This time last year we were on our amazing Japan holiday. One of my favourite places in Osaka was Osaka Castle.
The castle its self is amazing to look at. We didn't actually go inside, partly because we are cheap and like to spend our money on food, and partly because we were short on time. The grounds around the castle are expansive and make the trip more than worthwhile. I highly recommend spending a few hours at Osaka Castle if you ever find yourself in Osaka!
Click on each image for the full sized version.
As always on a Sunday, I'm linked up to the excellent #MySundayPhoto linky. It's hosted by Darren Coleshill on the website Photalife. I highly recommend you click on the link (or the badge below) and check out everyone's photos.
If you want to see more photos from me, head over to the Blog of Dad Instagram page.
Such a distinctive style of building, it can only be Japan, and I've never visited.
Hi James, what an interesting looking castle. I bet if you had paid to go in you may have lost your appetite. It's a shame though as you (and we) will never know what it looks like inside. It sounds like a good reason to revisit to me!
I would just LOVE to visit Japan, its certainly on my bucket list to visit when the kids grow up and leave home.
ClearlyBex recently posted…My Sunday Photo – Conkers!
I would love to visit here, it's always been my dream.


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text:
LCDAs
Inside Lagos
DAY 11: Ojodu Ward D hosts APC Ikeja Federal Constituency rally, Kasunmu celebrates Ikeja LGA Chairman, urges residents to get PVCs
Community Watch
byTayo Aderinola
NNPC ready for N1.9tr road repairs, tasks truckers on safety
Tinubu's son bags chieftaincy title in Peter Obi's state of origin
Senate suspends plenary till February 28
€9.3m
₦500
₦1000
₦300billion
… Inaugurates Technical Committee
" the official twitter handle of the presidency
" later returned to have a face-off with the police. One of the protesters said: "This is the time
" he added.
" Dr Isaac Obominuru
" a compilation of papers presented at previous COWLSO conferences from 2013 to 2020
AMBODE OPENS JOHNSON, JAKANDE, TINUBU PARK IN ALAUSA …Says Former Govs, True Legends Of Lagos
Governor, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode (2nd left); his Deputy, Dr. (Mrs) Oluranti Adebule (left); children of the first civilian Governor, Mrs. Bisola Olusi (3rd left); Mr. Deji Jakande (middle); Speaker, Lagos State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Mudashiru Obasa (3rd right); Iyaloja General, Chief (Mrs) Folasade Tinubu-Ojo (2nd right) and Sen. Olamilekan Solomon Adeola (right)
With him at the commissioning were his Deputy, Dr. (Mrs) Oluranti Adebule ; children of the first civilian Governor of Lagos State, Mrs. Bisola Olusi; Mr. Deji Jakande ; Speaker, Lagos State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Mudashiru Obasa; Iyaloja General, Chief (Mrs) Folasade Tinubu-Ojo
The Johnson Jakande Tinubu (JJT) Park during the opening at Alausa, Ikeja by Governor Akinwunmi Ambode on Wednesday, December 13, 2017.
Lagos State Governor, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode on Wednesday officially unveiled an ultra modern recreational park in Alausa, Ikeja, in honour of three former Governors of the State, Brigadier Mobolaji Johnson Rtd, Alhaji Lateef Jakande and Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Governor Ambode, who spoke at a ceremony to unveil the park known as Johnson, Jakande, Tinubu Park (JJT Park) and located in front of the State House of Assembly and a few metres away from Lagos House, said it was part of efforts by his administration to immortalise heroes who worked hard for the emergence of Lagos as not only the Centre of Excellence, but also one of the most prominent City States in Africa.
He said the three former Governors were outstanding in their contributions to the development of the State and wrote their names in the sands of time, especially during their time in office.
Governor Ambode said: "One of the hallmarks of any progressive society is to always recognise and reward the efforts of heroes who contribute to the growth of that society. In the case of Lagos State, we have so many heroes who toiled and laid a solid foundation for the Lagos we enjoy today.
"Today, we are here to celebrate and honour three past governors of our dear state who were outstanding in their contributions to the development of Lagos Sate. These eminent Lagosians are some of the very few brave men that stood to be counted on the side of justice and even by their performances while in office have written their name in gold for future generations."
"The roles played by Brigadier Mobolaji Johnson Rtd., the First Governor and Military Administrator of the State; Alhaji Lateef Jakande, the First Civilian Governor of Lagos State; and Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Governor and Architect of modern Lagos; can never be forgotten. They are the true legends of our State, and architects of the Lagos we are proud of today."
Going down memory lane, Governor Ambode said Brigadier Johnson, laid the foundation as the pioneer Governor of the newly created Lagos State in 1967 and constructed the 60.7-kilometre Lagos–Badagry Expressway linking Nigeria with countries in the West African sub region, the Itoikin Bridge linking Epe and Ikorodu; the Eko Bridge and a network of roads and bridges that opened up the new Lagos.
He said Alhaji Jakande, the first elected Civilian Governor of Lagos State, who held office for four years introduced masses-oriented programmes particularly in the education, housing and health sectors.
Governor Ambode added that apart from the successful implementation of the Free Education Programme, Alhaji Jakande's administration also established new neighbourhood Primary and Secondary schools, and also constructed over 30,000 housing units indifferent parts of the State for the benefit of low income earners.
"His tenure also witnessed the completion of the General Hospitals in Gbagada and Ikorodu as well as the establishment of about 20 health centres within the State. Alhaji Lateef Jakande conceived and initiated the Metro line transit system that would have provided a solution to the challenge being experienced in the transportation sector today," he said.
The Governor while describing Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the architect of modern Lagos, said his tenure witnessed the development of a blue print for the future development of the State and which successive administrations have continued to build upon and actualize today.
"One of the remarkable achievements of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu's administration was the reform of the State Tax administration system which resulted in the State attaining the status of the most viable and self sustaining State in Nigeria. He also made huge investments in education and initiated new road constructions, required to meet the needs of the fast-growing population of the State.
"Asiwaju also established the institutional framework which ensured that the State was properly and efficiently run.
2023 Elections: INEC clarifies means of results transmission
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has ruled out the possibility of manual transmission of the 2023 general election results.
byLateef Idris
INEC Serves Dino Melaye Recall Process, Dumps Documents In Office
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has dumped documents on the recall of Senator Dino Melaye (APC, Kogi)…
Lagos plants trees to kickstart Y2022 world environment day celebration
The year 2022 World Environment Day celebrations kicked off in Lagos on Thursday with the planting of 10 historic breadfruit trees to ensure the sustenance of the environment.
LASG SET TO CELEBRATE WORLD TOURISM DAY
… Restricts Physical Participation by Stakeholders The Lagos State Government has said that the celebration of this year's…
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Liu, C. et al., Lin, C.G. et al., Perbal, B. et al., Zeng, Z.J. et al., Lin, C.G. et al., et al.
As nov expression has been shown to be altered in both avian and human nephroblastomas and to be a target of WT1 regulation, NOV may play important roles in normal nephrogenesis and the development of Wilms' tumors .
Altered expression of CCN3 has been observed in a variety of tumors, including hepatocellular carcinomas, Wilm's tumors, Ewing's sarcomas, gliomas, rhabdomyosarcomas, and adrenocortical carcinomas .
CCN3 expression was found in 15 of 45 Ewing's sarcoma tissue samples .
In particular, we did not observe any expression of CCN3 in the 15 primary tumors that did not develop metastases .
The concentration of NOVH was significantly decreased in patients suffering from astrocytomas or multiple sclerosis, two diseases of the nervous system .
The connective tissue growth factor/cysteine-rich 61/nephroblastoma overexpressed (CCN) family .
The C-terminal domain of the regulatory protein NOVH is sufficient to promote interaction with fibulin 1C: a clue for a role of NOVH in cell-adhesion signaling .
Two members of the family (CYR61 and CTGF) are positive regulators of cell proliferation, whereas NOVH and two other members (ELM1 and RCOP-1) exhibit features of negative regulators of growth .
Although not mitogenic on its own, CCN3 also enhances basic fibroblast growth factor-induced DNA synthesis .
Integrin-dependent functions of the angiogenic inducer NOV (CCN3): implication in wound healing .
Twenty-two patients affected by relapsed or refractory non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) were treated with a combination of ifosfamide (IFO) at the dose of 1.2 g/m2 intravenous (i.v.) (1 h infusion) for 5 consecutive days with mesna as uroprotector plus mitoxantrone (NOV) at the dose of 12 mg/m2 i.v. on day 1; both drugs were recycled every 3-4 weeks .
These data suggest that NOV can act as a growth factor for some cells and binds to a specific receptor that leads to the phosphorylation of a 221 kDa protein .
We have isolated the rat NOV gene, and the DNA sequence shares 90% identity with the mouse and 80% identity with the human sequences .
These results set the stage for a study of NOVH-fibulin 1C interactions and their potential significance in cell-adhesion signaling in normal and pathological conditions .
In contrast, CCN3-induced cell migration is dependent on integrins alphavbeta3 and alpha5beta1, whereas alpha6beta1 does not play a role in this process .
Purified CCN3 supports primary skin fibroblast adhesion through integrins alpha(5)beta(1) and alpha(6)beta(1) and induces fibroblast chemotaxis through integrin alpha(v)beta(5) .
Examination of NOV expression in various human cell lines revealed that NOV was expressed in U87, 293, T98G, SK-N-MC and Hs683 but not in HepG2, HL60, THP1 and Jurkat .
When 3T3 fibroblasts were treated with this recombinant NOV protein, a dose-dependent increase in proliferation was observed .
Higher levels of rat NOV mRNA were seen in the brain, lung and skeletal muscle compared to the other tissues .
Analysis of tyrosine-phosphorylated proteins revealed that when 3T3 cells were treated with NOV, a 221 kDa protein was phosphorylated .
The rat NOV gene was expressed in all rat tissues examined, including brain, lung, heart, kidney, liver, spleen, thymus and skeletal muscle .
Nephroblastoma overexpressed gene (NOV) codes for a growth factor that induces protein tyrosine phosphorylation .
Mechanistically, CCN3 supports human umbilical vein endothelial cell adhesion through multiple cell surface receptors, including integrins alphavbeta3, alpha5beta1, alpha6beta1, and heparan sulfate proteoglycans .
In C2/4 myogenic cells, elevated expression of NOV led to down-regulation of MyoD and myogenin, resulting in inhibition of myotube formation .
However, 7 days after injury, NOV expression is down-regulated, except near the luminal surface of the developing intima, where it is strongly expressed .
HUVEC adhesion to NOV caused intracellular signalling, as evidenced by increased phosphotyrosine content of focal adhesion kinase .
There is a possibility that the regulation of NOV expression is different from the pathway regulated by WT1 .
We also show that the induction of MMP3 in cells expressing NOVH is potentiated by either cell density, serum, or PDGF-BB .
Decreased expression of the angiogenic regulators CYR61 (CCN1) and NOV (CCN3) in human placenta is associated with pre-eclampsia .
HES1, a target of Notch, previously proposed to mediate NOV action, was not implicated in the inhibition of differentiation .
Expressions of cysteine-rich61, connective tissue growth factor and Nov genes in hepatocellular carcinoma and their clinical significance .
The human NOV secreted glycoprotein (NOVH) is abundant in the fetal and adult adrenal cortex .
Binding properties and distribution of insulin-like growth factor binding protein-related protein 3 (IGFBP-rP3/NovH), an additional member of the IGFBP Superfamily .
Characterization of human NOV in biological fluids: an enzyme immunoassay for the quantification of human NOV in sera from patients with diseases of the adrenal gland and of the nervous system .
PTHrP treatment (which inhibits terminal differentiation) decreased NOV expression in murine femurs maintained in organ culture, and decreased the activity of a NOV reporter construct in vitro .
Reverse transcription polymerse chain reaction (RT-PCR) was used to detect the mRNA expression levels of Cyr61, CTGF and Nov genes in 31 resected specimens of hepatocellular carcinoma and para-cancerous normal liver tissues semi-quantitatively and the relation between their expression levels and clinical pathological parameters were compared .
Confocal microscopy was used to visualise the nuclear NOV protein in HeLa and 143 cells .
Western blotting analysis of NOV proteins in both types of fractions was performed using two NOV specific antibodies .


text:
EFCC Denies Raid On Standard Chartered Bank
Posted by Mr Ejump on September 14, 2018, Under: 9ja news
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has denied carrying out a raid on the headquarters of Standard Chartered Bank in Lagos today Friday, September 14th.
A statement released by the commission, says there was no raid on the bank by its officers. The commission in its statement said the raid by operatives purportedly wearing the jackets of the Commission might have been the handiwork of errant officers who acted without authorization.
The agency said the action is in flagrant violation of the standard operation procedures of the Commission as it is not the style of the EFCC to openly raid the offices of banks and other financial institutions.
Officials of such institutions who are wanted by the commission, are usually invited for questioning after discreet investigation. Over the years, banks have been cooperative in releasing their officers to the Commission for questioning.
The Commission will investigate the circumstances leading to this illegal raid by errant officers and those found culpable would be subjected to the internal disciplinary mechanism of the Commission.
EFCC again reassures Nigerians that it is an agency which adheres strictly to the rule of law and will, as much as possible, avoid draconian measures in its fight against corruption" he said


text:
Verizon Nabs Microsoft, Nokia For Private 5G Networks
Sharon Wrobel- October 20, 2020, 6:43 AM EDT
Verizon has teamed up with Microsoft Corp. and Nokia to help its business clients globally to build faster and more secure applications through private 5G networks.
As part of the Microsoft collaboration, Verizon (VZ) will integrate the tech giant's cloud software Azure into its on-site 5G edge network for ultra-low latency that promises to be "many times faster than the blink of an eye", and can help businesses tap into real-time data analysis and delivery. On-site private 5G networks enable businesses to boost power efficiencies and cut costs of end user devices, while helping to address their privacy and security needs.
In addition, Verizon will utilize Nokia's Digital Automation Cloud, a private wireless network solution that will allow businesses in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region to deploy applications through a web-based interface.
A private 5G network is a self-contained network whose components all reside in a single facility, consisting of micro towers and small cells and connects to an organization's Local Area Network (LAN) and enterprise applications. Verizon is targeting clients with manufacturing, distribution and logistics facilities, who need to deploy a customized on-site mobile network, and with the private 5G network won't need to transmit data through public networks.
"If the past few months have taught us anything, it's that there's never been a more critical time for mobility, broadband and cloud products and services," said Verizon Business CEO Tami Erwin. "Private 5G networks will be a transformative technology that will drive the new era of disruption and innovation for enterprises around the world."
Verizon disclosed that logistics and supply chain solutions company Ice Mobility is the first client already testing its on-site 5G Edge platform, integrated with Microsoft (MSFT) Azure. By gathering data in near real-time on product packing errors, the company has the potential to improve on-site quality assurance and save 15% to 30% in processing time, Verizon said.
The telecom operator said that it is planning to explore more opportunities with Microsoft to offer solutions to industries ranging from manufacturing to healthcare.
Shares in VZ are trading down 6.6% year-to-date, and the stock scores a cautiously optimistic Moderate Buy Street consensus. That's with analysts evenly split between 6 Hold ratings and 6 Buy ratings. Their $62.91 average price target indicates almost 10% upside potential lies ahead over the coming year.
Argus Research analyst Joseph Bonner last month upgraded Verizon to Buy from Hold with a $68 price target as the analyst is positive on the company's "strategically critical move" in recently winning a key spectrum block in the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) auction along with its dividend increases.
Bonner also believes that most consumers are bound to stay with their current carriers for the time being, which he views as a positive for Verizon as the "wireless industry's leading incumbent." (See Verizon stock analysis on TipRanks).
IBM Posts Third Quarterly Sales Drop In a Row; Shares Fall
Atlassian Pops 9% On Accelerated Cloud Shift; Analyst Says Buy
Visa Nabs Strategic Stake In UK Fintech Company GPS
Microsoft Seeks $2B Stake In India's Jio Platforms- Report
Harriet Lefton, May 28, 2020
Microsoft Buys Softomotive To Boost Its Robotic Automation Offerings
Microsoft Launches Cloud-Based Platform For Healthcare Organizations


text:
The Project Founder, William Peters Our Team Speaking & Media Inquiries
Shift Network SDE Course The Pathway Seminar Self Study For Healthcare Professionals Scholarships Counseling Community
The Research Shared Crossing Story Collection What is a Shared Crossing? Podcasts, Webinars, Presentations Media Features Free Guided Visualization
Join the pioneers at the forefront of shared death experience study, Dr. Raymond Moody and William Peters.
Enjoy TWO x LIVE ONLINE 60 minute Q&A Sessions
Ask your own questions. Be captivated by the discussion of this life-changing topic.
Dr. Raymond Moody and William Peters are leaders of shared death experience (SDE) investigation and both are fonts of immense knowledge on the topic. Raymond is responsible for initially popularizing SDEs and William is the founder, director and principal investigator of the only research institute dedicated to the study of SDEs and their healing benefits. Together, Moody and Peters are the source of most of what we know about these life-changing experiences.
Many know of Dr. Moody's trail-blazing work with near death experiences, having coined the term in his 1975 book, Life After Life. He went on to discuss shared death experiences in his 2016 book, Glimpses of Eternity, focusing on the compelling evidence that many people share their loved ones journey from this life to the next.
Inspired by Dr. Moody's work, and having experienced and observed many shared death experiences himself, William Peters applied clinical research to create the first typologies of SDEs that were later validated by the Shared Crossing Research Initiative. His best-selling new book, At Heaven's Door: What Shared Journeys to the Afterlife Teach About Dying Well and Living Better, is a groundbreaking, authoritative exploration – rich with powerful personal stories and convincing research – of the many ways the living can and do accompany the dying on their journey into the afterlife.
Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you.  The work you are doing is brave, so so needed and profound in its implications, especially for us westerners who normally shy away from anything to do with death and dying.  What you have done over your lifetimes will potentially provide comfort to millions.  It is crucial and I pray you are blessed and able to continue for the benefit of so many of us.
Sally P.
10:00 - 11:00am Pacific Time
* Recordings will be emailed to all who register
What You'll Receive -
2 brand new LIVE Q&A sessions on Zoom with Dr. Raymond Moody and William Peters. Each session will be 60 minutes long.
Recordings of all LIVE Q&A Sessions. Regardless of whether you attend the live events, you will have access to recordings of each of the three live events.
The opportunity to ask your own personal questions to Dr. Moody and William Peters, two luminaries in the field of SDEs, ahead of each session.
Who this offering is for
Whether you have burning questions or want to sit back and listen, this offering is for you.
During the 2 live Q&A sessions you will be part of an engaged, like-minded, inquisitive group of people as you engage with Raymond and William in a relaxed, open online setting.
This offering is for anyone, whether you are working in the end of life arena, or have been guided here through personal interest.
Your Presenters
Dr. Raymond Moody
Dr. Raymond Moody, MD, PhD, is a philosopher, psychiatrist, physician and author, most widely known for his books about afterlife and near-death experiences (NDEs), a term that he coined in 1975 in his best-selling book Life After Life. For half a century, he has researched some of life's greatest mysteries and had a strong interest in how medical realities intersect with the ineffable realm of philosophy. In his multiple roles as author, professor, public speaker and grief counselor, he has heard thousands of accounts of near-death, shared-death and after-death experiences. He never expected that his interest in the afterlife would become such a focus of his life's work, but it has led him to great associations, friendships and insights.
William Peters
William Peters, M.Ed, MA, MFT, is a licensed psychotherapist, founder of the Shared Crossing Project, and author of At Heaven's Door. William has developed a series of leading-edge programs that introduce audiences to a broad assortment of experientially based curricula and practices. These programs focus on preparation for a conscious, connecting, and loving end-of-life experience, and they invite exploration of the topic of life after death. As the Director of the Shared Crossing Research Initiative (SCRI), William and his research team collect and study extraordinary end-of-life experiences (shared crossings). He is recognized by many as the world's leading authority on the shared death experience (SDE), having developed the first research-based typology of this phenomenon.
What (More!) People are Saying
Thank you so much for investigating death and dying and sharing the information.
It will change the way we look at ourselves as human beings.
Nele D.
Two brand new LIVE Q&A sessions with Dr. Raymond Moody and William Peters
Saturdays 10.00am to 11.00am PT
December 3 and December 10, 2022
© 2023 Shared Crossing Project


text:
Q: How to import org.codehaus.groovy.scriptom.* on Groovy? I'm trying to run a Groovy app to manipulate Excel files on STS (by SpringSource) 2.3.0.
My Groovy version is 1.7.
Class:
package com.mytool

import org.codehaus.groovy.scriptom.ActiveXObject

/**
 * @author Mulone
 *
 */
class SurveyTool {

    static main(args) {
        print 'test'
        def wshell = new ActiveXObject('Wscript.Shell')
        wshell.popup("Scriptom is Groovy")
    }

}

Sadly, this is what I get:
org.codehaus.groovy.control.MultipleCompilationErrorsException: startup failed:
C:\workspace\SurveyTool\src\com\geoadapta\surveytool\SurveyTool.groovy: 6: unable to resolve class org.codehaus.groovy.scriptom.ActiveXObject
 @ line 6, column 1.
   import org.codehaus.groovy.scriptom.ActiveXObject
   ^

1 error

I also tried to rename ActiveXObject to ActiveXProxy with the same result.
I tried to import scriptom manually from the package scriptom-all-assembly-1.6.0 but I didn't work.
Any idea?
Cheers

A: Ops, I fixed it by importing all the jar files manually and by putting jacob-1.14.3-x86.dll in the project folder.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Mairata, também chamado Mairatã (traduzido literalmente do tupi antigo, "Maíra forte": Maíra, Maíra + atã, forte), era uma entidade mitológica dos antigos povos tupis.

Mitologia tupi-guarani
!Mais Teoria da História na Wiki (Povos originários)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


"We are a medical aesthetics practice, totally physician-directed. We do non-invasive to minimally-invasive cosmetic procedures," said Dr. Jean Casello, a medical doctor who started the practice in 2008.
"In addition, we offer a comprehensive range of procedures, including a full continuum of lasers. We can handle every condition that can be treated with a laser or a medical solution. We don't just use one modality, one procedure. We combine modalities and customize programs for our patients.
Dr. Casello was recently quoted in a national publication for cosmetic physicians and surgeons on body contouring procedures and on her techniques for combining procedures. One of Dr. Casello's patients with a graft vs. host skin reaction from a bone marrow transplant who was treated with customized products was presented at a national dermatology meeting in Boston in January.
What are the first steps in a treatment?
"We start with a comprehensive consultation. I see every patient and talk about what they hope to achieve," said Dr. Casello. "The way I usually approach my patients is to focus initially on the thing that bothers them most. But I give them a comprehensive plan as well.
"Overall, we're looking for long-term improvement. I think of it as rejuvenation, not re-inventing. I tell my patients if you're 60, we're not aiming for you to look 20. You want to look like a better version of yourself.
What services do you have for teens?
Do you also treat men?
"People are more aware if you start good skin care early, you will have good skin for the rest of your life. Studies now show early Botox treatments can be preventative for wrinkles. Women—and men—are starting to come in their 20s and 30s. When they get into their 50s and 60s, they're not going to have the wrinkles their mothers had.
Editor's Note: The preceding is not an endorsement and is presented for informational purposes only.


text:
Photo illustration: Soohee Cho/The Intercept, Getty ImagesPhoto illustration: Soohee Cho/The Intercept, Getty Images
The Whistleblower Trying to Stop the Next Financial Crisis
One insider says that big banks have been quietly engaging in the same behavior that precipitated the crisis of 2008.
Deconstructed
April 23 2021, 10:01 a.m.
If you were reading the news back in 2008, then you probably remember how residential mortgage backed securities fueled by subprime mortgages tanked the global economy. Now John Flynn, a veteran of the mortgage securities market, says it's happening all over again — this time in the commercial real estate market. Flynn joins Ryan Grim and The Intercept's Jon Schwarz to discuss.
Ryan Grim: This is Deconstructed. I'm Ryan Grim.
If you're listening to this podcast, chances are you've seen the movie or read the book "The Big Short." If you haven't, the fact that you were alive in 2008 means you know the gist of the story: Wall Street bankers packaged and sold garbage loans that eventually blew up the global economy, ruining millions of lives in the process and fueling the rise of right-wing authoritarian populism around the world.
Other than Teresa Giudice, star of the Bravo TV show "The Real Housewives of New Jersey," and her husband Joe, basically nobody went to prison for any of it.
Newscaster: Real housewives getting a bitter taste of reality: a judge sentencing both Teresa and Joe Giudice to prison for fraud.
RG: In announcing their indictment, U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman got cute: "Everyone has an obligation to tell the truth when dealing with the courts, paying their taxes and applying for loans or mortgages. That's reality," he said.
Pathetic as that joke at their expense was, his claim was also a lie. Everyone did not, in fact, have an obligation to tell the truth when dealing with loans or mortgages. Wall Street executives had gotten fabulously wealthy in the run-up to the financial crisis by lying about those very things, and got bailed out when it all went south. Going after the gaudy Giudices was about as much as federal prosecutors bothered with, catching them fudging some paperwork the same way millions of others did.
[Clip of "The Real Housewives of New Jersey" cursing & yelling.]
RG: After locking Joe away in solitary confinement, they even deported him back to Italy, where he hadn't lived since he was a little kid. And since nobody but one real housewife and her now ex-husband paid the price, it's happening again.
Today's show is a bit more technical than I usually do, but even if you get lost in acronyms here and there, the broad outline of the story is, sadly, quite easy to follow, and it's a fascinating one.
The one guide I'll offer is this one: CMBS stands for "commercial mortgage-backed securities." Those are similar to RMBS, which stands for, yes, "residential mortgage-backed securities."
During the 2008 crisis, banks bundled together a ton of bad mortgages and created a new asset out of them, and claimed that since they were now all bundled together, they were no longer risky, and the ratings agencies went along. Those new assets are called securities, and they were made up of residential mortgages. Hence the name: residential mortgage-backed securities, or RMBS.
Commercial mortgage-backed securities are exactly what they sound like. They are financial products that are backed not by home loans, but by commercial loans. The problem in 2008 was the bankers and brokers were inflating the incomes of people taking out mortgages.
This week, in a story in The Intercept, a financial analyst-turned-whistleblower provided data that bankers appear now to be doing the same for commercial real estate, inflating income and packaging it together into risky assets.
So, to recap: RMBS are residential securities, the ones you remember from 2008; CMBS are commercial securities, and that's what we're talking about today. It's an abbreviation that you may end up becoming very familiar with in the not-too-distant future.
I'm joined today by Jon Schwarz, my colleague who reported this story with me, and John Flynn, the CMBS analyst-turned-whistleblower who served as our primary source.
What John found, through breathtakingly laborious detective work, is an underbelly of the commercial mortgage market that is a lot softer than we might have thought.
[Musical interlude.]
RG: Well, John Flynn, welcome to Deconstructed.
John Flynn: Thank you.
RG: And Jon Schwarz, thank you for joining us again here on Deconstructed.
Jon Schwarz: Well, it's great to be here to talk about this extremely complicated but fascinating issue.
RG: It is fascinating. So John Flynn, tell us a little bit about how you got here. How did you wind up at a credit-rating agency to begin with?
JF: Right. My career started in Tokyo, actually.
My clients were Fortune 500 firms looking to enter into the Japanese market. After working there for about four years, I joined GMAC Commercial Mortgage, the predecessor to Berkadia, and that's when the Japanese banks were all suffering from non-performing loans, bad credits, and we went around with joint ventures, with Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs and the likes, purchasing non-performing loans from Japanese banks. And that was really fun! [Laughs.] You know, we purchased everything from goose farms to bowling centers, to golf courses, etc.
I'd been in Japan for about 10 years, and I wanted to get a flavor for how things were done in the West, because I didn't want to specialize in Japan for the rest of my life and stay there, so I moved to Australia. I met my Australian wife in Tokyo, and we moved to Australia. And after a stint working in development for a CBD tower with Lendlease, I joined Moody's and their ABS team, asset-backed security team, where I helped to rate everything from credit card receivables to auto loan receivables to commercial real estate to esoteric privatizations, etc.
RG: So what years were you at at Moody's?
JF: About 2001 to 2002, I think. And during that time, I met the Fitch people in Sydney. And CMBS was taking off in Japan in a big way during that time, and they gave me an offer I couldn't refuse to go back to Tokyo and help them out on their CMBS ratings. But understand that I already had been in Japan for a long time, and I wanted to get out, and so I got them to relocate us to Chicago, where the CMBS market was on steroids.
Part of my role was to make sure models were consistent across the globe, etc. But I started running deals, CRE CDOs — commercial real estate collateralized debt obligations. I developed that model, actually.
RG: Right. And these are some of the acronyms we got used to during the previous financial crisis: collateralized debt obligations, and the like.
JF: Yes.
I worked on those, but my mainstay was conduit CMBS — conduit commercial mortgage-backed securities. CMBS are groups of about 100 loans put together, diverse portfolios of commercial real estate loans, pooled together and sold off into the market.
And that was in 2003 or 2004 or so. And I saw a lot of things come across my desk that were just crazy. And I took that knowledge, put it in my pocket.
And in early 2006 I joined Dexia. It was Artesia Mortgage at the time, and they were basically the Belgian central bank's U.S. commercial real estate lending arm. And I joined them to ramp up for a CRE CDO. And we were getting ready to launch that and the financial crash took hold in 2008.
RG: Had you seen it coming? When the bottom started falling out, did you connect it to all of those shaky loans that you had seen coming across your desk?
JF: Yes, I think it's fair to say I was. In fact, many of my colleagues at Fitch Ratings would remind me that I was frothing at the mouth many times in New York, saying, "this is all gonna end in tears." And the writing was on the wall in so many ways to those in the industry. And I expected the contagion to carry over to the CMBS market as well. So yeah, I think it's fair to say that I did see it coming along with a lot of others in the industry.
RG: Mhmm.
JF: But going back to Artesia, or Dexia: I moved there, they relocated me to Belgium to help their ABS team work out that portfolio, and that's really my first run-in with the U.S. market and its credit issues in underwriting in commercial real estate loans.
As an investor, I looked at what the servicers were doing. On one hand, you had the worst credit underwriting period in history, you could say with a straight face. But on the other hand, you had limited put back for representations and warranties. If a loan is misrepresented, the lender has to sell the loan back because it lied about the loan quality, basically.
RG: So you had a lot of lying, but nobody was —
JF: Calling them out.
RG: Nobody was calling them out on it. Right.
JF: Yeah. And so I would pick up the phone, and get on the phone to the stateside servicers and say, "What the hell's going on? And they were very responsive. And the same thing was happening in Europe as well. In 2013 and 2014, Dexia was renationalized into the Belgian central bank because of their exposure to ABS. And they said "all foreigners go home" — which I was one. And they were going to send me to New York, but we were going to end up in Australia at some point. So I decided to go straight to Australia.
But I kept my eye on the U.S. market. And I saw that the CMBS borrowers were getting raked through the coals, when, for example, a default occurred on their underlying loan, the servicers would not call out the lender liabilities. Many times I would see 75 percent built buildings being sold as fully complete; I'd see environmental catastrophes on loans being sold undisclosed; halfway-occupied buildings being sold as fully occupied; you know, the issues go on and on. And all of those are misrepresentations.
And so my tactic that made me unique in the market was that I would take these issues and I would say, "Well, look, there's also lender liability here. And servicer, you have an obligation to call these out. And you have to, in fact. It's your obligation." And they hated me for it. They weren't used to anyone bringing liabilities to the table.
And I got a bunch of successes under my belt. I worked for the first six months at a private equity firm. And then me and two guys took off and carved off CRE loan advisors. And, you know, I was achieving discounted payoffs for borrowers of up to 70 percent of their loan. So, meaning that the borrower, if they had a $10 million loan, they would purchase a loan back for $3 million, and the $7 million would be forgiven.
So I was doing well. But then the servicers got wise to what I was doing and they kind of stiff-armed me and refused to work with me. That was as the market was turning.
The whole market was expecting this whole waterfall of maturities from badly underwritten loans in the 2005-2008 era. As they matured, the whole market was expecting these loans to default upon maturity from 2015 to 2018. Well, they were defaulting and servicers were foreclosing on assets and they were building up these assets on the quote-unquote trust balance sheet to many billions.
But then in 2016 and 2017, they started refinancing these loans en masse into new CMBS 2.0, and CMS 2.0 is basically any loan sold after 2013 under new, better structures — "new" and "better" being kind of tongue-in-cheek there.
And everyone blamed the good performance on, number one, new entrants into the loan market, new non-bank lenders, right? Also low interest rates and a positive economy. I'd remember back to the Fitch days and thinking well, no way — they'd get refinanced. So I dug deeper, and dug deeper, and I basically followed the premise that if the information was difficult to find, then you should go through hell and high water to get it because there's something there.
Part of the solution that they came up with was that investors should have a one-stop shop to get all their information that they need in CMBS. So that solution was for Wells Fargo to generously operate a website portal that would make all this information available to investors and servicers and rating agencies and analysts. And that website is CTSlink.com.
So the big data feeds that come through there and feed into the models until the waterfall of the CMBS structures, which are very complex, those automatic feeds were taken from CTSLink, and then put into the models, which, by the way, are now totally black boxes. It used to be that you had to model out the waterfall, but now they generously do that for you so, as an investor, you don't even have to worry about the waterfall because that's all modeled out for you, of course, by the banks or by the loan sellers.
RG: Wells Fargo. What could possibly go wrong?
JF: [Laughs.] I know!
RG: Jon Schwarz, you've done a lot of reporting on Wells Fargo in the past. And both you and I have been talking to John Flynn a lot over the past year, sussing out what he found and fitting it into the historical context of the financial crisis. And what parallels did you find?
JS: Well, if people think back to what was going on in 2008, if you're following the news then, it was this incredibly confusing swirl of acronyms and numbers and so on. But, in fact, what was happening was not complicated at all.
The thing about Wall Street is: It really only has about four basic scams, and it just continually runs them in different combinations and in different ways. And the particular scam of the housing bubble in the 2000s was counterfeiting.
So everybody knows regular counterfeiting is you just print something that looks like money, but it has no actual value. What Wall Street was doing in the 2000s was they were printing another form of paper wealth, bonds, that had some value but much, much less than they purportedly did on their face.
So to understand this, you have to think about regular mortgages in the past and how mortgages began to be issued more recently, including in the 2000s. So people think, "I want to buy a house, I go to a bank, they give me a mortgage — they loan me money — and then I have to pay that bank back over a period of 30 years."
Now, in the past, if you think of like, "It's a Wonderful Life" —
Jimmy Stewart [as George Bailey]: I'm in trouble, Mr. Potter. I've got to raise $8,000, immediately.
JS: — the bank there, when it was making loans, cared whether they could pay that loan back.
Lionel Barrymore [as Mr. Potter]: What kind of security would I have, George? You've got any stocks.
Jimmy Stewart: No sir.
LB: Bonds? Real estate? Collateral of any kind?
Jimmy Stewart: I have some life insurance.
LB: How much is your equity in it?
JS: If you loan someone money, you want them to be able to pay you back.
But what happened in the past couple of decades was the development of something called securitization with mortgage loans. And so what that means is one bank would issue the loan, and you'd get the money, you'd buy the house, but they would then take that loan and sell it off to someone else. So the incentive to make sure that the person could pay the loan back dropped significantly. [Laughs.]
RG: [Laughs.]
JS: And they would sell these loans off, usually to another bank, then banks would take these loans — say 50, 60, 70 loans — package them all together into something called a trust and then the trust would issue bonds based on the loans that were part of this pool.
Now, if in fact those mortgages had been correctly underwritten, if people could actually pay these loans back, then that's a great deal. You buy one of these bonds, and then you get regular payments over a period of years.
But what happened in the 2000s was the development of something called "liar loans," where banks no longer cared about whether a loan actually was correctly underwritten. And so they had a great incentive to just collect the fees for originating the loan, so they wanted to issue as many loans as they possibly could. So they would find lots and lots of people who actually could not afford to pay this money back. They would find someone who's a bartender in Florida making $25,000 a year and the bank would claim, in the paperwork, that they were actually making $300,000 a year, so they could afford to buy a house that cost $1.5 million.
And so all of these bad loans would go into these pools, into these trusts, and then the bonds that were issued by these trusts were essentially counterfeit. And that is the thing that turned it into such a catastrophe in the 2000s, because you would have pension funds — that really do need regular income — buying these bonds. And when the whole thing collapsed, both sides were ruined: you would have the people who had taken the loans out to buy homes get thrown out of their homes and the pension funds would be not getting the payments that they had counted on. The only people who profited were the middlemen, the people who had done the packaging; Countrywide was notorious for this. They would have made hundreds of millions of dollars on all of these packaging fees.
And so that's what happened then. What seems to be happening now is potentially something not in the residential mortgage-backed securities market, but in the commercial real estate-backed securities market. So that means loans that are based on mortgages for shopping malls, or hotels, or things like that.
RG: Right. So John Flynn, as you start digging deeper into the underlying documents, behind the CMBS loans, you start to find something that looked a little bit similar to what John Schwarz just described. When did you start to realize that you were onto something fairly huge?
JF: It was in late 2017, basically. I started out: "OK, I'm just gonna do 10 of these and I'll see where it goes." And all ten of them were inflated. I'm like, "What?" And so I kept going from there, basically.
RG: And before you go further on that I have been blown away by how hard it was for you to find what you found. You shared with us all of the different documents. And you walked us through how to confirm everything that you were saying. And even with all of those documents already in front of us, and the path, the roadmap, of how to get there, it took an enormous amount of work because of the changes of address, the changes in the names of these loans.
So explain to people what they would have to do if they want to do the same thing that you did?
JF: Well, the data feeds that I was referring to before, none of the comparable data — to compare two sets of numbers, you need two sets of numbers, right?
JF: So none of the comparable data is in the data feed.
RG: Which is wild, because wouldn't investors want this comparable data?
JF: Well, yeah. An investor that is curious, certainly they would want that data. But again, they're managing billions and billions. And do they have the incentive? And would they do anything about it?
I don't think the average investor would rattle the cage of a bank who is doing this because, number one, they wouldn't see any deal flow because the wealth-management arms are closely tied to the same large banks sponsoring the deals, so they don't really have an incentive to do it. And plus, the lawyers for the banks got wise to the kind of tactics that they used for RMBS litigation, and they patched up or they kind of rigged the decisions in the courts, so that it's a very difficult path to walk to actually bring a case to either put back a loan or to do otherwise — change of service or whatever.
RG: So there's no point.
JF: Yeah. There's no point.
RG: So again, back to the steps on how to do it, the building name and address changes is something that I was aware of earlier when I started representing borrowers. The first five minutes of the conversation would be to establish: "Are we talking about the same building?" The borrower would call it "building XYZ" and the bank would call it "building ABC."
And sometimes the building location would change! I mean, it would actually change the physical location of the building, if it's the same collateral. So even if an investor was curious, it would be very difficult for them to do it.
RG: Right. So these banks, when they're refinancing these properties, they're changing the address and they're changing the name of the property. So any attempt to kind of compare the numbers that they were using to finance it the first time around, to compare that to the numbers they're using to finance it this second time around, it's not entirely impossible, but it would take somebody an awful lot of time. Am I right?
JF: Yes. And it raises a lot of doubt. You have to be certain when you're doing these comparisons that "building A" is "building A."
And there's many legitimate reasons for changing a building name, right? And there are some legitimate reasons for changing an address. But not on the systematic scale that I see in the data.
RG: And so, as you would compare the numbers from one pile of paperwork to the next pile of paperwork, even though you'd find it was representing the same year, you kept finding the income inflated? Is that right?
JF: Yes. In short.
RG: And so what else could account for that, other than the obvious?
JF: Well, the main thing that people put forth is adjustment for capital expenditures, and for tenant improvements and leasing commissions, or TI/LC.
JF: And that takes place when an underwriter is estimating the income for a building, the net income for a building, there are expenses that have to do with the integral structure of the building. And those are capital expenses.
There's also an operating expenses. So what one does when they underwrite a loan is they split out the operating expenses from the capital expenses, and make adjustments in the expenses.
And so that's what they put forth as an explanation. But, in both cases, in the old and the new trusts, the underwriters were normalizing expenses. So that wasn't an explanation. And they were following industry guidelines in doing so. And, in many cases, the different cash flows that were being reported were made simultaneously as the loan was being sold into a new trust. So the reporting in 2015 was done, maybe in December of 2015 and a different loan for the same collateral was being sold in January of 2016. So this reporting is only like months old, right?
RG: Right.
JF: So how does it change so drastically in that month? And it shouldn't change at all, because you're talking about the same time frame, same collateral, same circumstances.
JF: So it shouldn't change at all
RG: Right. And so you found that often these numbers were different. How often was it that the error was inflating the amount of income? Just like how John Schwarz talked about the bartender who said that he or she was making $300,000 a year. How often was the number inflated? And how often did you find it deflated, where they kind of stated the income lower than it was before?
JF: It was inflated over 90 percent, maybe over 95 percent of the time. And I never went back and measured it because this is very laborious work.
RG: So what's the function of that? What's the benefit to the lender?
JF: So the liar loans in RMBS, the credit driver for RMBS is the borrower's credit, the borrower's income. And the credit driver for CMBS is cash flow. Cash flow is king, right?
And so if you inflate the cash flow, you — of course — get a higher income that increases what they call the debt service coverage ratio, which is the NOI — the net operating income — and there's thresholds under regulatory guidelines that loans have to meet to be sold into a pool.
And so the benefit is, one, that they get the loan sold, that is an otherwise unsalable loan; benefit number two is it can load on more debt, because with that NOI increase, it also increases the value. Number three, is they show a less volatile cash-flow profile of the underlying asset; less volatility is a higher credit quality, right?
RG: Right. So there's an extraordinary amount of benefit to the lender to be able to inflate the cash flow that their borrower claimed to have.
So John Schwarz, where do you see this going from here?
JS: It's tough to predict. This is a situation, a huge financial crisis, where you would expect any kind of fraud to become apparent. There's a very famous Warren Buffett quote where he says, "When the tide goes out, you find out who's been swimming naked." And that is the problem that happened in 2008, is that when the economy collapsed, everything that had been done in the residential mortgage-backed security market became apparent.
It's happening to some significant degree now. We have some graphs and charts in our article that people can consult where the companies, shopping malls, hotels are having a very, very hard time paying back the mortgages that they had taken out on the properties. But we'll just have to wait and see if it's as big a catastrophe as it was in 2008, or if it's something different.
RG: And John Flynn, you know this industry well. Where do you think it's headed?
The Federal Reserve is playing an interesting role, because it seems like there could be a significant amount of economic downturn and fraud combined that if the Fed soaks enough of it up it can just keep kind of limping along. As Keynes said, "We're all dead in the long term." So it could limp along in the medium term, or in the short term. What's your read on how much trouble the industry is in?
JF: Well, look, we're in a low-interest-rate environment right now. Right? So the hunt for yield is on. Any money out there needs to be placed to earn a yield — any kind of yield. And CMBS still offers a reasonable yield as compared to treasuries. And so the demand will still be there, and if there's no accountability in this low-interest-rate environment, all they need to do is inflate numbers again.
So to get these troubled loans refinanced, people say, "Oh, how are they going to get refinanced?" Well they could just create value.
RG: Same way they just did.
JF: Yeah. Why wouldn't you?
RG: Well, to that question: Why wouldn't you?
Jon Schwarz, what is your read on what the Biden administration could do about this?
JS: Well, if indeed, this was fraud on the part of any of the players, generally speaking, that is illegal. If the Biden administration wants to actually enforce the law in a way that the Obama administration did not in 2009, then they have many, many tools to do so.
And, in fact, it is happening already that the SEC is getting involved in the kind of litigation and enforcement that you would expect to see in a situation like this. The FCC just filed a lawsuit against a credit rating agency for manipulating its CMBS ratings methodology. Another credit rating agency has already paid $2 million in fines to settle an SEC suit. So the government can put a stop to it; they can hold the people responsible. The issue is really one of the political will rather than some sort of abstract capacity. They can do it if they want.
JF: Let me interject there: everyone points at the credit rating agencies as the culprit, but they're easy targets because they can't fight back, right? They don't suffer any damage or blowback from the credit rating agencies because they're not the banks, they won't suffer in deal flow, etc. But the real culprits are the ones doing the inflating.
RG: Would rating agencies have to be fundamentally differently structured to be able to catch what you found? My read is that this isn't exactly them asleep at the switch, it's that they don't actually even have somebody stationed at this particular switch, because they kind of take lenders' word to a certain degree and then look at things above that. They're not doing the laborious work that you went through. Is that right?
JF: No, they had to take the lender on their word, right? The issuer pays model is inherently open to that, open to abuse Maybe take a page out of China's book. You have to do some enforcement on it, basically. But again, it's only their opinion. And they say that very loud and clear. It's only their opinion.
RG: Right. Well, John Flynn, thank you so much for walking us through this.
JF: No, thank you for having me. Appreciate it.
RG: And John Schwarz, thank you for collaborating with me on this story. This was something to get our hands around, but I hope that people start to pay attention to it.
JS: Yeah, I hope people can take a look at this. It is the kind of thing that it takes a little while to understand but once you do understand it, it really is incredibly interesting.
RG: Thanks so much, guys.
JF: Thank you. Bye.
[End credits music.]
RG: That was John Flynn and Jon Schwarz. You can read the story that Jon Schwarz and I wrote, "The Bigger Short," at theintercept.com. And a big thank you to everybody who became a member of Deconstructed last week; the promotion did so well, we're extending it through the end of the month. If you go to theintercept.com/give and make a donation of any amount, you'll get a signed copy of my book, "We've Got People."
Deconstructed is a production of First Look Media and The Intercept. Our producer is Zach Young. Laura Flynn is our supervising producer. The show was mixed by Bryan Pugh. Our theme music was composed by Bart Warshaw. Betsy Reed is The Intercept's editor in chief.
And I'm Ryan Grim, D.C. bureau chief of The Intercept.
If you haven't already, please subscribe to the show so you can hear it every week. If you're subscribed already, please do leave us a rating or review — it helps people find the show. And if you want to give us feedback, email us at [email protected]
Thanks so much, and see you next week.
Deconstructed[email protected]theintercept.com


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Bollywood Hungama » News » Bollywood News » REVEALED: The REAL REASON why Alankrita Shrivastava named her film LIPSTICK UNDER MY BURKHA
REVEALED: The REAL REASON why Alankrita Shrivastava named her film LIPSTICK UNDER MY BURKHA
Created: Jul 12, 2017 - 6:55 PM IST Updated: Jul 12, 2017 - 6:56 PM IST
It has not only caught the attention of the Censor Board, but also many feminists and social media lovers for its controversial content. After a long battle, the award winning film at many festivals Lipstick Under My Burkha, finally gets a release in India and the promotions have kick started. During one of its events held in Delhi, Alankrita Shrivastava, the director of the film revealed the reason behind choosing this unique title for the film.
As unique as the title sounds, it definitely triggered curiosity amongst the audience and after the release of the trailer; it has only further increased the intrigue quotient. Whilst attending the recent promotional event in the capital, Alankrita was questioned about why she chose such a unique title for the film and her reply explained it all.
Calling it as a metaphor for women's unspoken dreams and desires, Alankrita Shrivastava said that Lipstick Under My Burkha was a representation of how, despite trying to cover up everything and in her attempts to maintain her image in the society, the women continue to have hidden dreams and desires that they would not let go off. Alankrita further asserted that restraining them wouldn't stop them from following their passion and dreams. She added that the film was also about certain things that women often do in secret because they aren't allowed to do in public places.
Starring Konkana Sen Sharma, Ratna Pathak Shah, Sonal Jha, Aahana Kumra, Lipstick Under My Burkha revolves around the fight of four women who try to break free from the societal norms in their own way. The film, which is being backed by Ekta Kapoor, faced a major battle with the Central Board of Film Certification on the basis of explicitly portraying women's sexual desires and fantasies. Now, the film has received a release date and it is scheduled to hit the big screens on July 21.
More Pages: Lipstick Under My Burkha Box Office Collection , Lipstick Under My Burkha Movie Review
Tags : Aahana Kumra, Alankrita Shrivastava, Censor Board, Konkana Sen Sharma, Lipstick Under My Burkha, News, Ratna Pathak Shah, Sonal Jha
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Tobias Gilk is a noted expert in MRI safety, operations, best practices, and accreditation standards. He serves as senior vice president of RADIOLOGY-Planning, which designs radiology, nuclear medicine, and radiation therapy facilities for health care providers. He was formerly the president and MRI safety director for Mednovus, which manufactures ferromagnetic detection products. He has served on the ACR's MR Safety Committee; is one of the coauthors of the ACR Guidance Document for Safe MR Practices: 2007; is a member of the Corporate Advisory Board for the Institute for Magnetic Resonance Safety, Education, and Research; and has written or contributed to hundreds of articles, presentations, and best-practice standards documents on MRI safety.
Radiology Today (RT): In a recent presentation, you said that quite a few facilities don't have a clear big-picture view of what they should be doing in their MRI safety programs. Where should facilities start in developing or assessing their MRI safety?
Tobias Gilk: It can seem daunting. A good place to start is to educate the physician that is your MR medical director and your MR safety officer, usually a senior technologist, about what MR risk profiles are and the alternative ways of responding to risk. For providers who want to tackle this on their own, but not bite off more than they can chew, I suggest that you take a risk-weighted approach. Identify the single greatest risk in your facility. If you're not sure what that is, you might want to consider nationwide statistics on rates of injury.
RT: What do those numbers tell us?
Gilk: Precautions for implants and devices tend to receive the greatest proportionate amount of time, energy, and effort by MRI providers. While in no way do I want to minimize the importance of identifying proper safety screening approaches for patients with medical implants and devices, adverse events with such devices make up less than 3% of the MRI adverse events reported to the FDA. So what are the other 97%? Shouldn't we be devoting many times that amount of time, energy, and effort to the other elements that lead to many more patients' injuries?
While I don't believe that focusing on two or three items—to the exclusion of all else—creates a safe environment, identifying the weighting for the different risks provides a good place to start in what should be an ongoing process. The three areas that, when combined, represent approximately 95% of all the MRI injuries are burns, projectile incidents, and hearing damage. If we focus our attention on those three areas—again, not to the exclusion of all else, but if we double down on our efforts to identify and prevent these three types of accidents—we can make a huge impact on net patient safety. While we don't want to cut corners on implant and device safety screening, we want to be effective and efficient in that screening so it doesn't monopolize the provider's time and allows for greater focus and attention on burns, projectile incidents, and hearing damage.
RT: That sounds like the classic 80/20 principle.
Gilk: Yes, but in this case it is 95/5.
RT: Let's start with burns. Your presentation at AHRA last year included the statistic that 69% of MRI exam-related injuries reported to the FDA were burns. What should providers be thinking about and doing to minimize those cases?
Gilk: One of the first things we need to recognize about MRI-related burns is that even though the injuries may look very consistent, there are actually three main causal roots. If we don't address each of the three causal roots of MRI burns then we're not effectively minimizing that risk.
The first way patients can receive MRI burns is if they touch or are too close to the transmitting radiofrequency (RF) coil elements. There's an opportunity for focal heating if the body part is touching the transmitting coil.
Second, burns can occur if patients have any electrically conducting materials with them or on them while they're in the bore; items such as EKG leads or even contemporary workout clothing that is labeled "antimicrobial," which means it has silver-impregnated materials in the fabric, can become an electric conductor and run the risk of heating and then burning the patient.
The third cause is called large caliber body loops. We see burns reported where, for example, there is a small blister on the thumb of the patient and one on his or her thigh. Each burn is a small area of skin-to-skin contact that completes the large caliber body loop. With a thumb-on-thigh burn, the loop essentially goes from the thigh up to the torso, across the shoulder, and down the arm. That small area point of contact where the thumb touches the thigh is the point of greatest electrical resistance in that loop. The electrical current repeats and the patient ends up with a burn. Anytime we see so-called kissing burns, two body parts were touching during the MRI and created another opportunity for a burn to occur. So if the only burn precaution that a site takes is putting padding between the patient and the bore wall to prevent the first type of burn I mentioned, the provider is ignoring about 60% of causes of patient burns. If the site and the technologist staff don't understand all three different ways in which burns are caused, they can't possibly take the appropriate preventative steps.
RT: What are those three steps?
1. Provide the bore padding. When you have a patient in the bore make sure there is a minimum of 1 cm of air space or padding that keeps that patient from touching the transmitting RF coil element.
2. Make sure your screening process considers nonferromagnetic conductive materials that might find their way into the MR suite. If a patient is wearing workout clothes that appear safe from a ferromagnetic standpoint, make sure their clothing, especially workout clothing, is not impregnated with antimicrobial metals that can create burns.
Similarly, for patients who come down from other floors for exams, make sure that things like pulse oxygen leads, EKG leads, telemetry equipment, and anything that comes down with the patient is removed before putting them in the bore.
If something must stay on the patient, make sure it is appropriately positioned and insulated from the patient. For example, if you need to maintain an EKG lead, simply make sure that there is a folded towel or something that keeps the lead separated from the patient's body. Remove conductive materials that are unnecessary, but when something must go in the tube, position it correctly and insulate it from the patient.
3. To prevent large caliber body loops, avoid skin-to-skin contact or at least small areas of contact. If a patient has their arms folded over their chest, that skin contact covers a larger area and we tend to not see burns in that type of situation. It's with the small point of contact, such as the thumb to the thigh or a thumb on the opposite ears when a patient's arm is extended over his head, that these burns tend to occur.
So position the patient; pad the patient; screen the patient; and remove any electrically conductive material. If you do those three things you will eliminate 97% of all reported burns.
RT: When these burns occur, do patients feel the pain and tell the technologists?
Gilk: That's a great and relevant question. We're accustomed to burns causing pain, to the point where someone will say, "Ouch, I touched something hot." That reaction to something hot is instantaneous and we reflexively pull away. That does happen if we have an electrically conductive material, such as an EKG lead, because the lead heats up and then we have that hot thing in contact with the skin. So one of the three different causal roots of MRI burns happens that way and the patient will sense something's heating up and alert the technologist.
However, with the other two causal roots—coil contact and the large caliber body loop—the vast majority of patients don't know they're being burned. That's because, we believe, those burns are not happening at the skin, but in the fatty tissue immediately below the skin where there are not pain sensors. Patients can actually be burned and until that burn damage has an opportunity to propagate through the skin there is no sensation of pain and no initial observable evidence of a burn. A good example of this risk was a patient whose calves were very lightly touching during the scan. After the MRI exam when he was removed from the bore he said everything was fine. He said the only odd thing was that the inside of his calves itched.
The technologist had the presence of mind to say, "If you're not in a rush, could you stay a little longer? We want to make sure there's nothing going on with that itch." During the next 30 minutes they watched that itch turn into a first-degree burn and then to a second-degree burn with blisters erupting on the skin.
The notion that we give patients squeeze balls and tell them, "if you feel like you're getting too hot, squeeze this and we'll stop," doesn't help prevent certain kinds of burns. These kinds of burns can be prevented, but by the time that we react to something we think is happening, the damage is done.
If you read some of the FDA accident reports describing burns, often the imaging provider reports receiving a call the day after an exam. The patient came in, had the MRI, left, and then that evening felt two painful spots and wondered what they were. Those spots were not there in the morning before they had the MRI, nor when they left the facility. The patient then sees his doctor, who asks what he had done, and the patient says he had an MRI. The report then gets filtered back to the MRI provider.
The patient had no idea how the burns occurred so it becomes this detective case to find out. The MRI provider is wondering why the patient didn't say anything at the time of the scan, but the patient didn't feel any pain at that time. These burns are still preventable if providers are aware of how they're caused and take the effective preventions as part of everyday practice.
RT: Projectile incidents accounted for 12% of reported injuries. There have been some prominent cases, and you see dramatic photos of items such as wheelchairs and floor polishers drawn into MRI bores. How do you approach these concerns?
RT: What are those interdiction steps?
Gilk: The three things every site can do to prevent projectile accidents are, first, implement the ACR four-zone model that only permits access to the MRI area to people with appropriate staff training. This way, we don't let people into the MRI room unless they have specific training that prevents them from being a hazard to others. Or, in the case of a patient or visitor, that person is under the direct supervision of somebody who has such training.
The second thing you can do to prevent projectile injuries is to test and label all equipment and material that lives within the MRI suite or is frequently brought into the suite, including items involved with transport and housekeeping. Identify and label the safety conditions for these items. I think that it's wise to minimize the amount of ferromagnetic materials used in a supporting role within the MRI suite. The fact is that ferromagnetic material is so ubiquitous that it's foolish to think we can readily manage it in the controlled access area of the MRI. In a completely nonferromagnetic environment, where the stapler is made out of plastic, we then only need to readily identify the safety properties of materials not kept in the MRI suite by using the American Society of Testing and Material International conventions of MRI safe, MRI conditional, and MRI unsafe. Labeling materials and objects and understanding the information about safe use criteria is terribly important.
The third important element is using a ferromagnetic detector to prospectively identify concealed or unknown ferromagnetic material before it's taken into the MRI suite. Building codes require ferromagnetic detection in many states but are usually only applicable for new construction. Typically, the codes do not retroactively apply to existing facilities and mandate ferromagnetic detectors.
We're approaching the tipping point where it just seems to make regulatory sense to require ferromagnetic detectors for all systems. I believe that we long ago crossed that threshold in terms of detectors' effectiveness in preventing accidents and injuries. Hopefully, the regulatory and accreditation criteria will catch up with what is necessary to prevent injury to the patients and the technologists, who comprise a significant portion of the projectile injury reports.
RT: To what extent are technologists victims of projectile incidents?
Gilk: Think about this common situation. A patient in a wheelchair arrives and receives an MRI exam. Typically, for patients who are in wheelchairs but still have some mobility, someone brings the patient close to the door of the MRI room and locks the chair's wheels. The technologist will then help walk the patient the 10 feet to the MRI table.
Next, imagine the technologist has completed the exam and the technologist is helping the patient off the table when the transport person or maybe the patient's family member is there to take the patient home. They see mom, dad, or whoever unsteady on their feet with the technologist assisting them and want to be helpful so they come into the room with the wheelchair.
Now, both the patient and the technologist are between the chair and the scanner. There has been more than one instance of the technologist trying to use their body to shield the patient—stop the object—and becoming the victim of an MRI projectile injury.
RT: Hearing damage represented 11% of injury reports, according to one of your presentations. This issue seems like it should be easy to address.
Gilk: The good news is that the majority of MRI providers offer hearing protection to their patients the majority of the time. The bad news is that we're still seeing acoustic injuries in patients even with the option of hearing protection. There are a few reasons for that.
But first, it's important to note that some of the new technology such as Silent Scan or Whisper Mode, depending on the vendor, can dramatically reduce the sound pressure level for those particular sequences. They are tremendous assets but are limited to a finite number of scan protocols on a small number of contemporary machines. The vast majority of scanners out there have no such protection built into the scanner.
The sound pressure levels in various MRI machines are known to be at levels that can cause hearing damage. It can be just temporary, but there are claims of hearing loss or tinnitus as a result of exposure to the extremely loud sound pressure levels in MRI exams.
So providers need to do more than simply make hearing protection available to patients. You need to encourage them to use it, even going so far as requiring them to use it unless they sign an informed consent document saying they understand that there are risks of hearing damage if they refuse to use hearing protection. Being more assertive in the importance of hearing protection is one element.
Second, those compressible foam plugs that are pretty ubiquitous at MRI provider sites aren't very easy or very intuitive to use correctly. Technologists need to educate patients on how to use earplugs correctly. They must know whether patients have inserted them correctly in their outer ear so that they get the desired effect. It's not enough just to see the plugs sticking out of patients' ears.
I recently learned a simple way to verify the effectiveness of foam earplug hearing protection. Ask the patient to cup their hands and cover their ears. If they can tell a difference in the sound between when they cup their hands over their ears and when they remove their hands from their ears, that means they don't have the hearing protection in correctly. Train techs to teach patients to use the plugs and have the patient verify that the hearing protection is doing what it's supposed to do before beginning the sequence.
Also make sure alternative means of protection are available. The earmuff-type protection is uncomfortable for some people and there is an issue of infection control because they have to be wiped down, which creates another step in the process, but there are patients who have a hard time getting those foam earplugs to work.
RT: Burns, projectile incidents, and hearing damage cover the vast majority of reported injuries, but as you've said, those pieces alone don't constitute a complete MRI safety plan.


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Bright sunshine is here for the weekend, but it stays chilly
'Hogs for the Cause' leaders worry about their future as the fest is canceled due to COVID
4th grader returns to school after being suspended for having a BB gun in virtual classroom
Family attorneys say the BB gun was in the same room with the 9-year-old and was unloaded. They say he put it on the bed near him after his brother tripped on it.
Author: WWL Staff
Published: 2:02 PM CDT September 24, 2020
Updated: 7:04 PM CDT September 24, 2020
HARVEY, La. — Nine-year-old Ka Mauri Harrison was back in his virtual classroom Thursday, but only after being suspended for something his father describes as an overreaction.
On Sept. 11, the Woodmere Elementary fourth-grader was taking a test in his bedroom -- his classroom these days -- when his brother walked in carrying a B-B gun.
Ka Mauri picked it up when it fell down and put it next to his seat. His father says that's when the problem began.
"You could kind of see a portion of it on the screen for a split second," Nyron Harrison, his father said.
A behavior report filed by Ka Mauri's teacher at the school in Harvey said he "presented a weapon that appeared to be a rifle/shotgun during his Google Meets classroom session. This is (a) violation of weapons in the classroom setting and a violation of internet usage policy. He will be recommended for expulsion per JPPSS policy.
"School officials agree that Ku Mauri did not point the gun at the computer, but an attorney for the family said the school system maintains that on-campus policies are in effect for distance learning, despite the family's protests.
"They just went ahead and went along with it and blew it out of proportion," Nyron Harrison said.
A six-day suspension followed.
The Jefferson Parish Public School System said it does not comment on individual students and their records. It says teachers and administrators are allowed to use "reasonable discipline to keep order."
Nyron Harrison said he now worries about his son's future after a brief moment from his past.
"This outcome is going to follow him through the rest of his life, and that's what's not allowing me to accept their decision," he said.
Chelsea Berner Cusimano, an attorney representing the Harrison family said the situation was "grossly mishandled."
She said the Jefferson Parish school officials need to reconsider their decision to have a suspension on Ku Mauri's record considering this happened at his home, adding that a lawsuit is not out of the question if that does not happen.
"We do not condone weapons on campus, the Harrison family does not condone weapons on campus, but there is a -- this is apples and oranges"
More students returning to the classroom in Jefferson Parish under Phase 3
New Orleans public schools will start virtual classes Wednesday
App Store |Sep 14, 2020


text:
Q: How do I construct an ECFieldElement object with the F2m constructors?     X9ECParameters params = SECNamedCurves.getByName("secp256k1");
    ECDomainParameters CURVE = new ECDomainParameters(params.getCurve(), params.getG(), params.getN(), params.getH());
    ECCurve.Fp curve = (ECCurve.Fp) CURVE.getCurve();
    ECFieldElement x1 = new ECFieldElement.Fp(curve.getQ(), x);

How do I get the same ECFieldElement object as above, but with the constraint that I can only use any of the following constructors.
    public F2m(int m, int k1, int k2, int k3, java.math.BigInteger x);

    public F2m(int m, int k, java.math.BigInteger x);

    private F2m(int m, int k1, int k2, int k3, org.spongycastle.math.ec.IntArray x);

I'm no crypto expert. I  don't know what all these other parameters are.

A: Fp is a finite field whose elements are numbers from 0 to p-1.
F2m is a finite field whose elements are binary strings of length m bits, which means numbers from 0 to 2m-1.
secp256k1 is a curve over Fp field. It can be represented as org.bouncycastle.math.ec.ECPoint.Fp (or equivalent spongycastle class) whose purpose is to contain the definition of Fp curve.
It can not be represented as org.bouncycastle.math.ec.ECPoint.F2m (or equivalent spongycastle class) whose purpose is to contain the definition of F2m curve.
If you do not know what is Fp, or F2m, or secp256k1 or what do ECPoint.F2m constructor parameters mean you should stop immediately. Hacking your way around cryptography without understanding what are you doing until it seems to work will lead to disaster sooner or later.


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Apple AR/VR Headset Will Need to be Connected to iPhone or Similar Device [Report]
Apple's rumored AR/VR headset will need to be wirelessly tethered to an iPhone or similar device, according to a new report from The Information. Custom chips designed by Apple will rely on the external device for advanced features, similar to how early versions of the Apple Watch functioned.
Apple completed work last year on the chips, including the key system on a chip (SoC), which has many different components of a device etched on a single piece of silicon, said two people familiar with the situation. The SoC and two other Apple-designed chips for the headset hit a milestone known in the semiconductor industry as tape-out, which means the physical designs of the chips are complete and ready for trial production. It's a key stage in development of the headset, which The Information previously reported was expected to debut by next year at the earliest, though Apple could push the release back even further.
Notably, Apple appears to have designed an unusually large image sensor for the headset.
The complementary metal-oxide semiconductor image sensor is the chip that converts photons to electrons for digital processing into an image. Apple's version is unusually large, similar to the size of one of the headset's lenses, as it's meant to capture high-resolution image data from a user's surroundings for AR. TSMC has struggled to produce the chip without defects and has faced low yields during trial production, the person said.
The AR/VR headset won't be unveiled until next year at the earliest. More details in the full report linked below...


The sixth of February is always a difficult day for me.
On that day, during my freshman year of college, I was riding with a car full of friends to a local restaurant when a drunk driver hit us head-on.
There were five of us in the car, and two more in the car behind us.
I remember hearing the sounds and screams and the impact of the airbag.
I also remember everyone beckoning me to get out of the automobile.
They had all walked away, but I could not. My right femur was snapped in two.
I kept drifting in and out of consciousness.
I remember the Jaws of Life cutting me out of the car, the pain of being put on the stretcher, the agony of having the bone set and putting on a temporary splint.
I recall having a discussion with the firemen about Christ.
Early the next morning, I had a titanium rod inserted through my femur. It runs from my hip to my knee. The pain of the accident developed into the pains of recovery and rehabilitation.
Those were dark days for me spiritually.
In the confusion of trying to understand what had happened, I grabbed onto Calvinism. I heard so much about it at college that it seemed right. I had been preaching in churches since I was twelve. I was a firm legalist (I would not have called myself that then). I did not deserve this tragedy and I was angry. Calvinism was the lifesaver that I grasped onto.
As I continued on in Lordship Salvation for many years, the anniversary of the accident became a type of progress report or performance review. I would sit down and make a list of all my failures and see if I had wasted my second chance at life. I used it as a day to beat myself up. When I looked at how little I had accomplished in the past year I questioned my own salvation.
In those days I did not realize that I could not live the Christian life.
I have since learned that only Christ could live the Christian life through me (John 15:4-5; Gal 2:20).
The psychological stress caused by the accident was enough to endure without me putting such an enormous burden on myself.
However, since coming to Free Grace Theology, I can now use this anniversary as a time of praise and devotion. I am thankful for the grace shown to me. I am not called to prove I'm born again; I am called to abide in Him and in the certain knowledge that I have everlasting life and can never lose it.
I know that every day is a gift from God and I must strive to live in light of eternity.
My days of limping and weakness are the avenue for the strength of Christ to shine through (2 Cor 12:9-10).
Those early days and years following the accident were many days and nights of wrestling with God. By His grace, I want my days to end like Jacob. "By faith Jacob, as he was dying…worshipped, leaning on the top of his staff." Limping and leaning has made me to see the grace of God in a way that I would be blind to without it.
My days are not pain free, but they are freeing because of grace.
Allen Michael Rea is Pastor of Higgston Baptist Church in Ailey, GA.


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Jackson CountyRandal Rust2018-03-01T20:18:01+00:00
Written by Moldon Tayse
Located in the picturesque foothills of the Cumberland Mountains, Jackson County is known as the "Switzerland of the Cumberlands." Although the western part of Jackson County lies within the Nashville Basin, most of the eastern part of the county is situated within the Highland Rim physiographic province at the foot of the Higher Cumberland Plateau to the east and is part of the Interior Low Plateau. There is much rolling land between sharply incised stream valleys.
Jackson County, named in honor of Andrew Jackson, was created by the Tennessee legislature in November 1801. It is the second oldest of the twenty-three counties named for Jackson in the United States; only Jackson County in Georgia is older. Temporary county seats were used until about the year 1806, when Williamsburg, named for Sampson Williams, an early pioneer in the area, was named as the county seat.
In 1817 Gainesboro was designated as the permanent county seat and was incorporated in 1820. The land was donated by David Cox. Gainesborough, as it was then spelled, is one of the oldest towns in the state and was named for General Edmund Pendleton Gaines, who fought with Jackson at the battle of New Orleans. The Gainesboro Historic District, which includes the town square and the 1927 Jackson County Courthouse, is listed 0n the National Register of Historic Places.
The same mountains that give Jackson County its beauty also made travel difficult in the days before paved roads and steel bridges. Both the Cumberland and Roaring Rivers cross the county. Timber and farming have been primary occupations in the county since its establishment, and riverboats of bygone days passed through the county daily, carrying passengers, merchandise, agricultural produce, and lumber products. With the flooding of the Cumberland River in 1963 by the Cordell Hull Dam, built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the opening of a deepwater port in 1981 near Gainesboro, the river once again became very important to Jackson County.
Sportsmen can enjoy the abundant wildlife–from deer and quail to bass and catfish–in Jackson County year-round. The American bald eagle and the whooping crane can still be seen, and Canadian geese winter in Jackson County. The Granville Marina on the Cordell Hull Lake offers every pleasure in outdoor recreation–from boating to camping. Two U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recreation areas are at Roaring River and Salt Lick Creek.
Jackson County also offers one of the most important historic sites in the upper Cumberlands in Fort Blount and the nearby old town site of Williamsburg. Governor William Blount ordered this frontier fort to be built in 1794 to protect the increasing number of settlers moving over the trail on their way west. William Gilespie operated a tavern and ferry there. The site is located near the Cumberland River about sixteen miles downstream from Gainesboro. The Fort Blount-Williamsburg site is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Future projects of the Jackson County Historical Society include the restoration of Fort Blount and the creation of an interest in, and appreciation of, the Old Avery Trace, the first road to enter Jackson County. A bicentennial project traces its roots to a visit to Fort Blount by noted French botanist and explorer Andre Michaux on March 1, 1796.
Since the state legislature passed a law in 1992 designating the yellowwood as Tennessee's official bicentennial tree, Jackson County residents have placed yellowwood trees across the state, including one on the grounds of the State Capitol in Nashville.
Much of the material for a comprehensive history of Gainesboro and Jackson County was destroyed when the courthouse burned on the night of August 14, 1872. All county records were lost in the blaze except those of the chancery court. The chancery court records survived because Robert A. Cox, clerk and master, maintained his office in a private building away from the courthouse. The loss of the records of the circuit court clerk, the county court clerk, the register of deeds, and the tax assessor generated great confusion for many years.
Agriculture is the oldest enterprise in Jackson County. In 1940, for instance, of the 194,000 acres listed in the county, over 172,000 acres were devoted to farming. Tobacco, livestock, and corn continue to be important farm products. The land area of Jackson County comprises 327 square miles and the population of Gainesboro, in the 2000 census, was 879. The population of Jackson County was 10,984.
The following information is provided for citations.
Article Title Jackson County
Author Moldon Tayse
Website Name Tennessee Encyclopedia
URL http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/jackson-county/
Access Date January 20, 2021
Publisher Tennessee Historical Society
Original Published Date October 8, 2017
Date of Last Update March 1, 2018
Cumberland River System
Fort Blount
Historic Trails


The rib plate is prepared from a side and consist of rib bones, intercostal muscles and overlaying fat and muscles. It consists of ribs and layers of muscle and fat. The cut is best roasted, pan fried or barbecued.


You can help buy equipment for Houma's charity hospital by attending an annual fundraiser, A Night for Goodness' Sake, on Friday.
It includes silent and live auctions, food, drink and music and benefits Leonard J. Chabert Medical Center.
The gala runs from 6:30 to 10 p.m. Friday at the home of state Rep. Gordon Dove, 5 Glen Oaks Drive, near Polk Street and La. 311 in Houma.
Attendees can park at the Concord Shopping Center on St. Charles Street, site of True Value hardware and other stores, and ride a shuttle bus to Dove's home.
There will be food from local restaurants, a bar and live entertainment provided by Billy Stark and Friends. Dressy casual attire is suggested. The event is open to everyone. Tickets, $100 per person, will be available at the door.