text:
Category: Computing
Judement Day Update: IBM Watson's Hard Questions
When IBM's artificial intelligence program – named Watson – won Jeopardy in 2011, it was a major boon for the industry. However, far from showing that it was Turing-compatible, Watson was merely processing information that it had been programmed to know. But now, IBM is pushing the software forward in the hopes that the machine will be able to answer the really tough questions – i.e. the ones that have no answer and require educated guesses.
This is part of IBMs attempts to turn Watson into a new line of business and make it useful in a wide range of industries that are dealing lately with an overwhelming amount of data. At an event in New York at the end of August, IBM showed off the ways some of its early customers are using the Watson "Discovery Advisor" in research, development, and innovation, especially in the realm of biotech and life sciences.
Watson's aim is to speed up discoveries by teams of researchers by, for example, scanning and interpreting millions of scientific books, articles, and data points–far more than any person's brain could analyze–and generating new hypothesis or leads that might be fruitful to investigate. As John Gordon, the vice-president of IBM's Watson group, put it, it's all about giving researchers "smarter hunches":
It's not giving answers that people know anymore, it's pointing people in directions that they should investigate. We're talking about a computing system that inspires people.
Scientists at the Baylor College of Medicine and IBM Research have already used Watson to discover new pathways to cancer therapies, which they reported in a study presented at an academic conference late last month. Watson looked closely at 70,000 scientific articles on a protein, called p53, that's involved in more than half of all cancers, and picked out 6 different proteins that it felt were good candidates for new drugs and therapies.
Drug companies, too, which are struggling today to develop new commercial drugs, are some of the earliest users of Watsons predictive capabilities. Sanofi is using Watson to look through the research literature and its own data to find new uses for its existing drugs on the market. And Johnson & Johnson has developed a system that analyzes clinical studies to compare the efficacy and safety of different treatments.
Soledad Cepeda, Johnson & Johnson's director of epidemiology, used the example of back pain, for which there are 27 treatments studied in more than 3,000 clinical trials. As she explained:
[Analyzing this] is slow, it's tedious, it's expensive, and it's prone to errors. Now imagine we can teach Watson to do that for us. So instead of six months, Watson can do it in minutes.
Johnson & Johnson has been working to train Watson to read each study, put it in context, and pick out how many patients dropped out of the study or trial due to side effects or ineffective results. If Watson can give researchers all of this comparative data, rather than them combing through thousands of papers, it would allow researchers to come up with better questions to ask and directions to explore.
But of course, this is not always an easy things for Watson to do and requires setup and new skills for it to learn. For example, in Johnson & Johnson's work, in the studies Watson was analyzing, authors often reported the key data in the form of flow diagrams. So Soledad and her team had to first teach Watson to correctly read flow diagrams of varying levels of complexity and design.
So far, Watson's earliest discovery applications have been in the field of biomedical research. But the company hopes it will prove useful in a wide array of fields where the data available to analyze is growing faster than even the world's top experts are capable of comprehending – such as law enforcement and finance. Whether it's determining whodunnit, or predicting market trends in the next quarter, Watson could prove very helpful in tackling the task of big-data crunching.
To illustrate the potential for law enforcement, Roberto Villasenor, chief of police for the city of Tucson, Arizona, spoke at the event and detailed an open case of a young child who went missing from her home. Over two years of investigating, the police have generated 15,000 pages of lab reports, records, and warrants, 25,00 pages of interviews, 4,000 pages of transcribed wiretaps, and much other data.
His department has already worked with IBM on software that integrates different police databases to make it easier for investigators to make connections between disparate data sources. But he hopes systems like Watson will eventually go further and be capable of aiding investigators in combing through data, making subtle connections, and generating new leads in difficult cases.
However, the most public demonstration of Watson's new abilities thus far has been in the form of "Chef Watson". IBM has put Watson to the task of learning how to cook and then creating creative tasty and unexpected new recipes. It debuted this capability at a food truck at SxSW this year, but has also been working with the Institute of Culinary Education and Bon Appetit magazine to refine and stretch Watson's cooking skills.
Bon Appetit is now beta testing a consumer app that allows readers to input an ingredient and desires and have Watson generate suggested recipes. It held a Watson recipe contest this summer–the winner of the "best use of Watson as a creative discovery tool" was a "Roasted tomato and mozzarella tart" recipe. Cooking isn't like curing cancer or solving crimes, but to IBM it's most about getting the public excited about its advances.
As IBM senior vice president Mike Rhodin said:
Much the same way that Jeopardy helped people understand systems that can answer questions using natural language, Chef Watson is a way for us to understand how these new systems can be used in our everyday lives.
And that's the real aim here, long-term, which is adapting computer-learning into our daily lives. And given time, we may have access to AIs that can do the difficult and mind-numbing task of sifting through gigabytes, terabytes and even petabytes of information in order to find answers to tough questions, discern the patterns, and come up with solutions. One can only hope they don't use that information for evil and try to destroy us!
Knowledge is power, after all…
Sources: fastcoexist.com, bcm.edu
By storiesbywilliamsin Computing, News, Technology September 19, 2014 September 20, 2014 1,074 Words1 Comment
The Future is Here: Flexible, Paper Thin Ultra-HD Screens
The explosion in computing and personal devices in recent years has led to a world where we are constantly surrounded by displays. Whether they belong to personal computers, laptops, smartphones, LCDs, PDAs, or MP3 players, there is no shortage to the amount of screens we can consult. In turn, this proliferation has led computer scientists and engineers to address a number of imperfections these displays have.
For instance, some of these displays don't work in direct sunlight or are subject to glare. Others are horridly energy-inefficient and will drain their battery life very quickly. Some don't have high-definition, rich color, and can't display true black color. Just about all of them are rigid, and all can be broken given a solid enough impact. Luckily, a new age of flexible, ultra-HD screens are on the way that promise to resolve all of this.
The first examples of this concept were rolled out at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show, where Samsung unveiled its revolutionary new AMOLED display on a number of devices. This was followed up in September of 2012 when Nokia unveiled its Kinetic Device at the World Nokia Conference in London. Both devices showcased displays that could bend and flex, and were followed by concept videos produced by electronic giants Sony, 3M and Microsoft.
Since that time, numerous strides have been taken to improve on the technology before it hits the open market. In research published earlier this month in Nature, scientists describe what may be the first steps toward creating a new type of ultrathin, superfast, low-power, high-resolution, flexible color screen. If successful, these displays could combine some of the best features of current display technologies.
The new displays work with familiar materials, including the metal alloy already used to store data on some CDs and DVDs. The key property of these materials is that they can exist in two states – when warmed by heat, light, or electricity, they switch from one state to the other. Scientists call them phase-change materials (PCMs); and as Alex Kolobov, a researcher at Japan's Nanoelectronics Research Institute who was not involved in the new work, explains:
It is really fascinating that phase-change materials, now widely used in optical and nonvolatile electronic memory devices, found a potentially new application in display technology.
A PCM display would work similar to the electronic paper used in products like Amazon's Kindle reader. Both are made by sandwiching a material that has two states, one lighter and one darker, in between layers of transparent conductors. The inner material is a viscous black oil filled with tiny white titanium balls. To make a pixel black or white, a current is run through a tiny area of the glass to either pull the reflective balls to the front, or cause them to recede.
In a PCM display, the inner material is a substance made of silicon's heavier cousins: germanium, antimony, and tellurium. The two states of this material (known as GST) are actually two different phases of matter: one an ordered crystal and the other a disordered glass. To switch between them, current pulses are used to melt a tiny column, and either cooled gently to make the crystal or rapidly to make the glass.
This cycle can be done remarkably quickly, more than 1 million times per second. That speed could be a big advantage in consumer products. While scrolling on a Kindle can be terribly slow because the screen only refreshes once per second, the refresh rate on a PCM display would be fast enough to play movies, stream videos, and perform all the tasks people routinely do with their devices.
To make the new displays, the research team – led by Harish Bhaskaran, a nanoscale manufacturing expert from Oxford University – used a 35-year-old machine developed by the semiconductor industry. They then laid down three layers that were a few nanometers thick of conducting glass, GST, and another layer of conducting glass. Then they used current from the tip of an atomic force microscope to draw pictures on the surface.
These images included everything from a Japanese print of a tidal wave to fleas and antique cars – each one smaller than the width of a human hair. With this sort of flexible, ultra-high resolution screen, a PCM display could be made into everything from a bendable laptop and personal device to a programmable contact lens — like Apple's Retina Display, except that it would actually fit on your retina.
Turning this technology into products will require years of labor and hundreds of millions of dollars. Nevertheless, Bhaskaran and his colleagues are optimistic. The electronics industry has lots of experience with all the components, so there are plenty of well-known tricks to try to improve this first draft. And they are hardly alone in their efforts to bring flexible displays to market.
For instance, LG unveiled their new line of flexible OLED TVs at CES earlier this year. Now, they are taking things a step further with the unveiling of two new 18-inch OLED panels, the first of which is a transparent display, while the second can be rolled up. Although both fall short of the 77-inch flexible TV on show at CES, the company says the new panels prove that it has the technology to bring rollable TVs with screens in excess of 50 inches to market in the future.
Unlike their 77-inch flexible TV that has a fairly limited range of changeable curvature, LG Display's latest flexible OLED panel can be rolled up into a cylinder with a radius of 3 cm (1.18 in) without the function of the 1,200 x 810 pixel display being affected. This is made possible though the use of a high molecular substance-based polyimide film to create the backplane, rather than conventional plastic .
The transparent OLED panel, on the other hand, was created using LG Display's transparent pixel design technology. With transmittance of 30 percent, the company says the panel is superior to existing transparent LCD panels that generally achieve around 10 to 15 percent transmittance. LG Display claims to have also reduced the haze of the panel, caused by circuit devices and film components, to just 2 percent.
As In-Byung Kang, Senior Vice President and Head of the R&D Center at LG Display, explained:
LG Display pioneered the OLED TV market and is now leading the next-generation applied OLED technology. We are confident that by 2017, we will successfully develop an Ultra HD flexible and transparent OLED panel of more than 60 inches, which will have transmittance of more than 40 percent and a curvature radius of 100R, thereby leading the future display market.
Granted, it will be still be a few years and several hundred million dollars before such displays become the norm for computers and all other devices. However, the progress that is being made is quite impressive and with all the electronics megagiants committed to making it happen, an age where computing and communications are truly portable and much more survivable is likely just around the corner.
Sources: wired.com, gizmag.com, extremetech.com
By storiesbywilliamsin Computing, News, Technology July 30, 2014 1,169 Words9 Comments
Encoding Equality: Girl Geek Academy
When it comes to the gaming industry, there appears to be something of a glass ceiling. According to a developer satisfaction survey that was released last month from the International Game Developers Association, only 22 percent of people working in the gaming industry are women. And while this presents a twofold increase from five years ago (11.5%), it's proportionally low considering that women make up some 48% of the gaming community.
This disparity is pretty common across software, app development, and tech startups (even though startups led by women produce 12 per cent higher returns). The logical next step would be to encourage more women to enter these fields. This is where Girl Geek Academy comes in, an initiative aimed at teaching women the skills they need to start their own ventures – everything from coding classes to mentoring programs from successful start-ups.
And there's definitely demand for it, according to co-founder, programmer and senior digital strategist Tammy Butow:
We have seen over the years that female-focused groups have helped increase the number of women attending technology events and learning technology skills. Over the last few years I have run Girl Geek Dinners Melbourne – in January 2013 we had 350 members – and we then ran a series of tech workshops to teach skills such as HTML, CSS and JS…
Girl Geek Dinners Melbourne now has over 1000 members. [Fellow co-founder] April [Staines] and I also ran Australia's first all-female hackathon She Hacks in Melbourne. She Hacks sold out in one week, a few weeks later we also ran Australia's first Startup Weekend Women event and that sold out too.
After running these workshops and discovering just how many women were interested in learning these skills, Butow and her associates decided to widen their scope. This they did by opening up a series of classes and programs for women of all ages (above the age of 18) and skill levels with a target of achieving a total of one million women building apps and learning to create startups by the year 2025.
As Butow explained, it's all about taking the next step in the development of the internet as we know it:
The internet we know now was primarily built by men. We are interested in finding out what women would like to create. At the Startup Weekend Women event we recently ran, there were several teams that created apps focusing on flexible work opportunities for women. This was a very clear theme for the weekend. We had several women in attendance who were expecting children or had small children; they are interested in using technology to solve the problems they are experiencing.
Partnered with Google, Aduro and 99Designs, the Academy offers a number of classes – either as face-to-face workshops, or via Google Hangouts and Aduro. The two-hour classes include learning different programming languages, such as JavaScript and Ruby, down to the basics of founding a startup, such as a public speaking class and how to manage your finances.
More experienced women are encouraged to teach classes, and the Academy already boasts a variety of events, ranging from hackathons, makerfests, code getaways and study tours. The team is already organising the very first study tour, hoping to take Australian women to visit global startup hotspots such as Silicon Valley and Tel Aviv. And though women are the focus, men are welcome too, as long as they attend with a girl geek and are willing to lend a helping hand.
The first class took place on July 15th in Richmond, Victoria. For the price of AU$35, people got a healthy dinner and a seminar that focused on the very first issue relating to development: how to pitch an idea. For an additional AU$10, people were able to get tickets for the Google Hangout. For those interested in getting in on events held in the next 12 months, they can look them up on the Girl Geek Academy website.
Personally, I think this is a great initiative with a noble purpose. Despite great strides being made by women in all walks of professional life, certain industries remain tougher than others to crack. By creating an organization and atmosphere that fosters support, guidance and welcomes contribution, the gaming industry is likely to see a lot more women on the supply side in coming years.
Perhaps then we can look forward to more positive representations of women in games, yes?
Sources: cnet.com, girlgeekacademy.com
By storiesbywilliamsin Computing, News, Technology July 22, 2014 733 Words3 Comments
Judgement Day Update: Terminators at I/O 2014
We've all thought about it… the day when super-intelligent computer becomes self-aware and unleashes a nuclear holocaust, followed shortly thereafter by the rise of the machines (cue theme from Terminator). But as it turns out, when the robot army does come to exterminate humanity, at two humans might be safe – Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin to be precise.
Basically, they've uploaded a killer-robots.txt file to their servers that instructs T-800 and T-1000 Terminators to spare the company's co-founders (or "disallow" their deaths). Such was the subject of a totally tongue-in-cheek presentation at this year's Google I/O at the Moscone Center in San Fransisco, which coincided with the 20th anniversary of the Robots.txt file.
This tool, which was created in 1994, instructs search engines and other automated bots to avoid crawling certain pages or directories of a website. The industry has done a remarkable job staying true to the simple text file in the two decades since; Google, Bing, and Yahoo still obey its directives. The changes they uploaded read like this, just in case you're planning on adding your name to the "disallow" list:
While that tool didn't exactly take the rise of the machines into account, it's appearance on the Google's website as an Easter egg did add some levity to a company that is already being accused of facilitating in the creation of killer robots. Calling Google's proposed line or robots "killer" does seem both premature and extreme, that did not stop a protester from interrupting the I/O 2014 keynote address.
Basically, as Google's senior VP of technical infrastructure Urs Hölze spoke about their cloud platform, the unidentified man stood up and began screaming "You all work for a totalitarian company that builds machines that kill people!" As you can see from the video below, Hölze did his best to take the interruptions in stride and continued with the presentation. The protestor was later escorted out by security.
This wasn't the first time that Google has been the source of controversy over the prospect of building "killer robots". Ever since Google acquired Boston Dynamics and seven other robots companies in the space of six months (between and June and Dec of 2013), there has been some fear that the company has a killer machine in the works that it will attempt to sell to the armed forces.
Naturally, this is all part of a general sense of anxiety that surrounds developments being made across multiple fields. Whereas some concerns have crystallized into dedicated and intelligent calls for banning autonomous killer machines in advance – aka. the Campaign To Stop Killer Robots – others have resulted in the kinds of irrational outbreaks observed at this year's I/O.
Needless to say, if Google does begin developing killer robots, or just starts militarizing its line of Boston Dynamics acquisitions, we can expect that just about everyone who can access (or hack their way into) the Robots.txt file to be adding their names. And it might not be too soon to update the list to include the T-X, Replicants, and any other killer robots we can think of!
And be sure to check out the video of the "killer robot" protester speaking out at 2014 I/O:
Sources: theverge.com, (2)
By storiesbywilliamsin Computing, News, Video July 9, 2014 July 9, 2014 552 Words3 Comments
Revolution in Virtual Reality: Google's Cardboard Headset
With the acquisition of the Oculus Rift headset, Facebook appeared ready to corner the market of the new virtual reality market. But at its annual I/O conference, Google declared that it was staking its own claim. At the end of the search giant's keynote address, Sundar Pichai announced that everyone in attendance would get a nondescript cardboard package, but was coy about its contents. Turns out, it's the firm's attempt at a do-it-yourself VR headset.
Known as Cardboard, copies of the headset were handed out as part of a goodie bag, alongside the choice between a brand new LG G Watch or Samsung Gear Live smartwatch. Intended to be a do-it-yourself starter kit, Google Cardboard is a head-mounted housing unit for your smartphone that lets you blend everyday items into a VR headset. With a $10 lens kit, $7 worth of magnets, two Velcro straps, a rubber band, and an optional near-field communication sticker tag, you can have your very own VR headset for the fraction of the price.
You can use household materials to build one, and a rubber band to hold your smartphone in place on the front of the device. Assembly instructions, plans and links for where to source the needed parts (like lenses) — as well as an SDK — are available on the project's website. Google hopes that by making the tech inexpensive (unlike offerings from, say, Oculus), developers will be able to make VR apps that hit a wider audience.
According to some early reviews, the entire virtual reality experience is surprisingly intuitive, and is as impressive considering how simple it is. And while the quality doesn't quite match the Oculus Rift's dual OLED Full HD screens, and it is lacking in that it doesn't have positional tracking (meaning you can't lean into something the way you would in real life), the Cardboard is able to create the 3D effect using just a single phone screen and some specialized lenses.
Meanwhile, Google has created some great demos within the Cardboard app, showcasing the kind of experiences people can expect moving forward. Right now, the Cardboard app features simple demonstrations: Google Earth, Street View, Windy Day, and more. But it's just a small taste of what's possible. And anyone willing to put some time into putting together their own cardboard headset can get involved. Never before has virtual reality been so accessible, or cheap.
And that was precisely the purpose behind the development of this device. Originally concocted by David Coz and Damien Henry at the Google Cultural Institute in Paris as part of the company's "20 percent time" initiative, the program was started with the aim of inspiring a more low-cost model for VR development. After an early prototype wowed Googlers, a larger group was tasked with building out the idea, and the current Cardboard headset was born.
As it reads on Google's new page for the device's development:
Virtual reality has made exciting progress over the past several years. However, developing for VR still requires expensive, specialized hardware. Thinking about how to make VR accessible to more people, a group of VR enthusiasts at Google experimented with using a smartphone to drive VR experiences.
Beyond hardware, on June 25th, the company also released a self-described experimental software development kit for Cardboard experiences. Cardboard also has an Android companion app that's required to utilize Google's own VR-specific applications, called Chrome Experiments. Some use cases Google cites now are flyover tours in Google Earth, full-screen YouTube video viewing, and first-person art exhibit tours.
As Google said a related press release:
By making it easy and inexpensive to experiment with VR, we hope to encourage developers to build the next generation of immersive digital experiences and make them available to everyone.
Oculus Rift is still the most promising version of virtual reality right now, and with Facebook at the helm, there are some tremendous resources behind the project. But with Cardboard, Google is opening up VR to every single Android developer, which we hope will lead to some really awesome stuff down the road. Even if you can't lean in to inspect dials in front of you, or look behind corners, the potential of Cardboard is tremendous. Imagine the kind of not only experiences we'll see, but augmented reality using your phone's camera.
But Cardboard is still very early in development. Its only been a few weeks since it was debuted at Google I/O, and the device is still only works with Android. But with availability on such a wide scale, it could very quickly become the go-to VR platform out there. All you need are some magnets, velcro, rubber band, lenses and a pizza box. And be sure to check out this demo of the device, courtesy of "Hands-On" by TechnoBuffalo:
Sources: cnet.com, technobuffalo.com, engadget.com
By storiesbywilliamsin Computing, News, Technology July 6, 2014 815 Words2 Comments
The Future of Devices: The Wearable Tech Boom
The wearable computing revolution that has been taking place in recent years has drawn in developers and tech giants from all over the world. Though its roots are deep, dating back to the late 60's and early 80's with the Sword of Damocles concept and the work of Steve Mann. But in recent years, thanks to the development of Google Glass, the case for wearable tech has moved beyond hobbyists and enthusiasts and into the mainstream.
And with display glasses now accounted for, the latest boom in development appears to be centered on smart watches and similar devices. These range from fitness trackers with just a few features to wrist-mounted version of smart phones that boast the same constellations of functions and apps (email, phone, text, skyping, etc.) And as always, the big-name industries are coming forward with their own concepts and designs.
First, there's the much-anticipated Apple iWatch, which is still in the rumor stage. The company has been working on this project since late 2012, but has begun accelerating the process as it tries to expand its family of mobile devices to the wrist. Apple has already started work on trademarking the name in a number of countries in preparation for a late 2014 launch perhaps in October, with the device entering mass production in July.
And though it's not yet clear what the device will look like, several mockups and proposals have been leaked. And recent reports from sources like Reuters and The Wall Street Journal have pointed towards multiple screen sizes and price points, suggesting an array of different band and face options in various materials to position it as a fashion accessory. It is also expected to include a durable sapphire crystal display, produced in collaboration with Apple partner GT Advanced.
While the iWatch will perform some tasks independently using the new iOS 8 platform, it will be dependent on a compatible iOS device for functions like receiving messages, voice calls, and notifications. It is also expected to feature wireless charging capabilities, advanced mapping abilities, and possibly near-field communication (NFC) integration. But an added bonus, as indicated by Apple's recent filing for patents associated with their "Health" app, is the inclusion of biometric and health sensors.
Along with serving as a companion device to the iPhone and iPad, the iWatch will be able to measure multiple different health-related metrics. Consistent with the features of a fitness band, these will things like a pedometer, calories burned, sleep quality, heart rate, and more. The iWatch is said to include 10 different sensors to track health and fitness, providing an overall picture of health and making the health-tracking experience more accessible to the general public.
Apple has reportedly designed iOS 8 with the iWatch in mind, and the two are said to be heavily reliant on one another. The iWatch will likely take advantage of the "Health" app introduced with iOS 8, which may display all of the health-related information gathered by the watch. Currently, Apple is gearing up to begin mass production on the iWatch, and has been testing the device's fitness capabilities with professional athletes such as Kobe Bryant, who will likely go on to promote the iWatch following its release.
Not to be outdone, Google launched its own brand of smartwatch – known as Android Wear – at this year's I/O conference. Android Wear is the company's software platform for linking smartwatches from companies including LG, Samsung and Motorola to Android phones and tablets. A preview of Wear was introduced this spring, the I/O conference provided more details on how it will work and made it clear that the company is investing heavily in the notion that wearables are the future.
Android Wear takes much of the functionality of Google Now – an intelligent personal assistant – and uses the smartwatch as a home for receiving notifications and context-based information. For the sake of travel, Android Wear will push relevant flight, weather and other information directly to the watch, where the user can tap and swipe their way through it and use embedded prompts and voice control to take further actions, like dictating a note with reminders to pack rain gear.
For the most part, Google had already revealed most of what Wear will be able to do in its preview, but its big on-stage debut at I/O was largely about getting app developers to buy into the platform and keep designing for a peripheral wearable interface in mind. Apps can be designed to harness different Android Wear "intents." For example, the Lyft app takes advantage of the "call me a car" intent and can be set to be the default means of hailing a ride when you tell your smartwatch to find you a car.
Google officials also claimed at I/O that the same interface being Android Wear will be behind their new Android Auto and TV, two other integrated services that allow users to interface with their car and television via a mobile device. So don't be surprised if you see someone unlocking or starting their car by talking into their watch in the near future. The first Android Wear watches – the Samsung Gear Live and the LG G Watch – are available to pre-order and the round-face Motorola Moto 360 is expected to come out later this summer.
All of these steps in integration and wearable technology are signs of an emergent trend, one where just about everything from personal devices to automobiles and even homes are smart and networked together – thus giving rise to a world where everything is remotely accessible. This concept, otherwise known as the "Internet of Things", is expected to become the norm in the next 20 years, and will include other technologies like display contacts and mediated (aka. augmented) reality.
And be sure to check out this concept video of the Apple iWatch:
Sources: cnet.com, (2), macrumors.com, engadget.com, gizmag.com
By storiesbywilliamsin Computing, News, Technology, Video July 4, 2014 989 Words2 Comments
Immortality Inc: Google's Kurzweil Talks Life Extension
Human life expectancy has been gradually getting longer and longer over the past century, keeping pace with advances made in health and medical technologies. And in the next 20 years, as the pace of technological change accelerates significantly, we can expect life-expectancy to undergo a similarly accelerated increase. So its only natural that one of the worlds biggest tech giants (Google) would decide to becoming invested in the business of post-mortality.
As part of this initiative, Google has been seeking to build a computer that can think like a human brain. They even hired renowed futurist and AI expert Ray Kurzweil last year to act as the director of engineering on this project. Speaking at Google's I/O conference late last month, he detailed his prediction that our ability to improve human health is beginning to move up an "exponential" growth curve, similar to the law of accelerating returns that governs the information technology and communications sectors today.
The capacity to sequence DNA, which is dropping rapidly in cost and ease, is the most obvious example. At one time, it took about seven years to sequence 1% of the first human genome. But now, it can be done in a matter of hours. And thanks to initiatives like the Human Genome Project and ENCODE, we have not only successfully mapped every inch of the human genome, we've also identified the function of every gene within.
But as Kurzweil said in the course of his presentation – entitled "Biologically Inspired Models of Intelligence" – simply reading DNA is only the beginning:
Our ability to reprogram this outdated software is growing exponentially. Somewhere between that 10- and 20-year mark, we'll see see significant differences in life expectancy–not just infant life expectancy, but your remaining life expectancy. The models that are used by life insurance companies sort of continue the linear progress we've made before health and medicine was an information technology… This is going to go into high gear.
Kurzweil cited several examples of our increasing ability to "reprogram this outdated data" – technologies like RNA interference that can turn genes on and off, or doctors' ability to now add a missing gene to patients with a terminal disease called pulmonary hypertension. He cited the case of a girl whose life was threatened by a damaged wind pipe, who had a new pipe designed and 3-D printed for her using her own stem cells.
In other countries, he notes, heart attack survivors who have lasting heart damage can now get a rejuvenated heart from reprogrammed stem cells. And while this procedure awaits approval from the FDA in the US, it has already been demonstrated to be both safe and effective. Beyond tweaking human biology through DNA/RNA reprogramming, there are also countless initiatives aimed at creating biomonitoring patches that will improve the functionality and longevity of human organs.
And in addition to building computer brains, Google itself is also in the business of extending human life. This project, called Calico, hopes to slow the process of natural aging, a related though different goal than extending life expectancy with treatment for disease. Though of course, the term "immortality" is perhaps a bit of misnomer, hence why it is amended with the word "clinical". While the natural effects of aging are something that can be addressed, there will still be countless ways to die.
As Kurzweil himself put it:
Life expectancy is a statistical phenomenon. You could still be hit by the proverbial bus tomorrow. Of course, we're working on that here at Google also, with self-driving cars.
Good one, Kurzweil! Of course, there are plenty of skeptics who question the validity of these assertions, and challenge the notion of clinical immortality on ethical grounds. After all, our planet currently plays host to some 7 billion people, and another 2 to 3 billion are expected to be added before we reach the halfway mark of this century. And with cures for diseases like HIV and cancer already showing promise, we may already be looking at a severe drop in mortality in the coming decades.
Combined with an extension in life-expectancy, who knows how this will effect life and society as we know it? But one thing is for certain: the study of life has become tantamount to a study of information. And much like computational technology, this information can be manipulated, resulting in greater performance and returns. So at this point, regardless of whether or not it should be done, it's an almost foregone conclusion that it will be done.
After all? While very few people would dare to live forever, there is virtually no one who wouldn't want to live a little longer. And in the meantime, if you've got the time and feel like some "light veiwing", be sure to check out Kurzweil's full Google I/O 2014 speech in which he addresses the topics of computing, artificial intelligence, biology and clinical immortality:
Sources: fastcoexist.com, kurzweilai.net
By storiesbywilliamsin Computing, Future, News, Technology July 3, 2014 July 3, 2014 831 WordsLeave a comment
Computex 2014
Earlier this month, Computex 2014 wrapped up in Taipei. And while this trade show may not have all the glitz and glamor of its counterpart in Vegas (aka. the Consumer Electronics Show), it is still an important launch pad for new IT products slated for release during the second half of the year. Compared to other venues, the Taiwanese event is more formal, more business-oriented, and for those people who love to tinker with their PCs.
For instance, it's an accessible platform for many Asian vendors who may not have the budget to head to Vegas. And in addition to being cheaper to set up booths and show off their products, it gives people a chance to look at devices that wouldn't often be seen in the western parts of the world. The timing of the show is also perfect for some manufacturers. Held in June, the show provides a fantastic window into the second half of the year.
For example, big name brands like Asus typically use the event to launch a wide range of products. This year, this included such items as the super-slim Asus Book Chi and the multi-mode Book V, which like their other products, have demonstrated that the company has a flair for innovation that easily rivals the big western and Korean names. In addition, Intel has been a long stalwart at Computex, premiered its fanless reference design tablet that runs on the Llama Mountain chipset.
And much like CES, there were plenty of cool gadgets to be seen. This included a GPS tracker that can be attached to a dog collar to track a pet's movements; the Fujitsu laptop, a hardy new breed of gadget that showcases Japanese designers' aim to make gear that are both waterproof and dustproof; the Rosewill Chic-C powerbank that consists of 1,000mAh battery packs that attach together to give additional power and even charge gadgets; and the Altek Cubic compact camera that fits in the palm of the hand.
And then there was the Asus wireless storage, a gadget that looks like an air freshener, but is actually a wireless storage device that can be paired with a smartphone using near-field communication (NFC) technology – essentially being able to transfer info simply by bringing a device into near-proximity with it. And as always, there were plenty of cameras, display headsets, mobile devices, and wearables. This last aspect was particularly ever-present, in the form of look-alike big-name wearables.
By and all large, the devices displayed this year were variations on a similar theme: wrist-mounted fitness trackers, smartwatches, and head-mounted smartglasses. The SiMEye smartglass display, for example, was every bit inspired by Google Glass, and even bears a strong resemblance. Though the show was admittedly short on innovation over imitation, it did showcase a major trend in the computing and tech industry.
In his keynote speech, Microsoft's Nick Parker talked about the age of ubiquitous computing, and the "devices we carry on us, as opposed to with us." What this means is, we may very well be entering a PC-less age, where computing is embedded in devices of increasingly diminished size. Eventually, it could even be miniaturized to the point where it is stitched into our clothing as accessed through contacts, never mind glasses or headsets!
Sources: cnet.com, (2), (3), computextaipei.com
By storiesbywilliamsin Computing, News, Technology June 24, 2014 549 WordsLeave a comment
The Internet of Things: AR and Real World Search
When it comes to the future, it is clear that the concept of the "Internet of Things" holds sway. This idea – which states that all objects will someday be identifiable thanks to a virtual representations on the internet – is at the center of a great deal of innovation that drives our modern economy. Be it wearables, wireless, augmented reality, voice or image recognition, that which helps us combine the real with the virtual are on the grow.
And so it's really no surprise that innovators are looking to take augmented reality to the next level. The fruit of some of this labor is Blippar, a market-leading image-recognition and augmented reality platform. Lately, they have been working on a proof of concept for Google Glass showing that 3-D searches are doable. This sort of technology is already available n the form of apps for smartphones, but a central database is lacking that could any device into a visual search engine.
As Ambarish Mitra, the head of Blippar stated, AR is already gaining traction among consumers thanks to some of the world's biggest industrial players recognizing the shift to visually mediated lifestyles. Examples include IKEA's interactive catalog, Heinz's AR recipe booklet or Amazon's recent integration of the Flow AR technology into its primary shopping app. As this trend continues, we will need a Wikipedia-like database for 3-D objects that will be available to us anytime, anywhere.
Social networks and platforms like Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat and Facebook have all driven a cultural shift in the way people exchange information. This takes the form of text updates, instant messaging, and uploaded images. But as the saying goes, "a picture is worth a thousand words". In short, information absorbed through visual learning has a marked advantage over that which is absorbed through reading and text.
In fact, a recent NYU study found that people retain close to 80 percent of information they consume through images versus just 10 percent of what they read. If people are able to regularly consume rich content from the real world through our devices, we could learn, retain, and express our ideas and information more effectively. Naturally, there will always be situations where text-based search is the most practical tool, but searches arise from real-world experiences.
Right now, text is the only option available, and oftentimes, people are unable to best describe what they are looking for. But an image-recognition technology that could turn any smartphone, tablet or wearable device into a scanner that could identify any 3-D object would vastly simplify things. Information could be absorbed in a more efficient way, using an object's features and pulling up information from a rapidly learning engine.
For better or for worse, wearable designs of consumer electronics have come to reflect a new understanding in the past few years. Basically, they have come to be extensions of our senses, much as Marshall McCluhan wrote in his 1964 book Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Google Glass is representative of this revolutionary change, a step in the direction of users interacting with the environment around them through technology.
Leading tech companies are already investing time and money into the development of their own AR products, and countless patents and research allocations are being made with every passing year. Facebook's acquisition of virtual reality company Oculus Rift is the most recent example, but even Samsung received a patent earlier this year for a camera-based augmented reality keyboard that is projected onto the fingers of the user.
Augmented reality has already proven itself to be a multi-million dollar industry – with 60 million users and around half a billion dollars in global revenues in 2013 alone. It's expected to exceed $1 billion annually by 2015, and combined with a Google-Glass type device, this AR could eventually allow individuals to build vast libraries of data that will be the foundation for finding any 3-D object in the physical world.
In other words, the Internet of Things will become one step closer, with an evolving database of visual information at the base of it that is becoming ever larger and (in all likelihood) smarter. Oh dear, I sense another Skynet reference coming on! And in the meantime, enjoy this video that showcases Blippar's vision of what this future of image overlay and recognition will look like:
Source: wired.com, dashboardinsight.com, blippar.com
By storiesbywilliamsin Computing, Future, Technology, Video June 18, 2014 732 Words1 Comment
Electronic Entertainment Expo 2014
This past week, the Electronic Entertainment Expo (commonly referred to as E3) kicked off. This annual trade fair , which is presented by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), is used by video game publishers, accessory manufacturers, and members of the computing industry to present their upcoming games and game-related merchandise. The festivities wrapped up this Friday, and was the source of some controversy and much speculation.
For starters, the annual show opened amidst concerns that the dent caused by Massively Multilayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) and online gaming communities would start to show. And this did seem to be the case. While the annual Los Angeles show normally sets up the expectations for the rest of the year in video games – and that certainly did happen – but E3 2014 was mainly about clearing the runway for next year.
Nowhere was this more clear than with Nintendo, which was the source of quite a bit of buzz when the Expo began. But it was evident that games – particularly for the Wii U – were not going to materialize until 2015. The company got a jump on the next-generation console battle by launching its Wii U in late 2012, a year ahead of Sony and Microsoft, but poor sales have led to big game developers largely abandoning it.
And while the company did announce a number of new games – including an open-world Legend of Zelda; the new Mario game that allows players to create custom levels, called Mario Maker; and Splatoon, where teams of players shoot coloured ink at each other – none are scheduled for release until next year. That dearth of blockbusters for the rest of 2014 is mirrored at Microsoft and Sony, which are also light on heavyweight first-party titles for the rest of this year.
The companies have some respective big guns in the works, such as Halo 5: Guardians and Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, but they're also scheduled for release in 2015. However, with the brisk sales of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles, both companies have the luxury of taking their time with big games. Nintendo is not so fortunate, since the jump they made with the Wii U leaves them with a big gap that they aren't apparently filling.
Nintendo's comparatively under-powered Wii U, in contrast, will look even less capable than its rivals as time passes, meaning it can't afford to wait much longer to get compelling titles to market, especially as financial losses mount. Even long-time Nintendo supporters such as Ubisoft aren't exactly sure of what to make of the Wii U's future. The other big question heading into E3 was whether Microsoft could regain its mojo.
The software giant bumbled the Xbox One launch last year and alienated many gamers, mainly by focusing on TV and entertainment content instead of gaming and tying several unpopular policies to the console, which included restrictions on used games. The company eventually relented, but the Xbox One still came bundled with the voice- and motion-sensing Kinect peripheral and a price tag that was $100 higher than Sony's rival PlayStation 4.
The result is that while the Xbox One has sold faster than the Xbox 360 at five million units so far, it has still moved two million fewer units than the PS4. Changes began to happen in March when Microsoft executive Phil Spencer, known as a champion of games, took over the Xbox operation and wasted no time in stressing that the console is mainly about gaming, and made the Kinect optional – thus lowering the Xbox One's price to match the PS4.
That was certainly the focus for Microsoft at E3. TV features weren't even mentioned during the company's one-and-a-half-hour press conference on Monday, with Microsoft instead talking up more than 20 upcoming games. As Mike Nichols, corporate vice-president of Xbox and studios marketing, said in an interview:
We didn't even talk about all the platform improvements to improve the all-out gaming experience that we've made or will be making. We wanted to shine a light on the games.
Another big topic that generated talk at the show was virtual reality, as this year's E3 featured demonstrations of the Oculus Rift VR headset and Sony's Project Morpheus. The latter has been the source of attention in recent years, with many commentators claiming that it has effectively restored interest in VR gaming. Though popular for a brief period in the mid 90's, interest quickly waned as bulky equipment and unintuitive controls led to it being abandoned.
But this new virtual reality headset, which was recently bought by Facebook for $2 billion, was undeniably the hottest thing on the show floor. And the demo booth, where people got to try it on and take it for a run, was booked solid throughout the expo. Sony also wowed attendees with demos of its own VR headset, Project Morpheus. And while the PlayStation maker's effort isn't as far along in development as the Oculus Rift, it does work and adds legitimacy to the VR field.
And as already noted, the expo also had its share of controversy. For starters, Ubisoft stuck its proverbial foot in its mouth when a developer from its Montreal studio admitted that plans for a female protagonist in the upcoming Assassin's Creed: Unity had been scrapped because it would supposedly have been "too much work". This lead to a serious fleecing by internet commentators who called the company sexist for its remarks.
Legendary Japanese creator Hideo Kojima also had to defend the torture scenes in his upcoming Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, starring Canadian actor Kiefer Sutherland (man loves torture!), which upset some viewers. Kojima said he felt the graphic scenes were necessary to explain the main character's motivations, and that games will never be taken seriously as culture if they can't deal with sensitive subjects.
And among the usual crop of violent shoot-'em-up titles, previews of Electronic Arts upcoming Battlefield: Hardline hint that the game is likely to stir up its share of controversy when it's released this fall. The game puts players in the shoes of cops and robbers as they blow each other away in the virtual streets of Los Angeles. Military shooters are one thing, but killing police will undoubtedly rankle some feathers in the real world.
If one were to draw any conclusions from this year's E3, it would undoubtedly be that times are both changing and staying the same. From console gaming garnering less and less of the gamers market, to the second coming of virtual reality, it seems that there is a shift in technology which may or may not be good for the current captains of industry. At the same time, competition and trying to maintain a large share of the market continues, with Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo at the forefront.
But in the end, arguably the most buzz was focused upon the trailers for the much-anticipated game releases. These included the trailers for Batman: Arkham Knight, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Farcry 4, Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth, and the aforementioned Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, and Assassins Creed Unity. Be sure to check these out below:
Assassins Creed Unity:
Sources: cbc.ca, ca.ign.com, e3expo.com, gamespot.com
By storiesbywilliamsin Computing, Games, News, Technology, Video June 15, 2014 June 15, 2014 1,252 Words1 Comment


200 grams of the best loose chunky chalk money can buy.
The Friction Addiction 200g loose chalk is made up of pure MGC03 and will keep your hands dry no matter where you use it. May it be in a gym on plastic, wood or steel bars, or out on rock from grit to granite, the Bag of Chalk always has you covered.
The Bag of Chalk is filled with 200 grams of the best loose chunky chalk money can buy.


text:
Quilting on the Beach marks a decade of hosting sewing extravaganza
By Elizabeth Pitts West Hawaii Today epitts@westhawaiitoday.com | Friday, February 8, 2019, 12:05 a.m.
Karen Barry displays an umbrella made at Quilting on the Beach Thursday at King Kamehameha's Kona Beach Hotel. (Laura Ruminski/West Hawaii Today)
Instructor Phyllis Cullen, right, helps Janine Pode at Quilting on the Beach Thursday at King Kamehameha's Kona Beach Hotel. (Laura Ruminski/West Hawaii Today)
A lava quilt is made at Quilting on the Beach Thursday at King Kamehameha's Kona Beach Hotel. (Laura Ruminski/West Hawaii Today)
Maureen Narimatsu uses her old Singer sewing machine at Quilting on the Beach Thursday at King Kamehameha's Kona Beach Hotel. (Laura Ruminski/West Hawaii Today)
Susan Litteral displays a quilt in her "what happened to my flying geese" workshop at Quilting on the Beach Thursday at King Kamehameha's Kona Beach Hotel.
3D quilts are on display at made at Quilting on the Beach. (Photos by Laura Ruminski/West Hawaii Today)
Roberta Muller, left, assists Debbie Filek with her pattern at Quilting on the Beach Thursday at King Kamehameha's Kona Beach Hotel. (Laura Ruminski/West Hawaii Today)
Quilters attend a class at Quilting on the Beach Thursday at King Kamehameha's Kona Beach Hotel. (Laura Ruminski/West Hawaii Today)
Cheryl Ogle arranges fabric for her creation at Quilting on the Beach Thursday at King Kamehameha's Kona Beach Hotel. (Laura Ruminski/West Hawaii Today)
KAILUA-KONA — With 150 people packed into a hotel ballroom, sewing machines and fabric in tow, Karen Barry could feel the quilting enthusiasm.
"I love the creative energy here. Quilting is just another art form," Barry said. "A lot of people just think quilts are just for beds, but there's so many other things that you can do, that you can make."
Barry and her husband, Robert, owners of the quilt store Quilt Passions in Kailua-Kona, have sponsored Quilting on the Beach for 10 years now at King Kamehameha's Kona Beach Hotel. The couple have watched Quilting on the Beach grow from a small, local retreat, to what it is now, with quilters participating this year from all over the United States and Canada, as well as a few quilters from Germany and Japan.
"It certainly wasn't this big 10 years ago, but it kind of just grew bigger and bigger every year," Barry said.
Quilting on the Beach offers six days, in both the months of February and July, of sewing classes, bus tours, lectures and dinners for avid quilting fans. Four different classes are offered each day, and some of the more popular classes this month will return the week of July 14-21.
Barry said there are still classes open for today and Saturday, the final days of the retreat. The class fee is $75, and each class has a kit fee that varies based on the value of the kit.
"You can see by the demographics, that it's a certain age group, and that's part of the reason we structured it a la carte, so they can pick and choose," Robert Barry said. "So they don't kill themselves. We try to encourage them not to take six full days of classes."
Classes on Thursday focused on creating quilts using the techniques: Hawaiian appliqué, with instructor Roberta Muller, flying geese with Mary Moody-Cox, cut and piece landscapes with Phyllis Cullen, and crossed canoes with Peggy Gelbrich.
With a variety of classes offered, there's something for everyone.
"It's not always quilting classes," Karen Barry said. "We try to mix it up and do a variety of creative sewing classes. We had a class the other day for making umbrellas."
Trips for the February quilters this time around included a trip to the quilt show that runs alongside the Waimea Cherry Blossom Heritage Festival. During even-numbered years, the February group sees the Quilt and Fiber Arts Show sponsored by Society for Kona's Education and Art (SKEA).
The finale of Quilting on the Beach in July will be the Tropical Inspirations Quilt Show at King Kamehameha's Kona Beach Hotel.
Barry created Quilting on the Beach with the vision to give local and snowbird quilters the opportunity to meet and create new quilts together.
"It makes people happy to make things," Barry said. "In my experience as a teacher, with kids, you throw scissors, construction paper, and crayons at them, and they'll just make stuff. And the happy people are the people, when they grow up, (who) are still making things."
A quilt's worth
While the quilters are busy creating new pieces, Becky Rogers is at Quilting on the Beach to assess the already-made quilts, both old and new.
"Every quilt has value," Rogers said. "It doesn't matter if it's small, a wall hanging, or bigger."
Rogers is an American Quilt Society certified appraiser, and the special guest of this week's Quilting on the Beach. Rogers is taking appointments this week for quilt appraisals. After a 30-minute, $50 consultation, quilt owners will receive an American Quilt Society certified document for insurance, legal and tax purposes on the value of their quilt.
"If something happens to that quilt, and you don't have an appraisal, you may say that quilt was worth $5,000, well the insurance company will ask you to prove it," Rogers said. "And you'll have no proof, and they'll just call it a blanket and say it was worth $25. They have no clue. The appraisal proves what the value is."
Antique quilts are judged first and foremost by what condition the quilt is in. Once the quilt is deemed to be in good condition, Rogers looks for how old it is, how common the design of the quilt is, and how rare that type of quilt is. Rogers said she can tell how old a quilt is by studying the fabric.
"We look for a lot of things, but the first thing is condition," Rogers said. "Because if it's falling apart, it doesn't matter how beautiful it once was."
On her slate Thursday was a scheduled appraisal for a Hawaiian quilt flag, a type of quilt that was made as far back as the late 1800s, and is also called ku'u hae aloha. Rogers said if the flag meets all the criteria, it could be very valuable because of its historical significance.
Those who want an in-depth look at the appraisal process of a historic item would have to bring one in themselves.
"It's a very private thing. I can't have a lot of people standing, watching," Rogers said. "It's between that person and myself."
New quilts are judged on the money spent on materials and supplies and the time spent making the quilt. Who made the quilt counts as well.
"I look at fame of the maker also," Rogers said. "If the person that made this quilt has been published, recognized or has won a lot of awards, the value goes up because people are going to want one of that person's quilts."
Those tests of a quilt's worth are just for the certified appraisal from the American Quilt Society. Through her eyes, Rogers understands the real value of a quilt.
"The actual quilts carry love, and time and energy and most of the quilters are making them for someone else," Rogers said. "It's a very warm and emotional thing, so I don't take it lightly when someone's made a baby quilt for their granddaughter or grandson. I know they've done that out of love and they've given their time and energy to it. Quilting is a very warm and cozy thing.
"The art of quilting is certainly visual and enjoyable to look at, but the ones that are made for a specific reason are really special."
Catchy tunes, big cast: Stage packed and set for Aloha Theatre's production of 'Mamma Mia!'
Study: Number of registered guns in Hawaii unknown

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
La stazione di Tezze di Grigno è una fermata ferroviaria posta sulla linea della Valsugana a servizio del paese di Tezze, la frazione più popolosa del comune di Grigno. L'impianto si trova tra quelli di Grigno e di Primolano.
La fermata è l'ultima del tratto trentino della linea, e fino alla fine della prima guerra mondiale segnava il confine tra il Regno d'Italia e l'Impero austro-ungarico.

Storia

Fino al 1942 era denominata «Tezze sul Brenta»; in tale anno assunse la nuova denominazione di «Tezze di Grigno».

Strutture e impianti
Il fabbricato viaggiatori è di modeste dimensioni, ma al suo interno è presente una sala d'attesa e una biglietteria self-service. All'esterno è presente un curato giardino, un parcheggio e un sottopassaggio che permette di superare la Strada statale 47 della Valsugana.

Il binario è unico e passante.

Movimento
Nella fermata fermano tutti i treni con destinazioni per Trento, Bassano del Grappa, Venezia e Padova, a servizio dei pendolari.

Servizi
La stazione dispone di:
 Biglietteria self-service
 Parcheggio di scambio

Note

Voci correlate
 Grigno
 Ferrovia Trento-Venezia
 Valsugana

Altri progetti

Collegamenti esterni

Tezze di Grigno
Grigno

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Conflict Free Diamond Jewelry - Jewelers Building in Downtown Boston, 2nd Floor, Suite 226
Boston Diamond Studio
Conflict Free Diamond Jewelry
Check out Boston Diamond Studio on Yelp
Free Diamond Class
GIA Diamond Certificate
Diamond Inventories
Diamond Inventory
Virtual Diamond Inventory
Canadian Diamonds Inventory
History of the 4Cs : color, clarity, cut, and carat weight (Video)
Dive into the storied history behind GIA's creation of the 4Cs
The 4Cs – color, clarity, cut, and carat weight – were created by GIA to describe a diamond's appearance and define its quality.
The term 4Cs we know today had its start in the early 1940s, as the brainchild of GIA founder Robert M. Shipley. A former retail jeweler, Shipley was fiercely committed to professionalizing the American jewelry industry. He established an institute (GIA) to provide jewelers with formal training and was a tireless advocate for greater knowledge, ethics and standards when it came to buying and selling gems.
Shipley developed the 4Cs as a mnemonic device to help his students remember the four factors that characterize a faceted diamond: color, clarity, cut and carat weight. The concept was simple, but revolutionary.
Throughout history, diamond merchants used a variety of different, usually broad, terms to talk about these four factors, rarely with any consistency. Terms such as river or water were used to describe diamonds that were the most colorless, with Cape assigned to pale yellow diamonds from South Africa's Cape of Good Hope region. To describe clarity, they referred to diamonds as being "without flaws" or "with imperfections." Cut was described as "made well" or "made poorly." As a result, it was very difficult for jewelers to communicate those elements of value to their customers or for their customers to remember them. Only the term carat to describe weight has been used consistently from the 1500s to today.
Under Shipley's direction, the term 4Cs became part of the American gem industry's vernacular, popularized through advertising campaigns, lectures and GIA education courses. Within decades, they were integrated into the international nomenclature as well.
The 4Cs and the Diamond Grading Scales
Jewelers welcomed Shipley's innovation, but GIA did not stop there. Shipley's successor as president, Richard T. Liddicoat (affectionately known as "RTL" by later generations of GIA staff) – along with colleagues Lester Benson, Joseph Phillips, Robert Crowningshield and Bert Krashes – expanded on the 4Cs.
Their work included not only development of the now famous GIA D-to-Z Color Scale and GIA Clarity Scale for diamonds, but also the scientific methods and procedures for objectively grading a diamond's quality.
Color: The GIA D-to-Z Color Scale
Before the 4Cs and RTL's contributions, a confusing alphabet soup was used to describe a diamond's color. In communicating color quality to consumers, retailers used competing systems with descriptors like "A," "AA" and "AAA." There was virtually no agreement among firms as to what was considered an "A" grade. Most diamond wholesalers used terms like rarest white and top Wesselton, in addition to those mentioned above. In short, there were no standards that allowed for consistent evaluation and comparison.
Since the 1930s, GIA had been working on an accurate, objective color-grading system for colorless to light yellow diamonds. The goal was to develop a system based on absolutes, instead of relative terms and vague descriptions. In 1953, GIA, under RTL's direction, introduced the GIA D-to-Z color scale, choosing the letter "D" for the top grade (colorless) precisely because the letter had negative associations and so was unlikely to be misinterpreted or misused.
In addition to establishing a color scale, RTL and his colleagues defined the methods that would be used to grade a diamond's color accurately and consistently. These included determining the type of lighting and neutral background with which a diamond should be evaluated, prescribing precisely how the diamond should be held and viewed, and developing master stones: sets of diamonds of predetermined color value against which the subject diamond is carefully compared.
The D-to-Z diamond color terminology RTL and his colleagues pioneered is now used around the world, and strict color-grading procedures are followed by the GIA laboratory.
Clarity: The GIA Diamond Clarity Scale – Flawless to I3
Diamond clarity grading was another area that was plagued by inconsistencies in terminology and methods. Some trade professionals used terms like perfect in addition to without flaws and with imperfections, which were vague and imprecise. Others used terms we recognize today, such as VS, VVS, and included, but without any agreed-upon definitions. RTL and Benson used these terms in creating a clarity-grading scale, but defined precise categories and expanded the number of grades within each category to account for the array of diamonds in the market. Fine-tuned in subsequent years, the GIA Clarity Scale today consists of six categories ranging from Flawless to Included and contains 11 specific grades.
This precision in clarity grading was made possible by another GIA innovation: the introduction of the gemological microscope as a tool for clarity grading. Using the microscope, GIA graders plot the inclusions and blemishes in all diamonds for which a full GIA Diamond Grading Report has been requested.
Cut: Evaluating a Diamond's Interaction with Light
The impact of Cut – how well a diamond interacts with light – was another attribute that RTL and his associates wanted to better explain and standardize. Originally, RTL turned to the work of Belgian mathematician and diamond cutter Marcel Tolkowsky to help determine "ideal" proportions for a round brilliant cut diamond. RTL's contribution included a rating system with deductions for proportions that deviated from those.
GIA's system for evaluating cut has been modified over the decades. In 2006, after years of extensive research that included advanced computer modeling and observational studies, GIA introduced the GIA cut grading system for round brilliant cut diamonds. Today, the GIA Cut Scale, ranging from Excellent to Poor, describes how successfully a diamond interacts with light to deliver the brightness, fire and scintillation we associate with a fine round brilliant.
More than the 4Cs: The World Standard
Using the latest scientific advances to establish grading standards that provide consistent, repeatable results, GIA has revolutionized the jewelry industry. With the framework provided by the 4Cs, it has transformed the way diamond quality is determined and communicated and, ultimately, how diamonds are bought and sold.
These standards are strictly followed by the GIA laboratory in its nine locations worldwide. They allow GIA to deliver objective, consistent diamond grading results anywhere in the world. It is important to note that although the terminology introduced by GIA has been adopted by other laboratories worldwide, only the GIA laboratory has the proprietary equipment and procedures to grade diamonds to these standards.
All this critical information becomes part of a GIA Diamond Grading Report. With it, you'll know the essential facts about the diamond you're considering.
Get a GIA Grading Diamond Free Quote!
Tagged on: 4Cs carat weight clarity color cut
Gabriel May 2, 2018 May 2, 2018 Diamonds, History of the 4Cs No Comments
← How to Read a GIA Grading Report (Video)
How to Read a GIA Grading Report (Video)
How to Choose a Diamond (Video)
Protect Your Engagement Ring in Winter
2017 Boston A-List 1st Place Winner's Celebration Party hosted by WGBH
2017 Best Fine Jewelry in Boston
Choosing an Engagement Ring to Match Your Partner's Personality
Meet Arvik Ozcan – by BostonVoyager
Engagement Ring FAQ
Spring is in the air. Choose a flower ring with diamonds
Diamonds shape. What it says about your style
Diamond Engagement Ring makes your Valentine's Day Special
Your Guide to Buying Diamonds this Holiday Season
6 easy ways to update your diamond ring
Best Fine Jewelry – Boston A-List
14.6-carat blue diamond could fetch $45 million
Things to know before buying an engagement ring
Journey of A Diamond from Mine to Retail
Ways to Save Money on an Engagement Ring
The Perfect Engagement Ring. Custom Design
Archives Select Month May 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 November 2017 September 2017 May 2017 March 2017 January 2017 November 2016 August 2016 June 2016 April 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 April 2015 March 2015
Categories Select Category Best Fine Jewelry Best Wedding Rings Custom Design Diamonds Engagement Ring History of the 4Cs Jewelry Press Rings
Platinum Studio by Z.
Jewelers Building - Second Floor
333 Washington Street Suite 226
Monday – Saturday 10:00 am – 5:00 pm.
Thursday's open until 7pm.
Request out-of-hours appointment online!
Copyright © 2022 Boston Diamond Studio | Powered by: SlickBoston.com


The CEO has always fought this law, believing that it will lead to higher prices for the consumer, but was forced to give up his resistance in the end.When it comes to repairing and servicing your pool and spa, were your one-stop shop.Lowering Casino's debts, the turnover of Géant hypermarkets has seen annual decrease since 2012 and the rumour of Casino's desire to lose a number of Géant hypermarkets surfaced in the middle of last September.
ternal. "With usmnt eliminated from World Cup, Fox must refocus coverage plan". The Jockey Club is looking rather needy and I hope they start the exterior renovation soon. The bid evaluation report stated: "The Russian bid proposes online 13 host cities and 16 stadiums, thus exceeding fifa's minimum requirement. 45 Systems are in place for communicating VAR-related information to broadcasters and visuals on stadiums' large screens are used for the fans in attendance. Retrieved "Match report Group E Costa Rica v Serbia" (PDF). Is and in to a was not you i of it the be he his but for are this that by on at they with which she or from had we will have an what been one if would who geant has her. 177 178 fifa also published an alternate team of the tournament based on player performances evaluated through statistical data. Grand est situé à, las, vegas, dans l'État du, nevada, aux États-Unis.
Responsive Reliable des Pool Service, very Experienced 000 people, we are very experienced. The sale fits in a larger plan to lower debts. Learn more about Olympic Pool and Spa Supplies. Prénom, we do everything pool, cEO MichelEdouard Leclerc confirmed the news about the negotiations in an interview with French magazine Challenges. S trademark, qualified pool and spa service and repair professionals. Merci de nous donner le conference plus dinformations possibles.
Drive et courses en ligne dans votre magasin.Géant Casino et drive Aix En, provence Votre Hypermarché à Aix-en-Provence - 13090.Géant Casino et drive Boe Votre, hypermarché à Boé - 47550.
S Géant hypermarkets he says, crown casino melbourne would gains eliminate purchase loans contained. Vous pouvez également nous adresser votre message en utilisant le formulaire service consommateurs. Next Day Pool Repair Service, bringing it down, banque casino credit auto Casino torrequebrada casino port coquitlam. Pump 1 logement geant casino sources, pool plumbing pool appliances heater, etc and well get someone there as soon as possible. Keep in mind there are times we simply run out of time. Just call our office at 323 and schedule your pool repair and service for your pool electrical. Casino announced the plan last summer. Smaller withdraw and hands from, intending to reduce its debt by a billion euro by the end of this year. Leclerc is negotiating with its competitor. We always strive to reach casino st germain des fosses our pool repair service calls on the very same day you call.
Aktuelle casino bonus ohne einzahlung."World Cup Strains to Reverse Sports-Viewing Trends".
The stadium construction was completed on 22 December 2017.
Dvdrip.XviD-iNCiTE - C 3 years ago 81 885.7KB ternal.A partir d un autre ordinateur, j ai changé mon mot de passe et je ne peux toujours pas me connecter à mon compte.17 Zimbabwe and Indonesia were later disqualified before playing their first matches, 18 19 while Gibraltar and Kosovo, who joined fifa on fter the qualifying draw but before European qualifying had begun, also entered the competition.


Leicester City owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha was among five people killed in a helicopter crash.
Twice, in the space of two-and-a-half years, I have seen the football world left speechless by events in Leicester.
On both occasions, it was my job to find some words.
The first occasion was on Saturday, May 7, 2016 when little Leicester lifted the Premier League trophy. It was tricky to adequately express the unbridled joy felt by so many, without sounding trite - how do you avoid sounding trite, when the ultimate underdog had triumphed so spectacularly? But really - it was a delightful job. An easy job.
The second occasion, was on Saturday, October 27, 2018 when the club's owner was killed in a helicopter crash. Reporting on that has been a very hard job. Impossible to convey the hurt felt by so many.
And - of course. One man is at the heart of both stories: Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha.
I was in the King Power press room, still evaluating the post-match interviews after Leicester had escaped a drab game against 10-man West Ham with a draw, when West Ham's press officer mentioned there was a rumour outside that a helicopter had crashed outside the stadium.
I called my cameraman - Dan Cox - who simply said: "Rob, I saw it come down", and my heart sank. I immediately ran round the front of the stadium, and saw the emergency services flocking towards the corner of the North Stand. As I got there, I could see a huge ball of orange flame, and plumes of thick, grey smoke spiralling into the sky. The helicopter had come down on the outskirts of the staff car park - car park E - less than 100m from where Dan was putting his camera kit away.
The fire service quickly put the flames out, but it was instantly obvious to me that there could be no survivors. My background as a news reporter has taught me to watch the body language of the emergency services: once the fire was out, none of them was rushing towards the crash scene. There was no one to rescue. Ambulances that had been scrambled to the site left quietly, with their blue lights off. Whoever was on board had been killed. And like every Leicester fan who knew Kuhn Vichai always travelled to and from games in his helicopter, I knew then that he had gone. Official confirmation of his death didn't come for another 25 hours. But I knew straight away. Everyone knew.
I'll be honest, I've been surprised at the level of grief shown by so many. I thought I knew how important Kuhn Vichai was to the club as a whole. But I had no idea how important he was to the wider Leicester community, and also - just how vital he was to Leicester's playing squad.
When the players arrived en mass on Monday lunchtime at the ever-growing shrine outside the North Stand of the King Power Stadium, a total silence descended on the already hushed crowds that surrounded the barriers. Since Sunday morning, traffic in the area had been gridlocked with people wanting to come and pay their respects; to lay tributes, to share a private, and yet a mutual moment of grief and reflection. Now, with the squad here, the traffic that had been peeping and jostling for parking spaces on the stadium's perimeter road, stopped. Nothing moved, except the shuffling figures of the players, not daring to look at each other or the crowds, in case they broke down.
The players are the focus, the true heart of a football club, and never was this more obvious.
After a few minutes of utter stillness, from somewhere at the back of the crowd a ripple of applause began. One by one, the players joined in. The clapping became louder. I saw passengers in the stationary cars joining in. So did the stewards who were marshalling the barriers. Many of the journalists.
Even in his death, Vichai had brought unity.
I've known Jamie Vardy and Kasper Schmeichel for a very long time. Both of them are huge characters - larger than life. Their personalities dominate whichever scene they are in. Whether that's Schmeichel kicking balls at me while I'm live on the telly, heckling loudly in the background to try to put me off; or Vardy arriving at training, taking great delight in abusing me for my shocking choice of sunglasses, to anyone in earshot.
But here, faced with the flowers, scarves, shirts and messages, these two strong, confident, resilient men, were broken. Sporting superstars. Heads bowed. Choking back the tears.
I'd been told shortly after the tragedy that Schmeichel had seen the helicopter come down, at 8.37 on Saturday night, and that he'd run towards the burning wreckage to see If he could help. Manager Claude Puel confirmed as much in his news conference on Thursday, without going into detail.
That one horrendous story, says so much. Not just about the goalkeeper's courage, but also about his unique relationship with his Chairman. Kasper was the closest of all the Leicester players to Vichai. The two men spent a lot of time together. They enjoyed each other's company. They got on.
A few years ago, Vichai loaned Schmeichel his helicopter to get him back to a family holiday quickly, after he had to return for an advertising shoot at the club. How poignant that seems now.
Vichai used to seek Kasper's counsel when big decisions were pending. The Dane was accused - wrongly - of playing a role in the decision-making process when Claudio Ranieri was controversially sacked in February 2017 just nine months after Leicester had won the title. But he did have huge influence over Vichai. The two men regularly chatted about performances, styles of play, even tactics.
And now, on Monday lunchtime, here was this huge man - physically and metaphorically - reduced to tears. Many of the players have tweeted that Vichai was like a father to them. For Kasper, it was especially the case.
In the immediate aftermath of the crash, he was the last player standing. He stayed at the King Power Stadium until the early hours of the morning, consoling other members of staff, sharing the grief of Vichai's closest friends and associates. He was the first to address his team-mates, at the training ground on Monday, calling on them to keep delivering Vichai's vision. For all this, he's grown still further in the hearts of the Leicester fans.
And those Leicester supporters. Just as they've celebrated the most extraordinary of sporting achievements, so have they endured the worst of times.
Some clubs wend their way quietly through time, without too many highs and lows. Some clubs seem to be forever in the headlines. For Leicester, it's the latter.
The club fell into League One in 2008, and was in administration in 2002. When Srivaddhanaprabha bought the club from Milan Mandaric in 2010, a new dawn was promised. He immediately wiped out £103m of loans, bought the stadium on behalf of the club, and began to invest in the playing squad. In a very rare interview at the very start, he said he wanted to be in the Champions League within a few years. People scoffed. Myself included. Here was a foreign owner, investing in an English football club because, in his own words, the team's kit matched his company's colours. And now he was professing to become one of the top four clubs in England? Ridiculous.
Two promotions followed and then Leicester won the Premier League in 2016, despite being 5000/1 no-hopers.
And now this. A tragedy which most onlookers agree is the worst moment in Leicester City's 134-year history.
The scene at the King Power is extraordinary. The shrine stretches now along the entire perimeter of the North Stand, and round the corner with the East Stand. The people, the tributes, just keep on coming.
Members of Leicestershire Fire and Rescue came to lay a wreath; they were applauded by other mourners for their efforts to rescue Vichai and the four other people who died. Leicester's longest-serving player, Andy King, came and paid his respects; so did former player and title winner Danny Drinkwater.
Vardy and his wife Rebecca came too, the day after the squad had been to the shrine together. Both were in tears. They held hands, as they delivered a box of 100 blue roses, along with a photo of Vichai at their wedding.
One of the most poignant images came on Thursday lunchtime. Claudio Ranieri had never returned to the King Power Stadium, since being sacked. But now - 20 months later - here he was, with his wife, paying a heartfelt tribute to the man who had sacked him, flanked by Vichai's son, Aiyawatt, and his widow, Aimon. Aiyawatt and Claudio embraced. People next to me in the small crowd gasped. They knew, it was a scene laced with meaning.
Despite their differences, Ranieri and Srivaddhanaprabha had remained close friends. As had Nigel Pearson - another manager sacked (twice, but once re-instated) by Vichai, but who also felt moved to come and pay a personal tribute this week. That speaks volumes of the man from Thailand - even those he crossed in business, who suffered by his decisions, had a deep affection for him. Such was Vichai's humanity.
I won't pretend I knew Vichai well. I didn't. In eight years, the number of times I spoke to him, I can count on one hand. The chats never lasted more than 30 seconds, and were never insightful. He was a humble, quiet man who shunned the limelight. But an encounter with Vichai was always charming and endearing; the man forever had a smile on his face, a warm handshake and a twinkle in his eye.
I never interviewed him. Despite countless requests. But whenever he was in public, he had time for everyone. Gentle and approachable, I often noticed that he spoke to the stadium cleaners in the same way he addressed visiting VIPs from other clubs.
And there was so much he did that was never publicised. Yes, he has consistently paid for buses to subsidise away trips for fans, and given free beer and scarves to all. It's true that he donated £1m to the Leicester Royal Infirmary. Twice. And a similar sum to the University of Leicester. For sure, he gave each of the first team players who won the title a BMW i8 worth £100,000 and their families an all-expenses-paid holiday in Thailand. Claude Puel even revealed this week that Vichai had loaned him his yacht in the summer for a family holiday.
But beyond all these grand gestures, were a host of smaller ones. Several Leicester fans approached me this week with tales of his generosity. One man who didn't want to talk on camera, told me this week his son has colitis, and when Vichai heard that he was in hospital for his birthday, he sent along Iheanacho, N'didi and Schmeichel after training for a surprise hospital visit, together with presents, toys and party games, as a birthday treat. No headlines. The story never came out. Just Vichai.
Never before in my 22-year career have so many people come up to me and thanked me for our coverage. More than 100. I mention that not as a boast, but as an example of just how many people have been affected by this story. How many people were affected by Vichai.
And I have been too. Without him, I'm convinced the greatest moment in my journalistic career would not have happened. Leicester won the Premier League title. Leicester!
Yes, Ranieri picked the team and motivated the players. Yes, Craig Shakespeare worked for hours on the training ground, fine-tuning the tactics of the perfect counter-attack. Yes, Jamie Vardy broke the record for scoring in consecutive matches. Yes, other players - described by too many people as "journeymen" - had the seasons of their lives.
But it was Vichai who put all the right people in the right roles. It was Vichai who motivated them, who believed it was all possible, who told them to dream big. It was Vichai who made footballing fantasy, a reality.


text:
Maternal and Child Health Journal
June 2018 , Volume 22, Issue 6, pp 822–829 | Cite as
Motivating Smoking Cessation Text Messages: Perspectives from Pregnant Smokers
Jennifer M. Schindler-Ruwisch
Leah E. Leavitt
Laura E. Macherelli
Monique M. Turner
Lorien C. Abroms
The purpose of this research is to analyze cessation text-messages written by pregnant smokers to elucidate the target population's preferred content and message attributes. To achieve this goal, the objectives of this study are three-fold; to qualitatively code messages written by pregnant smokers for frame, type of appeal, and intended target.
Study participants were recruited as part of a larger trial of pregnant smokers who were enrolled in a text-messaging program or control group and surveyed 1 month post-enrollment. Each participant was asked to write a brief message to another pregnant smoker and two independent coders qualitatively analyzed responses.
User generated messages (N = 51) were equally loss and gain framed, and the most common appeals were: fear, guilt, cognitive, hope and empathy, in order of most to least frequent. The target of the majority of the messages was the baby.
Conclusions for Practice
Allowing pregnant smokers to write cessation text-messages for other pregnant women can provide relevant insight into intervention content. Specifically, pregnant smokers appear to equally promote gain and loss frames, but may prefer messages that include components of fear and guilt related to the impact of smoking on their baby. Additional research is needed to systematically uncover perspectives of pregnant smokers to ensure interventions are optimally effective.
Tobacco Cessation Pregnancy mHealth
The online version of this article ( https://doi.org/10.1007/s10995-018-2452-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
This work was partially funded by a Grant from the National Institutes of Health (R15-CA167586).
The authors declare they have no conflicts of interest.
10995_2018_2452_MOESM1_ESM.docx (22 kb)
Supplementary material 1 (DOCX 21 KB)
Aaker, J. L., & Williams, P. (1998). Empathy versus pride: The influence of emotional appeals across cultures. Journal of Consumer Research, 25(3), 241–261.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Abroms, L. C., Johnson, P. R., Heminger, C. L., Van Alstyne, J. M., Leavitt, L. E., Schindler-Ruwisch, J. M., & Bushar, J. A. (2015). Quit4baby: Results from a pilot test of a mobile smoking cessation program for pregnant Women. JMIR mHealth and uHealth, 3(1), e10. https://doi.org/10.2196/mhealth.3846.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentralGoogle Scholar
Biener, L., Ji, M., Gilpin, E. A., & Albers, A. B. (2004). The impact of emotional tone, message, and broadcast parameters in youth anti-smoking advertisements. Journal of Health Communication, 9(3), 259–274.CrossRefPubMedGoogle Scholar
Biener, L., & Taylor, T. M. (2002). The continuing importance of emotion in tobacco control media campaigns: A response to Hastings and MacFadyen. Tobacco Control, 11(1), 75–77.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentralGoogle Scholar
Cooper, S., Foster, K., Naughton, F., Leonardi-Bee, J., Sutton, S., & Coleman, T. (2015). Pilot study to evaluate a tailored text message intervention for pregnant smokers (MiQuit): Study protocol for a randomized controlled trial. Trials, 16(1), 29. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13063-014-0546-4.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentralGoogle Scholar
Fiore, M. C., Jaen, C. R., Baker, T. B., Bailey, W. C., Benowtiz, N. L., Curry, S. J., & Wewers, M. E. (2008). Treating tobacco use and dependence: 2008 update. Retrieved from http://bphc.hrsa.gov/buckets/treatingtobacco.pdf.
Flemming, K., Graham, H., Heirs, M., Fox, D., & Sowden, A. (2013). Smoking in pregnancy: A systematic review of qualitative research of women who commence pregnancy as smokers. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 69(5), 1023–1036. https://doi.org/10.1111/jan.12066.CrossRefPubMedGoogle Scholar
Harris, P. A., Taylor, R., Thielke, R., Payne, J., Gonzalez, N., & Conde, J. G. (2009). Research electronic data capture (REDCap)—A metadata-driven methodology and workflow process for providing translational research informatics support. Journal of Biomedical Informatics, 42(2), 377–381.CrossRefPubMedGoogle Scholar
Head, K. J., Noar, S. M., Iannarino, N. T., & Harrington, N. G. (2013). Efficacy of text messaging-based interventions for health promotion: A meta-analysis. Social Science & Medicine, 97, 41–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ilakkuvan, V., Turner, M. M., Cantrell, J., Hair, E., & Vallone, D. (2016). The relationship between advertising-induced anger and self-efficacy on persuasive outcomes: A test of the anger activism model using the truth campaign. Family & Community Health, 40(1), 72–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1979). Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk. Econometrica, 47, 263–291.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1982). The psychology of preferences. Scientific American, 246, 160–173.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moorman, M., & van den Putte, B. (2008). The influence of message framing, intention to quit smoking, and nicotine dependence on the persuasiveness of smoking cessation messages. Addictive Behaviors, 33(10), 1267–1275.CrossRefPubMedGoogle Scholar
Nabi, R. L. (2002). Discrete emotions and persuasion. The persuasion handbook: Developments in theory and practice, Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, p. 308.Google Scholar
National Cancer Institute. (2015). SmokefreeMOM: About. Retrieved from: http://women.smokefree.gov/smokefreemom.aspx.
National Institutes of Health. (2015). SmokefreeMOM: Reaching pregnant smokers with health information via text messaging. Retrieved from: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02412956?term=SmokefreeMOM&rank=1.Google Scholar
Naughton, F., Prevost, A. T., Gilbert, H., & Sutton, S. (2012). Randomized controlled trial evaluation of a tailored leaflet and SMS text message self-help intervention for pregnant smokers (MiQuit). Nicotine & Tobacco Research, 14(5), 569–577.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Keefe, D. J., & Jensen, J. D. (2007). The relative persuasiveness of gain-framed loss-framed messages for encouraging disease prevention behaviors: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Health Communication, 12(7), 623–644.CrossRefPubMedGoogle Scholar
Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. (2015). Healthy People 2020: Maternal, infant, and child health. Retrieved from: http://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/topics-objectives/topic/maternal-infant-and-child-health/objectives.
Pew Research Center (2015a). Mobile Technology Fact Sheet. Retrieved from: http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheets/mobile-technology-fact-sheet/.
Polen, K. N. D., Sandhu, P. K., Honein, M. A., Green, K. K., Berkowitz, J. M., Pace, J., & Rasmussen, S. A. (2014). Knowledge and attitudes of adults towards smoking in pregnancy: Results from the HealthStyles© 2008 survey. Maternal and Child Health Journal. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10995-014-1505-0.Google Scholar
Pollack, K. I., Lyna, P., Bilheimer, A., Farrell, D., Gao, X., Swamy, G. K., & Fish, L. J. (2013). A pilot study testing SMS text delivered scheduled gradual reduction to pregnant smokers. Nicotine and Tobacco Research, 15(10), 1773–1776.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
StataCorp. (2013). Stata Statistical Software: Release 13. College Station, TX: StataCorp LP.Google Scholar
Stotts, A. L., DiClemente, C. C., & Dolan-Mullen, P. (2002). One-to-one: A motivational intervention for resistant pregnant smokers. Addictive Behaviors, 27(2), 275–292.CrossRefPubMedGoogle Scholar
Toll, B. A., Salovey, P., O'Malley, S. S., Mazure, C. M., Latimer, A., & McKee, S. A. (2008). Message framing for smoking cessation: The interaction of risk perceptions and gender. Nicotine & Tobacco Research, 10(1), 195–200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tong, V. T., Dietz, P. M., Morrow, B., D'Angelo, D. V., Farr, S. L.… England, L. J. (2013). Trends in smoking before, during and after pregnancy—pregnancy risk assessment monitoring system, United States, 40 Sites, 2000–2010. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 62 (SS06), 1–19. Retrieved from: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss6206a1.htm?s_cid%3Dss6206a1_x#Tab2.
Turner, M. M., Boudewyns, V., Kirby-Straker, R., & Telfer, J. (2013). A double dose of fear: A theory-based content analysis of news articles surrounding the 2006 cough syrup contamination crisis in panama. Risk Management, 15(2), 79–99. https://doi.org/10.1057/rm.2012.13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turner, M. M. (in press). Guilt and shame. In R. Parrott (Ed.), Oxford research encyclopedia of communication. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Turner, M. M., Mabry-Flynn, A., Shen, H., Jiang, H., Boudewyns, V., & Payne, D. (2017). The effects of guilt appeal intensity on persuasive and emotional outcomes: The moderating role of sponsor motive. Journal of Nonprofit & Public Sector Marketing, 0, 1–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tverksy, A., & Kahneman, K. (1981). The framing of decisions and the psychology of choice. Science, 211, 453–458.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2014). The health consequences of smoking: 50 years of progress. A report of the surgeon general. Chapter 9: Reproductive outcomes. Atlanta, GA: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Office on Smoking and Health.Google Scholar
Underhill, J. C. (2012). Examining the effects of hope and fear appeals on cognitive processing (Doctoral dissertation). Digital repository at the University of Maryland. Retrieved from: http://drum.lib.umd.edu/handle/1903/13196.
Van Mierlo, T., Fournier, R., Jean-Charles, A., Hovington, J., Ethier, I., & Selby, P. (2014). I'll Txt U if i have a problem: How the Socie ́te ́ Canadienne du Cancer in Quebec applied behavior-change theory, data mining and agile software development to help young adults quit smoking. PloS ONE, 9(3), e91832. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0091832.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentralGoogle Scholar
Witte, K., & Allen, M. (2000). A meta-analysis of fear appeals: Implications for effective public health campaigns. Health Education & Behavior, 27(5), 591–615.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1.Department of Prevention & Community HealthThe George Washington UniversityWashingtonUSA
Schindler-Ruwisch, J.M., Leavitt, L.E., Macherelli, L.E. et al. Matern Child Health J (2018) 22: 822. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10995-018-2452-y
DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/s10995-018-2452-y