text:
Mu Chiao
Faculty of Applied Science
Relevant Degree Programs
Mechanical Engineering, Master of Applied Science
Mechanical Engineering, Doctor of Philosophy
Biomedical Engineering, Master of Applied Science
Biomedical Engineering, Doctor of Philosophy
Graduate Student Supervision
Doctoral Student Supervision (Jan 2008 - Nov 2019)
Robust and optimal switching linear parameter-varying control (2018)
Linear parameter-varying (LPV) control is a systematic way for gain-scheduling control of a nonlinear or time-varying system that has parameter-dependent dynamics variations in its operating region. However, when the dynamics variations are large, LPV control may give the conservative performance. One way to reduce the conservatism is switching LPV (SLPV) control, in which we partition the operating region into sub-regions, design one local LPV controller for each sub-region, and switch among those local controllers according to some switching rules. On the one hand, this thesis makes three theoretical contributions to the SLPV control theory. Firstly, this thesis proposes a new approach to designing SLPV controllers with guaranteed stability and performance even when the scheduling parameters cannot be exactly measured. Secondly, this thesis presents two algorithms to optimize the switching surfaces (SSs) that can further improve the performance of an SLPV controller. One algorithm is based on sequentially optimizing the SSs and the SLPV controller for the state-feedback case. The other one is based on particle swarm optimization and can be used for both state-feedback and output-feedback cases. Finally, this thesis introduces a novel approach to designing SLPV controllers that could yield significantly improved local performance in some sub-regions without much sacrifice of the worst-case performance. This is different from the traditional approach that often leads to similar performance in all the sub-regions.On the other hand, this thesis addresses two practical problems using the theoretic approaches developed in this thesis. One is control of miniaturized optical image stabilizers with product variations. Specifically, multiple parameter-dependent robust (MPDR) controllers are designed to adapt to the product variations, while being robust against the uncertainties in measurement of the scheduling parameters that characterize the dynamics variation. Experimental results validate the advantages of the proposed MPDR controllers over a conventional robust mu-synthesis controller. The other application is control of a floating offshore wind turbine on a semi-submersible platform. SLPV controllers are designed for regulating the power and the generator speed and reducing the platform motion. The superior performance of the SLPV controllers is demonstrated in high-fidelity simulations.
Magnetically actuated MEMS devices for active control of cell migration (2015)
The ability of living cells to sense and respond to mechanical cues from the surrounding environment has been the subject of much study. Over the past two decades, a variety of techniques have been used to apply mechanical stimuli and investigate cell response. Recently, with advances in the field of Microelectromechanical Systems, devices incorporating microscale actuators have been developed to apply forces and study the cell response of individual cells. Among these microdevices, micropillar arrays incorporating remotely actuated magnetic pillars have shown some success as combined actuation and sensing platforms for cell strain studies. However, issues associated with the complex fabrication techniques used, the low actuation forces generated and the high magnetic field gradients required for pillar actuation have hindered the wide-scale adoption of these devices by the general research community. Consequently, investigation into the use of these active micropatterned surfaces in eliciting or controlling specific cellular response on a multicellular level has yet to be undertaken. This thesis aims to investigate the application of remotely actuated micropillar surfaces in controlling the migration behavior of cells on a multicellular level. First, using a novel custom-made magnetically actuated cell strain assessment tool, conventional tests are performed on endothelial cells to determine the minimum strain requirements for eliciting cell response. Then, a new technique for fabrication and patterning of magnetic micropillar arrays is developed to overcome the complexities of previous fabrication methods. Using the newly developed fabrication technique, magnetic micropillar arrays of various dimensions are fabricated and their mechanical, magnetic and material properties are characterized. The fabricated magnetic micropillars generate forces of several hundred nanonewtons at moderate magnetic fields of 100mT and are favorable to previous state-of-the-art. Finally, a cell migration chip comprising various micropillar topologies is developed and the migration behavior and migration rates of sheets of cells on the micropillar surfaces in the presence and absence of micropillar actuation is studied using in-vitro experiments. We show that actuated micropillar surfaces significantly impede cell migration, reducing cell migration rates by up to 85%. The magnetically actuated micropillar surfaces could have possible in-vivo applications for preventing cell-migration induced biofouling of medical implants.
Microfabricated electromagnetic actuators for confocal measurements and imaging (2013)
Various optical microscopy techniques have been developed for micrometer level imaging of biological tissue samples. Among those techniques, confocal imaging provides superior image contrast and high resolution with a modest system cost. Confocal microscopy allows vertical optical sectioning (imaging a section perpendicular to the surface of tissue) or horizontal optical sectioning (imaging a section parallel to the surface of tissue) and provides high-resolution tissue morphology that is analogous to conventional histopathology images. This has brought up a tremendous potential for guiding surgical biopsies and in vivo non-invasive diagnosis of diseases such as cancer. The challenge in moving microscopic imaging modalities into clinical applications is miniaturization into a form of hand-held devices or catheters for endoscopic applications.In this thesis, micro-fabrication techniques such as Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS) fabrication process and laser micromachining have been employed to develop magnetic actuators. The actuators are then used to move lenses and optical fibers in order to scan a laser beam across a sample. Lens and fiber actuators are integrated in catheter and hand-held devices for confocal thickness measurement and optical sectioning imaging of biological samples.Thickness measurement is performed by scanning the focal point of a microlens across the thickness of thin films or layered biological tissues and collecting the intensity signal of the single scattering light reflected back from the samples as a function of lens position. A catheter was developed and thickness measurements of polymer layers and biological tissues were demonstrated. The device has optical resolution of 32 µm with expanded uncertainty of measurement of 11.86 µm. Lens and fiber optic actuators have been coupled to form two-dimensional imaging devices. Direct and real-time vertical and horizontal cross-sectional imaging of biological samples has been demonstrated. Vertical imaging is performed by transverse (X-axis) and axial (Z-axis) scanning of a focused laser beam using an optical fiber and a microlens actuator respectively. Horizontal imaging is done by a 2-axis fiber optic scanner. All the developed actuators are driven by electromagnetic forces and require low driving voltages. Confocal imaging of biological samples, with lateral resolution of 1.55 µm, has been demonstrated.
A battery-less MEMS device for on-demand and controlled drug delivery (2011)
Drug therapy efficacy depends on therapeutic concentrations of drugs at disease sites. An ideal controlled and localized drug delivery system would deliver drugs to a target tissue and would locally maintain the required drug concentration. Furthermore, for many diseases, the delivery of therapeutic concentrations on an "on-demand" basis would be of tremendous benefit.In this thesis, a MEMS (Microelectromechanical Systems) based drug delivery device has been developed that provides on-demand release of defined drug quantities. The device consists of a drug-loaded microreservoir that is sealed with an elastic PDMS (polydimethylsiloxane) magnetic membrane with a laser-drilled aperture. The drug release is triggered in the presence of an external magnetic field by deforming the magnetic membrane and therefore discharging the drug solution. The use of magnetic actuation for on-demand and controlled dose sequencing eliminates the need for an on-board power source. A new magnetic membrane material has been developed for the proposed drug delivery device. The polymeric magnetic composites were developed by incorporating coated iron oxide nanoparticles within a PDMS matrix. The new composites show improvement in reducing particle agglomeration compared to existing polymeric magnetic materials. Free-standing PDMS magnetic membranes with a thickness of 35 µm have been fabricated and have shown to deflect in applied magnetic fields. The MEMS drug delivery device has been used to deliver an antiproliferative, taxane-based drug, docetaxel (DTX). On-demand and controlled release of DTX with a dosage suitable for treatment of diabetic retinopathy has been achieved for 35 days. Biological activity of the released DTX was investigated two months after the drug was packaged in the device. These studies confirmed that the antiproliferative effect of DTX can be maintained for 2 months, and the drug does not degrade within the device. This device is a proof-of-concept development for on-demand and controlled delivery of taxane-based agents for treatment of proliferative retinopathy, which requires accurate delivery of nanomolar drug concentrations.
MEMS pressure, temperature and conductivity sensors for high temperature and harsh environments (2011)
Kraft pulp digesters have been used to convert wood chips into pulp for manufacturing a wide variety of paper products. Inside a kraft digester, chemical reactions remove lignin from their wood matrix in a caustic environment (pH~13.5, 170°C, 2MPa). Data on actual internal operating conditions in a kraft digester is needed to optimize kraft digester operation and obtain maximum production quality. Currently, this information is limited to selected static locations on the periphery of the digester. The objective of this thesis is to develop miniature temperature, pressure, and liquid conductivity sensors for use in autonomous flow-following SmartChips to measure kraft process variables within the digester during their passage through the process. Combined capacitive pressure and temperature sensors were fabricated by bonding silicon and Pyrex chips using a new polymeric gap-controlling layer and a high temperature adhesive. A simple chip bonding technique involving insertion of the adhesive into the gap between two chips was developed. A silicon dioxide layer and a thin layer of Parylene were deposited to passivate the pressure sensor diaphragm against the caustic environment in kraft digesters. The sensors were characterized at both high temperatures and pressures and no signs of corrosion could be identified on the sensors.Integrated piezoresistive pressure and temperature sensors consisting of a square silicon diaphragm and high resistance piezoresistors were developed. A new Parylene and silicone conformal coating process were developed to passivate the pressure sensors against the caustic environment. The sensors were characterized up to 2MPa and 180°C in an environmental chamber. The sensors' resistances were measured before and after testing in a kraft pulping cycle and showed no change in their values. SEM pictures and topographical surface analyses were also performed before and after pulp liquor exposure and showed no observable changes.Combined liquid conductivity and temperature sensor packages consisting of a platinum resistance temperature detector (RTD) and a four-electrode conductivity sensor formed by stainless steel electrodes and installed on a polyetheretherketone (PEEK) enclosure were developed. The sensors were characterized up to 180°C at NaOH concentrations of 10-100g/l in the presence of wood chips and survived with no signs of corrosion.
MEMS-based anti-biofouling - mechanism, devices and application (2009)
A novel anti-biofouling mechanism based on the combined effects of electric field and shear stress was reported. The mechanism was observed in millimeter-scale piezoelectric plates coated with different metal materials and microfabricated Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) devices. Experimental observation on the quantities of protein desorption and theoretical calculations on surface interactions (van der Waals, electrostatic, hydrophobic, shear stress) have been carried out. This anti-fouling mechanism can also be activated by a vibrating micromachined Si/SiO₂ membrane. The combined effect of polyethylene glycol (PEG) grafting and application of vibration on attenuation of protein adsorption was also investigated. Vibrating PEG-grafted surfaces significantly attenuate protein adsorption, especially at low PEG grafting densities. Polymer steric interaction dominates over vibration interaction with protein on surfaces with high PEG grafting densities.Monothiol-functionalized hyperbranched polyglycidols (HPG-SH) were synthesized and self-assembled on the gold surface. The characteristics of the polymer were studied and compared with linear PEG using various surface analysis techniques. This hyperbranched polyglycidol is more resistant to protein adsorption than is linear PEG of similar molecular weight. In addition, higher molecular weight HPG shows less protein adsorption than does lower molecular weight HPG.The hyperbranched polyglycidols (without a thiol group) were further modified to generate functionality for microchannel-based liquid chromatography applications. The microchannel surface was first amino modified by allylamine plasma, and amino groups then reacted with N-hydroxy succinimide-functionalized HPGs to form strong amide bonds. The grafted HPGs are resistant to nonspecific protein adsorption. The succinimidyl ester groups degrade in water to form carboxyl groups on HPGs. By giving extra carboxyl groups to each HPG, the HPG can selectively capture positive avidin from a mixture of avidin and bovine serum albumin (BSA). To increase the capture efficiency, the microchannel was integrated with micropillar arrays as the liquid chromatography column.
Master's Student Supervision (2010 - 2018)
Assessment of using a Tesla expander to harvest waste heat from a photovoltaic panel for residential applications (2018)
Solar energy is an abundant source of energy for generating electricity. The main challenge is that the solar photovoltaic (PV) panels are typically used in regions where solar radiation is high; consequently, the temperature of the panels will increase, and the efficiency of the panel will decrease. Water cooling systems are typical methods of cooling, and the resulting hot water can be used for space heating or other purposes. In regions that have high solar radiation; however, the demand for hot water is not high.In this research, we investigated combinations of PV panel, an expander with a Rankin cycle, and a new working fluid to generate extra electrical power for residential applications. To achieve the goal, different working fluids were analyzed, and R-245-fa was found to be the ideal fluid for this purpose. To design the cooling system, a new algorithm was developed to find the optimal number, spacing, and diameter of the cooling tubes. The accuracy of the new model was determined by a CFD simulation, and for possible future industrial uses, a user-friendly application was developed using COMSOL® Multiphysics.A Tesla expander was built and tested, and the torque was measured experimentally. The results were compared to typical methods of modeling the turbine to determine the accuracy of each model. Finally, for real data for a day in Egypt, the system was analyzed, and the cooling cycle was shown to yield an average improvement of 12% in terms of generated power.
Improved in vitro methods for differentiating induced pluripotent stem cells to cardiomyocytes (2018)
Human adult cardiomyocytes are hard to obtain and difficult to culture. This has led to patient-specific induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell-derived cardiomyocytes (iCMs) becoming an attractive alternative, serving as a platform for cardiovascular disease modeling, drug toxicity screening, regenerative therapies, and the understanding of human physiology. Unfortunately, current protocols of generating iCMs remain unpredictable, yielding cellular subtypes (ventricular, atrial, nodal cells, cardiac fibroblasts and others) that vary in proportion and levels of maturity, depending primarily on the methodology employed. This led to the scope of my research, which was to understand the minimal biological and physical parameters governing cardiac differentiation from iPS cells, so as to improve current cardiac differentiation systems. My experiments into the effects of substrate stiffness on differentiation revealed that cardiac maturity could be accelerated for iPS cells differentiated on hard substrates (~1.72MPa) compared to cells differentiated on soft (~5kPa) or intermediate (~130kPa) substrates. Experiments investigating the effects of topography also showed that freshly differentiated iCMs could be directed to form uniaxial contracting cardiac tissues by seeding them into millimeter-sized linear grooved channels. Finally, proof-of-principle experiments into inductive co-cultures revealed that previously differentiated iCMs co-cultivated with iPS cells constituted a sufficient stimulatory system to induce cardiac differentiation – as determined by the exhibition of spontaneous self-contractions, expression of cardiac specific markers, and structural organization of sarcomeres. This process was achieved without the exogenous addition of pathway inhibitors and morphogens, suggesting that 'older' iCMs serves as an adequate stimulatory source capable of recapitulating the necessary culture environment for cardiac differentiation.
Design, fabrication and characterization of a double-network alginate-pHEMA hydrogel coating for PDMS-based biomedical implants (2017)
Traditional silicone biomedical implants, such as urinary catheters, often suffer from high surface friction, high stiffness, and a lack of hydrophilicity, which can cause discomfort or discomfort. To tackle these challenges, we developed a double-network alginate-pHEMA hydrogel "cushion" coating for polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) biomedical implants. The double-network hydrogel presented here consists of two distinct networks made of alginate and pHEMA, respectively. The alginate network is covalently bonded to PDMS substrates as scaffolding, and the denser pHEMA network fills the free space within the alginate network. In this proof of concept study, the double-network hydrogel achieved a compressive fracture stress of 502.04±14.41 kPa, which is 5.8-fold stronger than the alginate hydrogel, while its elasticity is still comparable to soft tissues. The proposed double-network hydrogel has a negligible amount of swelling in biological fluids and exhibits no cytotoxicity, which are desirable qualities for biomedical and coating applications. Both chemical modification using APTES and micropillar anchors have been used to improve the coating stability. We found that the adhesion strength of the hydrogel coating on micropillar PDMS substrates is 55% stronger than on bare PDMS substrates when both substrates are grafted with APTES. In comparison to native PDMS and K-Y Jelly-lubricated PDMS, the double-network alginate-pHEMA hydrogel-coated PDMS demonstrated significantly less friction and superior hydrophilicity.
Design, fabrication, and characterization of a magnetic porous pdms as an on-demand drug delivery device (2016)
We introduce a novel, on-demand drug delivery device based on a biocompatible magnetic sponge. The sponge is made of a porous polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) mixed with carbonyl iron (CI) particles. The sponge is deformed under a magnetic field and consequently leads to releasing its contents. As a proof of concept study, three different CI/PDMS wt% ratios of 50%, 100%, and 150% were selected where, the 100% showed the most deformation under various magnetic fields. Although this sponge can solely be used as a potential drug delivery agent, a separate reservoir has been fabricated to protect the sponge and control the release rate. The final device has a diameter of 6 mm with a thickness of 2 mm. Controlled release of methylene blue (MB) and docetaxel (DTX) have been investigated to demonstrate the consistency and flexibility in adjusting the release rate from the device to suit different treatment requirements. Ex vivo tissue implantation has also been accomplished. This device is able to be implanted and deliver therapeutic agents at prescribed dosages.
A 3d printing and moulding method of the fabrication of a miniature voice coil motor actuator (2015)
The goal of this project is to apply 3D printing and moulding (3DPM) methods for the fabrication of a miniature magnetic actuator for optical image stabilization (OIS) applications. Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and strontium ferrite (SrFe) nano powder were used as the main structural material. Young's modulus and the magnetization of the material with SrFe-doping ratios ranging from 20% to 60% by weight were characterized. The actuator, consisting of four coils, an actuating plate, and a base supporter was assembled and tested with a Laser Doppler Velocimetry (LDV) system. A tilting angle of 0.6º was achieved with the application of 500 mA (50 turns/9 mm long coils). A Taguchi's orthogonal experimental design was used in the finite element analysis (FEA) simulation to examine the effect of dimension variations on the eigenfrequencies. Frequency response of the actuator was characterized and the experimental results matched with the simulation results between 1 and 450 Hz showing less than 5% errors. A series of replica experiments were also performed and analyzed.
A minimally-invasive MEMS drug delivery device for the treatment of prostate cancer (2015)
We have developed a cylindrical shape magnetically-actuated MEMS drug delivery device for localized prostate cancer treatment. The device is small enough for implantation through a needle with minimally invasive procedures with potentially fewer side effects compared with full prostate removal. This method of implantation will be similar to brachytherapy, a standard procedure to implant radioactive seeds inside the prostate through a needle. The drug delivery device consists of a drug reservoir, a PDMS membrane, a magnetic block and housing. Docetaxel (DTX), an anti-proliferative drug, is deposited in the reservoir in solid form. The reservoir is then filled with fluids to form a saturated drug solution. When an external magnetic field is applied, it attracts the magnetic block towards the positive field gradient and causes the membrane to deflect. As a result, DTX is discharged from the reservoir, through a laser-drilled aperture on the membrane and into the housing. The housing has a 10 mm long opening which allows the released drug to diffuse to the surrounding tissues while it would prevent the tissues from touching the thin membrane.We have achieved a 1.8 fold increase of the actuating distance and a 3.6 fold increase in the magnetic force compared to the state-of-the-art magnetically-actuated drug delivery devices under the same actuation parameters. We have also demonstrated device implantation with a needle into swine bladder tissue and successful drug release of the device in the tissue.
A vertical and horizontal 3-axis hand-held confocal scanner for skin imaging applications (2015)
The goal of this project is to develop a hand-held size, confocal optical scanner for clinical skin imaging. Both vertical and horizontal image scanning have been successfully achieved. Vertical scanning is performed by a voice coil actuator in the Z axial direction and a resonant galvanometer scanner in the X lateral direction. Horizontal scanning is conducted with the same resonant galvanometer scanner and a regular galvo mirror in X and Y lateral directions. The vertical imaging plane is perpendicular to the sample surface, while the horizontal imaging plane is parallel to the sample surface. The developed device is capable of providing image resolutions of 0.9-1.1μm and 5-8μm in the lateral and axial directions, respectively. The operational scanning speed is adjustable from 8 to 20 frames per second. Imaging results in both vertical and horizontal directions are presented with biological samples, including onion and mouse skin. By using this hand-held scanner, physicians may be able to reduce the number of unnecessary and repetitive biopsies, which will lower the cost to the health care system.
Cardiomyocyte differentiation with cyclic mechanical strain (2015)
The creation of cardiomyocytes from pluripotent stem cells has the potential to revolutionize the treatment of heart disease, the discovery and testing of drugs, and our understanding of human physiology. Thus far, differentiation protocols have mainly focused on recapitulating the biochemical signalling events of cardiac organogenesis, and the resulting cardiomyocytes exhibit a fetal-like phenotype. We postulated that cyclic mechanical strain can mimic the mechanical environment of the developing heart, and, when applied in conjunction to biochemical differentiation protocols, can increase the efficiency of differentiation and the maturity of the resulting cells. Using an induced pluripotent stem cell line derived from human fibroblasts, we derived spontaneously contracting cardiomyocytes via treatment with activin A and bone morphogenetic protein 4 (BMP4). We observed that differentiation of induced pluripotent stem cells to cardiomyocytes is sensitive to cyclic strain, with the application of 5% continuous cyclic strain at 1Hz having the effect of inhibiting spontaneous contractions and disrupting sarcomere formation.
A microsphere based microfluidic check valve (2011)
Biomedical applications of Micro-Electro-Mechanical System (MEMS) technology have sprung growth in the field of microfluidic systems and have been attracting much attention from scientific researchers and industry. Implantable drug delivery devices can deliver localized dosage which can reduce the side effects of medication. Such devices can maintain therapeutic concentrations of the drug over extended periods by providing small doses minimizing the risk of systemic toxicity.Recently, ocular drug delivery devices with micropumps using check valves have been demonstrated. The use of external magnetic actuation in a MEMS-based drug delivery device has been verified in reciprocating diaphragm micropumps. However, the magnetic diaphragm generates low pressures resulting in low flow rates (Re
Surface elasticity models for static and dynamic response of nanoscale beams (2010)
Nanoscale beam-like structures have attracted much attention due to their superior mechanical properties for applications in nanomechanical and nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS). Nanoscale structures are characterized by a high surface to volume ratio. The elastic response of surface layers of atoms is different from that of the bulk atoms due to reduced connectivity. Thus, surface energy has a significant effect on the response of nanoscale structures, and is associated with their size-dependent behavior. The classical continuum mechanics fails to capture the surface energy effects and hence is not directly applicable at nanoscale. To overcome this limitation, modified continuum models incorporating surface energy effects need to be developed in order to evaluate the size-dependent mechanical response of nanoscale structures.This thesis presents a modified continuum model and finite element formulation to study the static and dynamic response of nanoscale beams. The objective is to provide NEMS designers with an efficient set of tools that can predict static deflections, natural frequencies of vibrations, and uniaxial buckling loads of nanoscale beams with different geometries, applied forces, and boundary conditions. A general beam model based on Gurtin-Murdoch continuum surface elasticity theory is developed for the analysis of thin and thick beams of arbitrary cross-section. Closed-form analytical solutions for static bending of thin and thick beams under different loadings and boundary conditions are obtained. Their free vibration characteristics are also investigated. Analytical expressions for critical buckling loads of thin beam are presented. An intrinsic length scale depending on both surface and bulk elastic properties is defined to characterize surface energy effects in beam bending problems. The finite element simulation results of static bending, free vibration and axial buckling of nanoscale beams are compared with the analytical solutions for validation. Selected numerical results are presented for aluminum and silicon beams to demonstrate their salient response features. A technique is proposed to estimate surface elastic properties from measured natural frequencies of GaAs cantilever specimen. The surface elasticity continuum mechanics and finite element models developed in this work provide designers efficient tools to predict mechanical response of beam structures in nano devices.
This list shows a selection of news releases by UBC Media Relations over the last 5 years.
Tiny magnetic implant offers new drug delivery method (14 Feb 2017)
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The interdependence of component risks.
Are the risks assessed for the audit risk model judged independently or are they conditional on values of the other risks?
Auditing standards indicate that inherent, control and analytical procedures risks may be combined to determine the extent of substantive, detailed testing. The standards depict each component risk individually; however, the audit risk model will not produce proper results unless the components are considered in relation to each other. That is, knowledge about one component of the risk model must be weighed in order to properly assess the risks associated with another (this relationship is known as being "conditionally dependent").
For example, imagine that firm A and firm B have identical control structures with respect to an audit objective or account, but that firm A is inherently riskier than firm B. If auditors consider only features of the internal controls as the basis to assess control risk, then they will assess A and B control risk as the same. However, to use the risk model properly, the assessed control risk of firm A should be higher than the control risk of firm B. To oversimplify, if there is inherently a higher probability of more material misstatements in firm A than in firm B, then the same control structure has a higher risk of failing to detect/correct misstatements in firm A than in firm B. Assessing these component risks interdependently calls for subtle, highly skilled judgment.
In a series of cases, we looked at inherent, control and analytical-procedures risks from auditors in firms where each of these risks was separately assessed. Our research showed that a client factor or behavior could affect the assessed level of more than one component risk (for example, the aggressiveness of the client firm's management could influence both the inherent and control risks). Next, we found that auditors did base subsequent risk assessments on the prior risk assessment level, as is necessary for proper use of the audit risk model. The implication is that inherent risk need not automatically be set at a maximum (to offset a possibility that risk components will be assessed independently). Instead, auditors appear to be capable of making combined assessments of the component risks to appropriately plan the extent of substantive testing.
For the full text of the research paper, see Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory, Fall 2000, vol. 19, no. 2, "Inherent Risk and Control Assessments: Evidence on the Effect of Pervasive and Specific Risk Factors."
With these articles the JofA begins a series based on work published in Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory. The intent is to bridge the gap between researchers and practitioners by offering concise practice summaries of cutting-edge research in the field of auditing.
RICHARD DUSENBURY, PhD, is associate professor of accounting at Florida State University. His e-mail address is rdusenb@cob.fsu.edu. JANE REIMERS, PhD, is the KPMG professor of accounting at Florida State University. Her e-mail address is jreimer@cob.fsu.edu. STEPHEN WHEELER is professor of accounting at the University of the Pacific. His e-mail address is swheeler@uop.edu.
Inherent risk and control risk assessments.
The use of analytical procedures.
POB panel begins evaluation of audit process.
POWER TO THE AUDIT COMMITTEE PEOPLE.
POB Proposes Controversial Changes to Audit Process.
Head of audit effectiveness panel speaks out.
Major auditing iniatives coming to fruition; new risk model, standard on fraud among them.


The fabled Lake Como was always a favoured vacation destination with its perfect climate, great views and a fabulous selection of villas to rent.
Lakeside holiday villas with swimming pools abound on and above the shores of Lake Como. Discerning travellers can select the very finest properties to rent on Lake Como and might even rub shoulders with cinema stars of today!
Villas in Lake Como have long been a favoured holiday retreat of the Milanese and inhabitants of the other great North Italian cities and towns. A Lake Como rental for the summer was and remains the ultimate sophistication for industrialists who needed to get away from the bustle of city life to more tranquil pastures. Life doesn't get much more tranquil than beside the shores of this, reputedly the most beautiful of all the Italian lakes. Small wonder that the A9 motorway that leads from Milan to the lake is one of the most heavily used stretches of road in the entire peninsula, and the shortest way for the Milanese to escape the stifling heat of summer. A different world awaits those who make the journey and decide to take Lake Como rentals, a world of calm and, dare one say it, not a little exclusivity.
The lake itself is dotted throughout the summer with pleasure boats of all descriptions and sizes - so much more sophisticated than a drive to the shops in the car. Just the gentle lapping of water on the hull, no noisy engines here! The view from the boat to the shore is spectacular, only in Venice does the water play a greater part in defining the nature of the place. Breathtaking views of Lake Como villas await those who venture out onto the placid waters of the lake. The traveller's imagination runs wild of course when he tries to imagine who is living there and in what circumstances, since Lake Como villas are no less splendid inside than out. These are no new-build anonymities; houses on Lake Como have age on their side, and were built when style was everything.
The air is clear, the water is sparkling, the climate is mild and the shopping is to die for. Restaurants too are aplenty, and achieve a level of elegance and sophistication demanded by those fortunate enough to be able to rent a villa on Lake Como. They are not many, either the fortunate ones or the villas to rent, such is the nature of the terrain. What is sure is that if you take a villa in Lake Como, you will always want to come again.


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Lits och Rödöns tingslag var ett tingslag i Jämtlands län. Tingslaget omfattade Jämtlands mellersta del och sträckte sig från Östersund och Storsjön i söder och upp mot Ströms vattudal i nordost och gränsar i nordväst till Norge i dagens Krokoms kommun och Östersunds kommun.  År 1930 hade tingslaget en yta av 5 612 km² och 18 852 invånare.

Lits och Rödöns tingslag bildades den 1 september 1912, genom en sammanslagning mellan de tre tidigare tingslagen Rödöns tingslag och Lits tingslag. Tingslaget upphörde 1948 då verksamheten överfördes till Jämtlands norra domsagas tingslag.

Tingslaget ingick i Jämtlands norra domsaga

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Hörde före 1 september 1912 till Lits tingslag
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Hörde före 1 september 1912 till Rödöns tingslag
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Nationella arkivdatabasen för uppgifter om fögderier, domsagor, tingslag och tingsrätter
Elsa Trolle Önnerfors: Domsagohistorik - Östersunds tingsrätt (del av Riksantikvarieämbetets Tings- och rådhusinventeringen 1996-2007)

Vidare läsning

 Anders Berch (1711-1774); Kort beskrifning öfver Rödöns tings-lag i Jemtland...under...Anders Berchs...inseende den 12 juli 1758. Uti större carolinska lärohuset vid Kongl. academien i Upsala, till allmänt ompröfvande framstäld af Jöns Tideman, jemtlänninge, Lor. Ludv. Grefing tryckeri, Stockholm, 1758, LIBRIS-id 2555128

Tingslag i Jämtlands län

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Government's increasing bumiputraism in economic and financial sectors the chief cause of lack of investor confidence in Malaysian economy
Press Conference Statement by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Kota Melaka, Lim Kit Siang, in Ipoh on Friday, 13. 12.1985 at 11a.m.
Daim Zainuddin's tenure as Finance Minister for over a year has been characterised by his repeated attempt to boost up the stock market, with the pumping in of billions of dollars to ease the liquidity situation in the capital market.
But Daim's attempts had repeatedly been frustrated by both economic and political factors, such as low prices of the primary commodities, the collapse of the international tin market, the protracted MCA crisis lasting 22 months, the Sabah political and constitution crisis, the Baling Incident, and most recently, the Pan El crisis resulting in the suspension of the Kuala Lumpur and Singapore stock exchanges.
Friday Daim id continuing to try to boost up the stock market, and last he predicted a good rise in stock prices this week had not materialised despite the unusual government directive of 100 per cent bank loan cover for institutions to buy shares.
The Finance Minister should realise that the stock market prices cannot be on a real upward climb unless the fundamental causes of the weakness of the Malaysian economy are resolved, except for a stock market which has been turned into a casino, with prices artificially jacked up by speculators.
The Finance Minister would do more good to the Malaysian economy, and in the process the stock market, if he addresses the fundamental problems of the Malaysian economy – such as the crisis of the various primary commodities, not only tin, but also rubber, palm oil, and petroleum, the poor growth rate of the economy, the retrenchment, the unemployed, and the serious national debt.
Another important cause for the lack of investor confidence in the Malaysian economy is the government's increasing bumiputraism in economic and financial fields.
In early November, investor confidence was greatly undermined when in the MAS public issue, the Ministry of Trade and Industry issued a new directive without notice requiring 30 per cent of the open portion of all public shares issues to be reserved to bumiputras. Until then, the understanding was that in new public share issue, 30% should be reserved to bumiputra investors approved by the Ministry of Trade and Industry, while the remaining open portion of 70% available subscription. With the new government ruling that out of the open portion of 70 per cent for public subscription, another 30 per cent had to be reserved for bumiputras, this would mean that in all new public issue a total of 51 per cent would be reserved to bumiputras.
However, in the recent Mechmar Bestobell Bhd. Public shares issue, the percentage reserved for bumiputras has been raised further.
Under the company's prospectus, out of 10 million new public shares issues, 49 per cent had to be reserved for bumiputra investors approved by government, 10 per cent reserved for an approved government institution (which would invariably be holding in trust for bumiputras), 6 per cent for employees and directors of the Group, and 35 per cent for open public subscription by Malaysians. Out of the 35 per cent is reserved for bumiputras. This means out of the total of million new shares issue, some 70 per cent would be reserved for bumiputras- made up of 49% + 10% +10.5% (which is derived from the 30% bumiputra quota for the 35% of open portion).
But from recent reports, this is not the end of the increasing bumiputraism of the government.
It has now been announced that the Ministry of Trade AND Industry has a further new directive on the issue of public shares. Bumiputra applicants who were unsuccessful in a closed bumiputra balloting of share in all public share issues would be mixed with the non-bumiputra applicants in a separate balloting. This means that bumiputra applicants have chances of success in two separate draws.
In the Mechmar Bestobell case, where non-bumiputras could only subscribe to 24.5%of the open portion of the new public issue, unsuccessful bumiputra applications in earlier draw would have another opportunity to compete with non-bumiputra applicants. According to one report, at least one quarter is estimated to be allocated to bumiputra applicants. This means that finally, the quota reserved for bumiputras for all new public shares would come to as high as 76 per cent!
`How could Financial Minister expect investors, in particular domestic investors, to have confidence in the Malaysian economy when the government is recklessly pursuing such 'bumiputraism' policy in utter disregard of its effect on the people?
I call on Daim Zainudding to stop such policy of 'bumiputraism' and revert to the pre-MAS issue situation, where only 30 per cent of all public new issues are reserved for bumiputras, and the ibalance open to subscription by Malaysians regardless of race.
Posted on December 13, 1985 August 29, 2009 Author CuratorCategories Ecomomic Policies
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


After working through Chapters 1 to 18, you should be able to (1) generate an accurate and reliable assessment of a company's IT operations and (2) identify areas on which to focus to optimize IT. The overview of the IT Pillars Model (IPM), the IPM Scorecard, and the two case studies provided a solid foundation and good practical examples focused on improving business project execution through effective IT optimization and assessment.
Part One of the book introduced the concept of the IPM for optimizing and assessing IT. In addition to the IPM, Part One provided background material in terms of where and how the IPM fits into the overall operations of a business. Topics such as strategic direction and enterprise architecture were discussed and covered.
An overview of the steps involved in the process of optimizing and assessing IT is shown in Figure 19.1.
The IPM consists of three pillars—Strategy, Project Management, and Operational Excellence—as well as three components—People, Process, and Technology.


text:
Monograph Reports
>MR-1140
Accelerated Logistics
Streamlining the Army's Supply Chain
by Mark Y.D. Wang
Military Logistics,
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In June 1998, U.S. Vice President Al Gore and the National Partnership for Reinventing Government presented a team of Army logisticians and RAND analysts the Hammer Award in recognition of a great accomplishment: making Army logistics work better and cost less. This report documents that achievement. Started in 1995, the Army's Velocity Management (VM) initiative sought to improve the responsiveness, reliability, and efficiency of the Army's then outdated logistics systems. Since then the Army has dramatically streamlined its supply process, cutting order and ship times for repair parts by 75 percent at all major installations and by 50 percent nationwide. Building on the story of VM's success, the author demonstrates how this simple yet powerful process improvement methodology has transformed the Army's supply system into a set of customer-focused processes honed to deliver supplies where they are needed, when they are needed. An organizational structure made up of senior Army leadership, site and process improvement teams, and continuing analytic support from RAND catalyzed the institutionalization of this cultural change; VM's Define-Measure-Improve methodology sustained it. At each installation, simple rules such as clear the floor each day helped slash processing delays. The performance of each segment was also measured, with immediate and specific feedback on how to improve. The implementation and optimization of a reliable high-volume distribution system proved instrumental in providing the Army with premium-level service that is faster, better, and cheaper. As a result, Army customers now routinely receive the quick and dependable level of service they have come to expect from a high-performing commercial supply chain.
Speeding the Flow: How the Army Cut Order-and-Ship Time
Kenneth J. Girardini
The Accomplishment
Institutionalizing the Velocity Management Paradigm
Defining the Supply Process
Measuring Supply Performance
Improving Order and Ship Times
Steps for Further Acceleration
The research described in this report was performed under the auspices of RAND's Arroyo Center division.
This report is part of the RAND Corporation monograph report series. The monograph/report was a product of the RAND Corporation from 1993 to 2003. RAND monograph/reports presented major research findings that addressed the challenges facing the public and private sectors. They included executive summaries, technical documentation, and synthesis pieces.
The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.
Copyright: RAND Corporation
Print Format: Paperback
Paperback Pages: 70
Paperback ISBN/EAN: 0-8330-2785-9
Document Number: MR-1140-A
Series: Monograph Reports
Military Logistics
RAND Corporation Style Manual
Wang, Mark Y.D., Accelerated Logistics: Streamlining the Army's Supply Chain. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2000. https://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1140.html. Also available in print form.
Wang, Mark Y.D., Accelerated Logistics: Streamlining the Army's Supply Chain, Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, MR-1140-A, 2000. As of January 19, 2021: https://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1140.html
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text:
Digital data protection bill 2022: Big Brother meets big business
The new personal data protection bill is not about protecting user (read: citizen) data; it is a charter for 'surveillance capitalism'
Prabir Purkayastha
Published: 10 Dec 2022, 8:30 PM
The newly minted data protection bill 2022 is a more bare-faced declaration of government intent than its predecessors, framed in 2019 and 2021. If the objective of the Personal Data Protection Bill 2019 was to give a legal framework to the Supreme Court's Puttaswamy judgment (2017), which upheld privacy as a fundamental right, its new avatar, the draft Digital Personal Data Protection Bill 2022, allows the government to override this right at will.
The other objective of the new bill is to enable big business—both Indian and foreign—to mine our personal data to their advantage. So, the intent of the bill is the polar opposite of what it proclaims: while still invoking the citizen's right to privacy, it is, in fact, granting the State unrestrained rights to violate that privacy at will. It is creating the architecture of an Orwellian surveillance state and promoting' surveillance capitalism'.
The 2019 bill was far from perfect. The Joint Parliamentary Committee had suggested 92 amendments to the proposed law. It went through extensive reviews, both in public and in Parliament. After all those consultations, in public and in the JPC, the bill was suddenly withdrawn, and a new draft bill is now in our midst for no apparent or clearly articulated reason. Those reasons, such as they are, become clear when you pore over the two bills side by side, see the pattern of additions and deletions, which show the direction of the new bill.
Let's look at the big picture first. To protect the citizen's privacy as a right, we need to first define what that right is and under what conditions the State may take away this right. The right to life or liberty of a citizen, for example, can be taken away by the State if s/he commits a heinous crime as judged by an independent judiciary. As we saw during the state of internal Emergency in 1975, allowing the government to exercise this right without any judicial review led to some of the worst excesses during the period.
A privacy law must, therefore, explicitly state under what conditions this fundamental right may be curtailed. Or, as the Puttaswamy judgment laid down, any such curtailment must meet the triple test of necessity, reasonability and proportionality. The other missing feature of the new bill is the provision for a sufficiently empowered regulatory body, which can independently assess if the grounds cited for a violation of the citizen's right to privacy meets the triple test. On both these counts, the new Bill is overwhelmingly tilted in favour of the government and against the citizen.
Retired Supreme Court Justice B.N. Srikrishna had proposed a draft personal data protection bill in 2018. In a recent interview with The Hindu, he says that the draft 2022 bill allows 'a coach and a horse to be driven through the right of privacy of the citizens'. According to him, the 2022 bill has completely abandoned the Puttaswamy judgment's triple test.
Let us look at the regulatory authority envisaged in the 2022 Bill. The composition, qualifications, procedures of appointment, and tenure of the members of the Data Protection Board have all been delegated to subordinate legislation—called 'rules'— to be decided by the government and taken out of the purview of Parliament. The board's chairperson and members will be appointed and their tenures decided by the government. In other words, as Justice Srikrishna also points out, the Board will be a puppet of the government. The provision for an appellate tribunal, specified in the 2019 PDP bill, has also been dropped.
The 2022 bill is much shorter than its abandoned 2019 cousin: it contains only 30 sections against 98 in the 2019 version. Of these 30 clauses, as many as 18 have 'the government may prescribe' riders, which renders them meaningless as they stand today with nobody any wiser about what the government may prescribe.
The draft bill also empowers the government to exempt its agencies from the provisions of the bill whenever it pleases through a simple notification on grounds of 'national security'. This is in addition to the powers government agencies already have to intercept our communications —telephone or data—via the IT Act.
The 2022 Bill starts, as did the older versions, by defining a 'data principal' and a 'data fiduciary'. Let's focus here on the citizen as data principal.
The draft bill empowers the govt to exempt its agencies from the provisions of the law on grounds of 'national security'. This is in addition to the power the agencies already have to intercept our communications through the IT Act
The 'data fiduciary' is the entity that parts with the user data generated while using an application (or 'app', in common usage) or during an activity on a digital platform. In most cases, it is a company or an agency of the State. It is the citizen's personal data that companies or government agencies mine. For companies such as Google or Facebook, the objective is mainly commercial: they are the intermediaries who pass on user data to other companies who want to advertise their products or services to users of these ubiquitous digital platforms.
Harm or loss may happen due to misuse of data, meaning its use beyond what citizens have explicitly consented to and causing individual or other 'data principals' monetary or reputational loss, and potentially putting at risk their personal security.
The number of clauses defining citizen harm or loss are far fewer in the 2022 bill than categories of harm specified in the 2019 version. Also notably, a clause defining significant harm based on impact, continuity, persistence or irreversibility of harm has been removed in the new draft bill.
The earlier bill also had a clause defining sensitive data and how such sensitive data is to be treated. In this version of the bill, there is no definition of sensitive data and, therefore, no separate provision for processing such data by 'big data' companies. All of these tilt the balance between citizens and big data companies, heavily favouring the companies.
No other data protection bill of note lays down the duties of the citizen. This one does. It specifies that the data principal, or the citizen, has a legal obligation to provide correct data. This means that no person can use pseudonyms while availing of any data services.
Fiduciaries are not really storing data on our behalf but for their own profits. They want our data to sell to advertisers. They use our data to sell us goods continuously and get a big share of the profits from such sales
The reason why citizens often use pseudonyms is that identifying themselves by gender or religion may expose them to threats, intimidation or worse. Women, for example, are often targeted online and trolled viciously, which can silence them or drive them out of the digital space. People of non-binary sexual orientation may also fear harms in a largely conservative society, and be reluctant, for good reason, to not disclose real identities online. Disallowing pseudonyms may help State agencies and big data companies but can cause serious harm to different minorities. The draft bill offers them no protection.
The 2022 personal data bill practically exempts the State from any obligations with respect to the privacy of citizens. It has also significantly lowered the bar of obligations for big data companies vis-a vis users.
It has done away with provisions to localise data, under which the data of Indian citizens would be held in India and be subject to Indian laws. While the merits of data localisation provisions were contested even among the defenders of citizens' right to privacy, it is worth remembering that multinationals such as VISA, Google and Facebook were at the vanguard of pressure groups that wanted it struck off the earlier draft (2019), which contained data localisation provisions.
One of the primary objectives of the new bill is to further loosen the restraints on big data companies vis à-vis citizens' personal data, or on how these companies may mine and use said data. The very concept of a 'data fiduciary', which implies data held in trust, tries to obfuscate the reason why these companies are interested in our personal data in the first place—for them, this data is a monetisable asset. So, the data they supposedly hold in trust is, in fact, data they trade for profit. How otherwise are Google and Facebook the biggest recipients of digital advertising revenue today?
Access to this data is also the means to improve and optimise a whole range of software tools. For example, the success of AI (artificial intelligence) tools depends on the amount and variety of data in the feed—algorithms get better with more data. To understand the new data 'protection' bill—the irony of its nomenclature is truly mind-boggling—you might even ask: who benefits more from more user data and better algorithms? Not only big businesses, who must profile their consumers better to target their rupees and dollars, but also Big Brother, who must keep tabs on its citizens to "reorient" them right—or else.
data protection bill


text:
Q: Passing a buffer address from C# to C I am having trouble figuring out how to pass a buffer address from C# to C. I have checked several references. One seems to explain how (passing pointers referencing memory allocated in managed code to unmanaged) but when I mimic it I can't get it to work.
The output should be "This is data" but what comes out is "buffer=System.Char[]".
If I use the debugger I can see that the string "This is data" is in fact being copied properly but the address of 'buffer' in the C function is different than the address of 'buffer' in the C# code. So I'm thinking the referenced link above is assuming some other knowledge of C# which is not explained. Or maybe I just don't understand the additional answers.
Here is my code:
XBaseNamespace.cs
-----------------
//  XBase functions
using System;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;

namespace XBaseNamespace.SecondNamespace
{
    class XBaseFunctions
    {
        [DllImport("W:\\C_sharp\\Call_C\\Debug\\C_dll.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Ansi, CallingConvention = CallingConvention.Cdecl)]
        public static extern void ProcessBigBuffer([MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPArray)] char[] buffer);
    }

}

Program.cs
----------
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using XBaseNamespace.SecondNamespace;

namespace Call_C
{
    class Program
    {

        static void Main()
        {
            char[] buffer = new char[1000];
            // initialize the buffer
            // and then process it
            XBaseFunctions.ProcessBigBuffer(buffer);
            Console.WriteLine("buffer={0}\n", buffer);
            Console.WriteLine("Press any key to exit...");
            Console.ReadKey();
        }
    }
}

c_dll.c
-------
//  C DLL experiment

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>

#define DSI_DLL __declspec(dllexport)
#define CALL_TYPE //__stdcall
DSI_DLL void CALL_TYPE ProcessBigBuffer( char* buffer )
{
    strcpy( buffer, "This is data" );
}

A: I realize I had used 'char' because I'm so used to C. I should have used 'byte'. Now the buffer displays as I would expect. Here is how I did it:
XBaseNamespace.cs
-----------------
[DllImport("W:\\Dropbox\\DSI (His)\\Windows Apps\\Debug\\DsiLibrary_CSharp.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Ansi, CallingConvention = CallingConvention.Cdecl)]
public static extern int XBaseRead(UIntPtr pDefineFile, [MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPArray)] byte[] buffer, long bytes, bool reverse, O_FLAG oflag);

Program.c
---------
byte[] buffer = new byte[160];
XBaseFunctions.XBaseRead(df2500VENDR, buffer, 160, false, XBaseFunctions.O_FLAG._O_BINARY);
foreach (byte i in buffer)
{
    Console.Write("{0:X2} ", i);
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Home Sport Three-generation team for Coast to Coast
Three-generation team for Coast to Coast
Team Knowler . . . Three generations of the Knowler family (from left) Josh, John and Laurie will be among those competing in this week's two-day Coast to Coast challenge. PHOTO: SUPPLIED
ALEXIA.JOHNSTON
@alliedpress.co.nz
Three generations of one family will team up for this week's Coast to Coast, including Clyde resident Laurie Knowler – an entry that has made history.
Laurie (68), who will cycle about 140km during the two-day event, will team up with his son, John Knowler (50), and grandson, Josh Knowler (18), both of Invercargill.
The trio are the first three-generation team to line-up in the event.
John will compete in the 67km kayak leg of the race and Josh will take part in the 30km mountain run.
Competitors traverse the width of the South Island, starting at Serpentine Beach, near Kumara, crossing the main divide – and reaching more than 1000 metres above sea level – before finishing at Christchurch's New Brighton beach.
"It's very special to be the first three-generation team to attempt the Coast to Coast and hopefully complete it." – John Knowler
The Coast to Coast is a first for Laurie and a second-time event for John.
Laurie has done the Kepler Challenge, which he completed in 5hr 30min.
He also won the Southland 10km road championships and cross-country championships back-to-back in the veteran section, and has competed in the world veteran games.
"The older I got the slower I got – that's when I took up biking."
John competed in the Coast to Coast in 2011 as part of a two-man-team.
He had a gusty kayak leg, but finished safely and loved it.
However, ankle injuries have prevented him from competing solo, so he has turned his focus to the three-man race this year.
That decision has seen the Knowlers make history.
"It's very special to be the first three-generation team to attempt the Coast to Coast and hopefully complete it," John said.
While they do not have a specific finish time in mind, they do have a goal, Laurie said.
"We know of other people doing it and our aim is to try to beat them. It's going to be pretty full on – not just [having] a little ride. We've been doing months and months of training."
The Knowlers will be supported by Laurie's wife, Judy Knowler, and John's wife, Andy Knowler.
Coast to Coast media manager John Mckenzie acknowledged the wider Knowler support that would be helping the team.
"It's just brilliant," he said.
The Coast to Coast two-day event will start tomorrow and finish on Saturday.Sneakers StoreNike News
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With attention to detailing this 14k gold ballet dancer pendant makes an impressive addition to any ballerina jewelry collection. Pendant is crafted out of polish finish with open back design; it measures 7/8 " wide by 7/8 " high and weighs approximately 2.2 gram(s). Highly recommended to be worn as a necklace.


Trenching and backfilling is a common method to avoid thermal buckling of oil pipelines. The high construction cost means that it is important to predict the minimum required burial depth to generate sufficient uplift resistance. Current design methods are, however, highly empirical. Improved design efficiency would arise from a better understanding of the uplift mechanism of a buried pipe. A more efficient solution to relieve the axial stress created by thermal expansion is to leave the pipe unburied and control the formation of lateral buckles along the flowlines. This costeffective design concept requires a thorough understanding of the interaction between the soil and the partially embedded pipeline under lateral movement. Research has been carried out to look into these two design methods for tackling thermal buckling in pipelines.
Pipe uplift behaviour in clay was studied by a series of centrifuge tests. Natural clay collected from the Gulf of Mexico was broken into small lumps to simulate the soil cover created by the trenching and backfilling process. The uplift resistance of a buried pipe was measured at different pulling velocities and the time allowed for the lumpy soil cover to consolidate was also varied. The suction force generated underneath the pipe, which varied with pulling speed, was found to be a significant fraction of the overall uplift resistance.
To establish the failure mechanism during pipe uplift in sand, a series of model pipe uplift tests was conducted in a transparent-sided plane-strain calibration chamber. A new image analysis technique was used to track the soil movement without recourse to intrusive target markers. From an initial embedment of 3 diameters, the pipe was extracted vertically under displacement control. Tests were conducted in uniform silica sands with grain sizes varying over an order of magnitude and at different densities. Results showed that peak uplift resistance was mobilised associated with a distributed shear zone. This was followed by the formation of shear bands as a result of shear strain localisation, giving rise to the strain softening behaviour. Particle size effects were found to be minimal for the chosen grain sizes and cover depth ratio.
A series of full-scale tests on short pipe sections was conducted to study the lateral interaction between seabed soil and on-bottom pipelines. Kaolin clay and a natural seabed clay collected from the Gulf of Guinea were consolidated to the required shear strength by vacuum pressure. The lateral force exerting on a partially embedded pipe was measured during cyclic horizontal movements of up to 7 diameters, while free vertical movement was permitted and recorded. A 1/15th scaled centrifuge test package was also developed. Good agreement was observed between the results obtained from different scales. The results suggested that there are three key phases in cyclic pipe motion; the breakout phase, the steady accretion phase and the residual berm resistance phase. Design equations are proposed based on the experimental results.


How does it strike ya?
Could you be happy with a woman like me?
Why don't ya? Why don't ya?
Kt Oslin - Live Close By, Visit Often (withraul Malo) and all other song lyrics on this site are property and copyright of their respective owners and are provided for educational and informative use only. All song texts are personal interpretations of real songs and has no concern to the original texts. All music videos are from Youtube. We don't have any video on our server, this is only an automatic search for videos hosted on Youtube. If you like the song, please buy relative CD.


text:
After Cyclone Idai: Disaster Response Through a Gender Lens
By Lilian Musimwa
The International Committee of the Red Cross "Restoring Family Links" programs seek to reconnect families separated by conflict. Implementation challenges in the form of gender bias are ever present.
This article is part of the "Gender & Humanitarian Action" series run by the International Committee of the Red Cross in partnership with Australian Outlook. The AIIA National Office and the ICRC will be holding a webinar focusing on Gender and Humanitarian Action on Tuesday, March 9. You can register to attend in person or online here.
African culture is diverse and beautiful. But like many other places, I have seen women here experience bias and discrimination. In Malawi, while helping reconnect families separated by the unprecedented destruction of Cyclone Idai in 2019, gender disparities between men and women were clear to see. Prior to this, my exposure to Malawians was limited to people working at the Malawi Red Cross headquarters in the capital, Lilongwe. Malawians are a friendly people, welcoming to strangers. No wonder the country is termed "the warm heart of Africa." The people are indeed very warm.
Despite this, what I observed during the cyclone disaster recovery is what can be observed in many societies. That is, the precedence of a patriarchal system that puts women at a disadvantage compared to their male counterparts – with constrained space for women to share their opinions.
The Malawi Red Cross, with support from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), responded to Cyclone Idai by offering free phone calls and other services under its Restoring Family Links (RFL) program. The cyclone caused widespread damage to communities, and many families were separated. For most, separations occurred while moving from their destroyed homes to internal displacement camps. There were many camps, so it was difficult for families to know where and how to begin searching for lost loved ones. Realizing this need, the Malawi Red Cross and ICRC offered their services in the form of its RFL program.
When cyclone Idai hit, I first undertook an assessment to better appreciate needs, coping mechanisms, and the social structure of communities. Interviewing both men and women was important to hear a diversity of perspectives. This was also done appreciating that women, in general, make sacrifices to keep families together during difficult situations. This is where we ran into problems. We noted women were not being given an opportunity to share their opinions. When we specifically directed questions to women, their answers were often muted or constrained. In the best-case scenario, the woman would respond but only to confirm the views shared by their male counterparts. As we continued receiving only male perspectives, we made efforts to try and understand the root cause of this pattern. One volunteer shared with us that cultural norms dictated that women are expected to be silent at gatherings, unless they are asked to speak up by camp leaders. Regrettably, camp leaders were all male, so they would only ask their male counterparts to speak.
Furthermore, when we offered the free phone call service, it was mostly men, as "heads of the house," who would make the calls. We knew that women wished to make calls to check on the wellbeing of siblings and parents. We needed to hear the women's perspective.
Therefore, we came up with a strategy to have meetings with everyone and then ask the women to remain behind after the group meeting. As I am a woman, this idea was easily accepted by the camp leadership. There was no threat in having women remain and talk with other women. Interestingly, earlier I had observed during the interviews that our male driver was accorded more respect than us. So, I would ask him to ask the questions himself while I took note of the responses. One camp leader laughingly said, "now that we have finished important matters, you can go ahead and gossip as women." To them, it appeared that as we were women, we would not have any important matters to discuss. We all laughed it off, but it was not gossip time. We took the time to have serious conversations on the impact of family separations. Several women shared that they felt vulnerable living in camps without the protection of their husbands or adult sons. They were articulate and shared very valuable information on possible areas of search. We were glad we got these moments to engage with the women. It was fruitful. We offered them access to free phone calls and they gladly accepted, calling their own relatives.
When it came to spreading word of the Red Cross restoring family links services, the women came up with their own way of disseminating news of this support. Amongst themselves, they agreed to share as much information with their female counterparts in the mornings while at the well fetching water. The word got around quickly, and we noted an increase in the numbers of women coming for services.
The topic of gender disparity has been on the table for a long time. To mitigate the issue, the government of Malawi is developing policies and programs that promote women's rights, including a national gender policy. Changing harmful social customs takes time. The Malawi Red Cross Society promotes gender equality by mainstreaming gender in its programs. Most importantly, it also maintains gender parity among its volunteers. This involvement of women from rural communities as Red Cross volunteers gives them a voice in the humanitarian space. Furthermore, their involvement allows for participation in decisions that affect them. For me, the lesson learned from Cyclone Idai was a simple one – that the specific needs of women can be easily overlooked if a conscious effort is not made to include them.
Lilian Musimwa is an ICRC Restoring Family Links Field Officer based in Zimbabwe.
Forgotten Conflicts 2021: On Resilience, After Seven Years of Conflict in Ukraine
By Sanela Bajrambasic and Oleksandr Vlasenko
For years now, life in the Donbas has remained split along a "contact line" of conflict since fighting broke out in 2014. The International Committee of the Red Cross is working with those hit hardest by the fighting.
In the Fight: The Challenge of Tribal Conflict in Papua New Guinea
By Ahmad Hallak
Modern warfare has changed the landscape of conflict in Papua New Guinea, also posing new challenges for the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Forgotten Conflicts 2021: Keeping Memory Alive for the Missing in Nigeria
By Alyona Synenko
Plagued by enduring civil conflict in north-east Nigeria, thousands of families have been torn apart both physically and emotionally. Alyona Synenko writes of the lived experience of trauma and displacement felt by those who left everything behind in a bid for survival.


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text:
Q: Density matrix and entangled states I am studying the density matrix formalism. I gather that:

*

*the trace of a density matrix, $tr(\rho)$ is always 1,

*if $tr(\rho^2) < 1$ we have a mixed state, otherwise a pure state,

*if $\rho$ cannot be diagonalized, we have an entangled state.

Is my understanding correct?
Correction: as per comments, $\rho$ being hermitian, it is always diagonalizable, and 3. is thus false.


STAY CONNECT-ED: If you've yet to take advantage of Connected Educator's Month (#ce12), there are still three weeks of tweet chats, panels, webinars, and other events just begging for your presence! We're not buying the 'it's too late' argument -- in fact, head on over to Change Agency by Ms. Stephanie Sandifer for day-by-day commentary of the past week's events.
One fav from her Day 8 Memorable Quotes: "Becoming a connected, do-it-yourself learner begins with your willingness to be a findable, clickable, searchable-on-Google person who shares openly and transparently. From there we can form a connection, a conversation, a relationship and begin to collaborate." – Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and Lani Ritter Hall in The Connected Educator.


text:
Rugbyclub Turnhout is a Belgian rugby club in Turnhout.

History
The club was founded in 2008, although there had been an earlier team called The Jokers Turnhout.

References

Belgian rugby union clubs
Rugby clubs established in 2008
Rugbyclub Turnhout


In the business setting these words of wisdom are utilized by one having an annual enterprise S.W..T (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities & threats evaluation), partnering fashions for advertising, sales & support, and operational programs that observe business activities and ensure efficiency (undertaking administration & SOPs customary operating procedures). To represent a programme of study that may enable the scholars to mix the worldwide dimensions of Artwork with a deep data of local inventive and cultural traditions, emphasizing development of high skilled abilities, motifs and the cultivation of a personal idiom of expression.
I have also discovered this photograph of Standen, the Nationwide Belief Arts and Crafts property, which says that the desk at the backside of the staircase is by Arthur Romney Inexperienced, the legs here do seem like they have comparable octagonal shaping.
If its full potentials as a cultural catalyst are to be realized, artwork ought to be taught not only to supply painters, sculptors, potters, printmakers, illustrators, textile designers and graphic artists, but in addition to influence developments in Structure, City Planning and panorama Design, Industrial Design, Useful resource Management and Trendy Expertise typically.
It does not appear potential to rework unconscious spontaneous artwork into learned artwork, any greater than it is attainable for wild flowers to flourish in a formal garden." This locations Crane doubtlessly at odds with Godfrey Blount's prescribed works for the Peasant Arts movement.
It's true that by skill and cunning the defects of inferior and ailing-considered workmanship may be, to a sure extent, modified or disguised, but such utilized ornament, however profitable, is at one of the best only unsatisfactory compromise the necessity for which should never have arisen.


What impact has 'austerity', the cuts in public spending by the UK Coalition government since the 2010 general election, had upon a council estate community in Birmingham? This question will be considered in the context of the American psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner's ecological model of systems, originally created to help psychologists understand the many interwoven factors that influence child development.
The social determinants of health – which include social class, poverty, unemployment and poor housing – have been well documented (Marmot, 2010). Social inequality is correlated with life expectancy and physical health as well as with a range of psychologically relevant issues, including: mental health problems, drug abuse, interpersonal violence, and reduced educational attainment and child well-being (Wilkinson & Pickett, 2009).
Given this, we would expect 'austerity' measures to have an impact on individuals and communities. But what is the best way for us as psychologists to understand how such policies might shape the mental and physical health of the individuals and communities that are subject to them? In this article, I will be using American psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner's ecological model of systems (Bronfenbrenner, 1979), originally created to help psychologists understand the many interwoven factors that influence child development.
I Macro level: on a larger scale determining the prevailing ideology and social structure within which the individual person and his/her micro-, meso- and exo-level systems operate (e.g. current rate of unemployment, other conditions of the labour market, gender roles in society, government policy of austerity).
This outlook maps directly on to the community psychologist's traditional concern with social power as the key to well-being and distress (Orford, 2008; Smail, 2006).
This article is also informed by my own work on the estate over a 13-year period, initially as a psychologist with the Family Well-being Project (Harris, 2005). Examples of the implications of austerity will come from multi-agency meetings in the neighbourhood over the last six months of 2013. Bronfenbrenner's approach allows us to track movements of resources within and between the different nested systems, and to consider the psychological effects of these changes on those involved.
Neoliberalism can be summarised as the promotion of free markets and of the idea of individual responsibility for health and wealth (or poverty) as the best way of managing society's resources (Harvey, 2005). These free markets are, in fact, unfairly skewed in favour of the rich and powerful (Usdin, 2007).
At a global level neoliberalism has manifested itself in transnational trade agreements and policy making in a number of countries around the world. This is particularly the case in countries where there have been financial crises.
Within this neoliberal ideology, public funding becomes a potential source of shareholder revenue. Corporations likely to profit from marketisation have been working with national governments to promote its benefits. Think tanks present, on behalf of their clients, the benefits of neoliberalism. See for instance Furness and Gough (2009): promoting the creation of a 'thriving provider market', introducing charges for health care for the wealthiest. This is a politically astute way of further opening up health provision to private corporations. It also reinforces the principle of charging for healthcare. The parameters within which health care is charged for could then be altered later.
Dissenting voices are increasingly marginalised. Reed (2012), however, supported by Action for Children, the Children's Society and the NSPCC, uses the government's own data to conclude that the number of vulnerable families with children will grow (largely as the result of changes to the benefit and tax systems) and that the measures put in place to mitigate the impact of the recession (such as the Pupil Premium and the Troubled Families Programme) are insufficient to offset its financial effects.
These financial effects are exacerbated by the disproportionately high use such families make of services provided by local authorities, which are being reduced through the austerity programme. Councils had their government grant cut by 26 per cent over the four years up to 2014 (HM Treasury, 2010) compared to reductions in central government budgets of 8 per cent.
As well as being affected by the financial aspect of austerity, benefit-claimant families have also been affected by the associated political strategy. This strategy involves Coalition ministers, MPs and many journalists presenting such claimants as undeserving. These families are being subjected to a negative, global judgement by a socially significant authority, while also having few options to improve their circumstances (Harkness et al., 2012). Michael Marmot was recently moved to call these cuts in services and benefits 'a grotesque parody of fairness' (reported by Scally, 2013).
The estate on which I worked was a New Deal for Communities (NDC) community regeneration programme, receiving £50 million from central government between 2000 and 2010. The local NDC delivery team supported the development of a local network of agencies at a monthly meeting called 'Local Stakeholders'. The workers were from a range of organisations, including frontline staff of public sector agencies, such as health visitors, police, learning mentors and the housing department. Senior managers also attended when required and when available. A number of non-statutory organisations were represented, for instance Befriend – a charity that supported both newly arrived and established residents in building relationships in the neighbourhood. When the NDC funding ended, the local agencies continued to meet.
These meetings are currently chaired by a neighbourhood coordinator from the city council. This forum has allowed workers to make connections with each other, to recognise how they are affected by and address issues that are 'cross-cutting', such as poor housing and domestic violence. For example, the forum had previously responded collectively to proposals for reduced local family support provision and to plans to carry out a significant housing regeneration scheme. At a meeting in June 2013 attended by 20 public service professionals from the statutory and third sectors, while attendees maintained their focus on sharing information and managing the scarce resources within the neighbourhood, there was clear evidence of the impact of the cuts on those within the meeting.
A local day centre for older people is to be closed down. The regular users of the centre have been told that they will receive a phone call to tell them whether they will be able to access 'alternative provision' and if so where this will be. There is little social work support available to help people make the transition. Any such transition is likely to involve a number of demands, for example: leaving trusted relationships and establishing new ones; finding and then arranging transport to a new venue; possibly renegotiating a care package to take account of changing circumstances; setting new priorities when the new arrangements may involve reduced support; and possible feelings of guilt when friends do not get offered alternative provision.
Staff at the meeting commented, 'These are people's lives you are talking about here – people [the council] aren't interested – that's what hurts me.' The workers were clearly affected by their empathy for their client group as well as feeling let down by the decision makers in their organisation. They were sharing in the loss of their clients but they were also experiencing a loss of trust in their organisation, putting them at risk of burnout (Hobfoll, 1989). Their sense of fairness had been undermined: 'we are not all in this together', after all.
This is likely to erode the quality of their work because it will reduce their ability to empathise with their clients, and just at the time when many of these workers will also have to be defensively protecting their workplace niche and may be preoccupied with searching for new, and more stable, employment.
Many local families have children with special educational needs. They will be invited to become more involved in the planning of their children's care and even hold part of the allocated budget through the Children and Families Bill (2014). For these families to make a successful transition to what has previously been part of their exo system and participate as 'consumers', they may well require the 'support in kind' of local authority staff – notably educational psychologists. This service has been reduced over the last financial year and now operates as a 'traded service' within the local authority.
The estate in which the meeting took place was built between the 1950s and 1970s. The area is characterised by high levels of unemployment and high population turnover (up to 25 per cent per year according to local authority data), poor housing and residents who are often living isolated lives. Local workers refer to 'low-level mental health' problems that affect a significant proportion of the population. Thirty-three per cent of households in the area are lone parents with dependent children (2011 census). The proportion of pupils achieving five or more A*–C grade passes, including English and Maths, at GCSE or equivalent in the 2011–2012 year was 17 per cent, compared with a national average of 59 per cent.
Public health initiatives in the area have suffered from poor recruitment and low achievement of desired outcomes (e.g. smoking cessation). Why have these initiatives largely failed? The workers find that there are multiple barriers to individuals making changes in their lifestyles. These hurdles include: social isolation, material deprivation and personal histories of abuse. Indeed, these programmes have seldom matched the requirements of disempowered residents, concerned with the need to feel safe (both inside and outside of their homes) and with managing day-to-day; all of which leaves them with relatively little time, money or energy to think about longer-term issues, like health and well-being.
Residents have told us that the poorly maintained physical environment affects them and their families in various ways. They describe how their children's expectations are affected by the rubbish they see littering the streets: 'It gets into children's heads'. Signs of neighbourhood disorder (e.g. broken windows, burnt-out cars, graffiti) had been highlighted by residents on the estate as signs of social disorganisation, significantly affecting family well-being, as far back as 2004. Residents describe the shame they feel when people see where they live.
With austerity we are likely to see increased levels of social displacement as families have to move to avoid the financial consequences of austerity policies. NDC's own data shows that increased mobility has a negative effect on service delivery and on outcomes – especially educational outcomes. Increased mobility tends to lead to decreased social cohesion – residents feel they don't know their neighbours. Markowitz et al. (2001) find that community cohesion reduces disorder and that disorder reduces community cohesion, a relationship that is partly mediated by fear.
This displacement and mobility, combined with the reduction in local services, will further fray the social networks on the estate that are already under strain, reducing the ability and willingness of the remaining residents to informally monitor the area for criminal and antisocial activity. As the social and physical environment deteriorates, people may feel more insecure. They could experience chronically elevated levels of arousal causing depression and anxiety (Latkin & Curry, 2003; Taylor et al., 1997). Among pregnant women this can adversely influence fetal development with lifelong consequences for intellectual attainment and emotional and behavioural adjustment (O'Connor, 2003) – passing on disadvantage to the next generation.
Indeed, the reduction in the number of social networks and agencies upon the estate will also shrink the opportunities for young people and families to connect with schools and health and welfare agencies, and to see them as trustworthy allies rather than as agents of control (Gillies, 2005). As these groups become even more marginalised from mainstream activities, they will simply accept, or not even notice, the reduction in social mobility that will accompany these changes, but which may nevertheless have a significant adverse long-term effect upon their life course.
The 'bedroom tax' means that people with one spare bedroom will lose 14 per cent of their housing benefit, while those with two spare bedrooms will lose 25 per cent. For our Birmingham estate, according to the local authority's figures, there were 51 households in the local ward who would be affected by these changes, 20 of whom are included in the Troubled Families intervention.
Troubled Families, where children are not in school, parents are not in work and there is youth crime and/or antisocial behaviour, are then affected by another decline in their resources. Their attention will become focused on the more immediate challenges of day-to-day living and conserving the resources they still retain (Hobfoll, 1989): eking out their shrunken household budgets and struggling to find ways to pay their bills, keeping their children occupied and entertained (when there is no money to go on holiday or to afford trips to the cinema, for instance), dealing with welfare bureaucracies and officials, and negotiating the exchange of vital support and favours with family, friends and neighbours.
This will leave fewer resources to dedicate to the requirements to get their children to fully benefit from (or regularly attend) school. There will be corresponding adjustments in the distribution of resources within the family micro-system. Children are more likely to have to fend for themselves, as well as to provide care and support to other family members.
In our meeting we heard how 60 per cent of our local 'underoccupants' are in high-rise blocks. The local community development team had handed out 20 discretionary payment application forms to single men who had been using their spare bedroom for contact with their children. If their income is reduced, or they are forced to move to a smaller property, they and their children are likely to have reduced contact.
The psychological impact of this measure is worsened by there being no smaller properties available for those affected to move into. As well as losing their homes these residents will be further disempowered by a sense of lack of control over their predicament. Their option is often to move into private rented accommodation with different, less secure, terms of tenancy: usually at greater expense to the taxpayer.
In response to editorial queries, I sent a draft of this article to more than 100 individuals or organisations to see whether they believed there had been any positive consequences of austerity.
Very broadly speaking, for all the negatives from the changes to services and budget reductions, it is probably worth considering that there are one or two unintended, but potentially positive consequences from the service de-construction taking place. I am starting to see a lot more innovation and new partnerships developing, as well as old, antiquated and irrelevant practices and modes of delivery being challenged and changed. Long-term this can only be positive, though there are short-term and medium-term effects.
One response from a GP said that he had seen no benefits from austerity. One from a local public spaces charity described how the winding-up of a local youth charity had ended their collaboration. They believed that this will now mean that they can no longer provide a natural play area for local children and that children's well-being in the area will suffer.
Bronfenbrenner's nested-systems model provides a useful framework for tracking the effects of austerity on a specific community. It helps us describe how this set of policies will, in many cases, disrupt the multiple contexts within which people develop. As residents internalise the experience of marginalisation, the consequences for their academic achievement, mental health, physical health and indeed life expectancy (to take just some of the more obvious indicators) are likely to be serious. Austerity will increase inequality within our society as a whole, to the detriment of the health and well-being of us all but especially the poorest, and the most vulnerable.
As psychologists, we are in a position to understand how the effects of austerity will become embedded in the life experiences of children and families with inevitable consequences for their well-being. While we may see therapeutic interventions as the means to addressing some of the psychological outcomes of these issues, this approach can never be an adequate response (Albee, 1988: Moloney, 2013). It also means that we risk compounding disadvantage by labelling, pathologising, and thereby further marginalising, many who are having to manage in a situation created by social injustice.
The question remains of how psychologists will respond to these challenges. Will we look outside psychology for frameworks to use to describe and analyse contexts, e.g. urban studies, criminology, or create our own frameworks using existing psychological methodologies in different ways? Will we continue to focus on a strategy of treating an 'epidemic' one case at a time, or will we argue for change at a higher level?
Albee, G.W. (1988, October). Prevention is the answer. OPENMIND (Journal of the British Association for Mental Health).
Furness, D. & Gough, B. (2009). From feast to famine: Reforming the NHS for an age of austerity. London: Social Market Foundation.
Gillies, V. (2005). Raising the 'meritocracy': Parenting and the individualization of social class. Sociology, 39(5), 835–853.
Harkness, S., Gregg, P. & MacMillan, L. (2012). Poverty: The role of institutions, behaviours and culture. York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
Harris, C. (2005). The Family Well-being Project. In C. Newnes & N. Radcliffe (Eds.) Making and breaking children's lives. Ross-on-Wye: PCCS Books.
Hobfoll, S.E. (1989). Conservation of resources: A new attempt at conceptualizing stress. American Psychologist, 44, 513–524.
Latkin, C & Curry, A. (2003). Stressful neighbourhoods and depression: A prospective study of the impact of neighbourhood disorder. Journal of Health and Social Behaviour, 44, 34–44.
Markovitz, F., Bellair, P., Liska, A. & Jianhong, L. (2001) Extending social disorganisation theory: Modelling the relationships between cohesion, disorder, and fear. Criminology, 39(2), 293–319.
Marmot, M. (2010). Fair society, healthy lives: Strategic review of health inequalities in England post-2010. London: Department of Health.
Moloney, P. (2013). The therapy industry: The irresistible rise of the talking cure, and why it doesn't work. London: Pluto.
O'Connor, T., Heron, J., Goulding, J. et al. (2003). Maternal antenatal anxiety and behavioural/emotional problems in children. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 44(7), 1025–1036.
Orford, J. (2008). Community psychology. Chichester: Wiley.
Reed, H. (2012). In the eye of the storm: Britain's forgotten children and families: A research report for Action for Children. London: The Children's Society and NSPCC.
Scally, G. (2013). A grotesque parody of fairness. British Medical Journal, 347(7932), 17.
Smail, D. (2006). Power, interest and psychology. Ross-on-Wye: PCCS Books.
Taylor, S.E., Repetti, R.L. & Seeman, T. (1997). Health psychology: What is an unhealthy environment and how does it get under the skin? Annual Review of Psychology, 48, 411–447.
Usdin, S. (2007). The no-nonsense guide to world health. Oxford: New Internationalist Publications.
Wilkinson, R. & Pickett, K. (2009) The spirit level: Why more equal societies almost always do better. London: Allen Lane.


text:
package gloving.test.benchmarks

import scala.util.Random

import org.scalameter.api._

import org.apache.spark.mllib.linalg.{ Vectors, Vector }

import gloving.WordVector
import gloving.WordVectorRDD

object SparkEuclideanDistanceBenchmark extends DistanceBenchmark {
  val vectors = for {
    n <- ns
  } yield {
    //Generate one random vector to be the left operand
    val (x1, x2s) = generateVectors(n)

    val v1 = Vectors.dense(x1)
    val v2s = x2s.map(x2 => Vectors.dense(x2))

    (v1, v2s)
  }

  performance of "Spark" in {
    measure method "euclideanDistance" in {
      using(vectors) in { case (v1, v2s) =>
        val distanceFunc: (Vector) => Double = { x2 => Math.sqrt(Vectors.sqdist(v1, x2)) }

        val distances = v2s.map(v2 => distanceFunc(v2))

        //Touch the result value to ensure this computation doesn't get optimized away
        require(distances.sum != 0)
      }
    }
  }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub