Friday, August 25, 2017

Repecting Evil?

Peace is a state of mind. First and foremost, each individual must come to the realization that they are at peace. This state of mind recognizes both their own state of life and the world around them. Now being at peace does not mean you agree with the situation you are in or the state of the world. The state of peace allows you to understand that you will/are doing everything you can to be peaceful in the situation you are in. One of the most difficult ideas to get across to others about peace is that there is conflict in peace. The best way to describe what is meant by conflict exists in peace is to ask a women who has given birth to a child if there was no conflict. However, it is often described that birth as the most beautiful act of human existence. With that concept of peace and conflict aside, we must look at the moment we are in today. Racial tensions have boiled up again across the world. In Canada we have our own history of horrors to reconcile with. Most of us understand that there is a deep need to work together. Being at peace with that work acknowledges we must step into the painful areas of shame, regret, injustice, ignornace and idiocy. As we work together we must understand that the people today are not the people that acted in the past. To that end we need to understand that acknowledging history is not blaming the people of today for those who acted unpeacefully in the past. In truth we are all a product of our collective history. When you can empathize with all sides of history you can see how everyone has been harmed, how everyone needs to reconcile, how everyone needs to endure the hardships of rebuilding relations, how everyone needs to have an open mind of our future together and how to let go of past pains so we can learn, heal and rebuild a stronger society. This is where we are trying to get to in Canada and the world. Being peaceful is having the courage to walk into the discussion of who we are going to be and do so with an open mind. We have always had the capacity to act in this manner. The question that came to a conversation around this topic was - How do you respect evil in a positive manner? To those who are willing to engage is such thought will see the dire need our people are in. Is it good that we are having such hate filled protests? Apparently we need to because some of us have forgotten the horror of past idiocy. As the cliché states, those that forget the past are doomed to repeat it. What this cliché indicates is showing itself with an increase of hate across the globe. Here in Canada we have our own discussion about who we have been, who we are and who we are going to be.

Tuesday, August 15, 2017

Intergration of us and them

Recalling a moment in life when I was twelve years of age, I had watched a family bring a new born baby from the hospital into their home. I distinctly remember looking around me and wondering why anyone would want to bring a child into this world. The world around me seemed to be a spiralling pool of hate, chaos, greed and no improvement in sight. Not sure how long I carried that thought but at some point I realized that my thought was only a perception. The balance of life equals out all things. Now, as I have worked with many people in very difficult situations, I can see the need to have a solid outlook of being calm, peaceful and patient. The reason for this need is best understood by noticing there are seven billion different ideas about how the world should work. Basically we are all involved in an experiment of integration. Whether or not you notice, acknowledge, understand the fact that we are all in a relationship with each other, we are here at this moment. We have had many experiments that sought to integrate people into systems. Some experiments had horrible outcomes while some had excellent outcomes. These experiments come in the forms of governments, social norms, laws, cultural relativism, policies, religion, political parties, corporations, schools, etc.... At this moment of time there is one of the largest forced movements of people the world has ever seen due to the war in Syria. Some countries have experienced a 25% increase in population due to people trying to get away from the hell of war. This is a major shift in the identity or social norms of any society facing such an increase. Not only does the host country face a dramatic shift, the people who are seeking shelter also face a dramtic shift of reality, culture, identity and sense of belonging. This sense of belonging is a crucial point in terms of integration. A shift of identity is going to take place but what will that be? If no one is willing to accept the new reality on an ideological platform frustration sets in. This frustration will entrench in the minds and hearts of people. After some time the frustration will give way to violence if there is no true willingness to work on building the integration peacefully. Those last four sentences are the simplistic point form frame work of most wars/social break downs we face in the world. In simplistic reality, peace is easily described. The most difficult part is actually doing the work day in and day out with everyone you meet. Being calm, peaceful and patient takes great energy yet, having faith in a peaceful world will provide the energy. As long as you continue to be that person who acts with calm, peacful patience, you will have faith. In the end, what really matters is how each of us – the individual – understands the world, lives their life and strives to be a peaceful person. Throughout my life, as I often looked back at myself when I that twelve year old, I have learned that perceptions are smoke screens to reality. How you truly are is what matters and then understanding your impact on the larger group needs to be acknowledged to some degree as well. This is no simple statement. The complexity of life will and does wrap us up like tangled ball of string. We will be frustrated, tired and need to vent. Sometimes we fail but we also succeed in many other ways.

Monday, July 31, 2017

The 50/50 rule

Sometimes governments and the people take things too far too fast. Again at such moments, we must take a deep breathe and seek to understand the individual efforts true intentions. Plus, we must keep in mind that there will always be those that seek to create chaos just because they can. This is the 50/50 rule. The 50/50 rule stipulates that in perfect balance there is equal parts of both sides. In terms of sanity, in a perfectly balanced world, half of the people are insane and the the other half are not. In this situation, half of the people who are insane are trying to understand the reasoning of the sane and the opposite is true as well. A quick discussion between two such people can bring almost anyone to fits of frustration. Even when two sane people are at odds of reason, frustration can quickly erupt into acts of violence. This is exactly why peace takes greater courage and effort than war. Forging ahead to develop a reality where the cultural components of a multicultural society is valued, respected and treated equally has eluded many individuals as well as most governments, corporations and other instutional structures. There is no shortage of examples of how we have got ourselves into trouble within this realm. We have Rwanda, Bosnia, WWII, Residential schools in Canada and of course the Daesh issues the world has been plagued with recently are examples of how poorly cultural divides have gotten. After each of these episodes of failure/conflict we usually embark on some sort of soul searching to understand how things went so wrong. In the context of post conflict reconstruction there are systems we have tried, such as truth and reconciliation commissions, restorative justice programs, war crime tribunals and the many types of reintegration programs. In other contexts, outside of traditional conflict or war, we have the cultural impacts of sexual identity and affirmative action policies. These seek to build fair opportunities, equality of hiring practices and safe space policies. All of the above efforts are steps being taken to resolve pain caused, correct wrongs, heal wounds, repair broken trust as we work to build a peaceful society. Each step is an experiment that must be tried. Some will fail and some will succeed. The most important component is that efforts are being made to improve. As we continue to embark on the experiments to improve there will be moments when society needs to vent. At the moment when a sector of society needs to vent, the other sectors must be prepared to act with all patience and peace as possible. The same peaceful respect needs to be held by those venting or protesting as well. During these protests we often forget the pendulum of society never stops. The 50/50 even divide at some point will swing to be 75.5 insanity/24.5 sanity or reversed the other way. In our pursuits to build peaceful societies we have to ensure a level of trust to have the difficult discussions - especially when emotions run high and frustration is deep. We must understand that not all experiments will turn out as we want them to. Some efforts are just not able to take hold due to the reality that the people or governments are not ready for certain things. Then there are the efforts that seem to be redundant to some while others see them as necessary. At the root of all these situations rests the complexity of the individual human rights and the responsibility those rights imply upon each of us. Each of us has a right to live without the fear of being harmed. That implies that each of us carries the responsibility to do no harm to another. Now that leads us to examine and understand what harm means to both you and the other. Plus, the 50/50 rule has to be taken into consideration and who determines that? While we forge ahead to build a peaceful society that is true to the reality of a multicultural world, we have learned that the task is one wild trip. Some have no patience for it and lash out into fits of violence. Others are just happy to stir the hornets nest and watch the chaos ensue. For the majority of people they are just trying to get through each day in the same condition they woke up in. Those same people hope to be improved. Then there are those that will improve each day as well as those that will be in worse conditions. Such is life. As each of us forge ahead in our own attempts at peace, it must be clearly understood that every conflict starts in the mind of the individual. To be peaceful is our responsibility to each other. At times we each experience the sanity side of the 50/50 rule as well as the insane side. You may trust yourself but the person that is in the discussion with you may not be in the same mind set. The skill set may have a vast distance as well. Then of course there is always the different versions of historical knowledge that each side will have. The piece to really grab onto is that most reason is only valid to those who agree with it. So, if one part of the argument is a firm believer in "outside the box thinking" that person must let go of common sense and reasoning to break down barriers or be insane. Finally, the 50/50 rule can help break your own thought patterns as everyone seeks to build a peaceful society.

Sunday, June 11, 2017

Broken trust and peace

Do you recall this person – Mohammed Bouazizi? He was a 26 year old vendor that literally sparked what is known as the Arab Spring. Of course there are many theories of why he lit himself on fire. However the complete frustration, loss of hope, poverty, oppression and injustice he felt is very important for each of us to battle as well. It is imperative to understand then conquer the personal mental battle first and always act peacefully socially with everyone else. What is ironic is that a root ideology of Al Qaeda was to end oppression. That ideology morphed into groups such as Al Shabaab (youth movement) and Daesh. The level of violence and absolute disregard for any flexibility of thought has put a strangle hold on the world. Again, the irony is that those groups are acting out due to a deep frustration that something is broken. Now we are dealing with people spreading fear and panic anywhere they can to ease a personal battle of frustration. It is these acts of violence seeking to draw even in the tally of pain which set larger ripples of hate and distrust in motion. It is the ripple effect of distrust which fuels further hate, then eventually can and does lead to violence. In simplistic ideology that is the formula of understanding groups such as Daesh. As you put your head in your hands and seek some sort of sanity within all of this we have other shots to the public trust. How in the name of all that is peaceful do you keep calm when corporation sell us on trust. Then, those corporation take actions that destroy trust. These actions spread into the distrust of government and filters down to distrust of each individual. On the corporate side of understanding actions which destroy trust are explained in two words – greed and influence. With groups like Daesh, the world responds out of necessity. For many nations, military action was not a choice to drop bombs or shoot people. However, we have a responsibility to protect. With that it is understood that each person shot or area bombed we are destroying the person who fires the bullet or drops the bombs as well. This is the circle of hell we must live with when killing others is needed. It can not be put anymore clear that the small acts of kindness are the equivalent of bullets. Community gatherings of celebration are like the bombs of war. These are the acts which will ultimately defeat groups such as Daesh. Such community building initiatives are the front lines in securing peaceful societies. Apparently we need more of these acts as individuals are spreading hate such as we have seen in London England. Each of us feels the frustrations of those who act violently and those corporations that are destroying public trust. It is truly hurtful to have to act on those who willfully break the public peace. It is not a choice but a responsibility to act in order to restore peace. That begins within each of us to act peacefully with our own minds. To quell the hate in our own minds first and then branch out is the individual battle of peace. When you lash out in frustration, the war has been lost already.

Friday, May 19, 2017

France looks past the hatred.

There was a time, not long ago, when the world was speaking out against multicultural societies. The popular thought was that multiculturalism was a failed policy. Then comes the vote of the United Kingdom to exit the European Union, Donald Trump gets elected in the RUSA and France looks at voting for similar protectionist ideology. Last night France voted for a multicultural ideology. France voted for a reality that reflects the truth of the world. The world is multicultural. The world is open and free movement across the globe is a right of every individual. Of course an open society will open the world to more experiences that may not be wanted. The best method to ensure a safe society is to build and maintain strong communities. This responsibility rests with the individual to take up. Governments are a macro level entity and violence starts within the minds of the individual. That is why an open ideology needs to be supported by individuals as well as governments. For example, we can look at Daesh and their play book management of savagery (the book is easily found on the internet). It is an example of how individuals can impact global security from within communities for either good or evil. The same playbook can be used for good, the difference will be a peaceful mindset for the immediate result. As we look at the reasons for the protectionist versus the open society there are valid points for either side. In other terms we have hawks versus doves, hard power versus soft power, peace versus war and other axioms. The reason violence seems to be the more effective choice is due to the immediate impact/response and drama of tragedy. A peace strategy is very much like a person growing up, one day you are 5 years old and then almost dream like you are 34. You wonder where the years went. It all seems effortless yet we forget the daily attention that must be paid to ensure we live a peaceful life. The daily efforts that are small must be made and are unnoticed by the larger community is the path to peace. War, violence, hatred and evil on the other hand are large and can be launched in a single moment to impact many years into the future. Due to that, it is easy to understand why a protectionist attitude is prevalent. As the people of France stood up, the rest of the world needs to thank the people of France for standing up for an open society in the face of what they have endured. That is true courage and a steadfast belief in the reality of the world – multiculturalism, peace and openess.

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

Syrian end to violence

During the years 2010 – 2012, there was a global movement of youthful change. Many protests took place around the world. There was the Occupy Movement. Elsewhere there was the Jasmine Revolution and Arab Spring. Each had varying degrees of impact. The protest in Halifax produced one of the most ironic statements of the global movement, “We have heard your plights now go home and be quiet”. In other parts of the world extreme violence broke out and rage on to this day. Syria, Yemen and Libya are the most known. Of these, Syria has taken a greatest grasp of the global stage. As we seek solutions to ending the war in Syria there will always be counter solutions and of course history. For those who live in the towns and cities of Syria, an end to the violence can not come fast enough. It is at this point where finding blame needs to be put aside and focus on the ceasefire agreements. For those that disagree, they should truly understand that in all reality there is no one that is without blame. Right now the world needs to look at what is taking place in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya as power vacuums are prolonging violence. Sadly the current government of Syria has a leader that has done an extraordinary amount of harm to the people of Syria. It is truly disheartening to see this man remain in power. To that reality we must ask who is to lead next? Now, if you think what is taking place in Syria is terrible, The power struggle will become even more chaotic when Assad is removed. Another Iraq or Afghanistan will be created. The best way forward is to keep the current leadership structure in place until the people can peacefully vote him out. How is that done? The complexity is held within the mechanics, the building blocks, the melding of all that is or simply put – the how. Every country needs to swallow a bit of bravado and take the monumental step of actually working together to end the violence. This will need to have the children as the absolute focal point of the solution. It will need a deep and heavy commitment of ground troops to enter Syria. Tighten the borders of Syria if not completely lock them down. Assad will have no choice but to listen to such a plan. As for the legality of sovereignty, that issue is put to the side under the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine. This is the same doctrine that Canada used to bomb Libya. Next people will ask how long will our troops be engaged in the battle. Well Canada did not leave the European theatre until 1992 so another 50 years is possible. Unless you do not have the courage to actually solve the Syrian war then continue on the path that is currently being taken. In all probability, after fifty years this war will still be raging on and the same solution will be needed. There is no doubt that Assad must go. So does every leader at some point. Calling for Assad to leave now is not going to help the situation. What is more important is the world powers to actually work together and take control of this war. The capacity is there to accomplish peace fairly quickly. The missing element is the will to do what needs to be done. What is taking place in Syria is simply the combatants fighting to hold power. We have gone down the path of destruction to far to not work with Assad now. As much as it pains us to do such a thing it must be done because it is the quickest path to peace – without complete and total destruction of the population and country. As often happens in a dysfunctional and disgusting situation, we must deal with hidden agendas, back room deals, ego and power grabs. There is no lack of such elements as poor decisions are made one after the other. In the end the one who pay the ultimate price – the children.

Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Politics and Patronage

Throughout history, in fact ever since two people stood in front of each other there has been a need for systems of understanding. Language being one such method used to bring understanding. As humans progressed and larger groups formed, we needed more systems to bring order. Political parties are examples of systems used to bring order and structure at least, peace is a different matter. We often get people who are skilled at politics yet inept at peace. The irony is that politics is there to assist us in securing peace. For example we have Libya, Syria, Iraq, Ukraine and many other areas where politicians have done a masterful job of getting what they want. However the ability to bring peace has been left behind. Here in Canada, peace in our society is far greater than the countries noted above. Even though we do not live in an society that is waging open warfare does not mean we can be less diligent on the efforts to be peaceful. In truth, we should feel the obligation to be ever more diligent. To do this we must look beyond current thoughts and understanding of political normalcy. One area that has been abused to get lengths by every party holding power rests within the legislative branches of governance. One of the most radical out side the box ideas is to do away with party politics in the House. For example, here in Canada, the territory of Nunavut has no party politics. Doing so increases transparency, responsibility to voters and decreases political patronage, pork barrel politics and whipped votes. One of the largest barriers we have is the attachment to old school party politic method and ideology. The system of party politics is comfortable and familiar. Sadly, there are emergent realities that erode the trust of the people creeping in, these must be dealt with. As an example the next government could pledge to appoint the best person for each Ministry no matter what party they belong to. These members should not have to change parties or cross the floor which does happen on occasion. Or, how about each party leader as a Minister of Education, another party leader as Minister of Health or Minister of Finance and so on. At the very least I think that every elected member should be allowed to apply for a Minister position. The best person for the job is always mentioned and sometimes the party that holds power just does not have the best person within its ranks. I understand these are not typical concepts but that is what outside the box thinking is. Furthermore, there is no legal reason it is not done today. The only reason it is not done is due to political patronage and the fact that it is rare to have a politician with enough courage to try it.


Version Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life

lecture: Fermentation Mobile

experimental, educational and commercial fermentation everywhere

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This talk is about setting up mobile fermentation education centers for experimental fermentation as well as means of legal production and vending points of fermented and other products at a variety of events and places.

After a decade of fermenting around the world I have come to the conclusion that having mobile bases, where kvasirs (brewers, fermentors) can do what they love and legally make their living by carrying out their activities, is a sustainable way to promote the fermentation art and science long term.

Being able to meet your needs by choosing and later on keeping working in your profession is one of the founding principles of human society. You can build up experience and knowledge of the persons and groups achieving progress in your field. Establishing fermentation communities guarantees more stable conditions for fermentation related projects, which take time, energy, and resources.

A mobile approach to fermentation helps to reduce efforts and resources to a minimum. This is crucial especially at the first phases of community build up, when least resources are available. Importantly it also allows promotion, exchange, and resource generation by collaboration with other communities and participation at events when the “home community” is not “fermentized”, or strong enough, to support the project fully yet. Fermentation mobile therefore aims to build up stable, local fermentation communities by helping them to achieve their sustainability and self reliance faster and more efficiently, integrating them into a legal framework, and combining collaboration and exchange of resources with other communities and projects.

This project is an interdisciplinary effort encompassing at least three different fields. The first and core field is fermentation. Currently concepts of fermentation involve slow food, organic methods, and fair trade.

The second field, familiar to those hacking of food and bio, focuses on proper scientific understanding that results in high performance applied technology for the production phase and also distribution. This second field has adapted the concepts of open sharing and building together, which changed the "software and hardware" industries in the recent past in a very positive way and has set a new paradigm of production.

The third field is that of art, which brings the first and second fields together in a harmony that promotes unity. Art is an ancient bridge between the cultures and people. Acquiring a proper artistic form makes the whole "project" more accessible to people and communities that are coming from different backgrounds.

Therefore, what we will focus on is the art of fermentation done by hackers in a mobile form, with practical demonstrations at the event and after.


Picasso's Pizzas Edinburgh

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Address:   Picasso's Pizzas, 102 High St West,
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Picasso's Pizzas is a Takeaway in Edinburgh which serves mainly Pizza food. They can be found at 102 High St West, and their phone number is (0191) 262 8881.
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  • Non EU Programme Countries: Macedonia, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Turkey

Erasmus+ Partner Countries Neighbouring the EU: Albania, Armenia, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Egypt, Georgia, Israel, Jordan, Kosovo, Lebanon, Libya, Moldova, Montenegro, Morocco, Palestine, Russia, Serbia, Syria, Tunisia, Ukraine.

Southern Mediterranean countries: Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia

Western Balkan countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia

Eastern Partnership countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine


start date: 26 September 2017

  • Java programming jobs, networking and volunteer opportunities. Benefiting from over 30 years of Industry Experience, we are extremely well placed within the java programming field. Employers are always looking for Fitzwilliam Institute’s java programming students and alumni. Fitzwilliam Institute’s website features a comprehensive jobs and volunteer opportunities section.

Java Fundamentals:

Introduction to java applications, introduction to classes and objects, java control statements and constructs, arrays.

Classes and Objects:

Controlling access to members, the this reference, overloaded constructors, default and no-argument constructors, composition, enumerations, garbage collection and method finalize, static class members, static import, final instance variables, creating packages.

Superclasses and subclasses, protected members, relationship between superclasses and subclasses, creating and using a subclass using inheritance, inheritance hierarchy, using protected and private instance variables, inheritance hierarchy using private instance variables, constructors in subclasses.

Polymorphism examples, demonstrating polymorphic behaviour, abstract classes and methods, case study: payroll system using polymorphism, operator instance of and downcasting, final methods and classes, creating and using interfaces, declaring constants with interfaces, common interfaces of the java API

Introduction to GUI Components:

Simple GUI-Based Input/Output with JOptionPanel, overview of swing components, displaying text and images in a window, text fields and an introduction to event handling with nested classes, common gui event types and listener interfaces, how event handling works, jbutton component, buttons that maintain state, jcheckbox component, jradiobutton component, jcombobox and using an anonymous inner class for event handling, list component, mouse event handling and adapter classes, panel subclass for drawing with the mouse, layout managers, using panels to manage more complex layouts.

Exception Handling:

Exception-handling overview, when to use exception handling, exception handling examples, java exception hierarchy, finally block, stack unwinding, printstacktrace, getstacktrace and getmessage, chained exceptions, declaring new exception types, assertions

Files and Streams:

Data hierarchy, files and streams, class file, sequential-access text files, creating a sequential-access text file, reading data from a sequential-access text file, updating sequential-access files, object serialization, creating a sequential-access file using object serialization, reading and deserializing data from a sequential-access file, additional java.io classes, opening files with jfilechooser.

Collections Overview, Class Arrays, Interface Collection and Class Collections, ArrayList class and Iterators, LinkedList class, Collections Algorithms, Algorithm sort, Algorithm shuffle, Algorithms reverse, fill, copy, max and min, Algorithm binarySearch, Stack Class of Package java.util, Class PriorityQueue and Interface Queue, Sets, Maps.

Manipulating URLs, reading a file on a web server, establishing a simple server using stream sockets, establishing a simple client using stream sockets, client/server interaction with stream socket connections, connectionless client/server interaction with datagrams, using a multithreaded server.

Accessing Databases with JDBC:

Relational databases, relational database overview: the books database, SQL, basic SELECT query, WHERE clause, ORDER BY clause, merging data from multiple tables: INNER JOIN, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE (DML) statement, creating databases in MySQL, manipulating databases with JDBC, connecting to and querying a database, RowSet interface, prepared statements, executing stored procedures, transaction processing.

Web Applications: Part 1:

Installing and configuring the Oracle Glassfish java system application server, simple HTTP transactions, multitier application architecture, servlets, JavaServer Pages (JSP), JavaServer Faces (JSF), creating and running a web application in Netbeans, event-processing life cycle, examining the XHTML generated by a Java Web Application, building a web application in Netbeans, JSF components, text and graphics components, using validator components and custom validators, session tracking and cookies.

Web Applications: Part 2:

Accessing databases in web applications, building a web application that displays data from a database, modifying the page bean file for the addressbook application, autocomplete text field and virtual forms, configuring virtual forms, JSP file with virtual forms and an autocomplete text field, providing suggestions for an autocomplete text field, using the Google Maps Map Viewer component in a web application.

Ilona Kelly

Declan Sheridan

John Mitchell

next start date: 26th September 2017 (Tuesday)

Time: 6:30pm – 9pm

Course Fees: €1,395.


Building a bracket with the Z-Ratings

The conference tournaments are complete, and the field of 65 has been selected for the 2003 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. The selection is basically done by ten guys (two conference commisioners and eight athletic directors) sealing themselves in a room and picking out whoever they like.

Well, I like to be a little more scientific. I haven't seen every candidate for selection, and can't speak about their relative strengths with any authority. Thus I rely on the Bradley-Terry system, a proven statistical method originally applied to college hockey several years ago, which I publish as the Z-Ratings. The final Z-Ratings will be our guide to selecting and placing the teams; I'll reference them extensively throughout this document.

Selecting the field

Step 1: the automatic bids

Each of the 31 Division I conferences gets one automatic bid to the tournament. Every conference except the Ivy League gives its automatic bid to its tournament champion. The Ivy League does not conduct a postseason tournament, and thus the regular season champion gets the bid. This year's champions are:

Rank - Team (Conference)
1 - Kentucky (Southeastern Conference)
3 - Pittsburgh (Big East Conference)
6 - Oklahoma (Big 12 Conference)
8 - Duke (Atlantic Coast Conference)
11 - Louisville (Conference USA)
14 - Illinois (Big Ten Conference)
16 - Dayton (Atlantic 10 Conference)
17 - Creighton (Missouri Valley Conference)
29 - Oregon (Pacific-10 Conference)
47 - Weber State (Big Sky Conference)
52 - Wisconsin-Milwaukee (Horizon League)
54 - Central Michigan (Mid-American Conference)
61 - Pennsylvania (Ivy League)
63 - Tulsa (Western Athletic Conference)
73 - Colorado State (Mountain West Conference)
76 - Manhattan (Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference)
77 - Western Kentucky (Sun Belt Conference)
82 - Troy State (Atlantic Sun Conference)
83 - UNC Wilmington (Colonial Athletic Association)
86 - Austin Peay (Ohio Valley Conference)
87 - Holy Cross (Patriot League)
89 - San Diego (West Coast Conference)
100 - Utah State (Big West Conference)
132 - East Tennessee State (Southern Conference)
142 - Sam Houston State (Southland Conference)
159 - IUPU Indianapolis (Mid-Continent Conference)
181 - Vermont (America East Conference)
182 - Wagner (Northeast Conference)
225 - UNC Asheville (Big South Conference)
236 - South Carolina State (Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference)
267 - Texas Southern (Southwestern Athletic Conference)

Step 2: the at-large teams

The committee has discretion to select the remaining thirty-four participants. If I were running this thing, I'd make it 33 so there would be 64 teams, but that's not my call. No complicated ballots or secret deals here. The top 34 teams without automatic bids get the at-large spots. The one exception to this is Georgia, which declared itself ineligible for postseason play after allegations of academic fraud. Here are the BT at-large selections - teams that were not actually selected for the field are in italics:

Rank - Team
2 - Arizona
4 - Wake Forest
5 - Syracuse
7 - Texas
9 - Florida
10 - Marquette
12 - Kansas
15 - Xavier
18 - Notre Dame
19 - Wisconsin
20 - Stanford
21 - Memphis
22 - Mississippi State
23 - Missouri
24 - Oklahoma State
25 - California
26 - Maryland
27 - Utah
28 - Louisiana St.
30 - St. Joseph's
31 - Connecticut
32 - Brigham Young
33 - Purdue
34 - Indiana
35 - Michigan State
36 - Alabama
37 - Arizona State
38 - Butler
39 - Tennessee
40 - Colorado
41 - Auburn
42 - Southern Illinois
43 - Texas Tech
44 - North Carolina State

32 of the 34 at-large teams above match the actual selections. The two that don't, Texas Tech and Tennessee, would have been the seventh selections from the Big 12 and SEC, respectively. The two teams that would have been left out under the BT system, but got into the actual bracket are Cincinnati and Gonzaga (who, interestingly enough, will meet each other in a first round game). I certainly don't mind Gonzaga, which was the regular-season champion of the 10th ranked conference, and lost the tournament championship on its opponent's home floor. Cincinnati, on the other hand, finished fifth in the 8th ranked conference, one from which three other teams got bids. They also lost in the first round of the Conference USA tournament to the twelfth seed, Southern Mississippi (ranked 120th). To me, their placement is not as justifiable. Though I'd prefer a strictly-by-the-numbers selection process, I think the committee did a pretty good job with the bubble this year.

Seeding the teams

Again, we go with straight logic - no S-Curve here. Order the teams by their ratings, and seed them in groups of four. In other words, the top four teams in the field get No. 1 seeds, the next four are No. 2's, and so on down to the No. 15 seeds. The next three are No. 16 seeds, and the final two teams (No. 64 and 65 in overall ranking) get sent to the opening round game. The table of seeds and rankings within the field appears below. These seeds may be modified later to satisfy certain bracketing principles.

Seed Rk FR Team Seed Rk FR Team Seed Rk FR Team Seed Rk FR Team
111Kentucky 51817Notre Dame 93433Indiana 137349Colorado State
22Arizona 1918Wisconsin 3534Michigan State 7650Manhattan
33Pittsburgh 2019Stanford 3635Alabama 7751Western Kentucky
44Wake Forest 2120Memphis 3736Arizona State 8252Troy State
255Syracuse 62221Mississippi State 103837Butler 148353UNC Wilmington
66Oklahoma 2322Missouri 3938Tennessee 8654Austin Peay
77Texas 2423Oklahoma State 4039Colorado 8755Holy Cross
88Duke 2524California 4140Auburn 8956San Diego
399Florida 72625Maryland 114241Southern Illinois 1510057Utah State
1010Marquette 2726Utah 4342Texas Tech 13258East Tennessee State
1111Louisville 2827Louisiana State 4443North Carolina State 14259Sam Houston State
1212Kansas 2928Oregon 4744Weber State 15960IUPU Indianapolis
41413Illinois 83029St. Joseph's 125245Wisconsin - Milwaukee 1618161Vermont
1514Xavier 3130Connecticut 5446Central Michigan 18262Wagner
1615Dayton 3231Brigham Young 6147Pennsylvania 22563UNC Asheville
1716Creighton 3332Purdue 6348Tulsa
OR23664South Carolina State
26765Texas Southern
Rk = overall ranking by the Z-Ratings.
FR = Field ranking - the ranking of the team among the field of 65.
OR = opening round.

Three comments on the seeds before we go on.
Wake Forest as a #1. People reading this must be going ballistic, thinking there's no way Wake is one of the top four in the nation. Let me remind readers, however, that the Z-Ratings do not place any additional emphasis on conference tournament games. The Demon Deacons did lose in their conference semifinal, but they also won the ACC regular season title, going 13-3 in the second best conference. That counts for enough to get them a #1.
Kansas as a #3. Many people had the Jayhawks as a potential #1. Keep in mind that the two wins over teams outside Division I don't count, reducing Kansas' win total to 23. They also lost seven games. And Andy Katz made a great point on Sportscenter: the Jayhawks played in the Big 12 North, so they had more games against the bottom of the conference (notably Iowa State, Nebraska, and Kansas State). These factors combine to put KU at the No. 12 overall ranking.
UNC Asheville not in the play-in game. Asheville may be under .500, but the Bulldogs' strength of schedule is ranked at 236; South Carolina State is at 307; Texas Southern is at 315. The guidelines are specific about the Nos. 64 and 65 teams meeting in the opening round game; for me, a losing record is no reason to override them.

Establishing the bracket

We adhere to the bracketing principles established by the committee. Some are absolute, while others are merely guidelines. In short, the hard-and-fast rules are:

We also will use similar procedures to those given in the basketball championship handbook. I'll list them as we go along.

Step 1: Place the No. 1 seeds.

No. 1 overall ranked Kentucky gets the South Region placement. Arizona goes to the West; Pittsburgh goes to the East; Wake Forest goes to the Midwest.

Step 2: Place the No. 2 seeds.

Syracuse has priority as the No. 5 overall, but cannot go to the East because Pittsburgh is there. They head to the Midwest. Oklahoma goes to the West, Texas to the South, and Duke to the East.

Step 3: Place the No. 3 seeds.

Florida can't go to the South because Kentucky is there; they get a placement in the East. Given that, we must therefore place Kansas in the Midwest (to avoid Texas and Oklahoma). Marquette gets shipped West, while Louisville gets placed in the South.

Step 4: Place the No. 4 seeds.

Illinois to the Midwest; Xavier to the East; Dayton to the South; Creighton to the West.

Step 5: Check for conflicts and balance in the Nos. 1 through 4 seeds.

No conflicts with the principles are present. We check for balance by adding the FR numbers of the teams in each region. As it currently stands, the bracket is perfectly balanced - the sum of the FR's is 34 in all four regions.

Step 6: Assign first and second round sites.

Proceeding in ranking order, determine which site each team's "pod" goes to. Here's what I come up with:
Boston - Pittsburgh, Syracuse
Tampa - Florida, Illinois
Birmingham - Duke, Xavier
Nashville - Wake Forest, Louisville
Oklahoma City - Texas, Oklahoma
Indianapolis - Kentucky, Marquette
Salt Lake City - Arizona, Dayton
Spokane - Kansas, Creighton

Now it's off to the bottom of the field.

Step 7: Place the No. 13 seeds.

Colorado State to the West; Manhattan to the East; Western Kentucky to the South; Troy State to the Midwest.

Step 8: Place the No. 14 seeds.

UNC Wilmington to the South; Austin Peay to the Midwest; Holy Cross to the East; San Diego to the West.

Step 9: Place the No. 15 seeds.

Utah State to the West; East Tennessee State to the South; Sam Houston State gets shipped to the East; IUPUI ends up in the Midwest.

Step 10: Place the No. 16 seeds.

Vermont goes to the East. Wagner is shipped to the West. UNC Asheville goes to the Midwest. I could have put either Wagner or UNCA in the South, but chose to leave it open for the winner of the opening round game between South Carolina State and Texas Southern. This was done so that Kentucky, at No. 1 overall, gets the lowest ranked team in the first round.

Step 11: Check for conflicts and balance in the Nos. 13 through 16 seeds.

There are no conflicts in this part of the bracket. In terms of balance, the lowest FR sum is 224 (West) and the highest is 229 (Midwest), so the balance is good.

It's time to take on the toughest part of the bracket - the muddled middle.

Step 12: Place the No. 5 seeds.

Notre Dame gets placed in the Midwest. Wisconsin gets shipped to the West. This enables Stanford to be placed in the South (thus avoiding Arizona) and Memphis in the East (in a different region than Louisville and Marquette). This is subject to change, however, as one of these teams will get bumped to a No. 6.

Step 13: Place the No. 6 seeds.

We place Mississippi State in the West to keep them separate from Kentucky and Florida. We then confront the most severe problem thus far - Missouri and Oklahoma State. They both cannot be placed as No. 6 seeds, because that would put five Big 12 teams in the bottom half of the regional draws (creating an intraconference matchup before the regional finals). Since Missouri has the higher overall ranking, we bump them up to a No. 5 - and into the other half of the bracket, placing them in the East. As for who to bring down, since Memphis has the lowest rating of the No. 5 seeds, they get dropped to a No. 6, and assigned to the Midwest. Oklahoma State goes to the East. This would leave California to the South, but that would put them in the same region as Stanford. California is therefore dropped to a No. 7, while Maryland gets brought up and placed in the South No. 6 slot.

Step 14: Place the No. 7 seeds.

California, as the highest No. 7, goes to the East (can't put them opposite Arizona in the West). Utah goes to the South (can't put them opposite Colorado State in the West). LSU goes to the Midwest, and Oregon goes to the West (since Oregon is the fourth team out of the Pac-10, they can be assigned to the same region as another Pac-10 team).

Step 15: Place the No. 8 seeds.

St. Joseph's can't to to either the East or the South, so they're in the Midwest. Connecticut can't go to the East, so they get sent to the South. We now come to Brigham Young, which is a special case because they must be bracketed to play Thursday/Saturday on the first two weekends, due to the school's religious requirements. (The selection committee got major egg on its face by forgetting this point when making the actual bracket.) The West regional, with a Salt Lake City pod, fits this criterion. To keep the Mountain West teams in different regions, we swap Colorado State and Troy State on the No. 13 line. And after all that, we put Purdue in the East.

Step 16: Check for conflicts and balance in the Nos. 5 through 8 seeds.

There is a conflict at this point - Notre Dame and Syracuse both being in the Midwest. We therefore shuffle the No. 5's around a bit: Wisconsin to the South, Stanford to the Midwest, and Notre Dame to the West. This shuffle also improves the balance of this set of seeds, with the lowest FR sum of 95 (Midwest) and the highest of 101 (East). There is a slight concern about having three true No. 6 seeds in the East (with Missouri bracketed as a No. 5 and California as a No. 7), but I can live with it.

49 down, 16 to go.

Step 17: Place the No. 9 seeds.

Another seed swap is inevitable here, as both Indiana and Michigan State are from the Big Ten, and only one can get placed in this half (in the West). Because Indiana has the higher overall ranking, they get the spot. We'll deal with the Spartans in the next step. Butler comes up, because they are the highest rated true No. 10 seed. Alabama can't go to the South, so we put them in the East. Arizona State must go to the South, because Butler cannot play in Indianapolis. The Bulldogs are placed in the Midwest. All this is pending, however - more seed swapping in the next step because of an abundance of SEC teams.

Step 18: Place the No. 10 seeds.

Michigan State gets placed in the Midwest. Now we deal with Tennessee and Auburn from the SEC. One of them has to be bumped to the other side of the bracket - i.e., up to a No. 9. Being the higher rated team, Tennessee gets the bump. This causes Butler to be bumped back down to a No. 10. The Volunteers take Butler's spot as Midwest No. 9. Butler goes to the East. The next team to be placed is Colorado. Guess what? They have to move too, because there are higher-seeded Big 12 teams in the bottom halves of all four regions. Other than Tennessee, the lowest No. 9 is Arizona State, but bumping the Sun Devils down would create an intraconference game (either between Arizona State and California or Oregon, or between Auburn and Florida or Mississippi State). We can't bump Alabama down, because that would give us the same problem that caused us to bump up Tennessee. That leaves Indiana, who goes to the West because Auburn must be placed in the South. Colorado takes the No. 9 West spot.

Step 19: Place the No. 11 seeds.

The first one in this step is simple - Southern Illinois goes to the Midwest. Texas Tech is next, but they have to be bumped down a seed because of overcrowding from the Big 12. Wisconsin-Milwaukee is the highest true No. 12, so they get bumped up. North Carolina State must go to the West. Weber State must go to the East, because Wisconsin-Milwaukee cannot be bracketed with Butler. Therefore, the Panthers end up in the South.

Step 20: Place the No. 12 seeds.

Texas Tech goes to the South - and with that, we're home free. Central Michigan to the Midwest; Ivy champion Pennsylvania in the East; and last, but not least, WAC champ Tulsa in the West.

Step 21: Check for conflicts and balance in the Nos. 9 through 12 seeds.

There are no conflicts here. The balance is very good here as well - the Midwest has an FR sum of 159, and the other three regions are all at 163.

Step 22: Re-check the entire bracket for conflicts.

No intraconference matchups are scheduled before the regional finals. The top four and bottom four seeds in each regional are from different conferences. No teams are playing on home courts or at sites where they are hosts. None of the top five seeds in any region are at a disadvantage. The first three teams from each conference are in different regionals. And perhaps most importantly, the top two seeds would be slated to meet in the national championship game if they both advanced that far. Go take a look at the bracket.

Potential improvements

Junk the play-in game

It's utterly stupid that there have to be 34 at-large teams. There should be 64 teams, so that each team in the field can have a seed. It works for the women; it worked for the men for over a decade; it's the right thing to do.

Allow some flexibility in the Final Four pairings

With the NCAA men's hockey tournament going to four regionals, that sport's committee elected not to specify which regional winners would meet in the national semifinals. The basketball committee should do the same, adopting something to the effect of:

"The regional winners shall be paired so that if all four No. 1 seeds advance to the Final Four, the No. 1 ranked team plays the No. 4 team in one national semifinal, and No. 2 plays No. 3 in the other."

This would enable the strongest teams to remain in their home regions, while attempting to prevent a situation like Arizona and Kentucky meeting in a national semifinal, as opposed to the championship game. The current static rotation serves no purpose in my mind.

Adopt some sort of open, objective system

Some people like a little mystery in their Selection Sunday. I don't. It's much more important to know that your team did or did not make the field because of what it did on the court, not because one member of the committee doesn't like a particular head coach (or something similar).

Having an objective system doesn't diminish the importance of the that Sunday in the middle of March. There is, after all, the fairly subjective question of how seeding is to be handled. In addition, the selection criteria can serve as a sort of "national standings," just as the Pairwise Rankings, or PWR, do in college hockey. I personally think the Bradley-Terry system is superior to the PWR (which is based heavily on the seriously flawed Ratings Percentage Index). But the important thing is to eliminate the smoke-filled room, as least as far as whether a particular team is in or out.

Having said my very lengthy piece in this document and the accompanying bracket, once the teams are selected and seeded, burn the rankings sheets and delete the computer files - settle the championship on the court. Let's jump it up.


Question #89981 posted on 07/01/2017 12:45 a.m.

Dear 100 Hour Board,

Sorry if this question seems a little morbid.

We know from Moroni 8 that little children don't need repentance or baptism which is why we don't practice infant baptism. So if a child dies before the age of 8, can/are they baptized by proxy in the temple? I think the answer is no but what about other temple ordinances? Do they receive them by proxy?

(I think this next question is OK to ask but if the editors feel it's not feel free to remove it:) Suppose someone received the Melchizedek priesthood/was ordained an elder but died before receiving his endowment. When his temple work is done would the proxy ordination to the Melchizedek priesthood not be performed? And I guess I also have a similar question if someone were baptized but died before being confirmed.

-My Name Here

Dear person,

I just found out at the temple that the only ordinance children who die before age 8 need is the sealing to their parents (if they weren't born in the covenant). I think this is for the same reason we don't baptize them before they reach the age of 8 if they're alive, as found in the chapter you referenced.

This 1977 article expounds,

"Are all little children saved automatically in the celestial kingdom?

"To this question the answer is a thunderous yes, which echoes and re-echoes from one end of heaven to the other. Jesus taught it to his disciples. Mormon said it over and over again. Many of the prophets have spoken about it, and it is implicit in the whole plan of salvation. If it were not so the redemption would not be infinite in its application. And so, as we would expect, Joseph Smith’s Vision of the Celestial Kingdom contains this statement: 'And I also beheld that all children who die before they arrive at the years of accountability are saved in the celestial kingdom of heaven.' (D&C 137:10)

"...They are saved through the atonement and because they are free from sin. They come from God in purity; no sin or taint attaches to them in this life; and they return in purity to their Maker. Accountable persons must become pure through repentance and baptism and obedience. Those who are not accountable for sins never fall spiritually and need not be redeemed from a spiritual fall which they never experienced. Hence the expression that little children are alive in Christ. 'Little children are redeemed from the foundation of the world through mine Only Begotten,' the Lord says. (D&C 29:46.)"

To your next question, I believe the only work that needs to be done by proxy is work that hasn't already been done.

Take care,

-Auto Surf


Make your own free website on

The morning was bone chilling and damp. Rain left a slight prick of pain as its very touch stung our faces. Before us were the last three Caves of Chaos. We had one shot at total survival, which meant we needed to work as a team. Never before had the group pulled together to perform such an act. This last ditch effort was to prove that we could work as a team and advance our reputation far and wide.

The first cave, dark and still, was covered in glistening threads of silvery silk that made the passage impenetrable. We quickly checked for traps as we approached the wall of web, knowing that what we needed was on the other side. Enya rolled a flaming sphere into the web, clearing a path until the light exposed a pit with set spears at the bottom. Eager to cross Kethkor jumped meeting Kerlon on the other side. One by one the brave party leaped to meet fate and what danger lay ahead.

Once across the pit the party found a vast cavern with a single spire in the middle soaring some 100 ft in the air. Webs of great strength tethered the spire to floor and ceiling as if it was a ship moored in a storm. Magical Arrows and mystical darts came hastily at the party as they fought to stand their ground against the large spiders protecting their commander. Mighty Kethkor and Kerlon engaged in hand to weapon combat. While, the archers sent flurry after flurry of arrows at the giant arachnoids. Bubbles, with his small stature, continued to hold his own in a 2 to 1 fight, letting all know that he would not be overcome by such pests. Enya called upon the power of her faith to help shield the party and then followed up by using the rod of alertness to see the dryder quickly advancing.

Enya flew up to the top of the spire and engaged battle with the dryder, a creature of pure evil. Bubbles and Kethkor ran up the spiraling staircase to the top to engage the creature as well. The archers continued to bombarded the cavern with arrows to ensure victory.

The final blow was dealt to the dryder and she fell to the floor, her egg sack bursting open, releasing hundreds of little spiders. Fortunately the area caught on fire and the web dwelling creatures were no more.


Patron Saint Medals

Patron Saint Medals - Over time, various saints have become patrons of special needs, place, professions and life events. Typically the root of a saint being a patron is related to their life story, and at times the nature and circumstances of their death. The life of a saint, their state in life, special skills, occupation, accomplishments, or notable life events all factor into being a Patron Saint.  An easy way to begin to explore available saint medals is to select the letter below related to the name of the saint. It will lead you to a listing of saints under that letter. In our Catholic Jewelry category you can find Patron Saint Charms and Charm Bracelets

If you would prefer to select a saint medal available from a list of saints, you will want to use the Patron Saint Name Listing - by Name page. This list is very long.


Landmarks & Sites

7 of the Most Stunning UNESCO World Heritage Sites and Where to Find Them

With over 1,000 UNESCO World Heritage Sites to choose from, choosing which places to explore can be a daunting task. But everyone needs to start somewhere so here are some of the most stunning sites and where to find them.

Galápagos Islands (Ecuador)
Galápagos Islands
Why go: This UNESCO World Heritage site is comprised of several islands, the Galápagos National Park, and the Galápagos Marine Reserve. It is home to a wide range of species many of which are rarely seen outside this archipelago. Some of the top things to see in this place include giant tortoises, land iguanas, and other wildlife as well as its vibrant marine life.

Great Barrier Reef (Queensland, Australia)
Great Barrier Reef
Why go: one of the world’s most iconic natural wonders, the Great Barrier Reef is made up of over 2,000 individual reefs and hundreds of islands. It is the largest coral reef in the world. Severe bleaching in recent years has put this stunning coral reef system under threat.

Great Wall of China (China)
Great Wall of China
Why go: Impressive is a word that fails to capture the Great Wall of China’s grandeur. While some sections are already in ruins, long stretches of the 21,196-kilometer fortification can still be scaled and explored.

Los Glaciares National Park (Argentina)
Perito Moreno Glacier
Why go: See the breathtaking nature scenery including the stunning Glaciar Perito Moreno, Mt. Fitz Roy, a wide range of flora and fauna, woodlands, lakes, and more.

Machu Picchu (Peru)
Machu Picchu
Why go: Follow the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu and marvel at the spectacular sights all around you. See the glorious sights and experience the sense of mystery surrounding the ancient city.

Taj Mahal (Agra, India)
Taj Mahal
Why go: This stunning monument is a massive mausoleum commissioned by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his wife Mumtaz Mahal. It is a beautiful and enduring monument to love that draws thousands of tourists from around the world.

Venice and its Lagoon (Italy)
Why go: The beautiful city of Venice and its lagoon is famous for its architectural marvels. Explore this splendid watery city on board a gondola or water bus and be amazed by the canals, bridges, and buildings around you.


Research and development initiatives on lipo laser therapies

Weight Loss

Let us assume that you have resolutely made up your mind to go the route of lipo laser therapy to help you get rid of excess fat tissue. If you know this much, it would be a sign that you have begun your research and development initiative on suitable lipo laser therapies for you to utilize. Congratulations on getting this far. You discovered that you need to prioritize the removal of your excess fatty tissue that is making it difficult for you to lose further weight.

You have also placed yourself on the wellness path towards balanced, healthy eating and regular exercise. You discovered this through your reading research, mainly utilizing online resources. Because lipo laser therapy is essentially a specialized treatment area, you need to gather in as much information as possible. You can do this by utilizing the information on product and medical information sites like

In the product information example given above, there is an emphasis on what the lip laser machinery is designed and equipped to do. There is also a motivation. Specialists prefer using advanced lipo laser therapies along with LED machines for specifically non-surgical procedures. This is music to the ears of the man or woman who now feels a need to lose the excess fat through such therapies. Because the procedures are non-surgical, there is less of a risk to the patient.

However a specialized medical practitioner still needs to determine whether his patient is truly a candidate for this form of therapy. Reassuringly, many research studies have already been completed, supporting the utilization of this form of therapy. Studies revealed that the introduction of laser light to subcutaneous fat into the human body has indeed produced positive results.


Peter Capaldi on being an “older” Doctor, the Time Lord’s favourite newspaper and why not-cool is suddenly cool

The Twelfth Doctor also reveals why the inter-galactic character is just like Santa...

Peter Capaldi is striding around the Tardis set in the Cardiff studio, fretting like a host whose oven isn’t working.

“I can’t turn the lights on because we don’t have any electricians here today,” he says, apologising for the lack of technical support that means we are peering at each other in semidarkness inside television’s most famous time machine.

“So you don’t really get a sense of what fun the Tardis is. It’s quite cozy. Quite wombish and warm. People are always happy to film here. It’s not like being in Midsomer Murders, is it? There isn’t another programme in Britain in which you get to roam around 21st-century Venus.”

At the age of 58, the incumbent Doctor brought something quite new to the role, an element that the younger Who fan wouldn’t even remember, growing up with David Tennant and Matt Smith – a sober, grownup demeanour that some people might call grumpiness.

When he talks about his Who, Capaldi is anything but cranky, always almost-smiling, on the brink of some joke that he sometimes tells and sometimes chooses not to.

How does it feels to be an old Who after a string of young ones? “Surely you mean older? The Doctors I grew up with were not young. To me, Doctor Who was not a young man. Ironically, I’m older than any of those, except for William Hartnell.”

William Hartnell, the first Doctor

The Tardis itself hasn’t changed very much since Matt Smith’s time. There’s a stack of Marshall amps, a nod to the idiosyncrasy of Capaldi’s Doctor being madly into guitars, and the odd piece of 60s furniture, but “I think it cost so much that it would have been a poor use of taxpayers’ money to get rid of Matt’s and replace it with mine”.


Russia’s Take on Ukraine Tensions

April 2, 2014

Laurent Vinatier

Russian President on tension in Ukraine

Vladimir Putin’s speech on March 18 has opened a new phase in the US-with-EU-against-Russia standoff on Ukraine. On one hand critical of both the United States (disrespect of international law) and the EU (amateurish approach towards Ukrainian issues), on the other hand the Russian president appeared willing to ease simmering tensions. The time of diplomacy seems to have come. Russia is getting ready for a comprehensive dialogue with firstly the United States and then the EU on Ukraine but, quite likely as well, on the more global issue of the “Western” self-proclaimed right to intervene in the domestic affairs of sovereign countries. Tellingly Putin’s speech follows Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s first diplomatic step of March 17 when he proposed essentially the federalization of Ukraine.

Russian recognition of Crimea’s independence on March 18 and Crimea’s integration into the Russian federation the day after reinforce the Kremlin’ starting position in upcoming negotiations. As of March 2, when the Council of Federation authorized President Putin to use force in Crimea, Russia was actually securing its minimum position which is absolutely not negotiable, in any case – its continuous military presence in Sevastopol and a specific status of Crimea within Ukraine guaranteeing cultural and political rights of local Russian ethnic population. Having taken this pre-negotiation step however, Russian authorities do not think that they have provoked the crisis. They are of course aware of having escalated the tensions but they see recent events as an answer to Western incompetence and mismanagement, conscious or not, of the Maidan political crisis.

In Russian perceptions, the military threat and recognition moves have been triggered essentially by the non-implementation of the 21 February agreement, signed by President Yanukovych and the opposition under Polish, French, and German supervision, those powers having then exerted a useful influence on the three main opposition leaders. Subsequently, the quick and forced departure of president Yanukovych from power is considered in Moscow as a betrayal of this agreement by the same Western powers who proved unable or unwilling to prevent the opposition from taking power from the Yanukovych presidency. Arsenyi Yatsenyuk’s decision afterwards to prepare the cancellation of Russian language as an official language in Ukraine only added fuel on fire. This in Russian understanding was a clear provocation, almost a declaration of war, that no one in Moscow believes it could have been decided without previous approval from “Western” supporters of the new government.

Russia’s strategic take

The new rulers of Ukraine, with US and EU benediction, destroyed a fragile but enduring balance of interests between the Russian and the European-oriented parts of Ukraine. That balance was guaranteed by a feeble but existing democratic process. The Kremlin interpreted the Maidan victory as a non-democratic change, hence more risky for Russian interests in Ukraine. In this perspective, Yanukovych absolutely does not matter for Russia. What matters is the reestablishment of sustainable checks and balances in Ukraine, for which Russian communities in the East and in Crimea are entitled to fight for with Russian support. Interestingly, Vitaly Klitshko is quite neutrally appreciated by the Russian decision-makers. They see him as a still junior politician. But since he and his movement do not take part into the current Kiev government, he may appear as someone with whom a deal is possible, even a compromise figure. His discretion today is seen in Moscow as the United States having imposed their candidate, Arseniy Yatsenyuk against Angela Merkel’s one, Klitshko.

Politics prevails over economics

In Putin’s eyes, the negative effects on Russian economic interests abroad are of secondary importance next to Russia’s political priorities in Ukraine. Gazprom losing market shares in Europe or South Stream being delayed does not fit within the Kremlin’s calculations. However, the Russian government appears more concerned by negative domestic impact. Former but still influential finance minister Alexei Kudrin has tellingly reacted on the subject, pointing to the economic dangers of a Russia’s complete take over of Ukraine. The near $500 billion dollars in a reserve fund cannot solve all problems.

NATO involvement in Ukraine could provoke a full-scale Russian military intervention. In Russian understanding, there must be a clear distinction made between Crimea and eastern Ukraine. These are two separate issues. Most Russians today believe that Crimea belongs to Russia, whereas eastern Ukraine must (or can) remain in Ukraine under present borders. Russia seeks to make Crimea a new frozen conflict in Europe and to negotiate with the West so that the rest of Ukraine (without Crimea) remains in a reestablished balance between Europe and Russia. It is thus very unlikely in today’s configuration that Russian armies would invade eastern Ukraine; that is, as long as NATO remains outside the equation.

Dr. Laurent Vinatier is a contributor to

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2017: Frontiers in Psychology
Justin Hudak, Friederike Blume, Thomas Dresler, Florian B Haeussinger, Tobias J Renner, Andreas J Fallgatter, Caterina Gawrilow, Ann-Christine Ehlis
Based on neurofeedback (NF) training as a neurocognitive treatment in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), we designed a randomized, controlled functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) NF intervention embedded in an immersive virtual reality classroom in which participants learned to control overhead lighting with their dorsolateral prefrontal brain activation. We tested the efficacy of the intervention on healthy adults displaying high impulsivity as a sub-clinical population sharing common features with ADHD...
2017: Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
E Linstead, D R Dixon, E Hong, C O Burns, R French, M N Novack, D Granpeesheh
Applied behavior analysis (ABA) is considered an effective treatment for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and many researchers have further investigated factors associated with treatment outcomes. However, few studies have focused on whether treatment intensity and duration have differential influences on separate skills. The aim of the current study was to investigate how treatment intensity and duration impact learning across different treatment domains, including academic, adaptive, cognitive, executive function, language, motor, play, and social...
September 19, 2017: Translational Psychiatry
Brandon Frank, Nicholas C Jacobson, Landon Hurley, Dean McKay
The newly launched Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) emphasize specific mechanisms over diagnostic categories of psychopathology. In our view, RDoC provides a useful heuristic for mental health disorders, but does not capture the complexity of psychological data when proposed mechanisms are viewed as static entities. However, temporal and complex system dynamics may advance RDoC's utility. By investigating temporal patterns within trajectories and the interaction of complex networks, we propose that dynamic modeling provides comprehensive methods with which to investigate the etiopathology and maintenance of mental health disorders...
September 8, 2017: Journal of Anxiety Disorders
Lauren L Jantzie, Joseph Scafidi, Shenandoah Robinson
Cell-based therapies hold significant promise for infants at risk for cerebral palsy (CP) from perinatal brain injury (PBI). PBI leading to CP results from multi-faceted damage to neural cells. Complex developing neural networks are injured by neural cell damage plus unique perturbations in cell signaling. Given that cell-based therapies can simultaneously repair multiple injured neural components during critical neurodevelopmental windows, these interventions potentially offer efficacy for patients with CP...
September 18, 2017: Pediatric Research
Martin Kang, Bernard Thébaud
Lung diseases remain one of the main causes of morbidity and mortality in neonates. Cell therapy and regenerative medicine have the potential to revolutionize the management of life-threatening and debilitating lung diseases that currently lack effective treatments. Over the past decade, the repair capabilities of stem/progenitor cells has been harnessed to prevent/rescue lung damage in experimental neonatal lung diseases. Mesenchymal stromal cells and amnion epithelial cells exert pleiotropic effects and represent ideal therapeutic cells for bronchopulmonary dysplasia, a multifactorial disease...
September 18, 2017: Pediatric Research
Chanin Limwongse
PURPOSE OF REVIEW: To give an example of how advances in medical genetics impact a developing country and how Thailand struggle to improve medical genetics services. RECENT FINDINGS: Thailand is an example of developing country with limited resources, low geneticist to population ratio, formally decentralized even though practically centralized healthcare system and growing public interest in medical genetic technology. Nonetheless, efforts have been and still being made in regard to expanding clinical genetics services, improving access to laboratory diagnosis, increasing rare disease medication in national formulary, and training of medical genetics personnel...
September 16, 2017: Current Opinion in Pediatrics
Tara Kerin, Heather Volk, Weiyan Li, Fred Lurmann, Sandrah Eckel, Rob McConnell, Irva Hertz-Picciotto
Prenatal exposure to air pollution has been associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) risk but no study has examined associations with ASD severity or functioning. Cognitive ability, adaptive functioning, and ASD severity were assessed in 327 children with ASD from the Childhood Autism Risks from Genetics and the Environment study using the Mullen Scales of Early Learning (MSEL), the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales (VABS), and the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule calibrated severity score. Estimates of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), particulate matter (PM2...
September 18, 2017: Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders
Taylor Chomiak, Andrew R Brown, G Campbell Teskey, Bin Hu
Behavioural inflexibility and associated atypical learning behaviours are common clinical manifestations of the autism spectrum disorder (ASD) phenotype. Despite advances in our understanding of ASD, little research has been devoted to experimental interventions that might help to circumvent behavioural inflexibility in ASD. The current paper suggests that motivational locomotion in the form of wheel running can reduce behavioural inflexibility and learning impairments in an ASD rat model, and discusses how the strategy of reward-coupled locomotor activity may lead to clinical interventions for children with ASD...
September 18, 2017: Journal of Neural Transmission
Nan Zhang, Chenchen Song, Baomin Zhao, Mengya Xing, Lanlan Luo, Marc L Gordon, Yan Cheng
Cerebral hypoperfusion is an important factor in the pathogenesis of cerebrovascular diseases and neurodegenerative disorders. We investigated the effects of memantine and rosuvastatin on both neovascularization and synaptic function in a rat model of chronic cerebral hypoperfusion, which was established by the bilateral common carotid occlusion (2VO) method. We tested learning and memory ability, synaptic function, circulating endothelial progenitor cell (EPC) number, expression of neurotrophic factors, and markers of neovasculogenesis and cell proliferation after memantine and/or rosuvastatin treatment...
September 17, 2017: Journal of Molecular Neuroscience: MN
Andras Sikter, Zoltan Rihmer, Roberto de Guevara
The stress defence-cascade is mostly not biphasic as Cannon thought, the sympathicotonic stress response is preceded by a vagotonic phase called freeze response. Alteration of the carbon dioxide level plays an important role during defence-cascade as its changes interfere with stress hormones, e.g. with catecholamines, thus affecting the degree of arousal. In case of humans, learned behaviour dominates instead of instinctive, so the fight-or-flight often lags; the consequence can be persistent hypocapnia or hypercapnia...
June 2017: Neuropsychopharmacologia Hungarica
David S Goldstein, Irwin J Kopin
In this review we describe a series of major concepts introduced during the past 150years that have contributed to our current understanding about how physiological processes required for well-being and survival are regulated. One can theorize that hierarchical networks involving input-output relationships continuously orchestrate and learn adaptive patterns of observable behaviors, cognition, memory, mood, and autonomic systems. Taken together, these networks function as "good regulators" determining levels of internal variables and act as if there were homeostatic comparators ("homeostats")...
September 5, 2017: Autonomic Neuroscience: Basic & Clinical
S T Kristiansen, P Videbech, M Kragh, C N Thisted, M B Bjerrum
OBJECTIVE: To synthesize the evidence on how patients with serious mental disorders perceived patient education on psychiatric wards and to learn more about the patient perceived benefits and limitations related to patient education and how well patient education meets the perceived needs of inpatients. METHODS: Quantitative and qualitative data were categorized and synthesized. A systematic literature search was conducted. Articles were validated using validated critical appraisal tools...
September 12, 2017: Patient Education and Counseling
Chen Qu, Romain Ligneul, Jean-Baptiste Van der Henst, Jean-Claude Dreher
In the course of evolution, social dominance has been a strong force shaping the organization of social systems in many species. Individuals with a better ability to represent social dominance relationships and to adapt their behavior accordingly usually achieve better access to resources, hence providing benefits in terms of reproduction, health, and wellbeing. Understanding how and to what extent our brains are affected by social dominance requires interdisciplinary efforts. Here, we integrate findings from social neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and developmental psychology to highlight how social hierarchies are learned and represented in primates...
September 12, 2017: Trends in Cognitive Sciences
Lucas Sawle, Jonathan Huihui, Kingshuk Ghosh
Thermophilic proteins denature at much higher temperature compared to their mesophilic homologues, in spite of high structural and sequential similarity. Computational approaches to understand this puzzle faces three major challenges: i) unfolded ensembles are usually neglected, ii) simulation studies of the folded states are often too short and iii) majority of investigations focus on a few protein pairs, obscuring the prevalence of different strategies across multiple protein systems. We address these concerns by carrying out all-atom simulations to characterize physicochemical properties of both the folded and disordered ensemble in multiple (12) thermophilic-mesophilic homologous protein pairs...
September 15, 2017: Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation
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Israel and the UN

April 04, 2011

In 2009, a United Nations panel led by Richard Goldstone issued a 575-page bombshell of a report. It accused Israel of committing war crimes against the Palestinians in a three-week Gaza invasion. The Goldstone report was a diplomatic bonanza for Israel's enemies around the world. The report was so damning that some Israeli officials stopped traveling abroad for fear they'd be arrested for war crimes.

On Friday, Goldstone wrote an op-ed about his report in The Washington Post that can be summarized in two words: Never mind.

"If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone report would have been a different document," he wrote. Goldstone said he no longer believed one of the report's most incendiary charges: that Israeli soldiers deliberately targeted Palestinian civilians during its invasion of Gaza.

So where does a nation go to get its reputation back?

Israeli leaders have complained for years that the UN is biased against the Jewish state, that it judges almost every action of Israel through a Palestinian prism.

And now … evidence. Not just a disastrously wrong report. But evidence that the entire enterprise was skewed against Israel from the start.

Skewed is not our word. It's Goldstone's. He writes that he "insisted on changing the original mandate adopted by the Human Rights Council, which was skewed against Israel."

That should surprise no one. Israel has hardly been blameless in the decades of Middle East strife, but the UN human rights panel has overlooked slaughter and genocide in places around the world and focused almost exclusively, year after year, on Israel's alleged misdeeds. The human rights panel once elevated Libya to leadership and coddled the worst human rights abusers around the globe, including Iran and Sudan.

Goldstone was supposed to be the exception: He wasn't believed to be reflexively anti-Israel.

How did he get it so wrong? Goldstone regrets that his panel didn't have "Israeli evidence that has emerged" since the report's publication "explaining the circumstances in which we said civilians in Gaza were targeted, because it probably would have influenced our findings about intentionality and war crimes."

So absent facts, the Goldstone panel reached the conclusion that Israel had deliberately targeted civilians, a sensational accusation. We hope Goldstone continues to elaborate on whatever pressures or politics led to the conclusion.

So what do we know?

Israel didn't target civilians. Hamas did. It sent hundreds of rockets into Israeli towns.

The report called on Israel and Hamas to investigate their soldiers' actions. Israel did. Hamas didn't. A Hamas official told The New York Times that there was nothing to investigate because firing rockets to kill civilians in Israel is "a right of self-defense…"

The UN should formally retract the Goldstone report. But it can't stop there. The UN needs to acknowledge that it has not been an honest broker in the Middle East. It needs to acknowledge that its human rights panel continues to be an embarrassment that greatly undermines the standing of the world body.


Retail clinics may cut into primary care: study

November 01, 2012|Reuters

(Reuters) - The health clinics in U.S. pharmacies and other retail stores may be convenient, but they may also take a bite out of the traditional doctor-patient relationship, according to a U.S. study.

Retail health clinics operate mainly out of chain pharmacies, but they're also in some grocery stores and "big box" stores like Wal-mart. They now number more than 1,300 nationwide, according to the non-profit RAND Institute - and among people with private health insurance, their use rose 10-fold between 2007 and 2009.

"The scope of care is limited," said Ateev Mehrotra, senior researcher on the study and an associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, who also works at RAND. "And retail clinics themselves have expressed that they don't want to replace primary care providers."

Some doctors' groups are worried that the clinics could do just that. They say they're concerned not because of their bottom line, but because people who use clinics may miss out on comprehensive health services and a consistent "medical home."

Mehrotra's team looked at records from more than 127,000 U.S. residents with private health insurance. That included 23,000 people who used a retail clinic for the flu or other short-lived health problem at some point in 2008, while the rest had seen their primary care doctor.

The researchers, whose findings appeared in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, looked at whether the retail-clinic patients were less likely to visit a primary care doctor for their next minor health complaint over the following year.

In an earlier study, Mehrotra's team found that for sore throats, ear infections and urinary tract infections, retail clinics and primary care doctors provided a similar quality of care. But the clinics did it at a lower cost, with an average visit running about $50 less, at around $110 as opposed to $166.

In the current study, there was no evidence that retail clinics interfered with routine care for a chronic medical condition. People with diabetes who visited a retail clinic were no less likely to get routine diabetes-related tests, like eye exams and blood-sugar checks, over the next year.

Many of those who visit retail clinics did it because they have no regular doctor, and did have less consistency in their care in terms of seeing the same provider more than once.

But Mehrotra said there is a push in the United States for more people to have a "medical home" - one provider who knows the patient and oversees most healthcare, a move seen as important to improving healthcare quality. SOURCE:


Ambigiuous threat

The feeling when you think about bad things that could happen to you. You are on guard, because you don't know what the threat is.

If you experience anxiety, you feel threatened, but you are uncertain by what or how. For example, when you are anxious about falling ill, when you enter an unfamiliar place and it seems ‘creepy’, or when you have a bad feeling about your financial future. The threat is unknown or abstract. Evolutionary, there is an explanation why this emotion exists next to fear, which is a reaction to a concrete threat. Fear comes with the urge to run away, but if you don’t know what or where the threat is, where are you going to run to? You may even be running towards the threat. Instead, anxiety gives you the urge to scan the environment for clues about the threat with your senses wide-open. Our brains are subconsciously processing vast amounts of information, most of which does not enter the conscious part. However, when the brain detects that something is ‘off’, it can give a trigger for anxiety. For example, prey animals detect when birds in the environment suddenly go silent, as it might mean a predator is approaching. However, as long as they don’t have more information whether that is true, and if so, where the threat is coming from, there is no point in running. Similarly, soldiers moving into an unfamiliar area may sense that something is fishy. This is based on their previous experiences. The experience of ‘feeling’ that something is wrong, but not knowing where this information comes from, can sometimes give it a magical or superstitious quality. Most people have at least experienced this in childhood, when darkness would elicit anxiety and images of creepy or magical things that weren’t there.

The unclear cause of anxiety is also one of the problems for people who experience it too often or too much of it. Because it does not have a clear cause like fear, it can be more difficult to treat anxiety issues.

In the comic, a worried-looking colleague pops into Murphy’s to tell that the boss is making an important announcement. Murphy and his colleagues don’t know what the announcement may be, but the signs are not good. Anxiously, they walk to the other room.

Movie clips

Typical expressions

“I have a bad feeling about this…”

“Who… Who is there?”

Murphy's bad day

Read the whole story

Comparisons with other emotions

Anxiety & Fear

The words fear and anxiety are often used interchangeably in everyday language. They both deal with uncertain events in the future, and they both put the person experiencing them in a state of readiness to deal with the threat. However, the difference between them among the most often emphasized in emotion psychology. The most important difference is what kind of threat they are responding to. Fear is evoked by concrete, immediate, and usually sudden threats (like a fast-approaching car), whereas anxiety is evoked by uncertainty of potential, unidentified threats (such as the possibility to catch a nasty disease). In case of fear, the body has a clear way to react – getting away from the threat. In case of anxiety, however, there is not a clear threat, so there is nothing to get away from. Instead, people become very vigilant and scan the surroundings for more information. Because these differences are crucial for survival, the two types of threat-responses have different pathways in the brain.

Anxiety & Worry

Anxiety and worry are both emotional responses to situations with an unclear outcome. In comparison however, anxiety also has an unclear cause, whereas worry is a response to a concrete sign. For example, new parents may have a general anxiety that something bad could happen to their child. If they are worried, in contrast, it is because there is a sign that they interpret as potentially bad, such as a rash, a recurring cough or a lack of appetite.

Anxiety & Distrust

Distrust can be considered as a type of anxiety that specifically applies to another person’s motives and trustworthiness. Like anxiety, distrust is often not based on concrete and clear information, but rather on a hunch or gut feeling. Most people have learned to interpret certain signals as possible evidence that something may be wrong about a situation (leading to anxiety) or about a person (leading to distrust).

Anxiety & Insecurity


Facebook Translation Services Now Use AI-Based Neural Networks Instead

To improve the quality of translations on its platform, Facebook has infused artificial intelligence (AI) into its translation services that account for more than 2,000 translation directions and 4.5 billion translations each day.

With over two billion users, Facebook supports over 45 languages.

“We recently switched from using phrase-based machine translation models to neural networks to power all of our back-end translation systems,” the company said in a blog post late on Thursday.

“These new models provide more accurate and fluent translations, improving people’s experience consuming Facebook content that is not written in their preferred language,” it added.

According to Facebook, their previous phrase-based statistical techniques were useful but they also had limitations.

“One of the main drawbacks of phrase-based systems is that they break down sentences into individual words or phrases, and, thus, when producing translations, they can consider only several words at a time,” the researchers said.

facebook ai neural translation facebook

To remedy this and build our neural network systems, Facebook started with a type of recurrent neural network known as sequence-to-sequence LSTM (long short-term memory) with attention.

“With the new system, we saw an average relative increase of 11 percent in BLEU ((bilingual evaluation understudy) – a widely used metric for judging the accuracy of machine translation – across all languages compared with the phrase-based systems,” the team noted.

The Facebook AI Research (FAIR) team recently published research on using convolutional neural networks (CNNs) for machine translation.

“We worked closely with FAIR to bring this technology from research to production systems for the first time, which took less than three months,” the blog post read.

FAIR was recently in news for reportedly shutting down one of its AI systems as chatbots defied the human-generated algorithms and started communicating in their own language.

FAIR team later denied such reports, saying that that while the idea of AI agents inventing their own language may sound alarming/unexpected to people outside the field, it is a well-established sub-field of AI, with publications dating back decades.

“Simply put, agents in environments attempting to solve a task will often find unintuitive ways to maximise reward. Analysing the reward function and changing the parameters of an experiment is NOT the same as ‘unplugging’ or ‘shutting down AI’,” FAIR researcher Dhruv Batra said in the post.

“If that were the case, every AI researcher has been ‘shutting down AI’ every time they kill a job on a machine,” he added.


Multigrid Methods for Optimal Shape Design Problems Eyal Arian ICASE, Mail Stop 132C, NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA 23681 and Shlomo Ta'asan Dept. of Mathematics, Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213 We present a multigrid algorithm to solve optimal shape design problems governed by elliptic PDEs. The computational complexity of the proposed algorithm is O(N), independent of the number of design parameters, where N is the number of grid points on the finest level. The necessary conditions for a minimum are obtained using Lagrange multipliers and are given as a set of three equations: state, costate and design. These equations are represented on coarser levels using the full approximation scheme (FAS). On each level the residuals of the design equation are used in the optimization step to up date the design parameters (which determine the shape position). The optimization step is performed in a local region neighboring the boundary, using the elliptic characteristics of the problem where a high frequency perturbation on the boundary has an exponential decaying effect on the solution in the interior of the domain. Thus a crucial p oint in the method is to construct an optimization step which reduces effectively the high-frequency errors in the design parameters. Numerical results include shape optimization of a 2D nozzle geometry using Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions.