobel Prize 2000 in Chemistry with Alan J. Heeger and Alan G. MacDiarmid. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the prize to the three for the discovery and development of conductive polymers.

Hideki Shirakawa was born in Tokyo on August 20, 1936. After graduating from the Tokyo Institute of Technology with a degree in chemical engineering in 1961, he enrolled in the graduate program there and received his doctorate in engineering in 1966. He subsequently worked as an assistant at the Chemical Resources Laboratory at his alma mater until 1976, when he went to the University of Pennsylvania in the United States as a researcher.

Three years later he returned to Japan, joining the faculty of the University of Tsukuba as an associate professor. In 1982 he became a professor, and in April 2000 he was appointed professor emeritus. In 1983 he received the Award of the Society of Polymer Science, Japan, for his research into polyacetylene.

Hideki Shirakawa, a 64-year-old professor emeritus at the University of Tsukuba, has been named the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2000. The prize was presented jointly to Shirakawa and two U.S. scientists - Alan Heeger, 64, of the University of California at Santa Barbara and Alan MacDiarmid, 73, of the University of Pennsylvania - for their discovery and development of conductive polymers, or plastics that can transmit electric current. Shirakawa is the ninth Japanese to become a Nobel laureate and the first since Kenzaburo Oe, who won the prize for literature in 1994. He is the second Japanese to receive the chemistry award. The first was the late Ken’ichi Fukui, who won it in 1981.

At the presentation ceremony held on December 10, 2000, in Stockholm, Sweden, Chairman Bengt Norden of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry concluded his remarks with a short congratulatory message to Shirakawa in Japanese. For a moment Shirakawa seemed startled, but he quickly broke into a smile.

Hideki Shirakawa receiving his Nobel Prize from His Majesty the King. Prize Award Ceremony at the Stockholm Concert Hall 2000.

Prof. Shirakawa, at the Press Conference at the University Hall (Oct. 13, 2000)

How can plastic become conductive?

The leading actor in this story is the hydrocarbon polyacetylene, a flat molecule with an angle of 120 degree between the bonds and hence existing in two different forms, the isomers cis-polyacetylene and trans-polyacetylene (the latter form illustrated below).

The story of conducting polymers began in the 1960s with attempts by Shirakawa, then working on his PhD under Sakuji Ikeda at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, to form polymers from acetylene using a so-called Ziegler–Natta catalyst to bind the molecules into long chains. Shirakawa wanted to elucidate the polymerization process for these triple-bonded molecules.

One day, through a miscommunication, a visiting scholar from Korea added 1000 times more catalyst than specified by Shirakawa, and a shiny, filmlike substance formed on the surface of the catalyst solution. Shirakawa was stimulated by this discovery. This product was far more intriguing than the rather uninteresting brown-black polyacetylene powder that was normally produced. The effect of the higher concentration of catalyst apparently was to produce more polymer chains.

Shirakawa subsequently devised a procedure to synthesize large quantities of polyacetylene film and also to control the proportions of two isomeric forms known as cis- and trans-polyacetylene. The silvery film was trans-polyacetylene, and the corresponding reaction at another temperature gave a copper-coloured film instead. The latter film appeared to consist of almost pure cis-polyacetylene. This way of varying temperature and concentration of catalyst was to become decisive for the development ahead. The metallic appearance of the product caused chemists to see if it had metallic properties. In its original form it wasn’t a very good conductor.

When MacDiarmid heard about Shirakawa’s discovery of an organic polymer that also gleamed like silver, he invited Shirakawa to the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. They set about modifying polyacetylene by oxidation with iodine vapour. Shirakawa knew that the optical properties changed in the oxidation process and MacDiarmid suggested that they ask Heeger to have a look at the films. One of Heeger’s students measured the conductivity of the iodine-doped trans-polyacetylene and - eureka! The conductivity had increased ten million times!

In the summer of 1977, Heeger, MacDiarmid, Shirakawa, and co-workers, published their discovery in the article “Synthesis of electrically conducting organic polymers: Halogen derivatives of polyacetylene (CH)n” in The Journal of Chemical Society, Chemical Communications. The discovery was considered a major breakthrough. Since then the field has grown immensely, and also given rise to many new and exciting applications.

Doping - for better molecule performance

Oxidation with halogen (p-doping): [CH]n + 3x/2 I2 –> [CH]nx+ + x I3-
Reduction with alkali metal (n-doping): [CH]n + x Na –> [CH]nx- + x Na+

Polarons - doped carbon chains

In the first of the above reactions, oxidation, the iodine molecule attracts an electron from the polyacetylene chain and becomes I3- . The polyacetylene molecule, now positively charged, is termed a radical cation, or polaron. The lonely electron of the double bond, from which an electron was removed, can move easily. As a consequence, the double bond successively moves along the molecule.


Home / Energy / Editorial: President agenda is anti-shovel-ready

Editorial: President agenda is anti-shovel-ready

President Barack Obama campaigned on a promise of “shovel-ready” jobs. It was the modern “chicken in every pot” but never quite panned out.

“Shovel-ready was not as, uh, as shovel-ready as we expected,” Obama quipped in 2011, conceding the pledge seemed beyond his grasp.

Today, his platform can be described as anti-shovel-ready. The president took to a White House lectern Friday to announce his unilateral decision to kill the Keystone XL pipeline, an $8 billion project that was about to create 9,000 high-wage, shovel-ready, private-sector construction jobs in parts of the country that need them most. The president should visit Nebraska and explain it to the children of unemployed workers who go to bed hoping mom or dad will get a good job the next day.

But it is not just the 9,000 shovel-ready jobs Obama killed. His own State Department reports that Keystone would contract with enough private-sector firms to support 42,000 “direct and indirect” jobs throughout the country.

The 9,000 jobs alone would have created millions of work hours throughout Middle America and the South, meaning working-class people would more easily afford health care, mortgages and college tuition.

Those are just the private-sector hardships imposed by Obama’s killing of Keystone.

The president, who has created more national debt than all predecessors combined, had the opportunity to initiate government revenues. In its first year of operation, the pipeline was expected to generate $100 million in tax revenues. That’s minutia in federal terms, but it is about $100 million more than is created by all global warming protests combined. Over its lifetime, the pipeline could have generated billions for governments.

Construction was estimated to contribute $3.4 billion to our gross domestic product before the pipeline moved a barrel of oil.

Related: Minnesota congressional delegation splits on Keystone rejection.

Americans have longed for energy independence from hostile foreign governments for decades. It is a matter of national security, economically and militarily. When al-Qaida-linked militants attacked an Iraqi oil refinery in 2014, they took out a daily production capacity of 350,000 barrels.

“Nearly the same amount the United States imports from Iraq,” said U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La. “The Keystone pipeline would transport nearly two and a half times that amount to American refineries.”

Landrieu and 10 other Democratic senators sent a letter to Obama in April 2014 pleading with him to allow the pipeline. Her constituents need the jobs. Colorado’s Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet, who ranks among Obama’s staunchest allies, declined to sign Landrieu’s letter.

Obama said Friday the pipeline is not in the national interest. He talked about low gas prices and progress in the innovation of renewable energy, suggesting we don’t need the pipeline. He failed to mention how those positive indicators rely on generous supplies of conventional fuels.

He doesn’t want the pipeline because it would contribute to “climate change.” But his decision to kill Keystone is more environmentally questionable than allowing it. Canadian and Midwestern oil that cannot be piped is shipped by trucks and trains that burn fossil fuels and pose explosion hazards as they thunder through population centers. A pipeline is the most environmentally correct and safest method of transporting liquid.

Obama minimized the scope of the pipeline, saying it plays an “overinflated role” in national discourse. If so, it is because he and other environmentalists have blown a common-sense transportation project into a global warming scare. If the pipeline is such a trivial matter, one wonders how it would change the climate.

The president should have told us the truth about his motive for killing the pipeline. He values approval of global warming activists more than shovel-ready jobs. He places symbolism over substance. That’s his prerogative, but America’s unemployed have the right to know.

This article was from The Gazette (Colorado Springs, Colo.) and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.