Predicting system responses to perturbations

In Part 1 of this series we learned how to use interaction graphs and sign consistency methods to reason about steady states in closed systems. In this part we add external influences to our model and answer the question how a biological system responds to external influences.

Inputs and perturbations

Most systems interact in some ways with a surrounding context i.e. their environment. The interface to the environment is provided by variables which are not controlled by the modeled system itself but externally. We call variables in our system which are controlled externally inputs and we denote the set of nodes that represent input variables with I V . Because input nodes are controlled externally, they are excluded from the sign consistency rules.

For the closed system shown in Figure 1, there exists no single labeling μ : V →{+,,0}, with μ(a) = + and μ(b) = that satisfies Rule 1 for all v V . In other words, there exists no transition between steady states where a increases and b decreases. Because a is the only predecessor of b, between all steady states changes in a and b must have the same sign.

Fig. 1: Example of an interaction graph. Green arrows indicate positive (+) influence, red edges negative () influence.

We can interpret our model as an open system, were the value of b is determined by the environment by declaring b as a input variable. With perturbations we can now take control over the input variables and find out how the system behaves under different environmental conditions. For example we can now find out how our system reacts to a decrease in b. Figure 2 shows all labelings μi that satisfy Rule 1 for all v V \ I with I = {b} and μi(a) = + and μi(b) = . Input nodes are denoted with a black incoming arrow.

Fig. 2: Labeled interaction graph

We see that using a perfect perturbation, a sustained decrease of b, the system can reach a quasi steady state where both a and d are increased. This is a state which could not be reached in the closed system without perturbation. While this is already an interesting reasoning mode, it is even more interesting to flip the question around and use this approach to do some treatment planning. Let’s see, what are the minimal perturbations that would allow the system to transition into a state where a and d are increased? Figure 3 shows the potential perturbations (along with partial labelings) that allow for such a state-transition. We can see that we have two more alternatives to reach our goal, either a direct increase in d or a decrease in c.

Fig. 3: Minimal perturbations of the system that can results in an increase of a and d (along with partial labeling)

Perturbations and model topology

Perturbations play a major role in the analysis of biological models. A complementary view point on perturbations is that they allow us to alter the model structure. In particular, all incoming edges of an input node can be ignored because the node is no longer constrained by the system but by us. A special role play so called 0-perturbations, these are perturbations were the value of a variable is kept constant over the state transition. For those nodes the only possible label is 0 and we can ignore their outgoing edges because they can’t be responsible for any downstream changes. It’s easy to see that for complex models with many cyclic interactions such perturbations are very useful to investigate the influence of single components while excluding the influence of others. In a later part, we will see how perturbations are used to design experiments that allow to discriminate among alternative model topologies.

In this part I introduced inputs and we have seen how one can model perturbations of a system. We have seen how we can reason over possible perturbations of a systems, and how to use this for treatment planning. In the next part I will introduce a new consistency rule that allows us to handle constraints that are posed by the minima and maxima of the system variables.


Mythical Creatures

A Golden Fleece

logoLast week I watched the recently released movie Clash of the Titans.   A remake from an early 1980’s version.  My son commented on how much better the special effects are today.  I’m not sure I agree with him.  I say this because I believe the special effects from movies made years ago, even decades ago, seem to capture the imagination more.  At least they do for me.  Let me give you an example.

One of my all time favorite movies came out in 1964, Jason and the Argonauts.  I think it is one of the coolest movies ever made.  I first saw it when I was about 11 years old and have seen it many times since.  I remember the joy I had when I visited the video store in the late 80’s and checked the movie out to watch with my son when he was about six.  It is now also one of his favorite movies.  When he was about 11 years old the movie Jurassic Park came out and we saw it four or five times at the theater.  He collected dinosaurs for a number of years.  When he gets older I’m sure he will look back on Jurassic Park the way I do Jason and the Argonauts.  We all have movies that bring back good memories.

Jason and a group of Greek sailors( Argonauts) take the ship Argos on a long dangerous voyage overcoming many challenges in order to reach a land far away said to contain lots of wealth and a fleece made of gold that possessed supernatural powers.    talos

My favorite scene is when they have to fight the huge metal statue called Talos.  There was no way they could have defeated the imposing figure except he had a weakness, an Achilles heel.  Jason pops the plug on the heel of  Talos and all this green liquid comes pouring out and big Talos crashes to the ground.  I admit it looked like a bunch of antifreeze but I still think it was cool; pardon the pun.

Jason and his sailors go on to encounter and defeat other creatures and obstacles on their epic journey.  He asks for and receives the assistance of the Greek gods on his voyage.  Another scene in the movie I really enjoyed was when he fought a bunch of skeletons.  You could stab them but you couldn’t kill them.  It was not until about 30 years later that I saw a documentary on how the special effects for the movie were done.  The skeletons were actually clay figures and the special effects creator had to bend the clay figures a little, take a picture, bend, take a picture, and so forth.  The pictures were then sequenced to create motion.  This one scene took three months to create.  Think about that in the context of today’s computer generated special effects.

The scene that has never really done it for me was when Jason sees the “golden fleece,” but has to defeat the “Hydra,” to capture the prize.  The fleece looked fake to me even as a child and so did the hydra.  The hydra was a multi-headed dragon protecting the fleece that Jason had to fight.  Have you ever wondered where these strange creature stories in Greek mythology came from?

In high school I had to read the Iliad and the Odyssey.  Homer’s 8th century B.C. novels tell how Ulysses and his men on one their adventures had to fight a huge man called Cyclops who had one eye in the middle of his forehead.  Archaeologists now know that elephants once lived on the islands of the Mediterranean Sea but were probably gone by the time of Homer.  The skeletal remains of the elephants would have included very large skulls.  The people of the ancient world were intrigued by the one big hole in the middle of the front of the skull.  You and I know the hole is for the elephant’s trunk but for the people of Greece at that time they did not know much about elephants.  To them the skull was big and looked like a giant eye socket.  It would have been a huge man they thought.argonaut sea creatureThe term Cyclops was used by Homer to describe such a huge man or beast.

As for the hydra, sailors would tell stories of dragons and large sea creatures with long arms, (tentacles).  We know these to be giant squids as well as the Komodo dragons of the Far East, (Indonesia).  With a little imagination the writer of Jason’s story put the two together to create the hydra, the multi-headed dragon.

It is also thought that during the time of ancient Greece there were rumors of a wealthy kingdom that possesed much gold on the far eastern shores near the southeastearn portion of the Black Sea, near present day Armenia.  For the sailing vessels of those days it would have been a challenging adventure.

Researchers believe Jason’s journey took place in the Black Sea, probably on the north shores of Turkey.  I recently saw a documentary about a group of researchers who built a wooden ship to retrace his epic journey.  On the game board for TreasureTrove I placed a drawing of a ship with “Argonauts,” next to it.

A couple of footnotes worth mentioning:

  1. There is a small black squid indigenous to the Black Sea called an argonaut.  I should have included this in the footnote section of the game booklet but forgot to do so.
  2. A couple of excellent movies for the 7 to 12 year age range for journeys are, In Search of the Castaways made in the early 1960’s,  Journey to the Center of the Earth produced in the late 1950’s, and the Golden Voyage of Sinbad made in the 1970’s.   For adults, the original King Solomon’s Mines of the 1950’s, Shangri-La also of the 1950’s, and of course the recent Indiana Jones movies.
  3. There is a story in the Old Testament in the book of Judges where an Israelite judge named Gideon seekboxtops God’s advice as to whether or not he should lead the Israelites into battle.  He uses a fleece of wool to communicate with God.  (The Book of Judges, chapters 6 and 7).

To learn more about the board game go to

logoCryptid is a term I was not familiar with until recently and that is because it is a word that has was not in existence until very recently.  The word was coined  in the 1980’s by John Wall who I believe derived the word from cryptozoology. The Greek word kriptos means hidden.  “Hidden,” + zoology together form the study of hidden animals, thus cryptozoology.  I like the way it sounds and I like the word cryptid.  It has that catchy mysterious sound.     yeti drawing

Cryptozoologists study and often travel the world in search of animals whose existence has not been proven physically but exist in folklore, myths, and legends.  Animals whose classification does not seem to fit within mainstream biological texts.  Many scientists are skeptical of cryptozoology believing it relies too heavily on anecdotal information, doubtful actual eyewitness accounts, and not enough true scientific methodology in their investigate research efforts.  Yet, a lot of people including myself find it quite interesting to hear about strange and exotic animals such as Bigfoot, Yeti, and the Loch Ness Monster.  I love watching TV shows such as Monster Quest.  There was a TV show in the late 1970’s that I recall watching named “In Search Of”‘ that featured unusual animals.

bigfootI know very little about the origins of cryptozoology.  The little research I did on the subject points to the efforts of a small group of zoologists and paleontologists starting in the 1950’s compiling lists of exotic creatures. They reviewed the writings of previous authors who many years before them had tried to chronicle tales of strange and hard to find animals. Their efforts resulted in the term cryptozoolgy coming into use and in 1982 the International Society of Cryptozoology(ISC) was founded in Washington D.C.   The ISC evaluated unverified animals, that is, animals that have been reported as being sighted but not scientifically proven to exist.  Due to financial problems the ISC ended in 1998, but the interest in cryptids has continued as evidenced by the popularity of shows such as Monster Quest.

I included a number of crypids on the board game of Treasure Trove because in the process of traveling the world in search of treasure it is fun to encounter mysterious creatures.  As you know by now all these photos posted here have been proven to be hoaxes.  In the meantime happy trails to you on your life’s journey.

To learn more about the game go to boxtop

lake okanegan

Let the hunt begin.   I must admit the prospect of spotting a legendary animal of the wild is intriguing, especially one with a cool name like Ogopogo.  When European explorers began entering Canada’s western lands in the early 1800’s, the native Indians spoke of a monster in a lake. They called the sea creature Naitaka.  Today the large body of deep fresh water is called Lake Okanagan in British Colombia. The first documented sightings of the lake monster by European colonists was in the 1870’s.  I’m not sure who started it or when the name Ogopogo began but it seems to bogopogoe here to stay.

When playing Treasure Trove participants travel the world in search for fabled treasure such as Blackbeard’s Booty or Capt. Kidd’s treasure chest.   In their journey they also are in the hunt for the earth’s strange and exotic animals such as the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot.  All of us have heard of Scotland’s “Nessie,” but that is actually a recent phenomena that started in the early 20th century.  On the other hand, Ogopogo had been part of the Indian legend a long time before white people entered the area.

In the late 1980’s when I was looking for interesting monsters to place on the game board I had to spend hours searching library books.  I ran across Ogopogo which I had never heard of.  Twenty years later I happened to be watching a Monster Quest episode on TV that covered Ogopogo.  I enjoyed inviting my wife to join me in watching the hunt for the mythical Ogopogo.  They speculated the creature to be a large lake sturgeon or perhaps a primitive serpentine whale.  In the late 1970’s a TV show called In Search Of aired an episode on Ogopogo that I do not recall seeing, although I remember the series.

In 1990, the Canadian government issued a postage stamp with an artist’s depiction of legendary Ogopogo.  I would love to travel to British Colombia and try to spot the creature but I would be plenty happy to just enjoy the scenery around the beautiful lake.

ogopogo stamp

To learn more about the game go to boxtop


What is Scrutiny?

Further information can be found on our moderngov portal >>

Who / what can be scrutinised?

Any decision we make, and indeed any aspect of how we operate, can be scrutinised. This includes decisions made by our full council, Cabinet and decisions delegated to officers to make.

The only decisions which can actually be "called-in" are Cabinet and portfolio holder decisions, as well as any officer decisions.

What is a call-in and who can do it?

A call-in means that any actions relating to a decision stop until the Scrutiny Committee can look into it and recommend what to do. This happens when one or more of our members have evidence that suggest a decision was not taken in line with the correct process, or does not adhere to the principles of decision-making in our Constitution. It should only be used in exceptional circumstances.

The chair of  any Overview and Scrutiny Committee or any five members of council can call-in a decision.


Wednesday, July 1, 2015

*Platypire's Read-A-Thon* July

Photo Courtesy of Platypire Maribel

It's a new month, which means it's time for a new reading list (or the old list with some more books added on).

X - Read
R - Currently Reading
+ - To Be read

R - The Rewriting of America's History by Catherine Millard
R - Sector 64: Ambush by Dean M. Cole
R - Sweetwater: The Kihn by Rivi Jacks
R - The Voyage by Tammie Painter
R - Circling the Sun by Paula McClain
R - The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd
R - Worthy by Catherine Ryan Hyde

+ - Far From Home by Victoria Stolte
+ - The &Now Awards Volume 3 by Various Authors
+ - Shadows of the Unseen by Christine Steendam
+ - Affliction by S.L. Dearing
+ - Bloodlines by S.L. Dearing
+ - Drawing Heat by S.L. Dearing
+ - Doctor Sleep by Stephen King
+ - PrairyErth by William Least Heat-Moon
+ - Carus & Mitch by Tim Major
+ - House of Holes by Nicholson Baker
+ - Christmas in Paradise by Kathi Daley
+ - Pieces by Maria Kostaki
+ - Summer Secrets by Jane Green
+ - Forgiveness by Chiquis Rivera
+ - The Summer After You and Me by Jennifer Salvato Doktorski
+ - The Prophets of Eternal Fjord by Kim Leine
+ - Making Pretty by Corey Ann Haydu
+ - The Underwriting by Michelle Miller
+ - The Biology of Luck by Jacob M. Appel
+ - Omega City by Diana Peterfreund
+ - American Warlord by Johnny Dwyer
+ - When the Moon is Low by Nadia Hashimi
+ - Bell Weather by Dennis Mahoney
+ - Deadly Design by Debra Dockter
+ - Unprocessed by Megan Kimble
+ - The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley
+ - The Sparks by Kyle Prue
+ - Take by Silvia Ami
+ - The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
+ - The Never-ending Story by Michael Ende
+ - Devil's Garden by Lance Tuck
+ - Minus Me by Ingelin Rosalind
+ - The Rumor by Elin Hildebrand
+ - It's You by Jane Porter
+ - Maybe in Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid
+ - Beautiful Girl by Fleur Philips
+ - The Road Home by Kathleen Shoop
+ - The Witch of Bourbon Street by Suzanne Palmieri
+ - Spelled by Betsy Schow
+ - The Mask by Taylor Stevens
+ - Bright Lines by Tanwi Nandini Islam
+ - Propose to Me: Romance Anthology by Various Authors
+ - Four Play by Amalie Silver
+ - A Scrying Shame by Donna White Glaser
+ - Killing Katie by B.A. Spangler

Maybe it's just me, but I think I've been adding more books each month than I've been reading. My list certainly seems to be getting longer and longer as the months go by. But maybe this will be the month that I put a serious dent in it. And if you'd like to challenge me, and try to read more of my books than I do, I've linked to all of them. Just click on the book title and it will take you to Amazon. There's a pretty wide variety of genres included so there's a little something for everyone I think. Which book would you most like to hear my thoughts on? - Katie

  1. Excited to see me on a list!!!!! Sounds like some goods ones on there as well!! Can't wait to see what you think!! I do have an updated copy of u need it just let me know!! 💜❤💙💚💛 Happy Reading!!

    1. You've been on the list, the past couple months, but I'm a horrible person that doesn't read my list in order and gets distracted from my list easily (as anyone that checks out my results list would realize). But, I mean, every month that I don't read your book, it's still listed on at least two posts on the blog...that's good at least, right? LOL.

      Also, I'm really planning on reading it this month. I have set my mind to it being one of the books read for sure. - Katie


Credit assignment LOT Summer School

Course credit

During the summer school, there are no RM1-level courses. This means that all LOT courses are rewarded with 0.75 EC. By attending 4 courses over the course of 2 weeks, a student can get a maximum of 3 EC. To earn a certificate, the student needs to

  1. do the required preparations for the course,
  2. participate in all five sessions of the course (10 hours),
  3. do the homework assignments during that week (10 hours)

It is possible to top this up to 5 EC by writing a paper for one of the classes attended at the LOT school. This paper will be worth 2 EC.

Requirements for writing a paper

Whether or not a student has the option or obligation to write a paper differs per university, so check with your local coordinator before the school. For those universities who require their students to write a paper, it should be noted that students can only choose a LOT affiliated teacher as their supervisor (not one of the international or other non-LOT teachers).

The student needs to contact the supervising teacher during the LOT school, who has to agree on the content and set-up of the paper. The deadline for submitting a paper is set at 4 weeks after the end of the LOT school. Papers must be sent directly to the supervising lecturer. The lecturer then has 2 weeks to assess the work, and informs the LOT office of the outcome (pass/fail). If the paper fails, there is no possibility for the student to revise and resubmit. If the paper passes, the LOT office sends a certificate for 2 EC to the student for writing the paper. It is the student’s responsibility to have the credits signed off by their home university.


Posts tagged ‘complimentary therapy’

How can EFT help with Trauma?

j0182676EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) is an energy psychology that was founded in the mid 1990’s by Gary Craig, a Stanford Engineer, following his studies with Roger Callahan in Thought Field Therapy. As the public demand for alternative medicines is growing we are starting to see and hear more and more about the successes of EFT in the Media, in many areas including PTSD.

EFT is based on the belief that all negative emotions are a result of an imbalance in the body energy system. Eastern traditions have been aware of the meridians of energy for thousands of years. The meridian network was detailed in the first medical account of acupuncture in The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine, which dates from the Han Dynasty (206 BCE to 220 ACE). A simple way to describe EFT would be that it is like emotional acupuncture, without the needles.

An EFT therapist works by tapping (teaching the Client to tap) with the fingertips on certain meridian points, stimulating the blocked energy so that is starts flowing freely again. Whilst tapping, the Client focusses on negative feelings, thoughts and emotions and experiences rapid and often long lasting relief, as the body and mind become calmed and energetically balanced.

One of the areas that EFT is most effective in is Trauma. When you experience a traumatic event, it is stored not only in your memory but in your body also. It is not uncommon for sickness and disease to be diagnosed shortly after the experience of trauma. The mind and body operate as one.

The mind is not able to tell the difference between what is happening in the present moment and what is a memory. It can be triggered by anything which it perceives as a threat and the body reacts instinctively in order to protect us. You may experience physical symptoms such as increased heart rate, sweating, shaking, nightmares, insomnia, mood swings, memories of destruction, pain or death, tensions or pain in the body.

For example, if you were the driver who had survived a severe car crash, and before the moment of impact you saw in the rear view mirror a red truck hurtling towards you, then the chances are, in the future (if you ever drive again), when you look into the rearview mirror and see a red truck coming up behind you, you will experience the same rush of physical symptoms that you had just before the original accident.

If you were beaten or abused as a child (or adult) you may be triggered by a smell, a location, a tone of voice or a facial expression and you would immediately feel an emotional intensity.

An EFT Therapist would guide you through these emotional and physical intensities. You would recall the traumatic memory and tap on the meridian points to calm down any anxieties that come up as a result. It is important to work with an experienced Therapist as they will have been trained in techniques such as the Tearless Trauma Technique which allow you, the client, to recall any incident in a safe and pain free environment.

Sometimes relief is experienced almost immediately. The memory is not taken away, instead the negative emotions are neutralized so that you do not have to relive the physical symptoms of the trauma over and over again, as if you were there.

EFT does not replace medical treatments and you should always seek advice from your Doctor before using EFT, this is especially important if you have depression.

Here are some interesting video links, showing EFT sessions live

Video interview with Celia Kane,  diagnosed with PTSD, Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Video footage was recorded working with War Veterans from Vietnam and Iraq and shows clearly how EFT works with PTSD go to and click on the video EFT for War Veterans.

This lady took part of one of Gary Craig’s earlier training workshops and this session was recorded with permission and is included in Gary’s DVD library. It shows just how EFT helped her with her childhood sexual abuse.

For more information on EFT and a whole library of information, including free downloads and tutorials go to

I work as an Energy Practitioner and am a Member of AAMET (Association for the Advancement of Meridian Energy Therapies) and GRCCT  (General Regulatory Council for Complimentary Therapists). I am also a Member of the NHS Directory of Complimentary and Alternative Practitioners which is available to  GPs and members of the public (UK). For more information or call 0845 0542898 (UK local rate)

My evening with Deepak Chopra

My Evening with Deepak Chopra Last Saturday I spent the evening with Deepak Chopra! Well, okay so did lots of others but I am sure that noticed me….. I’d show you the picture of him signing my books but it shows the back of my head (my best side?) and he is looking in the opposite direction – never mind, there was definitely a spiritual connection somewhere!

On a more serious note, let’s talk about the mind and body connection. Two people get sick, one has a positive attitude and one doesn’t – who is more likely to get better? It’s obviously not that simple, but the reality is that the body stands a far better chance of healing itself (the job it was born to do by the way), if the mind is operating on a good healthy vibrational level. In Wayne Dyer’s book There is a Spiritual Solution to every problem, he talks about our energetic frequencies and how we are all born with the potential to have cancer and other diseases and those operating on a lower frequency level i.e. those who are depressed or angry or living with very negative emotions, are more likely to provide an environment in the body for disease to thrive. The further up the energetic scale you go, the healthier you are likely to be (or to become).

Emotion is Energy in Motion (E-Motion get it?!), if your emotions are low, then your energy is not flowing as it should and when your body energy system is not flowing freely, you are susceptable to sickness and disease.

It is not the job of the Doctor to MAKE you better. Medical practices are there to help you keep well. They are there to help you and that is the key. You need to also help yourself. Your body and mind is your responsibilty and you can make a difference to the way your body heals itself. If you have negative trauma in your past, if you have anger, hate, grief or resentment in your memory then you have it in your body. If you have it in your body it will manifest itself as sickness. Freeing yourself from the past emotionally in turn frees your body up to do what it was designed to do.

Our bodies are miracles in progress. Were you aware that the body you went to sleep in 2 nights ago is not the same body that you are in now? Did you know that we make a new liver every 6 weeks, we renew our skin every month, and 98% of all the atoms in our body are replaced every year. In 4 years your body will have replaced itself completely, right down to its last atom!

Truly hard to get your head around isn’t it. If you are interested to find out more about how our emotions affect us physically I would recommend a reading The Molecules of Emotion by Candace Pert, PhD.

I came away from my evening with Deepak with my mind bent like a pretzel. There were elements that were truly beyond me and elements that I could understand – those were the bits I liked best! I followed my instincts when I left the venue and my sat nav was still trying to find itself. I turned right instead of left and got stuck in the centre of Manchester trying to get out at 11pm on a Saturday night! Ho hum…

It gave me time to reflect……was Deepak Chopra really wearing sparkley glasses??!

As a Practitioner of EFT, Emotional Freedom Technique, I  believe that physical disease is a result of imbalances in our energy system (blockages) caused by unresolved past negative emotions.

There is a growing demand in the UK for alternative therapies as a way to support the emotional side of illness and disease. The NHS has a Directory of Complementary & Alternative Practitioners, which is made available to the public and medical practices. Your GP or medical practice MAY be open to the additional support that these therapies offer you. The mind and body work as one and addressing and healing the emotional aspects of physical illness frees the body up to promote its own healing.

For the condition of  Fibromyalgia, for example, there is no ‘cure’ other than the relief from the symptoms. Bestselling author and natural health advocate, Dr. Joseph Mercola uses EFT in his medical practice. “In my experience fibromyalgia is nearly always related to some severe emotional trauma that establishes a series of potentially devastating physical processes, which frequently incapacitate the person.”

If you would like some more information on how EFT might help you, please have a look at my website or if you have any questions, please email me on

For more detailed information on EFT case studies

Important note: While EFT has produced remarkable clinical results, it must still be considered to be in the experimental stage and thus practitioners and the public must take complete responsibility for their use of it. I am not a licensed health professional and I offer EFT as an Energy Therapist and Life Coach. Please consult qualified health practitioners regarding your use of EFT.

In the case of serious medical conditions or suspicious symptoms always seek the advice of your medical practitioner, before using EFT. Even if you believe you are clear of ongoing symptoms, always consult with your Doctor before giving up your medication.
Pain is a signal from your body that something is wrong. If it is being subdued by alternative therapies, and keeps returning, consult with your Doctor to understand the medical basis of that pain.


Yunus speaks politics, says Awami League law minister

Mohsinul Karim/Dhaka, Aug 24 (

Law Minister Shafique Ahmed on Friday termed Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus’s comment about the amendment of Grameen Bank law ‘politically motivated’.

‘ইউনূসের বক্তব্য রাজনৈতিক উদ্দেশ্যপ্রণোদিত’

It’s a black day

Yunus fears govt’s takeover of GB

Yunus spreads propaganda against govt: Muhith

Speaking to, he said the founding Managing Director of the microlender is running a ‘smear campaign’ against the government.

Withdraw Grameen ordinance: BNP
“Professor Yunus has issued such a statement out of political motivation. BNP leader Moudud Ahmed also said if voted to power, they would cancel the amendments brought to the law. These types of speeches are completely political (in nature),” Shafique said.

The government published the amendment regarding appointment of the Managing Director in a gazette notification on Wednesday. In a statement, Yunus later said the day would be written as a ‘black day in the nation’s history and accused the government of stripping the Nobel-prize winning organisation of its independence and achievements.

In his reaction, Shafique said, “A small amendment has been made to make the process of appointing Managing Director to the bank more transparent. How can he equate that to ‘destroying the bank’? He is propagating a motivated negative campaign.”

Yunus termed the amendment the beginning of the end of the glorious history of Grameen Bank and said the bank will be operated under direct or indirect influence of the government.

Defending the point, the Law Minister said, “This is simply a smear campaign as by this (the amendment) nobody has either been empowered or stripped of power.”

The amended ordinance empowers the Chairman the board of director of the bank to form a selection committee for appointing its Managing Director after having the matter discussed at the board, explains the minister.

The provision of having a selection committee was entertained by its law previously and it was the board which was responsible for forming the committee. Now the Chairman is responsible for the formation of selection committee, the minister added.

“The Chairman will constitute the selection committee with experts and skilled people. The committee will select a panel of three eligible candidates and place it before the board,” said Ahmed.

The directorial board will pick one from the three after taking Bangladesh Bank’s approval and will appoint him as the MD of the bank, Shafique said.

According to him, the ordinance was amended twice earlier including the one made during the tenure of a military government.

“Currently Parliament is not in session. So, the law has been amended through the ordinance to hasten the process of appointing a Managing Director for the bank,” the minister further said.

Regarding Yunus’s claim of the bank ‘owned by poor women,’ the Law Minister said, “As he (Yunus) is raising the point, did he ever provide the owners dividend? Owners in a business will get dividend, that’s the rule. But he never gave the owners dividend, instead they themselves took benefits.”

“There are laws in the country. The bank is run by law. He (Yunus) should not be allowed to do what he likes to do with the bank. It should not be also like that what he is saying or doing will be considered as law. A public statutory body cannot run according to his (Yunus) whims.”

Referring to the days when Yunus was the bank’s MD, Shafique said, “He himself violated the law. He performed the duties of Managing Director until 70 years in breach of law. The government has taken all the steps in accordance with the law. He (Yunus) left after he lost in the court. He (Yunus) should not be talking about this anymore.”

Yunus had been the chief executive since the Grameen Bank was established in 1983 through a martial law ordinance. Yunus was nearly 71 when the Bangladesh Bank relieved him of the position for being past 60 in a notice in March 2011. He went to the court and lost a series of legal battles, finally in the Supreme Court, eventually losing his hold on the institution he is credited with building.

Following his removal, the government refused to bow down to pressure from US and international donor organisations to reappoint Yunus. It also ruled out a proposal to form a committee, led by Yunus, to look for a new Managing Director.

In 2006, Yunus shared the Nobel Peace Prize with the Grameen Bank for their initiative to provide micro-credit for poverty alleviation. Four years later, both were flung into public glare after a Norwegian TV documentary revealed that country’s aid agency Norad’s annoyance in the late 1990s over Yunus’ handling of aid money meant for the Bank.

The documentary revealed illegal transfer of money from the account of Grameen Bank. The documentary led the government to form a committee to scrutiny the activities of the bank which revealed widespread irregularities in the activities.


Alice Hill, Former Senior Director for Resilience Policy, US National Security Council, talks about the US defence and national security community’s task to integrate climate risks into national security policy. Hill states, that this considers close cooperation between different agencies to identify areas of risk and organise resource allocation effectively.

"The United States defense and national security community has been looking at the risks posed by climate change to fragile states. If we can find a way to overlay the climate risks on top of what are known as fragile states, we can better direct our aid, our support to ensure that those countries can withstand what we know are very, very damaging and destabilizing impacts of climate change. So the president [Obama] signed an executive order requiring all of our science, intelligence and policy agencies creating national security policy to incorporate considerations of climate risks. That would of course help us to better understand what the risks are to fragile states.

We need to make sure that national security policy incorporates consideration of known climate risks: drought, wildfire, increased storms, even ocean acidification. And the way we do that is we knit together our intelligence agencies, our science agencies as well as most importantly our policy makers to make sure that for our policy procedures plans we look at these impacts of climate change and what destabilizing impacts they could have on areas of strategic interest to us in the United States and also we need to look at a global security perspective how incredibly risky what is occurring to our climate is to the stability of the world.

The Department of Defense has looked across all regions of the globe and required its combatant command’s, its regional centers, to look at resource allocation and needs to make sure that they can better address the impacts that will occur. So for example humanitarian missions are other operations that may require military intervention. That is where we know that we need to be militarily prepared.

We also have looked at our own military installations. You cannot be ready as a nation if your military installations are under water and we know that we have at least a 130 of them that are at risk from sea level rise and one of our most important military installations in the United States is at great risk from subsidence as well as sea level rise. So in the Northfolk Hampton roads area we are literally sinking. That is the largest naval station in the world. We have 20% of our home fleet in that area. We need to address it. We need to make sure that we are ready to provide security to the United States as well as the humanitarian support that we so proudly take on as a mission for the United States."


Welcome to Bleach Answers. What would you like to know?

You heard wrong. Bleach will not be finishing any time soon. Tite Kubo has stated in interviews that after this arc (which Kubo terms the Arrancar arc), there will be a shorter arc, followed by a longer one.

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An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics

فرهنگ ریشه شناختی اخترشناسی-اخترفیزیک

M. Heydari-Malayeri    -    Paris Observatory

<< < -ph Pal par par par par pas pea Pen per per per per Per pet pha pho pho pho phy pic pit Pla Pla pla pla plu poi pol pol Pol pol pos pos pot pra pre pre pre pri pri pri pro pro pro pro pro pro pse pul pur > >>

Number of Results: 1010
pitchbelende (#)

Fr.: pitchbelende

A natural ore consisting mainly of → uranium oxide, U3O8, with small amounts of → radium, of which is the principal source. It usually contains some → lead and variable amounts of → thorium and → rare-earth elements.

From Ger. Pechblende, from Pech "pitch" (from its black color) + Blende "a mineral."

Pitot tube
  لوله‌ی ِ پیتو
lule-ye Pitot

Fr.: tube de Pitot

A → device used to → measure the → velocity of a flowing → fluid. The Pitot tube is used on → aircrafts to determine their → speed. It is also used to meaure water speed of a boat as well as liquid, air, and gas velocities in industrial applications. It is a small tube that has two holes on it. The front hole is placed in the airstream to measure the → stagnation pressure. The side hole measures the → static pressure. The difference between these pressures gives the → dynamic pressure, which can be used to calculate airspeed. See also the → Bernoulli equation.

Named after the French inventor Henri Pitot (1695-1771), a hyraulic engineer; → tube.

piksel (#)

Fr.: pixel

The smallest useful element of image information.

From pix, plural of pic, short for → picture + el, from → element.

jâ (#)

Fr.: place, lieu

An area, position, or portion of space. → mean place

O.E. from O.Fr. place, from M.L. placea "place, spot," from L. platea "courtyard, open space, broad street," from Gk. plateia (hodos) "broad (way)," feminine of platus "broad;" cognate with Av. pərəθu- "broad;" Skt. prthú- "broad, wide;" Lith. platus "broad;" Ger. Fladen "flat cake;" O.Ir. lethan "broad;" PIE base *plat- "to spread."

place-value notation
  نمادگان ِ جا-ارزشی
nemâdgân-e jâ-arezeši

Fr.: notation positionnelle

A mathematical notation system in which the → numerals get different values depending on their position relative to the other numerals. Same as → positional notation and → positional number system.

place; → value; → notation.

plâž (#)

Fr.: plage

A bright cloud-like feature that appears in the vicinity of a sunspot. Plages represent regions of higher temperature and density within the chromosphere. They are particularly visible when photographed through filters passing the spectral light of hydrogen or calcium.

From Fr., from It. piaggia, from L.L. plagia "shore;" noun use of the feminine of plagius "horizontal;" frpm Gk. plagios "slanting, sideways" from plag(os) "side" + -ios adj. suffix.

Plâž, loan from Fr., as above.

dašt (#)

Fr.: plaine

An extent of flat land not noticeably diversified with mountains, hills, or valleys.

M.E. from O.Fr. plain, from L. planum "level ground, plain."

Dašt, from Mid.Pers. dašt "plain, open ground."

taxt- (#)

Fr.: plan-

Variant of → plano-.

Fr.: Planck

Short for Max Planck (1858-1947), German physicist, great authority on thermodynamics and creator of the quantum theory.

Planck curve
  خم ِ پلانک
xam-e Planck

Fr.: courbe de Planck

Same as → blackbody curve.

Planck; → curve.

Planck density
  چگالی ِ پلانک
cagâli-ye Planck

Fr.: densité de Planck

The density corresponding to a → Planck mass in a cubic region of edge length given by the → Planck length: ρP = c5/(ħG2) ≅ 5.16 x 1093 g cm-3, where c is the → speed of light, ħ is the → reduced Planck's constant, and G is the → gravitational constant.

Planck; → density.

Planck distribution
  واباژش ِ پلانک
vâbâžeš-e Planck

Fr.: distribution de Planck

The distribution of radiation with wavelength for a blackbody, given by → Planck's radiation law.

Planck; → distribution.

Planck energy
  کاروژ ِ پلانک
kâruž-e Planck

Fr.: énergie de Planck

The unit of energy in the system of Planck units. EP = √ (ħ c5/G) ≅ 1.22 x 1019 GeV. It can also be defined as EP = ħ / tP, where tP is the Planck time. This is an extraordinarily large amount of energy on the subatomic scale and particle accelerators have yet to produce a particle with this magnitude of energy. Understanding the properties of a subatomic particle that contains the Planck Energy is helpful in developing a Unified Field Theory which encompasses the realms of Quantum Theory and Relativity, although this too has evaded complete scientific understanding.

Planck; → energy.

Planck era
  دوران ِ پلانک
dowrân-e Planck

Fr.: ère de Planck

The first 10-43 seconds of the Universe's existence, when the size of the Universe was roughly the Planck length and during which quantum effects of gravity were significant. Also called Planck epoch. Our understanding of the Planck era is poor because theory which encompasses both quantum mechanics and general relativity is needed to be developed.

Planck; → era.

Planck function
  کریای ِ پلانک
karyâ-ye Planck

Fr.: fonction de Planck

Same as → Planck's blackbody formula.

Planck; → function.

Planck length
  درازای ِ پلانک
derâzâ-ye Planck (#)

Fr.: longueur de Planck

The size limit, lP = √ (ħ G/ c3), about 10-33 cm, at which Einstein's notions of space-time are supposed to break down, and space is predicted to become "foam like."

Planck; → length.

Planck mass
  جرم ِ پلانک
jerm-e Planck

Fr.: masse de Planck

The unit of mass in Planck's system of physical units, mP = √ (ħ c/ G) = 2.176 x 10-8 kg. It is also the mass of a black hole whose Compton wavelength is comparable to its Schwarzschild radius.

Planck; → mass.

Planck postulate
  فراوَس ِ پلانک
farâvas-e Planck

Fr.: postulat de Planck

The postulate that the energy of oscillators in a blackbody is quantized by E = nhν, where n = 1, 2, 3, ..., h is Planck's constant, and ν the frequency.

Planck; → postulate.

Planck Satellite
  ماهواره‌ی ِ پلانک
mâhvâre-ye Planck

Fr.: Satellite Planck

A European Space Agency (ESA) mission to map the full sky in the 30 GHz to 1 THz range and to measure the → anisotropies of the → cosmic microwave background (CMB) with a sensitivity set by fundamental limits, i.e. photon noise and contamination by foregrounds. It was launched on 14 May 2009, together with the → Herschel Satellite. Its observing position is a halo orbit around the L2 → Lagrangian point, some 1.5 million km from Earth. Its → Gregorian-like off-axis telescope has an effective aperture of 1.5 m and images the sky on two sets of feed-horns. The Low Frequency Instrument (LFI, at frequencies 30, 44, 70 GHz) amplifies with High Electron Mobility Transistors cooled at 20 K the radiation collected by 13 horns. The High Frequency Instrument (HFI, at 100, 143, 217, 353, 545, 857 GHz) detects the shorter waves with 52 bolometers cooled at only 0.1 degree above the → absolute zero. Both instruments can detect both the total intensity and polarization of photons. The Planck mission is intended to provide maps with a sensitivity of a few micro-Kelvin and an angular resolution down to 5 arcmin, which is considered as a major improvement with respect to the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (→ WMAP) launched by the NASA in 2002. Planck will provide a major source of information relevant to several cosmological and astrophysical issues, such as testing theories of the early Universe and the origin of cosmic structure. It will also provide to astronomers 9 complete maps of the full sky at wavelengths from 0.3 mm to 1 cm, that complement the 4 maps taken by the → IRAS satellite in the 2.5 to 100 micrometer range.

Planck; → satellite.

Planck scale
  مرپل ِ پلانک
marple-e Planck

Fr.: échelle de Plancck

1) A general term for anything roughly the size of the → Planck length.
2) Similarly, an energy on the order of the → Planck energy.

Planck; → scale.


July 27, 2006

Admixture mapping in African Americans

AJHG has a preprint of an article about admixture mapping in African Americans. It seems that the next-generation SNP tests for admixture estimation, using thousands, as opposed to hundreds of markers are already here. It is probably a matter of time until someone will be able to create tests to determine "national origin", even though in many cases where nations have been formed by recent linguistic/religious/political differences such tests may prove to be impossible.

American Journal of Human Genetics (preprint)

A Genome-Wide SNP panel with High Ancestry Information for African American Admixture

Chao Tian et al.

Admixture mapping requires a genome-wide panel of relatively evenly spaced markers that can distinguish the ancestral origins of chromosomal segments in admixed individuals. Using the results of the International HapMap Project and specific selection criteria the current study has
examined the ability of selected SNPs to extract continental ancestry information in African American subjects and to explore parameters for admixture mapping. Genotyping of two linguistically diverse west African populations (Bini and Kanuri Nigerians who are Niger-Congo
(Bantu) and Nilo-Saharan speakers, respectively), European Americans and African Americans validated a genome-wide set of >4000 SNP ancestry informative markers with mean and median Fst values > 0.59 and mean and median Fisher’s information content >2.5. This set of SNPs extracted a larger amount of ancestry information in African Americans than previous reported SNP panels and provides nearly uniform coverage of the genome. Moreover in the current study, simulations show that this more informative panel improves power for admixture mapping in
African Americans when ethnicity risk ratios are modest. This is particularly important in the application of admixture mapping in complex genetic diseases for which only modest ethnicity risk ratios of relevant susceptibility genes are expected.

mtDNA of Australians

Intern Med J. 2006 Aug;36(8):530-3.

Prevalence of mitochondrial DNA haplogroups in an Australian population.

Manwaring N, Jones MM, Wang JJ, Rochtchina E, Mitchell P, Sue CM.

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplogroups are 'neutral polymorphisms' in the mtDNA genome, which have accumulated and persisted along maternal lineages as the human population has migrated worldwide. Three ethnically distinct lineages of human mtDNA populations have been identified: European, characterized by nine haplogroups H, I, J, K, T, U, V, W and X; African, characterized by superhaplogroup L and Asian, characterized by superhaplogroup M. We studied the prevalence of mtDNA haplogroups in participants of the Blue Mountains Eye Study, a large population-based survey of vision conducted between 1991 and 2000 of non-institutionalized permanent residents aged 49 years or older from two suburban postcode areas, west of Sydney, Australia. Total DNA isolated from either hair follicles or blood was available for 3377 of the 3509 participants (96.2%) to determine mtDNA haplogroups by polymerase chain reaction/restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis. Approximately 94.2% of samples could be assigned to one of the nine major European haplogroups, whereas a further 1.2% included the African (L) and Asian (M) superhaplogroups. The five principal haplogroups represented were H (42.9%), U (14.1%), J (10.7%), T (9.2%) and K (8.1%), which together included 85% of this population.

European population substructure revealed by genetics

PLoS Genetics (early online release)

European Population Substructure: Clustering of Northern and Southern Populations

Michael F Seldin et al.

Black American marriage patterns

Native-born blacks more likely to marry whites than other blacks

Among the study's other findings:

July 26, 2006

Genes aren't the only code in DNA

July 25, 2006

Moralistic punishment in front of an audience

Evolution and Human Behavior (Article in Press)

Audience effects on moralistic punishmentstar

Robert Kurzban et al.

Punishment has been proposed as being central to two distinctively human phenomena: cooperation in groups and morality. Here we investigate moralistic punishment, a behavior designed to inflict costs on another individual in response to a perceived moral violation. There is currently no consensus on which evolutionary model best accounts for this phenomenon in humans. Models that turn on individuals' cultivating reputations as moralistic punishers clearly predict that psychological systems should be designed to increase punishment in response to information that one's decisions to punish will be known by others. We report two experiments in which we induce participants to commit moral violations and then present third parties with the opportunity to pay to punish wrongdoers. Varying conditions of anonymity, we find that the presence of an audience—even if only the experimenter—causes an increase in moralistic punishment.

July 23, 2006

Hungry men like chubby women

Br J Psychol. 2006 Aug;97(Pt 3):353-63.

Does hunger influence judgments of female physical attractiveness?

Swami V, Tovee MJ.

To account for male preferences for female body weight following a consistent socio-economic pattern, Nelson and Morrison (2005) proposed a social-cognitive model based on the individual experience of resource scarcity. We replicated their studies showing that calorific dissatisfaction can influence preference for female body weight using a different dependent variable, namely photographic stimuli of women with known body weight and shape. Using this revised methodology, we found that operationalized intra-individual resource scarcity affects preferences for body weight: 30 hungry male participants preferred figures with a higher body weight and rated as more attractive heavier figures than 31 satiated male participants. Hungrier men were also less likely to be influenced by cues for body shape, supporting extant cross-cultural studies on female physical attractiveness. These findings corroborate those of Nelson and Morrison (2005) and are discussed in terms of how cultural contexts shape individual psychological experience as predicted by the theory of mutual constitution.

July 22, 2006

mtDNA and human movements in Oceania

Definitions of Remote Oceania and Near Oceania.

July 20, 2006

To my readers

I started this blog to keep some thoughts and references organized; being useful to others was only a secondary motivation. However, I have to admit that a picture like this does bring a smile to my face. So, thank you, readers, wherever you are!

July 18, 2006

How the Anglo-Saxons outbred the British

From an IOL story:

Mark G. Thomas et al.

Link (pdf)

Origin of the Yakuts

Hum Genet. 2006 Jul 15; [Epub ahead of print]

Pakendorf B, Novgorodov IN, Osakovskij VL, Danilova AP, Protod'jakonov AP, Stoneking M.

The Yakuts (also known as Sakha), Turkic-speaking cattle- and horse-breeders, inhabit a vast territory in Central and northeastern Siberia. On the basis of the archaeological, ethnographic and linguistic evidence, they are assumed to have migrated north from their original area of settlement in the vicinity of Lake Baykal in South Siberia under the pressure of the Mongol expansion during the thirteenth to fifteenth century AD: . During their initial migration and subsequent expansion, the ancestors of the Yakuts settled in the territory originally occupied by Tungusic- and Uralic-speaking reindeer-herders and hunters. In this paper we use mtDNA and Y-chromosomal analyses to elucidate whether the Yakut immigration and expansion was accompanied by admixture with the indigenous populations of their new area of settlement or whether the Yakuts displaced the original inhabitants without intermarriage. The mtDNA results show a very close affinity of the Yakuts with Central Asian and South Siberian groups, which confirms their southern origin. There is no conclusive evidence for admixture with indigenous populations, though a small amount cannot be excluded on the basis of the mtDNA data alone. The Y-chromosomal results confirm previous findings of a very strong bottleneck in the Yakuts, the age of which is in good accordance with the hypothesis that the Yakuts migrated north under Mongol pressure. Furthermore, the genetic results show that the Yakuts are a very homogenous population, notwithstanding their current spread over a very large territory. This confirms the historical accounts that they spread over their current area of settlement fairly recently.

July 13, 2006

New paper on haplogroup E-M78

I had written about this research about a year ago, and now the relevant paper has appeared in Human Mutation. The new phylogeny within haplogroup E-M78 is shown below:

The newly discovered binary markers correspond roughly to the previously known microsatellite networks, although the correspondence is not perfect (see below):

From the paper:
Genetic differentiation among UEP defined groups of microsatellite-haplotypes is quite high (Rst = 0.59; P<10-3),> We also explored the correspondence between the two types of markers at a geographical level. There is a high and significant correlation observed between pairwise binary-haplogroup-based and microsatellite-haplotype-based distances among nine geographic regions (r = 0.91; P< 10-3). The two-dimensional plots from MDS show similar clusters of populations (Fig. 3), with slight differences possibly due to differential sensitivity of Φst and Rst to different mutational processes. North-western Africa, eastern Africa and the Balkans are well separated from each other and also from the central cluster in both diagrams. The differences are explained to a large extent by: the haplotypes associated with paragroup E-M78* (predominantly observed in north-western Africa), haplogroup E-V32 (found almost exclusively in eastern Africa) and haplogroup E-V13 (the only subset of E-M78 observed in the Balkans). E-V13 is also commonly found in the populations of the central cluster, where, however, other E-M78 sub-haplogroups are also present.

Taking into account the above data, the previously described European cluster α and the northern African cluster β are indeed confirmed as monophyletic groups of chromosomes, that, very likely, have their own defining binary marker yet to be discovered. Cluster α chromosomes constitute a major branch of the binary haplogroup V13, which, in turn, includes also a few, highly differentiated chromosomes - previously classified either in cluster δ or unclassified. All 29 chromosomes within cluster β belong to the paragroup E-M78*, which is relatively rare and almost exclusively restricted to a single geographic region (i.e. northern Africa), thus a common origin for at least a large part of these is likely.

Different scenarios characterize clusters δ and γ . The presence of three E-V13 chromosomes within cluster δ and the exclusion of some E-V12 and E-V22 chromosomes demonstrate that cluster δ cannot be regarded as a monophyletic unit. As for cluster γ, we have established close phylogenetic relationships of its members - now classified as E-V32 chromosomes - with those belonging to E-V12* within the E-V12 clade (Fig. 2). These relationships go undetected through the microsatellite network (red and pink chromosomes in Fig. 1B), most likely due to recurrent mutations at microsatellite loci. An alternative explanation would be that V12 has mutated twice independently in the E-M78 lineage. The latter possibility is less likely, given that V12 is within a terminal branch of the Y chromosome tree; moreover, it was never found by sequencing 18 Y*(xM78) chromosomes representing deep branches of the Y chromosome phylogeny (data not shown). Thus, the new markers we have detected now
offer the opportunity to explore in a better defined phylogenetic context the origin and distribution of the chromosomes belonging to haplogroup E-M78. Also, it is worth noting that twelve chromosomes that we were unable to assign to any cluster in the previous network analysis are now classified within four different haplogroups/paragroups (see Table 2 and Fig. 1B) as highly divergent microsatellite haplotypes. Thus, even though they represent only 5% of the total E-M78 chromosomes analyzed, their inclusion into the respective haplogroups/paragroups heavily affects inferences about time and place of origin of these haplogroups/paragroups.

Finally, although there is a strong correspondence between cluster γ − defined by the rare DYS19 11-repeat allele - and haplogroup E-V32, the presence, in cluster γ, of haplotypes belonging to the binary paragroups E M78* and E-V12* can only be explained by admitting either a paraphyletic or a polyphyletic origin for the chromosomes in the cluster.

Hum Mutat. 2006 Jul 11;27(8):831-832 [Epub ahead of print]

Cruciani F, La Fratta R, Torroni A, Underhill PA, Scozzari R.

The human Y chromosome haplogroup E-M78 (E3b1a) occurs commonly and is distributed in northern and eastern Africa, western Asia, and all of Europe. Previously, only two rarely observed internal biallelic markers (UEPs) were known within the E-M78 clade. Here we report the identification of six novel UEPs that significantly refine the phylogeny of this haplogroup. Then, we evaluate the correspondence between the newly defined sub-haplogroups and the E-M78 haplotype clusters previously identified by an 11-microsatellite loci-based network encompassing 232 chromosomes (Cruciani et al., 2004). We observed considerable correspondence between the trees generated by the two types of markers, but also noted important discrepancies between microsatellite and UEP findings. Overall, this analysis reveals that the currently visible terminal branches of the Y tree still contain a large amount of information, in terms of undiscovered biallelic markers, and that caution is needed when using the microsatellite alleles as surrogates of unique event polymorphisms.

July 11, 2006

Heritability of physical and psychological traits in 6,148 Sardinians

A new study in PLoS Genetics has estimated heritabilities of various traits over a large population of Sardinians. Please note that heritabilities calculated in one population should not be extended to other populations. If, e.g., there is a lot of environmental variation in nutrition in a population, then stature will be least affected by hereditary factors. Conversely, if all individuals are fed well, then the largest part of individual differences will be attributed to hereditary factors.

PLoS Genetics (Early Online Release)

Heritability of Cardiovascular and Personality Traits in 6,148 Sardinians

Giuseppe Pilia et al.

In large samples, phenotypic similarities between relatives yield information on the overall contribution of genes to trait variation. Large samples are especially important to compare heritability between subgroups such as young and old, or males and females. We recruited a cohort of 6,148 participants, aged 14-102, from 4 clustered towns in Sardinia. The cohort includes 34,469 relative pairs. To extract genetic information, we implemented software for variance components heritability analysis, designed to handle large pedigrees, analyze multiple traits simultaneously and model heterogeneity. Here, we report heritability analyses for 98 quantitative traits, focusing on facets of personality and cardiovascular function. We also summarize results of bivariate analyses for all pairs of traits and of heterogeneity analyses for each trait. We found a significant genetic component for every trait. On average genetic effects explained 40% of the variance for 38 blood tests, 51% for 5 anthropometric measures, 25% for 20 measures of cardiovascular function, and 19% for 35 personality traits. Four traits showed significant evidence for an X-linked component. Bivariate analyses suggested overlapping genetic determinants for many traits, including multiple personality facets and several traits related to the metabolic syndrome; but we found no evidence for shared genetic determinant that might underlie the reported association of some personality traits and cardiovascular risk factors. Models allowing for heterogeneity suggested that, in this cohort, the genetic variance was typically larger in females and in younger individuals, but interesting exceptions were observed. For example, narrow heritability of blood pressure was ~26% in individuals >42 years old, but only ~8% in younger individuals. Despite the heterogeneity in effect sizes, the same loci appear to contribute to variance in young and old and in males and females. In summary, we find significant evidence for heritability of many medically important traits, including cardiovascular function and personality. Evidence for heterogeneity by age and sex suggest that models allowing for these differences will be important in mapping quantitative traits.

Paternity Confidence

I had written about a study quantifying the number of fathers who aren't really fathers of their children, even though they think they are. The study has now appeared in the latest issue of Current Anthropology

CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY Volume 47, Number 3, June 2006

How Well Does Paternity Confidence Match Actual Paternity?
Evidence from Worldwide Nonpaternity Rates

Kermyt G. Anderson

Evolutionary theory predicts that males will provide less parental investment for putative offspring who are unlikely to be their actual offspring. Cross-culturally, paternity confidence (a man's assessment of the likelihood that he is the father of a putative child) is positively associated with men's involvement with children and with investment or inheritance from paternal kin. A survey of 67 studies reporting nonpaternity suggests that for men with high paternity confidence rates of nonpaternity are(excluding studies of unknown methodology) typically 1.9%, substantially less than the typical rates of 10% or higher cited by many researchers. Further cross-cultural investigation of the relationship between paternity and paternity confidence is warranted.

July 07, 2006

The Homo floresiensis debate rages on

Well, the saga of the hobbit continues in a new article on the Journal of Human Evolution. Some previous entries on the topic. The new paper comes in favor of the idea that the Flores hominid represents a new species.

Journal of Human Evolution

Homo floresiensis: Microcephalic, pygmoid, Australopithecus, or Homo? (In Press, Accepted Manuscript, Available online 5 July 2006)

Debbie Argue, Denise Donlon, Colin Groves and Richard Wright

The remarkable partial adult skeleton (LB1) excavated from Liang Bua cave on the island of Flores, Indonesia, has been attributed to a new species, Homo floresiensis, based upon a unique mosaic of primitive and derived features compared to any other hominin. The announcement precipitated widespread interest, and attention quickly focused on its possible affinities. LB1 is a small-bodied hominin with an endocranial volume of 380–410 cm3, a stature of 1 m, and an approximate geological age of 18,000 years. The describers (Brown et al., 2004) originally proposed that H. floresiensis was the end product of a long period of isolation of H. erectus or early Homo on a small island, a process known as insular dwarfism. More recently, Morwood, Brown, and colleagues (2005) reviewed this assessment in light of new material from the site and concluded that H. floresiensis is not likely to be descended from H. erectus, with the genealogy of the species remaining uncertain. Other interpretations, namely that LB1 is a pygmy or afflicted with microcephaly, have also been put forward.

July 05, 2006

DNA contamination of ancient teeth

Genetic studies of ancient human populations usually rely on amplification of DNA preserved in dental samples. Two main problems plague such studies. First, DNA suffers damage after death and until it is studied by scientists. Therefore, it is not clear which parts of a DNA sequence are due to the genetic makeup of the ancient individual, and which ones have been modified after his/her death.

The second problem is due to the fact that skeletal remains are usually handled by many people, e.g., excavators, archaeologists, anthropologists, after they are taken off the ground. This may introduce the handlers' DNA on them. Then, when DNA is amplified, it is not clear whether the observed sequence is from the ancient individual or the more recent handlers. During recent excavations, people take care not to contaminate samples. Moreover, they tend to record meticulously the group of individuals handling the remains, since this is useful to check whether a DNA sequence may belong to one of them. Unfortunately, many useful ancient skeletons were excavated before such precautions were in place.

The identification of these two problems does not, in itself, quantify their severity. How much faith should we have in DNA sequences amplified from ancient teeth? This new paper is a welcome contribution to tackling this important problem.

Molecular Biology and Evolution (Advance Access)

Tracking Down Human Contamination in Ancient Human Teeth

María Lourdes Sampietro et al.

DNA contamination arising from the manipulation of ancient calcified tissue samples is a poorly understood, yet fundamental problem that affects the reliability of ancient DNA studies. We have typed the mitochondrial DNA hypervariable region I (HVR1) of the only six people involved in the excavation, washing and subsequent anthropological and genetic study of 23 Neolithic remains excavated from Granollers (Barcelona, Spain), and examined for their presence among the 572 clones generated during the aDNA analyses of teeth from these samples. 17.13% of the cloned sequences could be unambiguously identified as contaminants, with those derived from the people involved in the retrieval and washing of the remains present in higher frequencies than those of the anthropologist and genetic researchers. This finding confirms for the first time previous hypotheses that teeth samples are most susceptible to contamination at their initial excavation. More worrying, the cloned contaminant sequences exhibit substitutions that can be attributed to DNA damage after the contamination event, and we demonstrate that the level of such damage increases with time; contaminants that are >10 years old have approximately five times more damage than those that are recent. Furthermore, we demonstrate that in this dataset, the damage rate of the old contaminant sequences is indistinguishable from that of the endogenous DNA sequences. As such, the commonly used argument that miscoding lesions observed among cloned aDNA sequences can be used to support data authenticity, is misleading in scenarios where the presence of old contaminant sequences is possible. We argue therefore that the typing of those involved in the manipulation of the ancient human specimens is critical in order to ensure that generated results are accurate.


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Space Station to get 1st supercomputer next week

"A mission to Mars will require sophisticated on-board computing resources that are capable of extended periods of uptime," Alain Andreoil, senior vice president and general manager at HPE's data centre infrastructure group, wrote in a blog post.

"To meet these requirements, we need to improve technology's viability in space in order to better ensure mission success. By sending a supercomputer to space, HPE is taking the first step in that direction," he wrote.

"Such a long communication lag would make any on-the-ground exploration challenging and potentially dangerous if astronauts are met with any mission critical scenarios that they're not able to solve themselves," Andreoil said.

Generally, in order for NASA to approve computers for space, the equipment needs to be "ruggedized," or hardened to withstand the conditions in space, Andreoil explained.

"This physical hardening takes time, money and adds weight, so HPE took a different approach to 'harden' the systems with software," Andreoil said.

"HPE's system software will manage real time throttling of the computer systems based on current conditions and can mitigate environmentally induced errors," he said.


Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Choreography comes of age

A choreography, as defined in the WS-CDL spec, "describes peer-to-peer collaborations of parties by defining, from a global viewpoint, their common and complementary observable behavior; where ordered message exchanges result in accomplishing a common business goal."

WS-CDL was ground breaking as a standard for two reasons:

1) Normally a standardisation process occurs when a number of proprietary de-facto standards, supported by different groups within industry, need to be merged to provide a single true standard that all parties are happy with.

No such proprietary standard existed for choreography, and therefore the working group were in the rare position of having to create something from scratch.

2) For introducing the concept of a 'global' model - a global model being a description of the interactions between parties from a neutral or global (i.e. service independent) perspective.

Much respect to Nickolas Kavantzas of ORACLE for dreaming up the idea, as this has spawned a lot of new research, and therefore if WS-CDL has achieved nothing else, it has made a significant contribution to computer science. Pity ORACLE didn't follow up on Nick's excellent contribution by providing an implementation of the standard, especially as they were also the co-chair of the working group.

However WS-CDL has its downsides.

In an attempt to provide a language with a strong formal type system, it has become complex to use. It is perceived by many to be web service specific, due to its affiliation with W3C. However the most damaging aspect is the long running misconception that it is competitive to BPEL.

As mentioned above, WS-CDL is an example of a 'global' model, and therefore provides a service independent view of interactions between participants.

Abstract BPEL is an example of a 'local' model, i.e. it is a service specific view of interactions between that service and its directly associated participants. Therefore the standards are actually complementary, they should be able to work together harmoniously in their separate roles.

The problem is that one of the main disadvantages with WS-CDL is that it does not define its own 'local' model representation that would be fully compatible with the 'global' model language. Although Abstract BPEL can be used to fulfill this role, it is not ideal for the job.

Now choreography has come of age. We have a new champion emerging on the scene in the form of BPMN2.

The popular graphical notation has taken a number of significant steps forward with version 2, including the introduction of a choreography 'global' model to accompany the existing process 'local' model notation.

The benefit of this approach is that it is (1) not perceived to be web service specific, (2) there is a compatible notation between the 'global' and 'local' model perspectives, and (3) it is being incorporated into a standard that is already very popular, and therefore should make it easier for users to adopt the choreography concept.


Administration Assistant Level 2A

Northern Sydney, NSW

Permanent Part Time

$1,044.60 - $1,060.40

Purpose of Position

Provide administartive assistance  and support to the Social Work, Nutrition and Dietetics, Speech Pathologist and Diabetes Education team.

Selection Criteria

1. Demonstrated effective interpersonal, written and verbal communication skills with the ability to communicate across all levels with internal and external stakeholders

2. Demonstrated ability to work as a member of an Allied Health team

3. Demonstrated ability to prioritise workload, meet deadlines and complete activities (including ability to work within scope of practice and seek assistance when required)

4. Demonstrated computer literacy skills and knowledge of Oracle, Webreq, Microsoft Office and email applications

5. Demonstrated attitude of an openness to learn, grow and change


slideshare ppt on research

Wednesday, 13 February 2013

Limitations of research methodology

Here are examples of limitations you may need to describe and to discuss how they possibly impacted your findings. Descrptions of limitations should be stated in the past tense.
Possible Methodological Limitations
  • Lack of available and/or reliable data -- a lack of data or of reliable data will likely require you to limit the scope of your analysis, the size of your sample, or it can be a significant obstacle in finding a trend and a meaningful relationship. You need to not only describe these limitations but to offer reasons why you believe data is missing or is unreliable. However, don’t just throw up your hands in frustration; use this as an opportunity to describe the need for future research.
  • Lack of prior research studies on the topic -- citing prior research studies forms the basis of your literature review and helps lay a foundation for understanding the research problem you are investigating. Depending on the currency or scope of your research topic, there may be little, if any, prior research on your topic. Before assuming this to be true, consult with a librarian! In cases when a librarian has confirmed that there is a lack of prior research, you may be required to develop an entirely new research typology [for example, using an exploratory rather than an explanatory research design]. Note that this limitiation can serve as an important opportunity to describe the need for further research.
  • Self-reported data -- whether you are relying on pre-existing self-reported data or you are conducting a qualitative research study and gathering the data yourself, self-reported data is limited by the fact that it rarely can be independently verified. In other words, you have to take what people say, whether in interviews, focus groups, or on questionnaries, at face value. However, self-reported data contain several potential sources of bias that should be noted as limitations: (1) selective memory (remembering or not remembering experiences or events that occurred at some point in the past); (2) telescoping [recalling events that occurred at one time as if they occurred at another time]; (3) attribution [the act of attributing positive events and outcomes to one's own agency but attributing negative events and outcomes to external forces]; and, (4) exaggeration [the act of representing outcomes or embelishing events as more significant than is actually suggested from other data].


Arbore Monastery

The Arbore parish church belongs to the suite of Moldavian painted monasteries. Located in Suceava county, in northern Romania, Arbore monastery was built in the first half of the 16th century and is dedicated to the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist. The monastery belongs to UNESCO World Heritage.

author:babut casian

Photos provided by Panoramio are under the copyright of their owners

The monastery was founded by a squire, Luca Arbore, which is reflected by the absence of the belfry or tower on the wide, round eave saddle roof. It was built from brick and local stone. Its layout is rather simple and longitudinal, but features a special harmony in its proportions. The lateral walls are prolonged to the west and bound through a round arch, thus creating a semi-open space innovative to Moldavian architecture. This niche on the western facade used to house the church bells.

On the interior, the absydiums which usually define the three-leaf clover layout are missing, being replaced through simple arched niches in the lateral walls.

The pre-nave, serving as a crypt, houses the founder' tombstone, considered to be the most valuable Gothic style funeral stone in this part of the country.

The byzantine wall paintings of Arbore monastery were carried out some 40 years after the church itself was finished. The painting style reveals spontaneity and a transparency similar to watercolor. The depicted characters often adopt uncanonical gestures, pointing out the fact that the painter was a layman. Conventionally, the Last Judgment is illustrated on one of the exterior walls. The great niche on the west wall features a set of miniature paintings, considered to be the best such paintings of the period.

The halos of the illustrated saints are golden and often drawn in relief, irradiating against the background with dominant green blue and beautiful cyan hues.

The frescoes of Arbore monastery impress through their decorative quality, the warm and luminous colors, the rhythm and elegance of the illustrated silhouettes. The interior mural paintings are noteworthy and remarkable for portrait art. They include votive paintings of the founder family, portraits of the Virgin Mary, of Emperor Constantine, of the Great and Empress Elena. The painting in one of the niches is symbolic of the victory upon the Ottomans. An other apse features a surprising painting of Catholic influence: Saint Christopher, the child Jesus and the martyr saints.

Arbore Monastery

©2010 All Rights Reserved. travel to Romania


Interrupts - event driven devices, Computer Graphics

Interrupts - Event driven devices

Interrupts: An option to polling is the interrupt feature. The device sends an interrupt signal to the processor while an event happens. The processor breaks from its usual execution and executes several special interrupt-handling routine or task.

After complete the task, the control returns to the important program. To handle conditions while more than one event happens, various priorities are allocated to tasks hence higher priorities tasks may interrupt tasks of lower priority.

Some events may arise before the program is prepared for them. While more than one event occurs, the relate information is entered in the event queue. A polling loop can be utilized to check the status of the event queue. The event queue can after that pass input data from the polling task to the main program in the accurate order. The main program takes events off the head of the queue and raises the suitable process. The devices require not be checked frequently for occurrence of events. Such devices can interrupt although the processor being unaware of this.

Two types of light pen interrupts may arise. If the user points that pen at an item upon the screen to choose it, as in figure (a) of Light Pen Application, a selection interrupt arises. If the user is positioning along with the pen, as in figure (b) of Light Pen Application, a pattern termed as tracking pattern in displayed along the pen's tracking interrupts and movement arise when the pen observes the tracking pattern.

Modified versions of the light pen may also be utilized to draw lines, read barcodes or perform transformation operations on things on a tablet or on the screens.

Posted Date: 4/2/2013 6:46:08 AM | Location : United States

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Moskva by Jack Grimwood

Published by St. Martin's Press/Thomas Dunne Books on July 11, 2017

Tom Fox is a British major who spent some time in Northern Ireland working with military intelligence. His bosses have sent him to Moscow to keep him away from a Parliamentary committee that wants him to testify. His ostensible purpose in Moscow involves writing a report about religion in the Soviet Union for the Foreign Office. While he’s safely hidden out of the way, he expects his bosses to decide his fate.

Soon after his arrival, Fox attends a party given by Sir Edward Masterson, the British ambassador. His wife is Anna Masterson and his rebellious teenage stepdaughter is Alex. Shortly after the party, Alex disappears and Masterson enlists Fox’s help to find her.

Fox’s daughter died in an unexplained car crash, a death for which Fox blames himself. His daughter’s death motivates his agreement to help the ambassador. Fox’s search for answers quickly entangles him with the KGB, with a Russian crime boss, with a Party boss, and with dangers connected to the past that are less easy to identify, but he views his task as one of redemption. Only by saving Alex can he save himself. He knows he is being arrogant and messianic, and perhaps suicidal, but he doesn’t care.

The story occasionally travels back to 1945, when the Russians were taking Berlin and wanted to assure that a German physicist would travel to Moscow, where he would serve the Russian government. Certain characters who play key roles in the present story have their roots in sins of the past. Solving the mystery of Alex therefore requires Fox to solve brutal crimes from the war years.

The story holds some poignant surprises, including the true identity of an elderly woman, seemingly a bit unhinged, who is known as Wax Angel. Fox’s background is convincingly tragic, but Jack Grimwood paints him in subdued colors, not in the garish hues of melodrama. His troubled relationship with his wife evolves as the novel progresses, and Fox changes a bit, to the extent that he is capable of altering the shape of his life. The Russian mobster, dealing with the death of one son and the disappearance of another, is also a convincing character. Additional moral ambiguity fleshes out the man who, in addition to becoming Fox’s drinking companion, becomes a key to the mystery. The broken men (and a couple of damaged women) give the novel its heart.

Some aspects of the story are a bit fanciful, but Grimwood’s prose is sharp, the characters have a fair amount of depth, and the story moves quickly. All of those factors, joined with the detailed background, make Moskva a good Russian crime story. Moskva isn’t on the same level as a Martin Cruz Smith novel, but it’s only about one level down, which makes it easy to recommend.

Hoodoo Harry by Joe R. Lansdale

First published in 2016; published digitally by Road on August 1, 2017

Hoodoo Harry is Joe R. Lansdale’s contribution to the Bibliomysteries series of stand-alone mystery stories by popular crime writers in which books, bookstores, libraries, or manuscripts play a central role.

Hap and Leonard are run off the road by a bookmobile bus in a part of the country that is still fighting the Civil War. The bookmobile disappeared fifteen years earlier, along with its driver, Harriet Hoodalay, who was known after her disappearance as Hoodoo Harry.

A 12-year-old kid whose unfortunate life is cut short was driving the bus. Of course, Hap and Leonard make it their business to find out why. They engage in their usual wisecracks and make their customary observations about how “neighborliness” in East Texas now consists of shooting anyone who comes too close to a home or business after dark … or maybe even in daylight.

The story blossoms into a murder investigation with multiple victims. Like most of the Hap and Leonard series, this isn’t as powerful as Lansdale’s best work. Hoodoo Harry is an average Hap and Leonard story, which means it entertains. That’s all it’s meant to do, and since it succeeds, I recommend it.

Flesh and Bone and Water by Luiza Sauma

First published in Great Britain in 2017; published by Scribner on June 20, 2017

Flesh and Bone and Water tells a big story in a small way. The novel is a family drama, focusing on one family member and the harm he inadvertently does to his family and future by falling in love.

André Cabral receives a letter from Luana in Brazil. Now living alone in a London flat after separating from his wife, André has not seen Luana in 30 years. He cannot remember her last name, but the letter prompts memories of his Brazilian childhood.

Luana was the daughter of his family’s black maid/nanny. Most of the novel is told in memory: André and his brother Thiago growing up in Rio; their mother’s death; a family visit to Belém, accompanied by Luana; André’s introduction to Esther, his eventual wife, as he attends medical school in London; the deterioration of their marriage as “time rubs away the shine” of love.

Most of the backstory involves André’s forbidden infatuation. Luana is the daughter of a servant and not a fit mate for a boy who will one day become a doctor. But Luana is wrong for André for additional reasons that he does not understand at the time. Eventually, as more letters arrive, André learns a devastating truth about his past.

The story is told in quiet, straightforward prose. There is no melodrama in André’s account of a dramatic moment in his childhood and a dramatic revelation in the present. Much of the novel’s dramatic tension comes from André’s decision to confront the past that he fled when, to his father’s dismay, he settled down in London. There is no going back for André, even when eventually returns to Brazil with his daughter to make an attempt to atone. Like the rest of us, the best André can do is to feel his way forward as he works to reconcile has past and his present. The story's strength lies in its ability to convey a universal message in a personal way.

Bad Boy by Elliot Wake

First published by Atria on December 6, 2016; published in paperback by Atria on August 22, 2017

Bad Boy is a twist on the “oppressed women get revenge against abusive men” school of fiction that has recently become popular. The twist is that the key characters are part of the LGBT community.

Bad Boy begins with Ren’s video journal (without the video). Ren is 19, a young woman who feels like a little boy. She’s starting to take testosterone. She is profoundly sad and feels a strong need to change her sexual identity. She isn’t confident that she is making the right change, but she is certain she cannot make her life worse.

Soon we’re in the present as Ren and her crew engage in "justice porn," trolling the trolls in search of vengeance. Ren is the muscle. Ellis is the tech genius. Blyth is the charmer. Laney is the leader. Armin, who owns the club where they hang out, is the profiler. Together, they are Black Iris.

Ren still vlogs and has achieved a certain YouTube fame, but she’s still not happy, largely because she still feels like an outsider who isn’t accepted by the larger world. One meaning of the book’s title is that Ren fears she’s bad at being a boy. But Ren also has a self-destructive streak that her friends recognize and that she can’t acknowledge.

Ren experiences a series of revelations — not everyone who loves her as a girl will also love her as a boy; you can’t change who you are on the outside without changing who you are on the inside — that make this a sort of transgender coming of age novel. It’s more that than the revenge novel it starts out to be, but the nature of the personal drama will probably be more meaningful to readers who relate to it.

The themes of “men exist only to hurt women” and “straight men are toxic” become a bit heavy-handed at times. There is, in fact, a fair amount of sexist stereotyping of men throughout the novel, but perhaps that’s fair payback for all the sexist stereotyping of women for which men are responsible. And the book is fair to the extent that it acknowledges that (some) women use men, although not necessarily in the same ways that (some) men use women. It also recognizes that some people, regardless of gender or sexual identity, make false accusations of sexual abuse and that the victims of false accusations suffer nearly as much as the victims of abuse.

Unlike some “women get revenge” books, the characters in this one at least think about whether vengeance makes the world better or worse. Some characters recognize that women are more likely to be protected by empowerment than vengeance — and that vengeance and empowerment are two different things — a point that less thoughtful novels never consider. And as the novel expressly notes, people of every gender and gender identity are oppressed and victimized for a variety of reasons.

Ren is filled with rage and, at least initially, doesn’t want to hear those messages — she just wants to hurt men — raising the point that the oppressed, once empowered, often become oppressors. At the same time, she wants to hurt herself, to rid herself of the empathy induced by estrogen so she can wallow in the violence induced by testosterone. One of the novel’s strongest points is that no gender has it easy, although transgenders have a rougher time than most.

The novel’s weakest point is the plot, which requires Ren to figure out who is a friend and who is a foe. The revenge plot eventually focuses on a fellow named Adam who hurt Ren when she was younger and (she believes) has found a new way to hurt her. The plot is only advanced intermittently. Most of the story involves relationship anxiety that, after a time, becomes a bit wearing.

Quite a bit of Bad Boy reads like a soap opera (jealousy among current and former lovers, former lovers trying to remain friends, etc.), albeit a soap opera geared to the particular relationship difficulties that arise in the LGBT community. Ren is a bundle of woes and hurts and anxieties that become a bit oppressive as the novel unfolds. I’m not a soap opera fan and those aspects of the book would have worked better for me if they had been toned down. Other readers might think they are the best part of the story.

So, a mixed review. The story is insightful but unfocused. And as I suggested, the novel might be more meaningful to readers who are part of the world it describes.

Change Agent by Daniel Suarez

Published by Dutton on April 18, 2017

Daniel Saurez envisions an anti-science American future in which stupidity has overtaken reason. Sadly, that doesn’t take a great deal of imagination, since the future is now.

Most people in Saurez’ near future don’t believe in evolution, advances in synthetic biology are blocked because “every cluster of human cells” is viewed as a baby, and opinions spread on social media carry more weight than peer-reviewed research. As a result, real science moves offshore and the American economy crumbles in competition with economies in places like Singapore that take science seriously.

Kenneth Durand is in Singapore, gathering intelligence for the Genetic Crime Division, which tries to shut down labs that provide illegal genetic enhancements that allow parents to breed superior babies. But the trendy thriller crime at the moment is human trafficking, so Change Agent posits that human trafficking gangs are harvesting genetic material from the refugees they traffic and selling the data to a genediting cartel that, in turn, operates a cloud computing service that embryo mills rely upon for genetic modeling. The cartel is building a global genetic database, which it seems to me they could more easily do by acquiring saliva from a large number of people, but as I said, trafficking is trendy, so there you have it. But since gathering spit from trafficking victims doesn’t seem like anything to get excited about, Saurez throws in “illicit baby labs” to provoke the reader’s outrage.

The story becomes more interesting when Durand is administered a “change agent” that changes him (in terms of appearance and DNA) into a wanted criminal. Durand spends most of remainder of this action novel trying to get changed back. He travels around Asia, bypassing immigration authorities, in a series of adventures that will lead him to the criminal whose shape he has taken.

There are some cool ideas in Change Agent. Crowd-sourced policing, the intersection of molecular printing and designer drug abuse, new ways of exploiting refugees, cities in international waters made from the hulks of decommissioned ships, engineered famines that force tribal people to accept corporate land development, the need for legal protection of one’s own genetic data (to prevent hundreds of Scarlett Johanssons, for instance, from competing with the original), ownership of gene sequences as a form of slavery, the legal complexity of prosecuting someone for a crime who is no longer (genetically speaking) the person who committed the crime, and the nature of a post-identity world are among the interesting concepts in Saurez’ imagined future.

The story also illustrates some of the ethical issues involved with in vitro genetic manipulation. Children of the rich, already advantaged by wealth, are the most likely to be advantaged by genetic enhancements, leaving the poor even farther behind. But it’s just as easy to create docile children with a low IQ who contentedly perform manual labor and don’t demand higher wages. Or soldiers with enhanced fighting skills but without compassion or empathy.

The story is stronger in background and ideas than in plot (which is a fairly typical action story) and characterization (which is about average for genre fiction). The book could probably benefit from a 100-page trim, but for its vision of the future and a couple of entertaining action scenes in Asian jungles, Change Agent is worth reading.