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Year of discovery, growth at UCI
High points of 2009 range from the volleyball court to the operating room with demonstrations of drive and dedication by UC Irvine students, faculty and staff.
Over the past year, faculty, staff and students have stepped up in the face of budget challenges with innovation, drive and talent that yielded research breakthroughs, athletic success and community outreach in healthcare and education.
Here are some top UCI stories from 2009, listed chronologically by category.
Research breakthroughs
Stem cell clinical trial approved: A therapy developed at UCI that made paralyzed rats walk again became the world's first embryonic stem cell treatment tested in humans. The U.S. Food & Drug Administration in January approved the therapy – based on the work of a research team led by Hans Keirstead of UCI's Sue & Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center – for a clinical trial in patients with thoracic spinal cord injuries. In November, application of the treatment expanded dramatically when it was shown to be effective in cervical spinal cord injuries. See video.
Hormone linked to postpartum depression: A study authored by Ilona Yim, UCI psychology & social behavior assistant professor, found that women with higher levels of a corticotrophin-releasing hormone produced by the placenta midway through pregnancy were more likely to develop postpartum depression. The discovery by Yim and colleagues could help identify and treat at-risk women before the onset of symptoms.
Farthest-ever supernovae detected: UCI cosmologists announced they had found two supernovae farther away than any previously detected by using a new technique that could help find other dying stars at the edge of the universe. The method could allow astronomers to study some of the very first supernovae and advance understanding of how galaxies form and change and how Earth came to be.
Stem cells shown to treat Alzheimer's: UCI's Frank LaFerla, Mathew Blurton-Jones and colleagues showed for the first time that neural stem cells can rescue memory in mice with advanced Alzheimer's disease, raising hopes of a potential treatment for the leading cause of elderly dementia that afflicts 5.3 million people in the U.S. See video.
Original source of malaria discovered: UCI biologist Francisco Ayala and colleagues identified what they believe is the original source of malignant malaria: a parasite found in chimpanzees in equatorial Africa. Genetic analyses indicate the deadly parasite was transmitted to humans from chimpanzees perhaps as recently as 5,000 years ago ¬– and possibly through a single mosquito.
Chemistry center awarded $20 million: A center that aims to make real-time videos of individual molecules in action was awarded $20 million over five years from the National Science Foundation. UCI's Chemistry at the Space-Time Limit is one of three NSF Centers for Chemical Innovation. Its scientists hope to become the first to record time-lapse images of single molecules – a feat that has proved elusive because size and time scales are so small. Success would accelerate the pace of nanoscience.
Bad driving gene identified: Lousy drivers may in part have their genes to blame, suggested a study by UCI neuroscientists. People with a particular gene variant performed more than 20 percent worse on a driving test than people without it – and a follow-up test a few days later yielded similar results. About 30 percent of Americans have the variant.
Large Hadron Collider back in action: Particle beams once again zoomed around the world's most powerful particle accelerator – the Large Hadron Collider, located at the CERN laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland – after a year of downtime for repairs. Eight UCI faculty members and many postdoctoral researchers are involved in the project, including Andrew Lankford, deputy director of the LHC's ATLAS experiment.
Research funding: UCI attracted $317,714,124 in research contracts and grants in fiscal year 2008-09. Of that number, $8,734,957 came from the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act, or stimulus funds.
Health sciences students open free clinic: In February, UCI health sciences students – tomorrow's doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals – launched the UC Irvine Outreach Clinic. The Tustin facility provides vital primary and preventive care services and referrals for people without adequate access to healthcare otherwise. See slide show.
Lawyers in training: UCI's Center for Educational Partnerships started the Saturday Academy of Law, which introduces high school freshmen in the Santa Ana Unified School District to the field of law and strengthens their critical reading and writing skills. The program, supported by the UCI School of Law, features guest speakers from the legal profession. See video.
First PRIME-LC graduates: Five years ago, eight medical students came to UCI as pioneers in an innovative education program designed to address the unique healthcare needs of California's largest underserved population. Now the first graduates are on the job. The Program in Medical Education for the Latino Community has sparked other community-based medical education programs across the nation. See video.
Stroke expertise recognized: Orange County's Health Care Agency designated UC Irvine Medical Center a Stroke-Neurology Receiving Center as part of Southern California's first program to direct patients to hospitals best equipped to provide state-of-the-art stroke care. Paramedics now take stroke patients to UCI, one of six receiving centers that offer high-level neurovascular care 24/7.
UC campuses join forces against breast cancer: In October, UCI's Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center linked up with UC counterparts to launch the Athena Breast Health Network, the largest study of its kind to improve breast cancer detection, treatment and survivors' quality of life.
Baseball comes of age: For the first time in its history, UCI baseball in April was voted No. 1 in the country in the Baseball America and Collegiate Baseball Division I polls. On May 19, Chancellor Emeritus Ralph Cicerone threw the ceremonial first pitch during the dedication of UCI's baseball field named in his honor. See slide show.
Men's volleyball team wins championship: UCI's men's volleyball team defeated USC May 9 in a five-game match in Provo, Utah, to win the 2009 NCAA championship. Head Coach John Speraw and team members Nick Spittle and Taylor Wilson thanked a crowd of about 500 supporters at a victory celebration on campus May 20. It was the team's second NCAA championship in three years and UCI's 26th national championship overall. See video.
Volleyball Hall of Famer hired: Paula Weishoff was named coach of the UCI women's volleyball team. The Volleyball Hall of Fame inductee's resume includes silver and bronze team medals at the Los Angeles and Barcelona Olympic Games, respectively, and numerous MVP awards and championships while playing professionally in Italian, Brazilian and Japanese leagues.
Focus on sustainability: UCI's new Student Center was awarded Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design gold certification in April by the U.S. Green Building Council, a nationally recognized benchmark for the design, construction and operation of sustainable buildings. Later in the year, Donald Bren Hall and the Anteater Recreation Center received the same designation, bringing UCI's LEED gold total to five.
UC Irvine Medical Center ranked among nation's best: U.S. News & World Report ranked UC Irvine Medical Center among the nation's best hospitals, marking the medical center's ninth consecutive year on the list. Among the top 50 hospitals, UC Irvine was listed 18th for urology and 29th for gynecology.
Top trauma center: UC Irvine Medical Center's trauma center was recertified by the American College of Surgeons. Orange County's only Level I center opened in 1982, when Orange County started the nation's first regional trauma system to include all of a county's hospitals and emergency medical services. The center treats nearly half of the county's trauma cases each year.
Researcher elected to IOM: Douglas C. Wallace, a pioneering UCI genetics researcher whose achievements in mitochondrial medicine are leading to new treatments for diseases like cancer and diabetes, was elected to the prestigious Institute of Medicine. Considered one of the highest honors in health and medicine, election to the institute – established in 1970 by the National Academy of Sciences – recognizes outstanding professional accomplishment and commitment to service.
Campus growth
Hospital opens and is renamed: On March 7 and 8, doctors, nurses and support staff wheeled about 180 patients into UC Irvine Medical Center's new University Hospital from the old 1960s-era building. Featuring larger, state-of-the-art operating rooms, family-friendly private rooms, and improved neonatal intensive care facilities, the hospital began admitting new patients the next day. In May it received a $21 million posthumous gift from the estate of Orange County businessman M.A. Douglas and was renamed UC Irvine Douglas Hospital. See video.
Social & Behavioral Sciences Gateway finished: The five-story building was completed in the summer, and departments and programs from the schools of social sciences and social ecology settled in for the start of the fall quarter. The structure's basement boasts instruments and a special echo-absorbing room designed to advance hearing research in the cognitive sciences department.
UCI School of Law established: The first new public law school in California in 40 years opened its doors to 61 students Aug. 24, with a brief ribbon-cutting ceremony. Acrivi Coromelas, the first law student to commit to UCI, did the honors. See video.
Humanities Gateway dedicated: The Humanities Gateway dedication ceremony Oct. 2 featured readings by English professors James McMichael, Jack Miles and Ngugi wa Thiong'o; music by Hossein Omoumi, Maseeh Professor of Persian Performing Arts; and an exhibit by acclaimed video artist Bill Viola. The new building includes a 110-seat auditorium, film screening room and courtyard for events.
Stimulus funding: Researchers in fields ranging from cancer to economics will be putting to work an additional $35 million of ARRA funding granted in large part by the U.S. Public Health Service, National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation in fiscal year 2009-10.
New arts dean: Joseph S. Lewis III, a nationally known artist, arts educator and administrator, will join UCI as dean of the Claire Trevor School of the Arts, effective March 24. "Joseph Lewis is both a recognized artist and a gifted administrator who has experience with strategic planning, fundraising and stewardship, curriculum and program development, budget management, and community-partnership building," said Chancellor Michael Drake. "I am excited to welcome this dynamic and energetic leader to our university."
UC student regent from UCI: Jesse Cheng, a third-year Asian American studies major at UCI, will begin his tenure as a nonvoting UC regent July 1. As the designate, he has attended meetings of the UC Board of Regents and galvanized student reaction to recent fee hikes. Cheng is the second UCI student to hold the position.
Sue & Bill Gross Hall: A CIRM Institute: The four-story, 100,636-square-foot building – scheduled for completion in July – will house UCI's Sue & Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center, dozens of lab-based and clinical researchers, a stem cell techniques course, a master's program in biotechnology with an emphasis on stem cell research, and programs and activities for patients and public education. The $66.6 million facility was made possible by a $27.2 million grant from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, which funds stem cell research statewide, as well as generous donations, equipment grants and external financing. It will be named for the couple who donated $10 million in July 2006 to support stem cell research at UCI.
Medical center growth: UC Irvine Medical Center will open its Clinical Laboratory Replacement Building. Construction continues on the second phase of UC Irvine Douglas Hospital, which includes additional patient rooms, more operating suites and a basement radiology lab. The Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center and University Tower's emergency department and labor and delivery unit will be remodeled.
The Chemistry at the Space-Time Limit center at UCI, directed by professor V. Ara Apkarian, was awarded $20 million over five years from the National Science Foundation to record time-lapse images of single molecules. Daniel A. Anderson / University Communications
UCI neuroscientist Dr. Steven Cramer published a study suggesting that bad driving may, in part, be due to a gene variant present in about 30 percent of Americans.
The new Humanities Gateway building, which features a 110-seat auditorium, film screening room and courtyard for events, was dedicated in October.
For the first time in its history, UCI baseball in April was voted No. 1 in the country in the Baseball America and Collegiate Baseball Division I polls.
A therapy developed at UCI that made paralyzed rats walk again became the world's first embryonic stem cell treatment tested in humans. The FDA in January approved the therapy – based on work led by neuroscientist Hans Keirstead – for a clinical trial in patients with thoracic spinal cord injuries.
In July, Jesse Cheng, a third-year Asian American studies major at UCI, will begin his one-year term as UC student regent. He is the second UCI student to hold the systemwide position.
In February, Dr. Emily Dow, center, and UCI health sciences students launched the free UC Irvine Outreach Clinic in Tustin to provide vital primary and preventive care services and referrals for people without adequate access to healthcare otherwise.
New coach Paula Weishoff, a Volleyball Hall of Famer, led the UCI women's team to its first top-25 national ranking since 1988.
Biologist Francisco Ayala and other UCI researchers identified the original source of malaria as a parasite found in chimpanzees in equatorial Africa.
UCI's Frank LaFerla (left), Mathew Blurton-Jones and colleagues showed for the first time that neural stem cells can rescue memory in mice with advanced Alzheimer's, raising hopes of a potential treatment for the devastating disease.
UCI cosmologists found two supernovae farther away than any previously detected by using a new technique that could help find other dying stars at the edge of the universe. Shown is Eta Carinae, a star in the Milky Way galaxy that will become a supernova similar to those discovered by Jeff Cooke and colleagues.
One of the first four graduates of UCI's innovative Program in Medical Education for the Latino Community, Sarah Lopez exults on Match Day after learning she'll join USC's emergency medicine residency program.
A study authored by Ilona Yim, UCI psychology & social behavior assistant professor, found that women with higher levels of a certain hormone produced by the placenta midway through pregnancy were more likely to develop postpartum depression.
Political scientist is named a top 50 influencer
Megan Braun is UCI's first Rhodes scholarship winner
Biden administration panned for sidestepping advisory panel to allow fourth COVID-19 shot
New COVID variant spreads quickly in NJ. Here's what you need to know about BA.2


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The lodge opens for the fall season and Bob and Ernie luck upon a whale carcass on the beach that has attracted a swarm of bears. Back at camp, Robert is training Troy and Kyle on what it takes to be a bear guide in Kodiak.
Go inside the last great race. 96 sled-dog teams will traverse over a thousand miles of inhospitable Alaskan terrain. For man and man's best friend, the goal for some is to win. For others, the goal is to just survive.
With a deadline of four weeks and an army of interns, renegade architect Michael Reynolds battles Mother Nature to turn an open piece of land in Big Sky, Montana, into a self-sufficient and eco-friendly Earthship.


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Ringo Starr 2020 Tickets for Sale on Tixbag
About Ringo Starr
Birthed Richard Starkey on July 7, 1940, Sir Ringo Starr knew "at a very young age" what he intended to do. Given that beginning his occupation with The Beatles in the 1960s, Ringo has actually been just one of the world's brightest musical luminaries. He has enjoyed an effective, vibrant solo career as a singer, songwriter, manufacturer, drummer, and also a partner. He is a long-time supporter of environmental and humanitarian reasons.
Ringo Starr 2020 Tickets - North American Tour
Ringo Starr has announced details for a North American tour with his current All Starr Band including Steve Lukather, Colin Hay, Gregg Rolie, Warren Ham, Gregg Bissonette, as well as Hamish Stuart. The spring tour will certainly begin May 29 as well as will certainly include a small residency at New York's Beacon Theatre.
Former All Starr Edgar Winter months will certainly be the support act for 2 shows. Three tour dates will certainly consist of the Americana band, the Avett Brothers. There are numerous pre-sale dates.
The Nov. 4 announcement comes on the heels of the launch of Ringo's 20th studio album, What's My Name. The title track is a stimulating anthem written by a returning All Starr Band member, Colin Hay, that turns an acquainted incantation from Ringo's live shows right into a stimulating rocker.
The album is the most up to date in a collection of recordings that Starr has created in his residence studio as well as a notable cast of musical friends playing along with Ringo, including Paul McCartney, Joe Walsh, Winter Season, Dave Stewart, Benmont Tench, Lukather, Nathan East, Hay, Richard Web Page, Warren Pork, as well as extra.
THREE SHOWS WILL BE WITH THE AVETT BROTHERS
Ringo Starr lineup 2020 of the All Starr Band includes Steve Lukather, Colin Hay, Gregg Rolie, Gregg Bissonette, Warren Ham, and Hamish Stuart.
See the full list of Ringo Starr 2020 Tickets and tour dates below. Browse tickets for upcoming shows here.
Ringo Starr 2020 Tickets - Spring Tour Dates
June 2 – New York, NY – Beacon Theater
June 9 – Bangor, ME – Cross Insurance Center
June 10 – Boston, MA – Boch Center-Wang Theatre
June 14 – Asbury Park, NJ – Paramount Theatre
June 16 – Baltimore, MD – Modell Lyric Theatre
June 20 – Pittsburgh, PA – PPG Paints Arena
June 26 – St. Augustine, FL – St. Augustine Amphitheatre
Ringo Starr Tickets for the upcoming concert tour are on sale at Tixbag. Buy and sell your Ringo Starr concert tickets today.
TOOL Tour Dates 2020: Latest Concerts & Tickets Information
RingoStarr2020Tickets RingoStarr2020Tour RingoStarrConcertinNewYork RingoStarrlineup2020 RingoStarrNorthAmericanTour RingoStarrSpringTour RingoStarrTourDates UpcomingRingoStarrConcert2020

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Lisa Feldman Barrett – One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
context aware Experience sampling reveals the scale of variation in Affective Experience
Scientific Reports, 2020
Co-Authors: Katie Hoemann, Lisa Feldman Barrett, Zulqarnain Khan, Mallory J Feldman, Catie Nielson, Madeleine Devlin, Jolie B Wormwood, Karen S Quigley
Emotion research typically searches for consistency and specificity in physiological activity across instances of an emotion category, such as anger or fear, yet studies to date have observed more variation than expected. In the present study, we adopt an alternative approach, searching inductively for structure within variation, both within and across participants. Following a novel, physiologically-triggered Experience sampling procedure, participants' self-reports and peripheral physiological activity were recorded when substantial changes in cardiac activity occurred in the absence of movement. Unsupervised clustering analyses revealed variability in the number and nature of patterns of physiological activity that recurred within individuals, as well as in the affect ratings and emotion labels associated with each pattern. There were also broad patterns that recurred across individuals. These findings support a constructionist account of emotion which, drawing on Darwin, proposes that emotion categories are populations of variable instances tied to situation-specific needs.
Free Register to Access Article
Involvement of Sensory Regions in Affective Experience: A Meta-Analysis.
Frontiers in psychology, 2015
Co-Authors: Ajay B. Satpute, Jian Kang, Kevin C. Bickart, Helena Yardley, Tor D. Wager, Lisa Feldman Barrett
A growing body of work suggests that sensory processes may also contribute to Affective Experience. In this study, we performed a meta-analysis of Affective Experiences driven through visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, and somatosensory stimulus modalities including study contrasts that compared Affective stimuli to matched neutral control stimuli. We found, first, that limbic and paralimbic regions, including the amygdala, anterior insula, pre-supplementary motor area and portions of orbitofrontal cortex were consistently engaged across two or more modalities. Second, early sensory input regions in occipital, temporal, piriform, mid-insular, and primary sensory cortex were frequently engaged during Affective Experiences driven by visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory and somatosensory inputs. A classification analysis demonstrated that the pattern of neural activity across a contrast map diagnosed the stimulus modality driving the Affective Experience. These findings suggest that Affective Experiences are constructed from activity that is distributed across limbic and paralimbic brain regions and also activity in sensory cortical regions.
Sex differences in the neural correlates of Affective Experience
Social cognitive and affective neuroscience, 2013
Co-Authors: Yoshiya Moriguchi, Alexandra Touroutoglou, Bradford C. Dickerson, Lisa Feldman Barrett
People believe that women are more emotionally intense than men, but the scientific evidence is equivocal. In this study, we tested the novel hypothesis that men and women differ in the neural correlates of Affective Experience, rather than in the intensity of neural activity, with women being more internally (interoceptively) focused and men being more externally (visually) focused. Adult men (n ¼ 17) and women (n ¼ 17) completed a functional magnetic resonance imaging study while viewing Affectively potent images and rating their moment-to-moment feelings of subjective arousal. We found that men and women do not differ overall in their intensity of moment-to-moment Affective Experiences when viewing evocative images, but instead, as predicted, women showed a greater association between the momentary arousal ratings and neural responses in the anterior insula cortex, which represents bodily sensations, whereas men showed stronger correlations between their momentary arousal ratings and neural responses in the visual cortex. Men also showed enhanced functional connectivity between the dorsal anterior insula cortex and the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, which constitutes the circuitry involved with regulating shifts of attention to the world. These results demonstrate that the same Affective Experience is
Jennifer A Silvers – One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
spatial and temporal cortical variability track with age and Affective Experience during emotion regulation in youth
Developmental Psychology, 2019
Co-Authors: Joao Guassi F Moreira, Katie A Mclaughlin, Jennifer A Silvers
Author(s): Guassi Moreira, Joao F; McLaughlin, Katie A; Silvers, Jennifer A | Abstract: Variability is a fundamental feature of human brain activity that is particularly pronounced during development. However, developmental neuroimaging research has only recently begun to move beyond characterizing brain function exclusively in terms of magnitude of neural activation to incorporate estimates of variability. No prior neuroimaging study has done so in the domain of emotion regulation. We investigated how age and Affective Experiences relate to spatial and temporal variability in neural activity during emotion regulation. In the current study, 70 typically developing youth aged 8 to 17 years completed a cognitive reappraisal task of emotion regulation while undergoing functional MRI. Estimates of spatial and temporal variability during regulation were calculated across a network of brain regions, defined a priori, and were then related to age and Affective Experiences. Results showed that increasing age was associated with reduced spatial and temporal variability in a set of frontoparietal regions (e.g., dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, superior parietal lobule) known to be involved in effortful emotion regulation. In addition, youth who reported less negative affect during regulation had less spatial variability in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, which has previously been linked to cognitive reappraisal. We interpret age-related reductions in spatial and temporal variability as implying neural specialization. These results suggest that the development of emotion regulation is undergirded by a process of neural specialization and open a host of possibilities for incorporating neural variability into the study of emotion regulation development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
Variability is a fundamental feature of human brain activity that is particularly pronounced during development. However, developmental neuroimaging research has only recently begun to move beyond characterizing brain function exclusively in terms of magnitude of neural activation to incorporate estimates of variability. No prior neuroimaging study has done so in the domain of emotion regulation. We investigated how age and Affective Experiences relate to spatial and temporal variability in neural activity during emotion regulation. In the current study, 70 typically developing youth aged 8 to 17 years completed a cognitive reappraisal task of emotion regulation while undergoing functional MRI. Estimates of spatial and temporal variability during regulation were calculated across a network of brain regions, defined a priori, and were then related to age and Affective Experiences. Results showed that increasing age was associated with reduced spatial and temporal variability in a set of frontoparietal regions (e.g., dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, superior parietal lobule) known to be involved in effortful emotion regulation. In addition, youth who reported less negative affect during regulation had less spatial variability in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, which has previously been linked to cognitive reappraisal. We interpret age-related reductions in spatial and temporal variability as implying neural specialization. These results suggest that the development of emotion regulation is undergirded by a process of neural specialization and open a host of possibilities for incorporating neural variability into the study of emotion regulation development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
Variability is a fundamental feature of human brain activity that is particularly pronounced during development. However, developmental neuroimaging research has only recently begun to move beyond characterizing brain function across development exclusively in terms of magnitude of neural activation to incorporating estimates of variability. No prior neuroimaging study has done so in the domain of emotion regulation. We investigated how age and Affective Experiences influence spatial and temporal variability in neural activity during emotion regulation. In the current study, 70 typically developing youth aged 8-17 years completed a cognitive reappraisal task of emotion regulation while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging. Estimates of spatial and temporal variability during emotion regulation were calculated across a network of brain regions, defined a priori, and were then related to age and Affective Experiences. Results showed that increasing age was associated with reduced spatial and temporal variability in a set of frontoparietal regions (e.g., dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, superior parietal lobule) known to be involved in effortful emotion regulation. In addition, youth who reported less negative affect during emotion regulation had less spatial variability in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. We interpret age-related reductions in spatial and temporal variability as evidence of neural specialization. These results imply that the development of emotion regulation is undergirded by a process of neural specialization and open up a host of possibilities for incorporating neural variability into the study of emotion regulation development.
Joao Guassi F Moreira – One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Dissolvable Transient Electronics Being Developed at Iowa State University
Failure Analysis: A Road Map
Closed Loop Radiated Immunity Testing
IEC Releases Second Edition of IEC 61837-3:2015 Standard for Piezoelectric Devices
Effective Product Safety Labels: Your Guide to Symbols
DepartmentsCareer Development
The Big Inch
Mike Violette
The days are lengthening and daffodils are only a month away, but this challenge remembers another winter when thick sheets of sleet enveloped the ground and wipers froze to windows. It was a brutal winter offering only an occasional glimpse of the sun. It was the Yukon.
Even when the snow stopped falling there was no relief. A cold wind continued to bend the maples and oaks, rattling their branches, and, unable to knock the white stuff from those branches, moaned to us through leaky windows. The dog couldn't stand outside long (then again she was a city creature
with a physique fit for a couch, not a snow bank).
During the dead of that winter, we traveled to the Northern Territories in western Canada, chasing the late afternoon sun as we flew from DC to Seattle and then hopped the border northward to Vancouver. In Vancouver we met our hosts, three local engineers — Tyler, Terry and Bill — who would accompany us north. After perfunctory introductions (one doesn't dawdle on a Canadian tarmac in January), we bundled bags and bodies into an eight-seat puddle jumper. After one more short flight, we set down in a stiff crosswind onto the single runway at Prince George, an outpost town on the Trans-Canada/Yellowhead Highway.
"The rental car will be parked at the terminal," the agent on the phone told me a few days before. "The keys are on the visor and the contract on the dash. Just fill it with gas when you're done and I'll send you a bill." Those were, indeed, different days, and it was a different place.
We exited the double-wide trailer-sized terminal, tended by a bored gate agent turning the pages of the local paper for the fourth time that day. In the lot, the cars all had electric cords lolling out the front of their grills because, if you didn't plug in the crankcase heaters overnight when the mercury retreats to minus 30o, the oil around the crankshaft turned to honey-thick sludge that no starter could turn.
Tyler unplugged the sedan as we piled in. The hesitant V8 groaned, then sputtered to life, and we headed to the only hotel in town. Along the way, one of the veterans directed us to a quick pit stop; the local ABC retailer, where we loaded up on our own individual form of anti-freeze.
"The winter nights are kinda long out here," Terry laughed, "and cold."
"Ya, ya. And za men come out of woods in Spring to shower," Bill replied in a mock-Russian accent. Picking up his brown bag with a liter of Stoli from the counter, he added, "Let's go."
Our companions worked with the field engineering group at Westcoast Transmission, based out of Vancouver. Founded in 1949 by the late Frank McMahon, Westcoast provided a few billion cubic feet of natural gas per day to the United States and the eastern cities of Canada. The pipeline, called the Big Inch, pushed the gaseous gold between remote pumping stations throughout the territory to energy-hungry consumers. The stations were spaced at intervals of a few hours drive along the pipeline. Our task was to take some measurements and look at a noise problem at one of the stations. (The "big inch" referred to pipes that were 20 to 48 inches in diameter. In the larger branches, a man could crouch and walk through the line.)
Two kinds of pumping stations were operated along the Big Inch: the first type were installed in the late 60s and the others came on line during the 80s.
Our first stop, the lower quad station, was of the older variety. The pumps were powered by four-stroke V-12 engines, not your Jaguar sports-car variety — but freighter-sized boat motors adapted for the job. These machines were as large as a two-bedroom home, with cylinders large enough for a man to squeeze into.
The beasts ate the same stuff they were pumping, with one-inch copper tubing feeding the natural gas to injectors at the piston heads. To reach the spark plugs (two serving each piston) a technician needed to climb a 20-foot ladder.
The pump house contained ten of these behemoths lined up in a row on a concrete deck. The room shook as the monster machines rumbled and grumbled, and the deck vibrated enough to induce minor vertigo. We made some measurements and shrugged our shoulders. Everything here was working fine.
The next pump station, four hours away, was one of the newer ones served by jet turbines instead of the mammoth V-12s. (If memory serves, the boat engines cranked out about 10,000 horsepower, and the jet turbines roared with 100,000 HP). But the afternoon sun, which had risen only a few degrees above the horizon, was retreating quickly, so we beat feet back to the hotel as the sun dove into the snowy plain. With not much else to do, we shot pool and watched championship curling on the tube in the bar.
The following morning we set out north, driving over the flat lands and into near-virgin forest. We were the only car on the road in either direction as we headed to this second pumping station.
Arriving at the earth-bound jet with an uber-sonic scream that pierced ear plugs and ear muffs, we set up our antennas and spectrum analyzer to map the space, collect some data and perform quick checks of the control instrumentation. After a cross-continental trip and two days buzzing around the Yukon in dire winter, we were beginning to wonder what the heck we were doing here.
Outside, we packed up our gear and asked, "Where's the problem?"
Tyler shouted back over the whine of the machine, which was still cutting through at 90 dB although we were sitting in the car parked outside the building. "No problems here! This is just to have a look. But we've got some kind of noise at the next pumping station. We've got the big V-12s there."
He turned the car around in the parking lot and we headed away from the scream. "You'll see. The control feedback loop signals are bouncing all over the place. We just installed the same new systems in two places. One works great, but the other has lots of noise and jitter."
"Remember the lower station?" Bill asked. "You know, the first place…yesterday afternoon?"
"Well, this next station is exactly the same as that one: same layout, same engines, same control, same everything — or it's supposed to be."
We drove while Bill and Terry traded jibes over last night's curling match. "You owe me five loonies, Bill. Saskatoon's number one. Again."
"I'll pay ya in beer when we get back," Terry laughed.
By mid-afternoon we arrived at the third location. Indeed, it was the same building; a large weather-beaten steel-paneled building, loudly thrumming. "Let's go inside."
Engine 3 was down and a mechanic was crouching inside the crankcase. We looked over and his head popped up from the cylinder casing. Wrenches, two feet long, were laid out on the ground. I kicked one. It didn't move. Terry waved at the mechanic, who was wrestling with an enormous thrust-rod nut.
"Take a look over here," Terry motioned us to the wiring that fired the dual spark plugs sprouting from the enormous heads. Not much different from a ginormous lawn mower engine. The wiring was tied to the natural gas supply lines that fed injectors on the heads. Then all were tied neatly back to an enormous distributor. Gray sensor cables were wrapped on the same array.
We asked to see the sensor collection point. The shielded twisted pairs that carried sensor data were pulled neatly into the breakout box, the same as at the first station.
"But look at the shields," Norm said. We all looked down. There was the problem. "Two different guys wired these systems."
What did Norm see?
Excerpted and adapted from the IEEE EMC Society Newsletter, Winter 2011. Used by permission.
Mike Violette is President of Washington Labs and Director of American Certification Body (mikev@wll.com). Mike is just beginning to thaw out from his trip to the frozen North.
brainemcengineerMike Violettetraining
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BMA Presents Anri Sala's Film 1395 Days Without Red
Anri Sala. 1395 Days Without Red. (Video still). 2011. Courtesy the artist.
The Baltimore Museum of Art's (BMA) Black Box program continues this fall with Anri Sala's film 1395 Days Without Red on view in the re-envisioned Contemporary Wing September 14, 2014–February 22, 2015. The 43-minute film recreates the terror and uncertainty civilians endured during the siege of Sarajevo.
Both on and off the screen, despite the constant threat of death, the Sarajevo Philharmonic Orchestra (SPO) continued to practice and play. 1395 Days Without Red laces scenes of the SPO rehearsing the First Movement of Tchaikovsky's Pathetique with a musician making her way through what became known as Sniper Alley. Sprinting through the streets, the music runs through her head. At each crossing, she hesitates, holds her breath, and pushes through.
After reading art historian and critic Michael Fried's insightful analysis of Sala's work in his book Four Honest Outlaws: Sala, Ray, Marioni, Gordon, Curator of Contemporary Art Kristen Hileman was inspired to invite Fried to select a work by Sala for presentation in Baltimore. "This is a rare opportunity to view the work of a tremendously talented contemporary artist through the perspective of one of the great art historians of our time," Hileman said. "In addition to the exhibition, Fried and Sala's public talk this winter, is not to be missed." The free artist conversation will be held in the BMA's Meyerfoff Auditorium at 2 p.m. on February 21. There the artist and art historian will discuss the impact of narrative, sound, and the limits of language in Sala's evocative films.
Anri Sala (Albanian, b. 1974) lives and works in Berlin and Paris. Widely exhibited internationally, his award-winning cinematic works feature evocative music generated by subjects in politically or psychologically charged situations to suggest how sound represents emotional tensions and the human capacity for perseverance.
Art historian Michael Fried is the J.R. Herbert Boone Professor of Humanities and the History of Art at The Johns Hopkins University. His more recent publications include Why Photography Matters as Art as Never Before (2008), The Moment of Caravaggio (2010), and Four Honest Outlaws: Sala, Ray, Marioni,
Gordon (2011).
The exhibition is curated by the artist and Michael Fried, The Johns Hopkins University J. R. Herbert Boone Chair in the Humanities, and organized by Curator of Contemporary Art Kristen Hileman.
About the Baltimore Museum of Art
Founded in 1914, the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) inspires people of all ages and backgrounds through exhibitions, programs, and collections that tell an expansive story of art—challenging long-held narratives and embracing new voices. Our outstanding collection of more than 97,000 objects spans many eras and cultures and includes the world's largest public holding of works by Henri Matisse; one of the nation's finest collections of prints, drawings, and photographs; and a rapidly growing number of works by contemporary artists of diverse backgrounds. The museum is also distinguished by a neoclassical building designed by American architect John Russell Pope and two beautifully landscaped gardens featuring an array of modern and contemporary sculpture. The BMA is located three miles north of the Inner Harbor, adjacent to the main campus of Johns Hopkins University, and has a community branch at Lexington Market. General admission is free so that everyone can enjoy the power of art.
For media in Baltimore:
For media outside Baltimore:
Alina Sumajin
PAVE Communications
alina@paveconsult.com


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Ayew ist der Familienname folgender Personen:

 Abedi Ayew (* 1964), ghanaischer Fußballspieler, siehe Abédi Pelé
 André Ayew (* 1989), französisch-ghanaischer Fußballspieler
 Christian Ayew (* 1986), ghanaischer Fußballspieler
 Jordan Ayew (* 1991), ghanaischer Fußballspieler
 Kwame Ayew (* 1973), ghanaischer Fußballspieler
 Rahim Ayew (* 1988), ghanaischer Fußballspieler

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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One family's journey from crisis to safety
Karina called our hotline in a panic. After years of abuse, she had taken her two children and their cat and fled her abusive husband.
With nowhere to go, her family had been living in their car for nearly a week. Karina was terrified he would find them, and because he'd hidden her ID and credit card, she didn't know where to turn.
After moving into our emergency shelter, Karina's advocates helped replace what they'd left behind—food and hygiene items, warm jackets, identification cards, and even gifts for her son's fifth birthday. Once they were safe and had the essentials they needed, Karina shared, "I could breathe again. I could start thinking about the next best thing for my family."
Our shelter's Housing Specialist was soon able to connect Karina with resources to cover the cost of housing applications and clear debt that her abuser had racked up in her name. When they were accepted into an apartment two months later, we helped the family get settled and provided them with a move-out kit full of items to furnish their new kitchen and bedrooms. "Finally, we are home," she said.
Karina has stayed connected with our Advocacy Center, attending tenant education and financial literacy classes. And since the pandemic hit, our advocates have delivered critical supplies to her home including fresh produce, a laptop for schoolwork, and activity kits for the kids.
Karina shared, "I am so thankful for the genuine love and respect Raphael House shows for me and my kids. It's our ultimate place of safety. Our lives have totally changed and now we're full of hope."
Raphael House of Portland
Karina and her family are safe, stable, and thriving
ajr_images


Very nice old church. This is where we first saw one another. They have a lot of requirements though and you really have to follow what they want. But it is reasonable and the church is so beautiful.
Built in the 1860's, this church added a historical feel to our wedding. We felt like we were transported back into time. The inside of the church is as grand as the outside. Since the church was not that big, all the seats were filled up, giving us a sense of appreciation that our family and friends were really present to share the day with us. Our contact person was Inday and she was very easy to talk to. We had our pre-cana and canonical interview 11 months before our wedding because we were based in the US. The rest of the paperworks were handled by my mom and our coordinator. We love this church!


In Part I, I began with a detailed grammatical analysis of the traditional Pāli paṭicca-samuppāda formula. I showed that it tells us that the presence of the condition is required for the duration of the effect. The only traditional Buddhist view compatible with this criterion was Sarvāstivāda. And, to be clear, this means that modern teachings on dependent arising are inconsistent with the formula. Also, this entailed a particular view of time: it has to be linear and infinite in the past. Now, in Part II, I will continue by looking at the traditional connection of paṭicca-samuppāda to the concept of nidāna "basis". Although this is not as easy as it sounds.
Given that all Buddhists these days use the 12 link nidāna model, there are a surprising number and range of variations in the early Buddhist texts and disagreements between the various recensions. See the accompanying diagram for a visual representation of the main variations.
Not included in the diagram are the numerous versions of the standard links that leave out the early links. A number of suttas have standard links but begin at the six senses (e.g., SN 12:24) or even at clinging (e.g., SN 22.80). The existence of these shorter links led Austrian Indologist (and Nazi), Erich Frauwallner to the conclusion that the sequence must have originally been two shorter sequences that got mashed together (cited in Bucknell 1999). The list might also have started off short and expanded with time.
Meanwhile, Polish Indologist, Joanna Jurewicz (2000), has proposed that the nidānas might have emerged as a parody or even polemic of Vedic cosmogony, an idea that Richard Gombrich (2009: 133 ff) has enthusiastically supported.
In addition to these obvious major variations, Rod Bucknell (1999) has noted many minor variations that are not visible to the casual reader. The different lineages of Pāli texts (i.e., Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, etc) are often at odds, with some leaving links out and some adding them. Also, there are several examples where two variant suttas in Pāli are represented by a single text in the Chinese Āgama translations, which Bucknell says this indicates a variation emerging in Pāli. However, we cannot rule out that either the Sarvāstivādin redactor or the Chinese Translator tidied up the Āgama versions by removing minor variants, just as a modern editor might do (see, e.g., Bodhi 2000 p.586).
The much vaunted unity of the early Buddhist Canon has been imposed on a riot of different teachings by one or more anonymous systematizers. I don't see this as a problem, per se; it is true of all Canons that they are constructed from less systematic raw material. Of course, one might argue that these are all variations on the theme and that the theme itself constitutes the unity. In response I would point to the inconsistencies between the themes: karma does not gel with dependent arising. If they are the product of one mind, then that person was, at best, an unsystematic thinker.
In the standard view, the texts were passed on orally with high fidelity until being written down. In fact, the fidelity must have been very low, judging by the written canon. Given the internal suggestions of the texts themselves it is likely that they were passed on orally in a wide range of dialects and only standardised at the time of being written down.
If anything, the Pāli Canon feels more like the work of a committee of people. The idea that the different nikāyas form a single collection must be relatively late and specific to the Theravādins. There is no evidence that other sects viewed them as such. The Āgama equivalents were separately translated into Chinese. The Pāli Canon is a compromise. Where conflicts could not be resolved, two or more versions of texts were included. The Sarvāstivādins, as evidenced in their Canon of early texts that survive in Chinese, were both less divided and more systematic, despite working from similar raw material.
This is all worth keeping in mind when we reflect on the nature of the early Buddhist doctrines. However, for the porpoises of this essay I will look at just two of the many variations from this mess. The familiar twelve nidānas and another model that will be familiar to some, the upanisās also known as the Spiral Path.
In this section, I'm going to outline the implications of obligatory presence for our understanding of dependent arising applied to the nidānas.
The twelve nidānas are usually seen as an application of the principle set out in paṭicca-samuppāda. Eviatar Shulman has argued that, actually, the formula applies specifically, and only, to the nidānas. In 2010, I outlined his argument in an essay called A General Theory of Conditionality? At that time, I tended to disagree, but I have come around to his way of thinking. As far as the Pāli suttas are concerned, paṭicca-samuppāda is the nidānas, though the nidānas frequently occur without the formula. It does not appear to be the case that the former is a general principle and the latter one application amongst many. However, nidāna models also exist that appear unrelated to paṭicca-samuppāda, per se. So we may be looking at an uneven composite that developed at the same time as the texts.
First, we may say that the circularity argument from Part I is a blow for the three lifetimes conception of dependent arising. The requirement of presence means that all such arguments are topologically identical to the case where an event is the condition for itself. Any form of cyclic conditionality has only two outcomes: everything always exists or nothing ever exists. As I notated it in Part I, any circularity in which the presence of the condition is a requirement for the presence of the effect logically reduces to: (A if A) and (¬A if ¬A). If we accept that conditions must be present, then we have to accept linear time with an infinite past or an eternally existent condition at the start of time. The universe may have spatial epicycles of creation and destruction, but time itself must be linear. A phenomenon cannot appear in its own past as a condition. A way around this would be to argue that the nidānas are categories of phenomena rather than a specific phenomenon: each instance is unique, but together they form a class of similar phenomena. Whether this rescues the three lifetimes interpretation is moot, but I want to move on because delving into the theory of categories would take me too far from my topic.
The traditional depiction of the nidānas around the outside of the "wheel of time" (kālacakra) is not a workable model of the nidānas. They are not a loop because conditional loops are forbidden by the requirement for presence. Also, death is not the condition for ignorance. If you look at how the teaching is presented in the texts, it's not presented as a loop, either. The cycle is birth and death. The rest of it is an attempt to explain what happens during a life to drive the constant recycling into new lives. Compare the important version of this doctrine in the Mahānidāna Sutta (DN 15), for example, which only has 10 links (I leave this as an exercise for the reader). Arguably, for the unawakened, ignorance is a constant presence rather than something newly arising from moment to moment (I will look at the implications of this shortly).
Presence is problematic for the nidāna model. Take cognition (viññāna) as a nidāna. The imasmim sati formula says that cognition must be present all the time for the rest of the string of conditions to occur. And not only does this not work, it is evidently not the intended meaning of the nidāna. There are obviously times, when we are asleep, for example, when we do not cognise anything.
If we work through the logic, the condition for cognition is karmic volitions (saṅkhārā) which are arguably present, and the condition for karmic volitions, i.e., ignorance (aviijā) definitely is present. Ignorance is a constant for the unawakened; it must be, or they would be awakened. and it must persist for many lifetimes. If ignorance is present then, according to the formula, karmic volitions must also be present, and cognition must follow. Except that we know there are times when cognition is not present even when ignorance is. So the nidāna chain is constructed on a model which does not have a requirement for presence, or indeed which has a requirement for non-presence some of the time.
Things get even worse at the other end of the chain. If birth (jāti) is the condition for aging and death (jarā-maraṇa) then it cannot make any sense at all to require presence. Birth is an event, and not a short lived event, but one which takes place over an appreciable and often considerable time. Labour can last for a day or more. But if the presence of birth is the condition for the presence of aging and death, the death would be instantaneous for every new born. Again, presence here is counter-indicated and some other form of conditionality is required. If birth is the condition for death then we hope to delay it by as long as possible, but the average in the developed world is around 75. Also surely birth is not that significant compared to conception. Iron Age India only had vague and inaccurate conceptions of conception so they could not have come to this conclusion.
The consequence of this is that, whatever tradition and scholars tell us, the paṭicca-samuppāda formula emphatically does not logically apply to the nidānas. Indeed, a further analysis would reveal that more than one kind of conditionality is required to make sense of the nidānas and several schemes involving multiple types of condition were concocted by the different Abhidharmakāras. For example, Theravādins teach about the twenty-four different kinds of conditionality that their Abhidhamma speculates have to exist to make it all happen. Sarvāstivādins got by with just four. But most of the time the nature of the conditionality is unspecified, which allows us to have a more intuitive but less precise account of conditionality.
We do not teach the nidānas with the requirement for presence despite the clear implication of the paṭicca-samuppāda formula. There is nothing wrong with teaching a story about conditionality that we think works, if the alternative is one that we know doesn't work. But it seems disingenuous to promote this as something the Buddha taught. The whole concept is rather dubious, anyway, as we cannot even say if the Buddha was a historical figure. Even if we stipulate this much, however, it is clear that the early versions of the doctrine are incoherent and later Buddhists disagreed on how to fix this. What we now teach has no connection with the Buddha, it is "Buddhist" pragmatically because it is something that Buddhists say, not because it was something the Buddha said.
This is all bizarre enough, but there is a related, though largely neglected early Buddhist doctrine which is a much better fit for paṭicca-samuppāda, i.e., that also requires the presence of the condition.
The lesser known model of conditionality was rediscovered by Carolyn Rhys Davids while she was editing and helping to translate the Saṃyutta Nikāya for the Pali Text Society. The idea was taken up by Sangharakshita but has never really gained much traction outside of the Triratna Buddhist Order, where it is an important doctrine. Both Ayya Khema (1991) and Bodhi (1980) wrote about it but just the once each, and some time ago now. Sangharakshita called it the "spiral path" (though in his teaching it is not a spiral, but a helix). The Nettiparakaraṇa, an early Pāli commentary included in the Canon, refers to it as lokuttara paṭicca-samuppāda which Bodhi translated as "Transcendental Dependent Arising". Other terms such as "progressive nidānas" have been used. As nidāna "basis" is used to refer to the paṭicca-samuppāda links, I have suggested that the spiral path be referred to as the upanisā "preconditions".
The PED is unsure about whether to derive the word upanisā from upa-ni-√sad, in which case it would be the same as Vedic upaniṣad, or from upa-ni-√śri (P. upanissayati), in which case we would have to see the word as an abbreviated form of the gerund upanissāya "depending on, by means of". Given how the word is used in the upanisā doctrine, the latter is far more likely. Compare BHS upaniśritya. In the Chinese Samyuktāgama (SA 495) the word is translated 所依 (T 1: 2.129a11), which is commonly used for Sanskrit terms such as āśraya and niśraya (ā√śri and ni√śri respectively) both meaning a "basis" or "foundation".
The upanisā doctrine occurs in about 40 suttas, whereas the imasmim sati formula occurs just 13 times, and the two are never related in Pāli. The scattered references were collected into one section of the Sarvāstivāda Madhyama Āgama, which is preserved in Chinese (see my draft translations of MĀ 42-55, Taishō 1: 26 §5).
In the spiral path, the upanisās are cumulative, with earlier conditions needing to be present, and thus it is consistent with the paṭicca-samuppāda formula. Although existing explorations of the doctrine have focused on the Upanisā Sutta (SN 12:23 ≈ MĀ 55), my view is that the suttas at the beginning of the Chapter of Tens/Elevens in the Aṅguttara Nikāya are the template.
Seen in the light of the broad range of other spiral path texts, the Upanisā Sutta is an oddball, albeit an interesting one since it is the only text that attempts to join the nidānas with the upanisā. The usual nidāna sequence is listed to birth, which is followed by dukkha, then the upanisā sequence beginning with faith (saddha). However, this is a very problematic conjunction. Linking faith to suffering as a condition is prima facie strange but more so when one realises that the usual condition for faith is hearing the Buddha preach. Explanations for this conjunction typically add three extra steps in the process of linking the two. Even in the Triratna Order, where we actively teach the upanisā doctrine, we do not utilise the text as it stands. Instead, we use Sangharakshita's revision. Whether it even makes sense to combine the two models at all is doubtful.
The virtuous one, monks, endowed with virtue, need not form an intention 'may my conscience be clear.' It is natural (dhammatā) for the virtuous one endowed with virtue to have a clear conscience. Having a clear conscience, there is no need for an act of will 'may I feel joy.' Joy naturally arises in those who have a clear conscience.
"Just as, when the gods pour down rain over the mountains, water flows down the mountainside, filling up the branches of the crevices and gullies; having filled the crevices and gullies, small lakes and the great lakes are filled; the great lakes being filled, the small rivers fill up; the small rivers fill up the large rivers, and the large rivers fill up the great ocean."
Again, this is consistent with the continued presence of the condition giving rise to the effect and not with the sequences of the nidāna doctrine.
As I showed in my first published article on the subject (2013), the upanisā doctrine is a more elaborate version of the threefold path of conduct, concentration, and insight (sīla, samādhi, and paññā). The factors leading up to pāmojja constitute what we usually call "morality", but which are more about creating the conditions for meditation, rather than being a good person or following group norms. Hence, I would now say that "conduct" is a better translation than "morality" or "ethics", both of which are too broad in this context. The stage of conduct involves accustoming oneself to reduced sensory stimulation through restricting one's exposure to sense objects. It is characterised by restraint and renunciation. This is supposed to lead to a general mood of uplift and happiness (pāmojja) which is the prerequisite for meditation.
Having crossed the threshold of pāmojja as one becomes concentrated in meditation (and here we can infer that jhāna meditation is intended) one passes through a series of phases of increasingly refined experience, with less reference to external sense objects. This is not the place to argue about the general applicability of the model (I have my doubts) but we can say that at least this doctrine is consistent with the doctrine of paṭicca-samuppāda, although the Buddhist tradition seems to have kept apart the two doctrines that do make sense together, and to have largely forgotten the upanisā doctrine (or at best to have let it fall out of use).
What's more, it is apparent that the upanisā list aligns with the bojjhaṅga or "factors of awakening" list. For a graphic representation of this see my big dependent arising diagram.
The conclusion of this section is that the dynamic in the paṭicca-samuppāda, which requires the presence of the condition, is not the dynamic of the nidānas. In fact, the requirement for continued presence is incompatible with the nidāna model. And this despite Shulman's observation that the wording suggests that Buddhist authors saw the nidānas as spelling out in detail the principle of the formula. By a strange twist, the requirement of presence is exactly what we find in the neglected and sidelined upanisā doctrine. The two are not linked in surviving texts (Theravāda or Sarvāstivāda) except the Upanisā Sutta, which cobbles the two together end to end and this could not possibly work (and is not used in practice).
This shows, I think, that the received texts have been quite heavily and ineptly edited to favour an interpretation of doctrine that does not make sense, despite there being a combination that did make sense. This suggests that religious ideology has trumped common sense. It also shows that what appears to be unity to some people, is not apparent on closer inspection.
There is still one issue with the Spiral Path model to deal with. As before, the problem is explaining cessation. The conditions for rebirth are present and are the reason that we are continually reborn. In order to eliminate rebirth we have to eliminate the conditions for rebirth. But if presence is the norm, then this would involve an infinite regress: conditions must be present and the past must be infinite. In order to wholly eliminate rebirth we would have to go back to the base condition for rebirth, which is the existence of the universe that allows for rebirth. With infinite time we could never get to the beginning of the sequence to remove that ultimate cause. And thus rebirth could never cease because the preconditions for rebirth would always be present. This paradox tells us there is something wrong with the model.
Could it be that we have it all wrong and that the formula expresses a different dynamic? Is is more like a cue hitting a snooker ball? Or a line of dominoes? A seed growing into a tree?
Let's take the first idea. As a general approach it suggests that the condition gives the effect a "push" that enables the effect to be present in the absence of the condition. But if the effect can be present in the absence of its condition, then it is the condition for its own presence and we have explored this scenario in detail already. Alternatively, we may argue that the condition bequeaths a temporary quality of momentum to the effect. But what is the condition for the continued presence of this momentum? Nothing can be unconditioned except nirvāṇa (and perhaps space, ākāśa). Clearly, at the outset, the presence of momentum is due to the condition itself. But the momentum has to be an effect of the condition and dependent arising says that when the condition ceases the effect ceases. So there is no way for the condition to pass on anything to the effect by way of momentum if the condition is not present. The requirement for presence cannot be subverted by adding extra steps, because if any effect can outlive its conditions, under any circumstances, then it has become a condition for its own presence.
In the line of dominoes analogy, the suggestion is that the condition changes its state in such a way as to force the effect to change its state in the same way, creating a cascade. The problem is that at the outset a line of dominoes are all present and are simply knocked over. They don't cease to be present once they have fallen over. So at the beginning and the end we have dominoes. There is no help from this analogy, although this is similar to the Sarvāstivāda view of constant presence combined with a changing state of activity.
A traditional image that is sometimes use to try to illustrate dependent arising is the seed sprouting and turning into a tree - continuous change. This is an argument from analogy which is not an explanation. But let's consider it. What is the condition for the seed to sprout? We may say that it must grow in soil (a complex mix of organic and inorganic elements) and at a minimum be watered. What happens to the soil once the seed sprouts? Nothing much. It has to continue to be present. Similarly, water must be continually present in some form or the plant dries out and dies. One might argue that this analogy is considerably worse that others we have considered.
I cannot think of any other situation in which we take dependent arising at face value and arrive at a workable solution. The only logical conclusion is the sarva-asti-vāda. Conditions all exist all of the time because if they did not everything would cease. Indeed, if any past condition ceased then all of the downstream effects related to it would instantaneously also cease. Of course, this is not what we see when we look at the world. Rather, we see phenomena arising and ceasing.
Usually Buddhists take what they see to be what they are supposed to see and assert that this is what dependent arising shows. Clearly, this is not what the formula of dependent arising says. Rather, it says a condition must be present for the entire duration of an effect. We do not teach dependent arising according to canonical accounts, but substitute what seems intuitively correct to us. And if we are allowed to do this with our supposedly central doctrine, then what changes are we not licenced to make?
Contrarily, if we insist that the canonical account is the Buddha's verbatim teaching, then we have to admit that the Buddha screwed up his most distinctive teaching or those who attempted to preserve his teachings were hopelessly confused by the time they came to be written down. Either way it seriously undermines the case for the supposed authenticity of the early Buddhist teachings.
It seems to me that the people who promote dependent arising as a metaphysical truth have really not thought deeply enough about it. Even taking dependent arising on its own terms we end up at the sarvāstivāda position that all past conditions must still exist. This is not a position I advocate, it is simply the inescapable logical conclusion of dependent arising as stated in the imasmiṃ sati formula. This was, in fact, a hugely popular approach in classical Buddhism in India and in China. The Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma books are all preserved in Chinese. While every Buddhist (presumably) accepts some form of conditionality doctrine, no living Buddhist actually holds this view.
The imasmim sati formula does not describe the conditionality of the nidāna doctrine, which is not, in any case, a single kind of conditionality. On the other hand, the formula does describe the upanisā doctrine, which can be seen as extending the threefold path (conduct, meditation, wisdom) and as consistent with the bojjhaṅga doctrine as well. It's just that the formula and upanisā doctrine are never linked in early Buddhist texts. No traditional school continues to promote the upanisā doctrine and its importance has largely been lost sight of.
Modern Buddhists may wish to argue that conditionality is not linear but that everything conditions everything else. Certainly this is a common Buddhist assertion. It has the disadvantage of gaining no support whatever from early Buddhist texts. However, many innovations in doctrine emerged over time to fix exactly this kind of problem, so this disadvantage is not fatal. Does it get us out of the bind? It does not, since, if everything is a condition for everything else, then this reduces to events or entities being the condition for their own existence. And again, this is not what we see when we observe conditionality: we see arising and ceasing. Any explanation we pose must at the very least allow for arising and ceasing. We see multiple conditions, but not infinite conditions.
Should we be surprised that an Iron Age religious doctrine doesn't stand scrutiny? Hardly. I cannot think of a contemporary idea from anywhere in the world which has survived contact with modernity. Outside of academia no one gets excited by Plato and claims that he discovered the nature of reality. Platonic Idealism is trotted out to confuse philosophy undergraduates, but plays no great role in how modern intellectuals think about the world. Equally, no one in Britain thinks that our lives are controlled by the whims of Tiu, Woden, Thor, and Frigga any more. It's not credible to keep arguing that outdated theories tell us about the nature of reality.
What is really worrying is how much of academia is involved in trying, for example, to reconcile karma with modernity. I'd like to do some research on this, at some point. As an interim measure I think all believers in Buddhism should declare a conflict of interest with writing about Buddhism so that readers can be alert to unexamined assumptions. Editors should make it clear when someone is writing as an apologist or theologian rather than a scholar. I think I'll start adding a disclaimer to all my articles from now on.
So far, I have tried to avoid any argument rooted in modernity; even the logic I refer to is of a similar age to the doctrines themselves, if from another culture. I've tried to show that Buddhism is fundamentally incoherent on its own terms: the logical conclusions are avoided in favour of intuitive conclusions. Of course, it is much worse when we consider Buddhism in the light of modern philosophy and science. The painful thing is that we have a very useful practical approach that seems to benefit people; we just don't have a coherent explanation of what we are doing or why.
In the final instalment, I revisit the argument that our problem is treating doctrine as metaphysics and that the solution is to shift the discussion to epistemics. Buddhism has a veneer of respectability as metaphysics but it is thin and getting thinner. The modern world is going to figure us out at some point, so we Buddhists need to get ahead of the curve in order to survive. We have nothing coherent to say about the nature of reality, but the same statements read as commentary on our paradigm make more sense and are sometimes compatible with modern knowledge. For the long term survival of Buddhism as a meaningful cultural movement, we need to come to terms with this issue.
Bucknell, Roderick S. 1999. "Conditioned Arising Evolves: Variation and Change in the Textual Accounts of the Paṭicca-samuppāda Doctrine." JIABS 22 (2) 1999: 311-342.
Gombrich, Richard. 2009. What The Buddha Thought. London: Equinox.
Jayarava. 2012. Chinese Spiral Path Texts from the Madhyāgama. Draft Translations. Sept 2012.
Jayarava. 2013. "The Spiral Path or Lokuttara Paṭiccasamuppāda." Western Buddhist Review 6: 1–34.
Jayatilleke, K. N. 1963. Early Buddhist Theory of Knowledge. Motilal Banarsidass, 2010.
Jurewicz, Joanna. 2000. "Playing with Fire: The pratītyasamutpāda from the perspective of Vedic thought." Journal of the Pali Text Society 26 (2000) pp. 77 – 103.
Khema, Ayya. 1991 When the Iron Eagle Flies. Penguin.


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Home » Topics » Data Protection & Privacy » Keeping humans in the loop in an AI-driven world
Keeping humans in the loop in an AI-driven world
by Nick Ismail 12 December 2016
In a recent report, the UK Government recognised that the "advances in robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) hold the potential to fundamentally re-shape the way we live and work."
New skills will be required to meet both its challenges, and opportunities, as was concluded in Parliament's recent Science and Technology Committee report.
As AI becomes increasingly prevalent it will also need to respond to the social and ethical dilemmas that it poses and be able to provide transparency.
This will become particularly relevant with the upcoming European Union's new General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) that comes into effect in 2018, which will give individuals a "right to explanation" for all automated decisions made about them.
The current reality is that automated decisions are already made about individuals all the time and very often by technology that cannot provide any reasoning for those decisions.
The problem is, many current applications of automated decision making is not able to provide a rationale for how a decision has been reached.
>See also: Artificial intelligence: a force for good or bad?
Going forward, businesses using this technology will need to identify where and how those decisions are being made.
Therefore, adopting the right technologies to manage this process will allow a structured view to be taken and will bring transparency to the data analysis.
Defining automated decisions
Ultimately the benefit of automated decision making is about scalability and consistency in decision-making.
Humans are fallible. People are very good at certain tasks and some that aren't so good. So automation is often the answer because it can enable organisations to bring their staff up to the same standard.
To truly understand the need for transparency in relation to the future of AI-powered decision making, it's important to understand what defines automated decisions and automated decision-making.
In fact, finding a definition for them is not easy because there is a cross-over of terminologies involved in AI.
However, a good definition would cover any kind of decision-making that would have been made by a human, that is now be made by a machine.
The importance of transparency
In addition to transparency, accountability, auditing and liability should also be a prerequisite consideration for automated decision-making.
Transparency is particularly important because it supports business accountability and audit, as well as helping to verify, or better still prevent, an organisation's liability.
In essence it is about risk management. So if you imagine automated decisions were being made for all aspects of our lives, then you have a scenario where those decisions can be made audible.
>See also: How artificial intelligence is driving the next industrial revolution
Automated decision-making is being used in all sorts of areas – from financial services to healthcare – but in most current uses, you still need a human expert to verify the decision that the machine has made.
A modern example would be where AI is being used for cancer treatment, making recommendations based on medical records.
At this juncture it's also worth noting that McKinsey predicts that over the next 10 years, Knowledge Work Automation will be worth between $5-7trillion to the global economy.
Part of this will undoubtedly be new technology that enables AI technology to make decisions. The need for transparency will see AI-powered cognitive reasoning shape the future.
Regardless of how the market shapes, it will be important to understand the ramification of AI, automated decisions and GDPR.
Furthermore, the need to provide increased transparency will have a major impact on existing technologies that are not able to provide reasons, causing potential issues for those that have already embedded these in to the fabric of their organisation.
Why AI needs transparency?
The areas where transparency is obviously needed is where there are implications to risk and liability, as well as where there is an ombudsman to oversee regulatory compliance.
AI being able to support the need for transparency, will expand the use cases, provide better support and deliver better accountability and efficiency for organisations.
However, let's also not forget that transparency is also about trust.
Trust in AI is a big problem, and the only way to create trust is to make the technology transparent in everything it is doing – and that includes how it is used to make automated decisions.
Ultimately, the technology itself should be there to support, and not replace, people.
>See also: Artificial intelligence is aiding the fight against cybercrime
The problem is that people tend to ignore the technology; so they do it the way they think it should be done.
Yet, if they knew why the machine has chosen to do something in a particular way, then they would be more likely to accept and embrace it as an invaluable tool rather than seeing it as a threat or unnecessary.
Maintaining the human in the loop
It has been established why the industry moving towards the need for transparency. For AI to be welcomed with open arms this is absolutely what is needed.
However, as with anything to do with change, people's fear and apprehensions are likely to be an obstacle.
With AI there has been a fear that employees will lose their jobs, but there is evidence that smart applications will free staff to move in to more intellectually stimulating jobs that will always require the human touch.
The thing to remember with automated decision making is that the human is there at the start of system's design, and so is within the loop from the very start.
Starting with human knowledge will always mean that the human is needed in loop, and is therefore essential to ensure that the right decisions are made, transparently, and that they can be accurately justified.
Sourced by Ben Taylor, CEO of Rainbird
Tagged: Artificial Intelligence, UK Government
Nick Ismail
Nick Ismail is the editor for Information Age. He has a particular interest in smart technologies, AI and cyber security. More by Nick Ismail
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Pope Pushes Chinese Jabs for Pro-LGBT Agency
News: World News
by Jules Gomes • ChurchMilitant.com • August 23, 2021
Francis partners with ex-Catholic voodoo evangelist, scandal-hit prelates
VATICAN CITY (ChurchMilitant.com) - A marketing firm celebrated for producing the most influential pro-LGBTQ+ propaganda campaigns of all time has recruited Pope Francis to endorse a vaccine crusade targeting Latin America using low-efficacy shots from the most questionable source: communist China.
Voodoo promoter and ad guru P.J. Pereira
Francis has produced the vaccine video for the Ad Council — an agency that promotes contraception, LGBTQ+ causes and the Marxist-led Black Lives Matter movement — and has raised over $37 million from corporate donors, including vaccine oligarch Pfizer, to push the experimental jabs.
"Being vaccinated with vaccines authorized by the competent authorities is an act of love. And contributing to ensure the majority of people are vaccinated is an act of love," Pope Francis asserts in the video initiative titled "It's Up To You."
"Love is also social and political. There is social love and political love. It is universal, always overflowing with small gestures of personal charity capable of transforming and improving societies," he pontificates.
Labeled by historian Robert Griffith as "little more than a domestic propaganda arm of the federal government," the Ad Council is bragging about its coup in enlisting the pope to peddle the jab to the population "given that Latin America is overwhelmingly Catholic."
"To the world's billion-plus Catholics, the pope is one of the most trusted messengers and holds unparalleled influence," gushes Lisa Sherman, president and CEO of the Ad Council, in a statement.
Ad Creator: Voodoo Adherent
"Nowhere in our wildest dreams would we have imagined the pope lending his voice to this campaign," raves P.J. Pereira, chairman and cofounder of Pereira and O'Dell ad agency, creator of the campaign platform for the pontiff's vaccine-peddling video.
Even the most gullible will be led to suspect the Chinese have some form of hold over the papacy.
Pereira, a former Catholic, has written four novels exploring and endorsing African gods, Brazilian voodoo, and Umbanda (a syncretic Afro-Brazilian religion).
"I was told in the hallways of my Catholic school that all African religions were 'devil shit,'" Pereira recalls, later encountering the "nonjudgmental" African gods and how their belief in the power of nature "makes this religious practice way less judgmental and therefore more inclusive."
"Their acceptance of homosexuality is one example of that openness, the natural balance between the male and female powers of the world another," states the ad guru. "Ultimately it made me more confident with my own spirituality."
In 2016, Pereira and O'Dell won a silver International Food & Beverage Award for an ad campaign for Coca-Cola Latin America that affirmed homosexuality among teenagers.
Questions: Pope's Judgment, China Ties
Speaking to Church Militant, cultural commentator Fr. Athanasius St. Michel noted that "the pope lending his authority to endorse a vaccine crusade by agencies who represent values wholly and problematically antithetic to the Catholic Church must raise the most serious questions about his judgment."
Pope Francis' video campaign for the Ad Council
The France-based theologian elaborated:
This error is compounded by the fact that the Chinese vaccinations are significantly less effective. The papal association is worryingly flawed on both ideological and scientific grounds. Even the most gullible will be led to suspect the Chinese have some form of hold over the papacy which must have been responsible for Francis' abandoning of faithful Catholics to the horrors or Chinese state management and control.
Other partners in Francis' vaccine advertisement include the Vatican's Dicastery for Integral Human Development, headed by Ghanaian Cdl. Peter Turkson and production companies Landia and Big Star.
Every time we investigated one of these globalist individuals and institutions, they turned out to have strong ties to China and its ruling Chinese Communist Party.
Francis' advocacy of the predominantly China-made jabs is expected to raise questions over the Vatican's secret deal with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the financial motives behind the vaccine push and the reasons for a publicity campaign following widespread reports of the poor quality of the Chinese shots.
According to The Diplomat, "Chinese vaccine diplomacy in Latin America has skyrocketed in recent months," as "President Xi Jinping is already using vaccine diplomacy to advance other Chinese interests."
China's Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccine companies
This includes coercing Honduras and Paraguay to sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan to receive Chinese vaccines, as well as forcing Brazil to reverse its ban on telecom giant Huawei's 5G network project, The Diplomat reports.
Efficacy, Hesitancy
Latin America is administering three Chinese vaccines: CanSino, Sinovac and Sinopharm, with the CCP-owned Sinopharm receiving the widest distribution. Brazil, Chile and Peru rank as the top regional recipients of all three Chinese vaccines combined.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has authorized five Chinese vaccines, but unlike the Western vaccines, the Chinese jabs use inactivated virus which, according to the prestigious science journal Nature, "have generally proven less effective than others in use."
Chinese researchers have yet to publish full trial results, and the lack of transparency could fuel vaccine hesitancy, observes Nature, a factor completely ignored in Pope Francis' publicity campaign.
In January, Brazilian officials announced that the Sinovac jab was only 50.4% effective in preventing COVID-19 while a mass-vaccination campaign in Chile said the shot was only 67% effective.
The British Medical Journal (BMJ) links vaccine hesitancy in both China and Brazil to "the lack of transparency surrounding Chinese made vaccines," with just 47% of Brazilians polled saying they would be willing to take a vaccine made in China.
Sinopharm is under investigation by the Peruvian public prosecutor and comptroller's offices for possible bribery to secure a vaccine contract with Peru through free vaccine samples. A second scandal involves vaccines given to senior officials ahead of medical priority groups.
Vaccinologist Tao Lina found at least 73 adverse effects associated with the vaccine, making it the "most unsafe vaccine in the world." The scientist, working in the Shanghai Center for Disease Control and Prevention (SCDC), was forced to retract his claim after CCP threats.
Globalist Elites, Communists
Dr. Peter Breggin, in his book COVID-19 and the Global Predators: We are the Prey, notes that "the wealth of China's 400 billionaires increased by 60% from March to December 2020," during the pandemic, "greatly outdistancing the rise in wealth among America's 600 or more billionaires."
"Every time we investigated one of these globalist individuals and institutions," writes Breggin, "they turned out to have strong ties to China and its ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)."
The Ad Council's "Love Has No Labels" social activism video
Breggin outlines the links between Pfizer-BioNTech, the CCP and vaccine-pushing investor-philanthropist Bill Gates:
The Chinese communists are invested in Pfizer's vaccine, making them a most powerful stakeholder. In a tangled web that we have been unraveling, Bill Gates is partnered with Germany's BioNTech, which is partnered with China's Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Group. BioNTech is also partnered with Pfizer — all of them (the United States, Germany, and the Chinese communists) working together on mRNA vaccines.
The globalists want to profit from COVID-19, in part by developing government-sanctioned, very expensive drugs and vaccines that are potentially ineffective, dangerous and highly experimental.
He also notes the vaccines are worth billions of dollars.
Prelate Endorsement: Credible or Damaging?
Meanwhile, Ad Council's CEO Lisa Sherman stressed how "extremely grateful" she was to Francis and six Latino cardinals and archbishops "for lending their voices and platforms to help people across the globe feel more confident in the vaccines."
Being vaccinated with vaccines authorized by the competent authorities is an act of love.
The video's credibility, critics insist, will be severely damaged by featuring Cdl. Óscar Andrés Rodriguez Maradiaga, charged with profiting to the tune of potentially millions from financial mismanagement. A year later, the Honduran prelate was in the news for sheltering Abp. Juan Pineda — at the center of a million-dollar financial scandal and gay sexual assault.
Last year, Vatican whistleblower Abp. Carlo Maria Viganò slammed Francis for wanting to "decriminalize the crimes and abuses of his collaborators, protecting the magic circle that involves Maradiaga, Pineda, Peña Parra, Gustavo Zanchetta and the entire Vatican lavender mafia."
Pope Francis and Cdl. Maradiaga
The video also features Mexican-born Jose Horacio Gómez, who was elected president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) while under state investigation for possible cover-up of sex abuse. Gómez has instructed his priests to refuse letters of religious exemption to conscientious objectors to the jab.
Cardinal Cláudio Hummes, disciple of the Marxist Dom Hélder Câmara and an ally of the Brazilian Marxist Workers' Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores), also appears in the video. At the hugely controversial Amazon Synod, Hummes led the renewal of the Pact of the Catacombs — a secret document soaked in the jargon of Liberation Theology.
The Ad Council earlier boasted that its Love Has No Labels video, created for LGBTQ+ Pride Month 2015, was "the second most viewed social activism video ever," making it the most widely viewed pro-gay propaganda video of all time.
Church Militant contacted the Dicastery for Integral Human Development outlining the concerns raised in the report and asked for a response. There was no reply as of press time.
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