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Home » NBA Basketball Betting News » NCAA Men's Basketball Betting Futures
NCAA Men's Basketball Betting Futures
November 11, 2014 by David Schwab
NCAA Men's Basketball Betting Futures, Lost in the excitement of both the college football and NFL seasons as well as the start of a new season in both the NBA and the NHL is the fact that tip-off for the 2014/2015 NCAA Men's basketball betting season is just days away. Fortunately, TopBET can get you up to speed with a complete set of betting odds to win this year's national title.
The team at the top of this list to win it all this season is Kentucky at +300, but that should come as no big surprise after the SEC's Wildcats ended-up on the top of both the AP's and USA Today Coaches Poll preseason rankings. John Calipari has once again been able to attract some of the top young talent in the nation to make a run at winning his second national title in the last four seasons. What makes this year's team so dangerous is that its roster is literally deep enough to probably field two separate starting lineups that would each be able to beat most teams in the nation.
2015 NCAA Men's Basketball Betting Futures
Next on the list at +800 is the Big Ten's Wisconsin Badgers. They are ranked third in the AP poll and fourth in the Coaches poll after going 30-8 last season. Arizona has also been listed by TopBET as +800 second-favorites to win a national title, which directly coincides with the Wildcats' No. 2 preseason ranking in both major polls.
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The ACC's Duke Blue Devils under legendary coach Mike Krzyzewski last won a national title in 2010 and they have been listed at +1000 betting odds to cut down the nets in the final game of the 2015 NCAA Tournament. Duke will open the new season as the fourth highest ranked team in the AP Top 25 and it is ranked No. 3 in the Coaches poll.
NCAAB Sportsbook betting odds
The USA online, mobile and live NCAAB Sportsbook betting odds start to drop off from there with both Kansas and North Carolina listed at +1400 odds to win this season's title. Kansas is the highest ranked team from the Big 12 at No. 5 in both polls and the ACC's Tar Heels are ranked No. 6 in both polls as well.
TopBET's college basketball betting odds to round-out the top 10 teams in the nation start with the SEC's Florida Gators at +2000, followed by Louisville at +2500. This will be the Cardinals inaugural season playing in the ACC. The team with the ninth-best odds to win it all is the Big East's Villanova Wildcats at +2800 and the Missouri Valley Conference Wichita State Shockers are holding down the 10th spot on the list at +3000 odds to win it all. Top
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Features – Update to Researching Medical Literature on the Web
By Gloria Miccioli, 15 Sep 1999
Gloria Miccioli has been a law librarian for 20 years. Her specialty is research. She has worked as Government Documents/Reference Librarian at the Jacob Burns Law Library of the George Washington University Law School; as Senior Research Librarian for Williams & Connolly; and is currently International Librarian for Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue's D.C. office, where she provides expert research services for the firm's overseas offices.
Editor's note: This article is an update to Researching Medical Literature on the Web (published June 1, 1998). There are additions and changes to some Web site addresses as well as new content. All updates are indicated by (yellow background color) for easy identification.
After preparing this article, I have become convinced that there are at least as many medical Web sites as there are legal ones, which is good news for the researcher with a small to non-existent medical collection. The Internet provides free access to a great deal of the medical literature, either in full text or citation/abstract format, and it offers search capabilities good enough to fulfill most information needs. In addition, public demand for medical information on the World Wide Web is strong and growing. Many professionally oriented health care sites are evolving to meet consumer needs, and consumer-oriented sites often include professional literature.1
Journals, dictionaries, textbooks, indexes – all can be found on the Net in growing numbers. The sources are varied: publishers, government agencies, professional organizations, and health libraries, to name a few. A simple, if time-consuming, way to find lots of health-related links is to access the Yahoo! search engine and select the category, "Science." Click on "Medicine" and you will pull up almost 100 subcategories, including "Libraries," "Journals," and "Dictionaries." Each subcategory links to various sites, of which some may be useful – or not. Under "Dictionaries" are links to seven medical dictionaries, including one with terms in several European languages. You can also search by subject in an attempt to narrow the number of hits and get the mixed bag that usually results from a Web search on a general search engine.
Evaluated MEDLINE HealthGate HealthWeb Infotrieve Internet Grateful Med
MedConnect Medical Matrix Medline Medscape PubMed
A more specific approach would be to directly access a medical Web site. But which one?2 As usual, it depends on what you're looking for. MEDLINE, one of the jewels of medical research, is an electronic index that provides citations/abstracts to some 3900 American and foreign biomedical journals since 1966. As such, it is a mainstay of medical research, especially for current information. It has long been searchable for a fee through commercial databases. It is now available on the World Wide Web. Since it is produced by the National Library of Medicine, a government agency, it is offered at no cost on the Net and is accessible not only from the NLM web site but also from many other sites, such as those of medical libraries, medical associations, and other health-oriented sites.
A list of Web sites where MEDLINE can be searched for free is found at Dr. Felix's Free MEDLINE Page. Dr. Felix provides a handy chart that lists MEDLINE sites with links, plus any registration requirements, usage restrictions, document delivery options, and links to additional information. It even lists International MEDLINE Links for MEDLINE information in foreign languages. It is important to note that not all MEDLINE sites are the same. As Dr. Felix says, "…some of these sites only provide free access to certain parts of the vast MEDLINE database. Some permit quite detailed searching, others simple keywords only. Some have usage restrictions…" In fact, MEDLINE is available from the National Library of Medicine in two official versions, Pub Med and Internet Grateful Med. The two Web products are both similar and different.
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Internet Grateful Med
Internet Grateful Med (IGM), offers assisted searching of MEDLINE and 14 other databases.3 Each database must be searched separately. The files are:
PREMEDLINE: Introduced in 1986, it provides basic citations/abstracts before the data is put into MEDLINE. It is updated each weekday with no subject headings or guarantee of quality control. Once the record is added to MEDLINE, it is deleted from PREMEDLINE. PREMEDLINE is free only through IGM or PubMed.
SDILINE: Selective Dissemination of Information online; covers cites from the most recent complete month in MEDLINE.
OLDMEDLINE: Covers articles from 1964-65; cites only.
MEDLINE: Cites and /or abstracts from 1966-.
AIDSLINE: AIDS and related topics, 1980 and after.
AIDSDRUGS: Directory of substances being tested in AIDS-related clinical trials.
AIDSTRIALS: Clinical trials of substances being used against AIDS and HIV.
HealthSTAR: Information on health administration.
DIRLINE: Directory of information sources.
HISTLINE: Information on the history of medicine.
HSRPROJ: Health services research projects in progress.
ETHICSLINE: Ethics and related public policy issues in health care and biomedical research.
CHEM ID: Dictionary of chemicals, updated quarterly.
POPLINE: Family planning, population law and policy.
SPACELINE: Space life sciences; MEDLINE cites plus cites from NASA (1961-).
TOXLINE: Toxicological, pharmacological, biochemical, and physiological effects of drugs and other chemicals.
Internet Grateful Med was designed for the end user; knowledge of a search command language is not necessary. In addition, Grateful Med helps the user find precise medical terminology, i.e., MeSH headings. The National Library of Medicine has developed an extensive controlled vocabulary called Medical Subject Headings (MeSH); using MeSH terms in a search will lead to greater accuracy and relevancy in search results. By entering a term in Grateful Med and then clicking on "Find MeSH/Meta Terms," you can access NLM's Unified Medical Language System's Metathesaurus. Just browse through a ranked list of terms, MeSH hierarchies, and relevant co-terms, then select terms to be added to your search. You can also designate MeSH headings to be "major topics."Terms will also be automatically "exploded"; that is, subheadings of a term will be searched along with the main heading.
The IGM search screen allows users to also search by keyword, author or title words. Limiting by language, age group, study group, date range, publication type, gender, and journal title (searching from one to fifteen journal titles at a time) is possible via pull-down menus. Records can be viewed or downloaded in citation or abstract format. The full-text can be ordered online for a fee from the NLM Loansome Doc delivery system.
Internet Grateful Med strikes me as a good Web product. NLM has put a great deal of effort into making it user-friendly. While searching is not as powerful as MEDLINE on Dialog, it comes close. Having the system present you with relevant MeSH headings allows for better searching than using only key or title words and is very convenient for the searcher who is unfamiliar with medical terminology. The Metathesaurus function itself is somewhat confusing at first. I recommend reading the The New User's Survival Guide and doing a few practice searches.
PubMed is both broader and narrower in scope than Internet Grateful Med. PubMed was developed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the National Library of Medicine in conjunction with publishers of medical literature. PubMed not only indexes articles but also links to the full text of journals at the Web sites of participating journals. At present there are links to the full text of about 100 journals (out of some 3,900 indexed by MEDLINE). Access to the full text depends on the publisher; some require a fee or subscription. You can check a list of titles at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed/fulltext.html. Unlike IGM, which accesses 14 databases besides MEDLINE, PubMed covers only MEDLINE and PREMEDLINE, plus links to NCBI's molecular biology databases. However, for a participating journal indexed selectively for MEDLINE, PubMed includes all articles from that journal, even if MEDLINE does not.
PubMed seems to be aimed at the more experienced searcher or health-care worker. Like many Web-based search engines, PubMed offers Basic and Advanced searching. The Basic screen allows keyword searching by terms, author names, journal titles and date ranges. The Advanced search mode is much more sophisticated. ( Note: NLM has announced that the Advanced Search Page will be revised, but most of the following features will remain.) With the Advanced Search Page, you can use pull-down menu field selection or a PubMed command language to build and modify a search strategy. Fields include author name and affiliation, journal title, issue, volume, publication date, language, text word, title word, substance name, and MeSH headings ( headings can be designated "major")4, and all fields. The Boolean operators AND, OR, and NOT can also be used. For a complex search, I would choose PubMed over Internet Grateful Med.
Both IMG and PubMed use the PubMed search engine, which automatically tries to match search terms, phrases, author names, and journal titles against established lists. Putting a phrase in quotes will prompt the system to search a second phrase dictionary. If a match is not found, the individual terms are ANDed together. It is also possible to search the MeSH headings in both IGM and PubMed.
In PubMed, for either a basic or an advanced search, you can click on "MeSH Browser"; enter a term and MedPub will respond with the correct MeSH heading(s), which can then be selected. When I entered "norplant", I got the MeSH heading "levonorgestrel" and a short definition. You can also view the term hierarchy, from which you can select more terms to add to your search. Or, on the Advanced screen, you can enter a term into the query box, select a field from the pull-down menu, and then select a search mode. "Automatic" searching instructs PubMed to automatically search for the terms that have been entered in the field that has been selected. "List Terms" mode displays an alphabetical list of available terms for the selected field; you can choose terms from this list to add to your search. This list is also useful if you can't spell the term!
Search results in PubMed and IGM are first displayed in brief citation format. Abstracts, if available, can be selected. One of the most useful features is the ability to retrieve related articles for most citations. Most records in MEDLINE are linked to other records by a matching algorithm. This is like the "More" feature in Lexis/Nexis. For the full text of the articles, you can link to a participating journal or order online from NLM through Loansome Doc. In PubMed, there is also a link to the articles of participating publishers.
PubMed has several other useful features. The Journal Browser lets you look up journal names, MEDLINE abbreviations, or ISSN numbers. The Citation Matcher allows you to verify article citations. A Clinical Query Form is available to search for the therapy, diagnosis, etiology and prognosis of a topic.
I like Internet Grateful Med and PubMed. Although I am used to the familiarity of searching MEDLINE on Dialog and the ease of searching it on Lexis/Nexis, I found the Web versions to be very attractive alternatives. Besides the cost advantage of Web searching, I am impressed by the ways in which NLM has made its MeSH headings available. With IGM and PubMed, it is very simple to find terms that will make up an accurate, comprehensive search. My experience has been that using the correct medical vocabulary is the most important factor when looking for medical information. Further, getting the actual articles has always been a time-consuming process. With the NLM Web products, the user merely has to point and click to order articles, some of which may be online.
However, both systems take a bit of practice. Maneuvering among the MeSH browser, pull-down menus, and various fields – i.e., defining and modifying the query – took time and was hard to keep track of. Differences between the two, while giving me more choices, also added to my confusion. But with practice, the user will find that PubMed and Internet Grateful Med are good vehicles with to search MEDLINE.
Before we leave NIH, let me mention MEDLINEplus, NLM's effort to make it easier for the general public to search MEDLINE (however, the information itself is not easier to understand). Launched in the fall of 1998, MEDLINEplus defaults to the PubMed Basic search screen. Users can also access medical dictionaries, directories, news, and other health government and non-governenment databases.
If MEDLINE is available in not one, but two, formats from NLM, why would a researcher choose to search it on a non-NLM Web site? One reason is convenience, especially if the user is already on another medical site that links to MEDLINE. Often the link is to either PubMed or Grateful Med. A more compelling reason is that some sites offer MEDLINE searching with a little extra added.
Evaluated MEDLINE
Evaluated MEDLINE (I'll call it EM), found on the BioMedNet Website, is an example. BioMedNet calls itself an "online club" that targets the worldwide biological and medical research community. Produced by Electronic Press Limited, EM gets its name from experts' evaluations of articles that appear as links from selected MEDLINE records. EM also links to journals both within and outside of the BioMedNet Library. For a list of the journals within the BioMedNet Library, see http://biomednet.com/library. In addition, there are links from MEDLINE records to journal articles within the BioMedNet collection that cite them.
EM offers sophisticated MEDLINE searching, with Basic and Advanced screens and options that include Boolean searching, ordered proximity searching, and field searching. There is also a separate button for searching by MeSH headings. A very useful feature is the ability to combine previous searches and to keep a record of one's search history even after sign-off. A Table of Contents button allows browsing through the tables of contents of any of MEDLINE's journals.
Evaluated MEDLINE search results can be sorted by relevance or date. Full text links to articles, if available, are provided. Hard copy can be ordered online from the British Library Document Supply Center. A researcher may well choose to search Evaluated MEDLINE in order to take advantage of these features.
Infotrieve
Infotrieve, a library services company that offers full-service document delivery databases on the Web, also offers FREE MEDLINE with point and click document ordering. The Infotrieve Online search engine allows the user to use either natural language or Boolean logic and field searching via pull-downs or field tags. Like Evaluated MEDLINE, FREE MEDLINE keeps a record of search queries and allows previous queries to be combined.
HealthGate
Another commercial medical Web site with a slightly different take on MEDLINE searching is HealthGate, which provides free searching of MEDLINE and six other databases (AIDSDRUGS, AIDSLINE, AIDSTRIALS, CANCERLIT, and HealthSTAR). Enter a simple search in the box marked "Medline Search" or select Advanced searching. READER software matches natural language queries to MeSH headings. The Advanced screen accommodates Boolean logic and field restrictions.
HealthGate goes beyond MEDLINE in its coverage of the medical literature, and so do many other medical sites. The HealthGate Data Corp. both provides links to medical reference tools and supplies fulltext reference materials of its own. Some information is free; some is not. For example, through HealthGate, the researcher can search such non-NLM bibliographic databases such as EMBASE, PsycINFO, Age Line, and MDX Digests and retrieve titles of references for free. However, displaying detailed citations will entail a charge.
Full-text, fee-based medical sources on HealthGate include DIH: Drug Information, among others. Free full-text sources include Diagnostic Procedure Handbook with Key Word Index, by Robert K. Desai, et al. HealthGate publishes medical information as well; its Healthy Living Series is comprised of online articles on various topics and is free. To access both the free and fee-based sources, click on the appropriate button on the home page. HealthGate offers its members full access to its research databases and other information for a flat fee of $14.95 per month.
MedConnect is another commercial site that provides free MEDLINE as part of its goal to be the "online hub for physicians and other health care professionals." It, too, goes beyond MEDLINE and has published its own medical information on the Web since 1994. MedConnect offers literature reviews, articles, journal clubs, board reviews, and teaching files. Articles written for MedConnect focus on emergency medicine, pediatrics, managed care, and primary care, although coverage of more topics is planned. MEDLINE can be searched using natural language or Boolean operators. Pull-down menus offer detailed field restrictors.
Medscape aims to "offer specialists, primary care physicians, and other health professionals the Web's most robust and integrated multi-specialty medical information and educational tool", although it plans to offer more consumer-oriented information in the future. It combines information from journals, medical news providers, medical education programs, and materials created for Medscape. Its real value is not so much access to MEDLINE as it is a collection of thousands of free, full-text, peer-reviewed clinical medicine articles that are searchable and produced for Medscape. Click on "Search Medscape" on the Home Page to bring up a screen for searching MEDLINE, Medscape's full-text articles, and various other databases such as Drug Information, Medical Images, a Medical Dictionary, and a Medical Bookstore. The latter is a searchable file of health-related textbooks available for purchase online, which would be very useful for identifying texts.
Three of Medscape's full text articles are relevant to this article. They discuss medical search engines and medical metasites. To find them click on "Medscape Full-Text" next to the query box and then enter "medical search engines."
Medical Matrix
If you need a comprehensive guide to clinical medicine resources on the Internet, run, don't walk, to Medical Matrix. This metasite annotates, evaluates and links to medical sites that "are relevant to the clinical practice of medicine, interesting to a general population, and easy to retrieve." An editorial board reviews and ranks all resources. For example, if you click on the "MEDLINE" button, you will see that Medical Matrix has links to over 15 MEDLINE sites, including Internet Grateful Med, PubMed and Evaluated MEDLINE. It also briefly describes each site and links to a very handy comparison chart. In addition the sites are ranked by a rating system of stars. PubMed has the highest rating, 5 stars. Clicking on "Rx Assist" at the top of the home page brought up a rated list of 28 Web sites on drugs. An explanation of the rankings is available.
To get an idea of the breadth of coverage available on Medical Matrix, I entered "panic disorder" in the Home Page search box. I got 172 hits. Each listing was linked to a specific web site; each listing was ranked. Users can also select to search the resources within a specialty or category found on the Home Page, which has 8 broad groupings, among them Specialties, Diseases, Clinical Practice, and Literature (including Hypertextbooks, journals, and MEDLINE). Each grouping has numerous subcategories. For example, when I clicked on "Psychiatry" under "Specialties", I got a long list of of ranked sites that were displayed by type of information: news, abstracts, texts, major sites, conference literature, directories, practice guidelines, online forums, patient education materials, and organizational resources. Medical Matrix provides the kind of one-stop shopping and searching that we see in FindLaw.
Hospitals, medical libraries, and professional associations that have a presence on the Web often provide links to sites that reproduce or index medical literature. In addition, the online catalogs of medical libraries are a window to the world of medical publishing. Medical/Health Sciences Libraries on the Web links to academic, hospital, and military medical libraries and many other medical sites in the U.S. and around the world. In addition, this site, produced by the University of Iowa Hardin Library for the Health Sciences, compiles the Hardin Meta Directory of Internet Health Sources, a directory of what it considers to be the best health-related sites on the web. They are arranged by medical specialty.
MedWeb, the medical metasite of Emory University's Health Sciences Library, is impressive for its links to health-related sites located around the world. You can enter subjects or keywords or you can select from a list of subject categories and then narrow your search.
HealthWeb
HealthWeb "provides links to specific, evaluated information resources on the World Wide Web selected by librarians and information professionals at leading academic medical centers in the Midwest." Selection stresses quality and the content is directed toward both health care professionals and consumers. I clicked on the "Subjects" button and got a list by subject specialty; clicking on "Psychiatry" yielded links to 10 web sites plus brief annotations of each site. Searching can also be done by keyword. A keyword search of "anxiety" brought up 38 ranked web sites.
A product of the U.S. Department for Health and Human Services, healthfinder is a gateway to reliable consumer health and human services information. The medical researcher who clicks on "More Tools" will be rewarded with links to libraries, dictionaries, online journals, databases, foreign language resources, listservs, medical search engines and metasites.
When I do medical research, I usually try to find a plain English description of the topic before I start to search MEDLINE – and sometimes after. MedicineNet.com is a good place to go for understandable yet indepth medical information. Produced by a network of scientists and U.S. board certified physician writers, this site has hundreds of web articles on diseases, treatments, procedures, tests, and drugs.
Another site that seeks to make health care information accessible to a wide audience is InteliHealth, a joint venture of the Johns Hopkins University and Health System and Aetna US Healthcare. All information is reviewed and approved by Johns Hopkins, and more than 150 health care organizations, including NIH, are contributors. In addition, a section marked "Health Resources" includes links to physician and hospital locators, a drug research center, medical journals, databases (e.g., MEDLINE), health-related web sites, and MedCite, a user-friendly medical literature service that offers a topic-driven approach to MEDLINE. MedCite consists of the results for over 15,000 topics that have been searched by medical research librarians from the Johns Hopkins health science centers. Citations or abstracts to the 50 best articles are immediately accessible for each topic. All MedCite searches are updated and document delivery is available. If your topic is covered, it's like having a medical librarian on hand.
A medical search engine that I would like to mention is MedBot by Stanford University. MedBot brings together several types of resources: general search engines, medical indices, news sites, medical education, and medical imaging and multimedia sites. Some of these resources can be combined for a single Super Search; the user selects up to 4 databases to be searched at one time. Or, you can click on each category and search the listed sites one at a time.
The button marked "Medical Images and Multimedia Resources" underscores the fact that the research of medical sources is often a hunt for visual information. The fact that the Internet is not restricted to textual medical information makes it an extremely valuable research tool. Clicking on that button brings up query boxes for
WebPath, an electronic collection of 1900 images of pathology specimens along with text, tutorials, laboratory exercises, and examination items.
The Digital Anatomist, a collection of computer-generated images based on cryosection studies
When I tried to find some images, I was more successful in searching the above web sites directly from their home pages than I was in using MedBot. Entering "stomach" in the MedBot query box for WebPath brought up one hit. Entering stomach in the WebPath search box retrieved 36 items. I could also browse for images in WebPath by scrolling through a list of images grouped by categories such as General Pathology and Organ Systems Pathology.
Medscape also has compiled a file of medical images. Its search box allows the researcher to click on "Medical Images" and search for visual information. I entered "keratosis", which is a skin lesion, and got a thumbnail image. Clicking on the image brought up a screen-sized version with a caption and the source of the image.
In conclusion, the Internet has become an important source of information in medicine and the health sciences, as it has in so many other areas. Medical information professionals are at the forefront of the effort to organize this vast, ever-increasing store of knowledge. The sites mentioned above reflect this effort and are meant to be a sampling of the marvelous tools that are now available to the medical researcher. Take some time to explore medicine on the Web; no doubt you'll discover many more.
For a discussion and review of medical information on the Internet, see articles in USA Today, July 14, 1999. <back to text>
I am going to discuss selected Web sites. For an excellent, comprehensive introduction to medical research on the WWW, see "How to Search for Medical Information," by Frank Kellerman, Mary Zammarellli, and Robert Ballot. <back to text>
There is some overlap among MEDLINE and these other databases, but the more specialized database usually provides greater coverage within a narrower topic. For example, AIDSLINE indexes monographs, scientific reports, and A/V materials as well as articles, but only those dealing with AIDS or HIV. <back to text>
In PubMed, MeSH terms are automatically exploded if the MeSH field is selected; MeSH terms found using an "All Fields" search are not. <back to text>
Posted in: Features, Medical Research

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Singaporeans among the least healthy in the region, AIA study
Figure 2: Thailand (#1) is the country where most people live healthier, longer, better lives, followed by Mainland China (#2), Malaysia (#3), Australia (#4), Singapore (#5), Hong Kong (#6)
by Ravi Chandran December 11, 2020, 10:29 pm 77 Views
Singaporeans are least healthy because only 16% are adopting seven or eight of the eight key ingredients for better health and longer lives
AIA on 10 December, released findings from a ground-breaking research initiative, "Healthier Together", revealing the eight key ingredients that go into living Healthier, Longer, Better Lives. These insights will inform upcoming initiatives by AIA as the leading Pan-Asian life and health insurer continues to spearhead health and wellness programmes across Singapore and the region. According to the survey, the ingredient that Singaporeans need to work on the most is "being active and engaged" in more holistic ways – not just physically but mentally, socially, and financially as well.
Figure 1: The eight key ingredients for living healthier, longer, better lives
The study was conducted by global data insights company Kantar Group and involved in-depth interviews with more than 80 experts from a broad spectrum of professional disciplines in Singapore and across Asia-Pacific. Study findings were then validated through a survey of 6,000 consumers in the region, including 500 people in Singapore.
Out of the six Asia-Pacific countries surveyed, Singapore recorded the second-lowest proportion of respondents living Healthier, Longer, Better Lives, ahead of Hong Kong. Only 16% rated themselves as adopting seven or eight of the eight ingredients (below the regional average of 22%), with about 40% saying they were achieving four or more ingredients (below the regional average of 47%). 60% of the Singaporeans surveyed said they were achieving three or fewer of the key ingredients.
Analysis of all markets identified the power of optimism as the strongest ingredient for a healthier, longer, better life. Singaporeans do recognise this, indicating "having an optimistic outlook" as the most important ingredient in leading a healthier, longer, better life.
Although optimism is the strongest ingredient across the region, a pathway to improved health and wellness and one that is the easiest first step for Singaporeans to take is "being active and engaged".
This is also the greatest opportunity for Singaporeans, as only 25% achieved this ingredient, despite identifying it as the third-most important ingredient in driving better life outcomes.
Mr Stuart A. Spencer, AIA Group Chief Marketing Officer, said: "The AIA purpose, which underpins everything we do, is to help people live Healthier, Longer, Better Lives. It's therefore critical to gain a deep understanding of what people can actually do to achieve this, and how we can help them, beyond the obvious steps of exercising, eating healthily and getting sufficient sleep, particularly in the context of COVID-19."
Ms Melita Teo, Chief Customer and Digital Officer, AIA Singapore, said: "As a leading insurer and partner to our customers, we have always taken a holistic approach in protecting our customers' health and wellbeing. But, there's still more to be done. Through these new insights, we hope to be able to explore more means to reach out to our customers, supporting them to take simple and actionable steps that can make the biggest difference in truly living healthier, longer, better lives for the long haul."
A significant body of new insights and data was gathered from interviews with academics, life-coaches, psychologists, mental health experts, influential authors, healthcare representatives and influencers from leading institutions, business and government.
The study produced eight specific behaviours that are most influential in helping people live healthier, longer, better lives. These were:
Have an optimistic outlook: Look for the positive things in everyday situations, not letting negative events of the past affect the present and finding enjoyment in work.
Be active and engaged: Be an active member of your wider community, remain socially active with friends and family, and remain physically and mentally active.
Self-motivate: Focus on your own personal goals, look for ways to make work/tasks/chores more engaging, and see setbacks as learning opportunities.
Understand yourself and your emotions: Understand what motivates you in life, understand what is important to you in life, and understand your limits/strengths/weaknesses.
Feel a sense of independence: Feel confident identifying what is right for you, focus time and energy on things you can control, and be capable of improving your mental health.
Maintain quality relationships: Focus on giving people your full attention, be open and honest with others, and seek out like-minded people who share similar interests.
Never stop learning or exploring: Explore new ideas and engage with new things, challenge your own thinking, and be open to change.
Make time to recharge: Create clear boundaries between work and personal time and find ways to recharge your energy levels.
The survey asked the 6,000 participants to rate their performance across these criteria, including 500 people in Singapore. Other key findings for Singapore included:
An alarming 91% of those surveyed in Singapore rated themselves as not sufficiently adopting all eight ingredients, leaving just 9% who believed they are adopting all eight. The group of "high performers" in living healthier, longer, better lives reported that COVID-19 had less of a negative impact on their health and wellness efforts.
"Being active and engaged" in life takes into account physical, mental, social, and financial health facets. In Singapore, however, being physically active is seen as more important than mentally active. Whereas for most other markets, being active and engaged mentally is either more important or on par with being active and engaged physically.
Saving money is the number one activity people in the region do for their financial wellbeing. Singaporeans ranked the highest in terms of choosing to 'save money' for better financial health, instead of other aspects like 'investing' or 'reading/learning about finances'.
Under the "Never Stop Learning and Exploring" ingredient, the top two actions that helped people in Singapore prioritise continuous learning and exploration are 'read to learn new things' and 'spend time learning new skills'. However, the frequency of people in Singapore actually engaging sufficiently to achieve this is slightly lower than the regional average.
By far the most important ingredient across all markets was "having an optimistic outlook", which was 2.3 times more common amongst the group of people that scored highest on the survey. In Singapore, the top actions to improve optimism were to 'take time to reflect on the things that bring me joy' and 'take time to reflect on things that I am thankful for'.
Stuart A. Spencer added: "This is really exciting because the findings of this unique piece of research now deliver to us a clear pathway to living Healthier, Longer, Better Lives. Healthier Together identifies real actions people can take to improve their physical and mental well-being, and real clarity about how to live Healthier, Longer, Better Lives, which has never been more important to us all than it is right now."
The complete findings of the AIA Healthier Together study can be viewed at: www.aia.com/healthiertogether.
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Written by Ravi Chandran
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Violinist.com - Violin Blogs - Adrian Demian - Blog Entry
Queen Elisabeth Finals - disappointing first evening
After waiting with much anticipation the Queen Elisabeth finals, the two performances of this first evening were quite disappointing for me.
While Josef Spacek has a big, warm tone, his performance tonight was not memorable in any way: from his Prokofiev sonata in F minor which lacked in color and atmosphere, to his Sibelius concerto which sounded opaque and had some innovative rhythms introduced by Spacek in the leaping octaves passage on the last page.
Emir Abeshi did not give the impression that he really understands what Prokofiev's second violin sonata is all about. The first movement was bland, with none of the flute-like lightness and wittiness that should have been there; the second movement was fast to the point that it seemed to surpass Emir's technical abilities; the third lacked its magic and its ending seemed rather like a mistake than a conclusion while the finale was just loud and forced.
Emir really seemed to come apart in Tchaikovsky's concerto. His first solo intervention was painfully insincere and then intonation, quality of sound, sense of rhythm, all started to collapse all around. I am sure fatigue and stage fright do not help but throughout so many editions, many other competitors struggled with the same vicissitudes with more success.
I am still to understand - maybe helped by other competitors - why Sakai Kenji's concerto won the composition competition. It just seems a struggle between the solo violin and the full blast of the brass section aided by the rest of the orchestra. What's the point?
I hope for a better day tomorrow.
From Yixi Zhang
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 5:29 AM
Adrian, thank you for your review the first day of the finals. Did you watch the Menuhin competition last month in Beijing?
Sometimes it seems that violin genius tend to showe up at a very young age, and we probably shouldn't expect the quality will necessarily get that much better in competitions where the violinists are in an older age group. Yes?
From Simon Streuff
"I am still to understand - maybe helped by other competitors - why Sakai Kenji's concerto won the composition competition. It just seems a struggle between the solo violin and the full blast of the brass section aided by the rest of the orchestra."
That was exactly my impression. It is written, that the full orchestra plays womething like mezzo forte including the horns and some brass and the violin plays fast notes. NOTHING to hear from the solo part... totally misorchestrated.
With Spacek I don't agree in all points. I only listened to the concertos because the homepage was down during sonata for me. I thought his first mvt sib was technically quite impressive. It didn't really get me because of his uniform and slow vibrato, but I was anyways more waiting for emir. The third movement Sib of spacek: its the place where you either are excelling or going down. I don't think he did first thing throughout.
For Emir I felt quite sorry, he seemed very exhausted in the tschaik. In many places it seemed that his hands do not want to play anymore. I also disliked his sound, but at least he didn't collaps. I hope the next will go through it more sovereign.
From Bart Meijer
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 11:24 AM
Yixi, your post reminded me of Tom Lehrer, singing of new mathematics, that it is "so simple, so very simple, that _only_ a child can do it".
Posted on May 22, 2012 at 5:30 PM
Bart sorry to be off-topic but I just have to say that even though I'm a chemist and I'm supposed to like Tom Lehrer's Periodic Table song, my favorite of his is "New Math."
Tatsuki Narita just blew everything away...
From Gregory Durozel
I think it's important to keep in mind just how much playing these fine young musicians are doing. The stress of practicing for the entire week to learn a new concerto and then perform a sonata and 2 concertos in one night is very taxing both physically and emotionally. That is the whole point of the final round. They are intentionally pushing the competitors to their utter most limits. Of course there are going to be mistakes.Consider how much is on the line and how much this competition means to them. I think your comments should be taken with a grain of salt.
From Adrian Demian
Dear Gregory,
1) I think any comments should be taken with a grain of salt. Nobody holds the ultimate truth. Since I wrote the post, I assumed it is self understood that it represents my opinion.
2) I tried to keep the comments general exactly because I understand how taxing this competition is. However...
3) Both candidates of the second day - especially Narita - showed they can deal better with stress and fatigue than Spacek and - especially - Emir. Do you disagree with this?
If my comments seemed harsh to you, it is maybe because these 12 made it into the finals at the expense of some other worthy candidates. Could have Gjezi done better? While we won't know, I can express my frustration over playing that does not come close to what he presented in the semi finals.
It would be more interesting to know what you thought about their playing rather than what you thought about my unworthy thoughts.
"Could have Gjezi done better? "
Again I thought the same and I am sad not to hear him with an romantic concerto. They somehow all deserve to be in the finals, but actually playing the finals is a different thing.
In Sibelius Competition someone came into the finals and totally deserved it in my opinion. But in the finals she was very underprepared and played a sloppy prokofiev and also not the best sibelius (wich is on youtube strangely enough).
I think some competitors don't believe that they will come into the finals and concentrate more on first and second round. You won't believe it, but winning the finals could therefore be a gamble of what to practice more. If you concentrate too much on the concerto, your semi finals will get less practice time. It would be interesting to talk to a competitor about that.
From Porumb Romana
I am getting more and more worried about the imposed pieces. The winning composition is dedicated to this competition and as center piece to violin/violinist.
I hear so many comments about loud orchestra, small violin sound, maybe wrong instrument, etc..It is so sad to see these wonderfull players "killed" and exhausted before they start with their Concerto performance.
I do not doubt about the skills of the finalists,I doubt about the imposed piece which probably needs more muscle, concentration and power.
I also notice a lot of childish competition behaviour.... a lot of energy loss, not balanced emotional preparation,....seems like all of them go for it 100% from the first note 'till the last. Musicality is just lost behind a lot of temperament and pannic managment.
Untill now am happily surprised by Tatsuki Narita and his performance of the imposed composition.Let's see what the others do!!!
Posted on May 23, 2012 at 12:39 PM
I put in in a different blog but here it is again:
Queen Elisabeth Finals - ups and downs of the second evening
This was Tatsuki Narita's evening! When he started his Brahms I thought it would be a painful experience - and I still resent the fact that he played it so safe - but it turned out to be quite the contrary.
His interpretation of the Kenji concerto was the first one that made any kind of sense. I think even the orchestra members sensed that and played more with Narita as opposed to playing against the other finalists as was the case yesterday and today with Shin Hyun Su. Narita managed to project his sound, unforced, over the clumsily orchestrated piece, and his very exact, wonderfully articulated playing inspired the orchestra.
Narita's Paganini was absolutely brilliant! From the first notes his sound reminded me of Zino Francescatti: warm, sweet and full of solar light. Not only did he zoom with nonchalance and ease through the most fiendishly difficult parts, but he managed to make music and to have fun while doing it. A superb performance.
Shin Hyun Su really needs to learn how to use her vibrato. Her Brahms sonata was destroyed by an undifferentiated, excessive vibrato which blended phrases together like in a badly executed watercolor in the first movement, and segmented the lines in the second. I liked her energy in the third movement but here the vibrato made the sound quality suffer. The last movement of the sonata was an abuse to Brahms and the music. This music is not a virtuosity showcase and playing it as fast, loud and "in your face" as Su did showed only her lack of artistic maturity.
Su redeemed herself in Sibelius which was far more balanced and musical than the one we heard yesterday from Spacek. Maybe the beginning of the first movement was a bit fast, but she kept a steady tempo throughout the first page, which created the impression of strength and secure playing. It seemed it was also easier for the orchestra to follow her throughout the concerto. Su's choice of playing the last D of the second movement as a harmonic convinced me to never play it this way. It simply does not belong there: empty, metallic and cold, against the warm tone of the orchestra (but this is a different matter :D).
All in all, an interesting evening.
... and Romana, you are so right about the commissioned piece. I wonder two things: is there any violinist involved in picking the piece? What are they looking for? Musicality seems to be of no concern. Is this supposed to test who can find any meaning in a bunch of nonsense? What's the point?
As for wasting energy: this is, indeed, a proof of immaturity. Unfortunately it might also show that they do not believe in the intrinsic value and power of the music to capture and convince. I see this attitude so often here in the States expressed by the way many smaller orchestras build their programs. Desperate to make money (which is understandable) they schedule mostly pop and "crowd pleasing" music. They don't believe in the power of the classical music to attract an audience and, once they stop believing, how can anybody expect their music-making to convince anybody?
But I digress again. Apologies.
@ Simon Streuff
The winning recipe I heard of is playing the first round just well enough to pass, then being better and better prepared, with the finale being the best of them all. This way, in the early rounds you do not seem as a threat for the "political" games and, playing superbly in the finals, when all media keeps a vigilante eye open and when it is hard to not judge on the playing quality, can bring home a prize.
Then again, there is no winning recipe that works all the time and/or for everybody, is there?
What is Bouchkov doing in the finals? Someone, please, help me understand! He has nothing going for him: no intonation, no consistently good sound, no sense of rhythm or phrasing. Was being Belgian enough to get him so far? I was absolutely not impressed with his semifinal performance either. In 2009, Lorenzo Gato was rightfully on the podium. He showed he was an artist. Bouchkov on the other hand... blah!
It's Nikki's night! None of the panicky energy waste. Well-schooled and professional. Simon, you have to at least agree with me this much:)
I gave Nikki Chooi the benefit of the doubt for the Ravel sonata because it is - I believe - impossible to play with the pianist Thomas Hoppe whom, an undiscovered Lang Lang, did never adjust his playing to accommodate a string player and kept plowing ahead fast and unconcerned without allowing the violinist any extra time to reach or linger on expressive notes.
On the other hand, Nikki did not show much anything during the two subsequent works. Another disappointing evening.
still....there is going to be a winner.....
@ Romana
So far I liked Narita yesterday, and there are a couple more I really liked: Artiom Shishkov and especially Yu-Chien Tseng. I am also curious about Esther Yoo. Probably Baranov will also get a nice place (I am not at all a fan of his, but we'll see).
I didn't listen to nikki choi, I really cant stand his playing. i don't even know why, maybe its more something for the women...?
Simon, you are just jealous:)
I am watching again Dami Kim's recital in the semifinals. Tomorrow should be a really interesting day! Dami might break ranks and rise to the top if she can be as composed as she was during the semi finals. This will be an evening to really watch!
Yixi :) ... thats maybe possible. But I would never say I would like to play like him. technically of course, but the expression I don't understand. I just listened to his rezital, so that I know what I am talking about. His Ysaye wasn't very impressive musically to me and also technically many others were better.
If you can tell me what excact piece he plays so good, I will listen to it and trie to be unbiased!
Itry to stay respectful in my critics and hope that it is clear, that I compare at the high level of the competition. But if someones playstyle doesn't suit you, why pretend?
But I understand that you like him since you are a woman :P
I think he plays good, but with too much Schmaltz in some places. You must not always slide into an high note...
Simon, joking aside, I have a lot of respect for you and your expertise, and I like straight talker. To be honest, I normally prefer more emotional and edgy players (such as Shishikov) and Nikki is not one of them. It would be disingenuous for me not to disclose the fact that Nikki (and his younger brother Timothy Chooi, another fine young violinist currently at Curits) is our hometown(Victoria, BC, Canada)boy, although this is not the only reason for liking him. Whatever bias and ignorance I've got, I believe Nikki's solid technique and mental-physical power show his maturity as a musician and longevity in his career.
Andrey Baranov made some real music today. His Prokofiev was mostly solid (less some bow control issues in the second movement) and he seemed in command during the Kenji piece.
His first movement of the Shostakovitch was also very musical. I liked the way he listened and played with and from the sound of the orchestra. Something I heard for the first time in these finals. On the other hand I would have liked better tuning for the double stops.
Unfortunately, the second movement was a disaster waiting to happen at every corner. Andrey pushed the tempo in the first measures but it was obvious the initial tempo chosen by maestro Varga was the correct one when Andrey started struggling with the theme a few measures later. At times, it was quite hard to recognize what was going on.
The Passacaille showed again Andrey's musicality but also the results of fatigue. Again, playing at, or even beyond his own tempo limits in the Burlesque, while it did bring the standing ovations of the audience, I am not sure scored him high points with the jury. At least I hope not.
Dami Kim's Bartok sonata didn't do anything for me. Her well practiced, extremely exact way of playing did not go together with Bartok's passionate music. There was none of the emotion, earthiness and relentless passion one would expect to hear in such a piece.
In Kenji's concerto, Kim's only concern seemed to be to play all the notes and the signs. I could hear none of Baranov's colors or Narita's drive, clarity and sense of articulation. Quite a bland performance in which the orchestra almost ate her alive.
With Narita's brilliant Paganini from Tuesday on one side, and Andrey's passionate playing earlier today on the other side, Kim's Paganini had the flavor of a school performance: a brilliant school mind you, but a school level performance nevertheless.Well rehearsed, her performance lacked originality and the few attempts she made to bring a musical aspect to the music seemed pasted on and unconvincing. She, as others before her, fell victim to fatigue. Being such a victim while playing Paganini did not help at all. I felt quite sorry for her tonight.
Yixi, I think Nikki Choi is an amazing violinist, just not as interesting as others in the competition, so I don't have much time and maybe I am hard when I hear something I dislike and cut it off to safe my time.
Adrian, Thanks very much for the summary. Since I was in a real concerto of two great young musicians: Sini-Maria Simonen and Kana Sugimura played the sinfonia concertante with the university orchestra of the Musikhochschule Hannover. I know Sini personal, we had the same teacher at times, she has such an deep musical feeling and beautiful sound and solid technique. She played also in Sibelius competition until second round in 2010. I was very sad not to hear her finale.
Baranov is a great player, but if what he does is right for the jury we'll see. If he struggled technically due to tempo choice he will most likely be out of the first three places.
I am looking forward to Shishkovs performance! Is it tomorrow?
Simon, Shishkov starts tomorrow, followed by Nancy Zhou. I also played Sinfonia Concertante a couple of times. Both times the violist (first time a fellow professor at the National University of Music Bucharest, second time my wife) tuned a semitone higher so as to play in D major. How did the violist tune at your concert?
Yes, I also used that trick once I played it with a kollegue for fun. It makes it so much easier and the sound is much better. I am not sure how she tuned, I tried to figure it out, but I lack absolute pitch and she playes so good, that you wouldn't notice the difference. In fact I think she tuned normal, because the encore she didn't change the tuning. They came on stage already tuned...
Artiom was so tired today! I am still to listen to his sonata - due to computer problems - but the rest of his program was not brilliant by all means. The Kenji was a forced jumble and the Tchaikovsky, while full of very musical moments, was also full of little blemishes (especially in the first movement) which seemed to annoy even Artiom himself. His playing was uncomfortable during the second movement (which he chose to play muted). The orchestra tried its best not to cover him but he still had to apply quite a bit of pressure with negative effect on his sound quality. His third movement was a bit too fast to be musical. Such a pity.
Nancy Zhou delivered the second good Kenji in the finals. I could understand the rhythm, the structure of the music and I could make out some of its formal features even. Her sound had no issue soaring over the orchestra, and the ensemble felt comfortable playing with her.
Nancy's Prokofiev shined the most in the second and last movements. Her huge sound and relentless energy were quite suited for these two movements, and Mr. Vitaud, the pianist, was a fantastic partner. The first and third movement showed that Nancy still has some growing up to do. She lacked the subtlety and sound palette needed for these two jewels.
What a pity that maestro Varga was not more in control of the winds in the coda of the first movement of Sibelius! Nancy caught up with the rushing clarinets and flutes like a well seasoned soloist though. As in Prokofiev, in Sibelius she shined most on on very energetic passages, but her playing fell short on anything that required soulful involvement.
Nancy is a great competitor. She is solid, mentally strong and hard to beat. Is she an artist yet? Does she have in her that something that will attract audiences outside of the competition world? I think it is too early to know this. How does one judge her playing? How to decide to start her on a career without knowing whether she will grow to be a true artist or not? Right now I see a great violinist with huge potential, but not an artist.


text:
HomeH&F Council funding gives a boost to community groups
H&F Council funding gives a boost to community groups
Publish date26 February 2018 Number of commentsComments
Categoriesnewsbite Community
Image captionDoorstep Library volunteers. L-R: Cordelia Barbour, Marieka Fisher, Allyson Frizzell, Laura Anderson, Jill Alexander, Emily Oliver, PJ Brandt and Kirsty Allen
Thirty six community groups have been awarded funding for the next three years to provide vital services for local people.
The council's voluntary sector grants programme enables local organisations to provide wide-ranging services, from befriending services for isolated older people to the Doorstep Library which brings books to children who don't have them at home.
"Government and councils across the country are cutting back vital support to community groups but we refuse to follow suit," said Cllr Sue Fennimore, Deputy Leader of Hammersmith & Fulham Council.
"People rely on these services. Not only is funding them the right thing to do, it makes financial sense too because community organisations are often able to provide more responsive services more cost-effectively than the council or the private sector.
"We're committed to helping community groups to ensure they are able to provide the support and opportunities we need in H&F now and for years to come."
How our funding helps
We're helping the community provide a massive variety of support, activities and projects in the borough.
We spoke to some of the charities who told us how they use H&F Council funding.
H&F Foodbank
Image caption: H&F Foodbank staff and volunteers
We fund the foodbank's ground-breaking Hub@75 in the White City Estate which complements its main base in Studdridge Street, Fulham.
"Funding for our Hub@75 enables us to be present in the heart of the White City community at a time when so many people are struggling on low incomes, and there are changes to the benefit system," said Daphine Aikens, founder and chief executive of the charity.
"The mostly council-funded Hub@75 means that we can be open full-time for the first time; not only distributing our emergency food parcels, but also running advice sessions, a job club, art space, cooking and budgeting classes, free access to computers and more - and all in a safe and welcoming environment."
Last year, 41 volunteers helped more than 1,400 residents and demand is rising rapidly.
You can find out more about Hammersmith and Fulham Foodbank online.
Fulham Good Neighbours
Image caption: Fulham Good Neighbours
Volunteers provide practical help as well as befriending, lunch clubs, exercise classes and other activities for mainly older residents.
The charity has been running for more than 50 years and recently launched a weekly support group to tackle loneliness.
Last year 76 volunteers supported more than 240 residents.
For more information visit the Fulham Good neighbours website or call them on 020 7385 8850.
Doorstep Library
Volunteers help inspire a love of reading by visiting low-income families in their homes armed with a backpack full of books.
"It's all about making reading fun," said the charity's director Katie Bareham.
"It's not a tutoring service. Our volunteers don't help them with their homework, they show how exciting stories can be and how there's something for everyone.
"All our volunteers are extremely passionate about children and how important it is to be able to read, and that comes through."
Last year, more than 70 volunteers helped more than 600 children improve their reading.
visit the Doorstep Library website
emai enquiries@doorsteplibrary.org.uk
call 020 8870 1476.
Need funding for your project?
H&F Council is also supporting local people to raise funds for small, one-off events and activities through crowd-funding on H&F Hive. Each year, the council contributes £200,000 of grant funding via H&F Hive and it enables you to raise funds from individuals and other corporate funders too.
There's help and advice on the council website or by contacting us at cat.priddey@lbhf.gov.uk or 020 8753 1770.
And it's not just funding…
We're always looking for ways to support charities and community groups in H&F.
Recently, we transferred the freehold of the Barons Court Project's building to them, as well as the freeholds of three community centres to the Urban Partnership Group which runs them.
It puts both charities at the heart of decision making and safeguards the buildings against commercial development for years to come.


text:
Q: Get bigger profile picture with php sdk and Graph Api This peace of code gives me a 50x50px Facebook profile picture. Obviously I need a larger one. How can I get it?
Was searching around SO and only found answers from 2010-2013
$response = (new FacebookRequest(
    $session,
        'GET', '/me?fields=picture,link'
    )
)->execute();

$object = $response->getGraphObject();
$pic = $object->asArray('picture');
$pic = $pic['picture']->data->url;
echo '<img src="'.$pic.'" alt="..." />';

Following throws errors:
    'GET', '/me?fields=picture{width(300)},link'
    // Syntax error "Expected end of string instead of "("." at character 5: width(300)

A: Poorly documented docs about the profile picture field property syntax (hence the curly brackets in my question), but after some digging and testing this is my solution.
    'GET', '/me?fields=picture.width(300),link'

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Q: Markov chains, hitting times and expected number of passages
Let $X_n, n\geq1$ be a Markov chain with state space $\{1,\dots,6\}$ and transition matrix
$$
P = \left[
\begin{array} \\
0 & 0  & 1-\alpha & \alpha & 0 & 0 \\
0 & 0  & 0        &    0   & 1 & 0 \\
0 & 0  & 0        &     1  & 0 & 0 \\
1 & 0  & 0        &   0    & 0 & 0 \\
0 & 0  & 0        &    0   & 0 & 1 \\
0 & 0  & 1-\alpha &      0 & \alpha & 0 \\
\end{array}
\right]
$$
Find $\rho_{xy}=P(T_y<\infty| X_0=x)$ and $G(x,y)=\mathbb{E}[N(y)|X_0=x]$ such that $T_y$ is the first passage time and $N(y)$ is the number of visits to state $y$.

Clearly states $\{1,3,4\}$ are recurrent and states $\{2,5,6\}$ are transient. So for the first set $G(x,y)=\infty$
We know that the following holds
$$
\begin{align}
\rho_{xy} &= P(T_y<\infty| X_0=x) \\
          &= \sum_{n=1}^{\infty}P(T_y=n| X_0=x)  \\
\\
G(x,y) &=\mathbb{E}[N(y)|X_0=x]\\
       &=\mathbb{E}[\sum_{n=1}^{\infty}I\{X_n=y\}|X_0=x] \\
       &=\sum_{n=1}^{\infty}P^n(x,y)
\end{align}
$$
such that $P^n$ is the n-step ahead transition function. Taking for example $x=5,y=5$,
$$
\begin{align}
\rho_{55} &= \sum_{n=1}^{\infty}P(T_5=n| X_0=5) \\
G(5,5)    &= \sum_{n=1}^{\infty}P^n(5,5)
\end{align}
$$
We may notice that we have only one way back from $5$ into $5$, $5\to 6\to 5$ and thus we have zero probabilities for reaching 5 in even number of steps thus
$$G(5,5) = \sum_{k=1}^{\infty}P^{2k}(5,5) =  \sum_{k=1}^{\infty}\alpha^k = \frac{1}{1-\alpha}$$
However, if I find $\rho_{xy}$ through the system of equations,
$$
\rho_{ij}=P(i,j)+\sum_{z\neq j}P(i,z)\rho_{z,j}
$$
and apply the theorem that says that for transient states $G(x,y)=\rho_{xy}/(1-\rho_{yy})$, I get $\rho_{55}=\rho_{66}=\rho_{65}=\alpha$, $\rho_{56}=1$ and $G(5,5)=\alpha/(1-\alpha)$ as the result.
What am i doing wrong?
I would appreciate any insights.