Have you thought about having a doula at your birth but wonder if your friend can do the job instead?
The short answer: of course your friend can attend your birth and provide support.
The longer answer depends on what you want out of your support person and your birth. Women throughout history have had their births attended by close female relatives and friends. During this time in our history, birth was something most women witnessed many times before they gave birth themselves. In modern times the women around us don't have much exposure to childbirth. Even if they have given birth themselves, their experience may differ greatly from what you want for your own birth. A Doula studies birth extensively and has witnessed many births in a variety of settings. Her knowledge of birth is much more in depth. She can help you navigate many different scenarios. While having a friend support you is an option, you have to ask yourself what you are looking for in your labor support person. The purpose of this post is not to discourage anyone from having a friend attend their birth, it is to highlight the difference in a doula being there and a friend being there. Read on for a few of the difference between doula support and the support of a friend.
Experience: A doula has specialized trainingin comfort techniques to help you relax during labor. A doula also has in depth knowledge of the process of childbirth and hospital procedure. They can help answer questions that arise during labor. While a friends support is good, their knowledge is not likely as specialized as the doula who is trained and has attended births regularly. As we look back on our history, relatives and friends who attended births had this unofficial doula trainingbecause they had witnessed birth frequently. When you hire a doula you get your own personal birth assistant. The doula has trained and studied birth. They are specially trained to help a couple navigate birth and to help them explore all of their options. They have experience with a variety of birth settings and situations that present themselves in birth. A doula can suggest things such as certain position changes, comfort techniques, and they help you address emotional blocks. She also helps your partner during the birth and suggests ways they can support you more effectively. A doula practices these things regularly so she can call on these techniques during labor. A friend may be well read on childbirth but it is hard to recall everything they have read about in the moment. When you hire a doula, you are hiring someone with experience and knowledge.
Availability: Another point to consider is if your friend will need to tend to their families needs. Will they possibly have to leave you at some point? Will they be available when you go into labor? A good doula has childcare in place and a backup doula secured to ensure you will not be left alone without your support person. Your support person having to leave during labor may sound alright to you beforehand but it can be very upsetting when you are in a vulnerable state during labor. A doula makes arrangements and is on call for you to meet you when labor begins and stays with you for the duration of your labor. When you hire a doula you can be sure you are not left without your support person. There have been instances where women talk about a doula not making it to their birth. It is important to ask questions about how a doula handles the on call time and what their backup situation is like when you are interviewing them.
Access to a community: When you hire a doula you are gaining access to a wealth of resources that your loved ones may not be aware of. A doula is connected to the birth professionals in your area. If you are experiencing breastfeeding issues she can refer you to lactation specialists; if you are having questions about your birthplace or provider she can provide insight into their policies; if you are interested in placenta encapsulation she can connect you with the right people; and if you are interested in homebirth she can provide you a list of midwives. Your doulas support also extends to the postpartum period. She can help you set up a mealtrain, connect you with postpartum doulas, and provide continuing emotional support as you navigate caring for your newborn.
At the end of the day, having someone there that you trust to provide support during your birth is the most important thing. If you have read about a doula and doula support sounds like something you want, hiring a doula is worth the investment. A friends support is valuable but the two are not interchangeable. When you hire a doula you get so much more than a person to hold your hand in the delivery room.


Paige McDaniel's Blog: It Shows.
My brother and I went down to the Neiman Marcus downtown on December 26. We went because our mother had given me a bottle of perfume and my brother a bottle of cologne and we wanted to smell them before opening the package in case we wanted to trade them in for a smell that we preferred.
The store wasn't too crowded (the reason we chose to go downtown instead of to NorthPark) and it was fun to see the store and look around a little. The thing that stood out to me was the gal who was working at the men's cologne counter. She was darling and sweet and even though she knew that we weren't going to buy anything, she went out of her way to make sure that we had a great experience – even providing my brother with some great samples of other colognes that she made up herself while we waited and chatted. She had just gotten a new puppy and so we talked about that, about my brother's dog (the best dog in the world, bar none), etc. She had worked both Christmas Eve and the day after Christmas, so she had not been able to see her out-of-town family for the holiday.
Many other people in her situation would not have been so nice – see what happens the next time you go to the Post Office – but is the difference because of the NM training, or is it the individual?
Now I know that Neiman Marcus has great customer service and training for their employees (I am a product of their training – it was my first job after college.), and NM is known the world over for it. The Container Store is another example of great training, combined with an employee-first culture. But the more I think about it, I think the individual employee is what makes the difference.
You can give someone the best training in the world, but if they are an unhappy person, it will show. If they are a person who feels put-upon, woe-is-me, what's-in-it-for-me, and so on, they are never going to be the right employee.
So, let's surround ourselves with happy people in 2012. It shows.
It DOES "show", and I never fail to tell a cordial, helpful clerk or cashier--esp. during busy seasons--how much I appreciate it.
Know where, I do believe, I notice this most often? My local (Brunswick, Maine) Walmart! From the stocking clerks to the butchers to the cashiers to the service desk they are the nicest, most go-out-of-their-way to find prices/lead me to items I can't find/go to the back to bring something from un-shelved stock/special-order something & notify me when it's in/graciously accept returns/reply by phone to an emailed question or comment/tell me--when I tell them I didn't make it home w/something I my receipt shows that I paid for--to go get another one and bring it back so they can mark it Paid.
Don't mean to sound like a Walmart stockholder; just an Amen to the fact that people tend to notice and appreciate friendly, kind treatment and reward it w/their patronage.
So glad to know Neiman's still has wonderful customer service. I read "Minding the Store" more than a couple of decades ago and I remembered and adapted several of Mr. Stanley's principals in every job I have ever held. You are so right that attitude plays a big part of customer service. Good customer service is not just limited to retail. Nonprofit employees must also "give good customer service" from the receptionist right up to the ED and this "good customer service" should be given to everyone with whom we come in contact, be it donor, client and yes, even the occasional critic.
I think saint ties with the mcdaniel dog for worlds best! Hard to travel with out Hugh! Happy new year sitting on a southwest plane where again customer service is key but it is the individual that takes it to the best level!
Phoebe, I don't find the same level of service at our Wal-Marts in Dallas. Maybe we could use some transfers from Maine! In fact I almost used them as one of my bad examples in the post -- glad I didn't since you like them so much!
Leslie, so true about non-profits! We talk about it all the time at CPD. Everyone needs to answer the phone with a smile and carry on from there!
Jill, you are correct about the Saint and SW Airlines! Happy New Year to all!
I f'd up the Secret Santa.


text:
Murdoch's The Daily hits iPads today
BYPhilip Elmer-DeWitt
February 2, 2011, 12:14 PM UTC
The aging press baron makes one last bid to capture the eyeballs of the Internet generation
The Guggenheim Museum. Source: Wikicommons
[UPDATE: The free (for two weeks) app is available here. There's a video tour here. Click here for our live coverage of the event and first impressions of the product.]
At 11 a.m. EST, a museum-full of reporters and analysts will gather amid the Post-Impressionists at the Guggenheim to watch News Corp.'s (NWS) Rupert Murdoch and Apple's Eddie Cue (a stand in for the ailing Steve Jobs) unveil The Daily — the world's first iPad-only daily "newspaper."
For Murdoch, the 79-year-old Australian-born press baron with properties that range from Fox News and the Wall Street Journal to News of the World and MySpace, The Daily is likely to be his last chance to create a news product for the Internet generation.
For Apple (AAPL), The Daily may be the company's last chance to fix a broken subscription model (see, for example, here) and prove that its tablet computer can be what Jobs told newspaper and magazine publishers it would be: A vehicle with which to halt the industry's downward spiral.
More ink — and bits — have been spilled leading up to today's launch than any new publication in recent memory. We've read most of it so that you don't have to.
Below the fold: Links to a few of the choicest bits.
Wordyard's Scott Rosenberg: Why the Daily, Murdoch's "tablet newspaper," will be DOA
The New York Times' David Carr: A News Corp. Newspaper, but Not in Print
New York Magazine's Gabriel Sherman: Reading 'The Daily'
Newsonomics' Ken Doctor: Nine Questions on Murdoch's Doubly Cool Daily
We'll be bringing our iPad to the Guggenheim Wednesday morning and — the gods of Wi-Fi willing — hope to file live reports from the event.
Who's who on The (iPad) Daily
The Kindle kerfuffle
Why digital newsstands stink
Rupert Murdoch's The (iPad) Daily gets a launch date – sort of
Steve Jobs and Rupert Murdoch, BFF?
[Follow Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter @philiped]

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


A template that can be used for logos that needs a unique animation sequence, with the logo smashing a wall of glass for a fun effect.
this project looked like 3D, but totally created in after effects with in built plug ins. for gloss only i used optical flares, with out this also the 3D looks works. you have to only replace your LOGO in logo comp. enjoy.


In search for Apex Legends company.
Yeah im in on the EU servers, forgot to mention that.
My origin name is greg0r19, but it would be better to add me on discord/type here so i can see it sooner.
I can't believe how difficult Origin makes it to add new friends, even though Apex integrates Steam Friends.
Greg0r's name comes up with 88 possibilities. And I had the name of a teammate yesterday that I wanted to add from a match and I simply couldn't find it in origin.
Ooooooh, It was discord all along. I missed that!
No I am not EU. Sorry!
EU and, sure ingame voice chat is cool with me.
greg0r19-origin name. I will be working for the rest of the day probably, but tomorrow is my day off so im free the whole day.
greg0r19. I'm on pc as well.
What characters are you guys playing as? Was looking at the character bio's and wondered about which were popular choices?
Nice. I still have not won any… best i have got was second place.


text:
Schumacher: Bottas showed nothing new
11:42 Thursday 21 March 2019 by
Ralf Schumacher has expressed doubt that Formula 1 saw a rejuvenated and revitalised Valtteri Bottas at the Australian Grand Prix. The Mercedes man ended his year-long win drought by beating team-mate Lewis Hamilton in Melbourne, but Schumacher believes the result had more to do with the champion's struggles than any newfound fight from Bottas.
The Finn arrived for the 2019 with a decidedly different look, having put muscle on over the off-season and grown a beard, and his exploits in Australia hinted at a new mental approach too.
Article continues under video
GPFans F1 Podcast #2 - Australian GP recap, your questions and Guess The Grid!Read more
Bottas qualified closer to Hamilton than any teammate had since Jenson Button trumped him in 2010, before jumping the five-time world champion off the line and dominating the race, celebrating his victory with a spiky message to his doubters.
However, Hamilton's effort were hampered by floor damage sustained early in the race, and Schumacher believes this was more crucial to Bottas' win.
The six-time grand prix-winner told the Starting Grid podcast: "I would say it was just a good weekend for him, no more and no less.
"I would not read that much into it.
"He showed in qualifying that he is on the level of Hamilton, but in the end he was still a tenth away because he made a mistake.
"Without [Hamilton's damaged] floor and the start, it would be the usual picture I've been pretty sure.
"That's why: Yes, it's good that he made it, but we do not have a new Bottas, which would be very surprising."
F1 confirm 2020 season start date in Australia
Bottas happy with free champagne after frustrating Austrian GP
GP fans
GPFans is a multi-platform, multi-language brand dedicated to Formula One coverage. We bring you all the ins and outs of the sport, 24/7, everything from up-to-the-minute news and features to the latest viral stories and clips.
We believe that a new generation of exciting, outspoken drivers will make F1 more popular than ever before, and we want to give our users access to as much of their heroes as possible, on and off the track. From Lewis Hamilton to Max Verstappen, Daniel Ricciardo to Sebastian Vettel, we provide in-depth analysis of every every Grand Prix in the season, from Australia to Abu Dhabi.
With Formula One under the new ownership of Liberty Media, how the sport is being covered is evolving, and GPFans will look to be at the heart of this progression into new media, as one of the fastest-growing sites covering the king of motorsports.
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Sometimes I feel like Hong Kong is such a small place that you just feel like you've seen it all, so I was pleasantly surprised when this pretty editorial was sent our way. This is proof that even a small team of talented vendors — Heather Lai Photography, XING maQuillage, Flare Fiori, and La Comme Vintage Wedding Bridal, can come up with something absolutely fresh and inspiring. They found this gem of a location with an abundance of natural light that was the perfect backdrop for the soft vintage looks they've envisioned. Be inspired!


Posted by Blogs on February 27, 2013. Uncategorized.
Social media is radically transforming the way consumers are engaging with brands. New research from Nielsen and NM Incite has shown that consumers' purchasing decisions are increasingly influenced by the growth of the mobile device market.
Mobile devices give consumers the power to interact with their social networks regardless of location, allowing almost instant access to information on products and services. Brands can offer tailored deals and stronger buying incentives while they interact with a potential consumer, meaning that a thorough understanding and proficient use of social media is essential for any brand to avoid falling behind competitors.
The growth in the mobile device market illustrates the growing importance of social networking. 46% of social media users now use mobiles to connect to the internet, meaning that brands are dealing with a highly mobile consumer base. A consumer who is almost constantly linked and interacting with the digital world is connected with other potential consumers and sources of relevant information. A brand's presence online has become increasingly important, and social networks allow an interactive platform from which to connect with a growing and consumer base.
The trend towards using mobiles has been accompanied by a growth in app use. Time spent on mobile apps has increased by 120% over the last year. There has been a 63% of year-on-year growth in time spent on social media, with intuitive design and ease of use considered a driving force behind consumer behaviour as users begin to move away from simple mobile browsing.
The ways in which consumers connect to the internet are increasingly influenced by social networking applications which provide links to secondary sites and apps. Time spent on social media is up 76%, with over seven times more minutes spent using social media apps than general mobile web surfing.
This change provides brands with a means of creating a carefully controlled online presence, which can draw consumers towards specific content and encourage the sharing of services and products, using social networks.
More than ever consumers are communicating about their purchases and experiences and becoming integral parts of purchase choices. Inter-consumer communication and sharing is vital, as the Nielsen study shows that more than a quarter of social media users are more likely to pay attention to an ad shared by a social connection.


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text:
Баку-
Гянджа-
Нахичевань-
Ширван-
Шеки-
State agencies partnered with a drug trafficker
Авторы: Meydan TV, Hafiz Babalı
Дата: 1 Август 2018
The State Committee for Work with Religious Associations (SCWRA) has outsourced events promoting Islamic unity to a company headed by a man who has been imprisoned for using and selling drugs.
The most recent activity sponsored by SCWRA and carried out by the company in question was held on 12 June 2017. The seminar, held at the Heydar Aliyev Center, was titled "The Primary Directions of the Activities of Religious Communities in the Promotion of Islamic Unity." The Sirabad Regional Executive Authority also cooperated on the seminar.
The company that organized the event was Qen Tex Servis, which was founded in September 2015, and is registered at 23A Ahmad Rajabli St. in Baku. Its director is Sumgayit resident Jabir Gayibov, 45. In April 2017, Qen Tex Servis had won a tender for 115,000 AZN ($67,600) from the SCWRA for organizing such seminars.
But on 16 June 2017, four days after the event at the Heydar Aliyev Center, Gayibov was sentenced to 11 years in prison by the Baku Grave Crimes Court.
On 11 January 2018, at SWRA's annual reporting meeting, the head of the SCWRA, Aliheydar Zulfugarov, announced that 27 seminars and conferences had been held in 2017 on the topic of "the primary directions of religious association's activities promoting Islamic unity."
The 2017 conferences organized by Qen Tex were preceded by an earlier contract for 134,000 AZN ($78,800) in 2016, under which Qen Tex Services also organized seminars for SCWRA.
The SCWRA is not alone. In 2016, the Police Academy under the Ministry of Internal Affairs paid the same organization 84,000 AZN (about $49,380) for books, textbooks, journals and other publications for its library, and another 50,000 AZN ($29,390) to organize cultural events on the topic of "cultural connections with foreign countries and receiving foreign guests," according to the state registry of tenders.
SCWRA's administration did not respond to requests for information on its relationship with Qen Tex, what it was contracted to do, and whether or not the committee continued to work with Qen Tex after its director went to prison on drug charges.
The Police Academy's administration also failed to respond to questions about is relationship with Qen Tex Servis.
A person who refused to reveal his name called and introduced himself as the director of Qen Tex Servis, proposing a "chat over tea." Yet the state registry of commercial entities still lists the imprisoned Jabir Gayibov as the director of Qen Tex Servis.
Other companies tied to Gayibov
At least two other companies are registered at Qen Tex Servis's Baku address: Marsan and Marsan Services. They performed various services for the SCWRA as well as other state agencies in the period 2015-2018. To hold events for the SCWRA alone, Marsan and Marsan Services received 71,000 AZN ($41,700).
And Gayibov is connected to other companies as well. According to the Tax Ministry's database, he is director of three more companies: Kontakt Servis PP, Smart Poliqraf (VÖEN 1201423051)and Cardinal Servis. The latter is registered at Gayibov's home address in Sumgayit - 51st region,. There is no openly available information about the activities of any of these companies, which were founded almost simultaneously with Qen Tex Servis.
The director of Marsan, Ilahim Mehraliyev, also runs a company with the same name as one of Gayibov's companies, Smart Poliqraf (VÖEN 2903444981).
Mehraliyev's companies have a tax debt of 13,000 AZN ($7,640), for which Mehraliyev was placed under a travel ban in 2016.
Who is Jabir Gayibov?
Gayibov, 45, has been in prison for over a year. His latest drug troubles began on 10 March 2017, when the narcotics division of the Sumgayit police force found 2.045 kg of heroin and 3.17 kg of marijuana allegedly belonging to Gayibov in the courtyard of his apartment building. On that day, Gayibov was detained carrying a "black plastic bag with 0.965 g of heroin."
A representative of Qen Tex Servis signed the contract with SCWRA for the Islamic unity events on 14 April 2017, after Gayibov was arrested on the drug charges. The identity of the person who signed the contract on behalf of Qen Tex could not be ascertained.
Gayibov had his sentence shortened on appeal from 11 years to 10. The Sumgayit Appellate Court's decision states that "from the moment he was arrested, he was subjected to moral and physical torture and he was forced to give testimony in a way that corresponded with the personal interests of the interrogator and the detective." The appellate court ruled that the Baku Grave Crimes Court's sentence was unjust and relatively harsh.
The entrance to Gayibov's home in Sumgayit
Gayibov lived with his family in Sumgayit. The door to his apartment was opened by Firangiz, the wife of Jabir's brother Elkhan. Firangiz, who has lived in the house for nine years, said that she knew Jabir was addicted to drugs.
"He's been in prison for drugs before, and he has been treated for it. I'm hearing from you for the first time that there were companies in his name,' she said.
Gayibov's sister-in-law further said that Jabir Gayibov has a middle school education and is skilled as a tiler. She said the family knew nothing about the companies and did not see him show any profit from them..
"I don't know, maybe he had friends who opened companies in his name, but he never said a word about it to us. His mother and brother are sick, and we don't have any high-placed, well-off relatives who might have a company," Firangiz said.
A young man collecting scrap metal near Gayibov's home named Samir said Jabir Gayibov was quiet and did not speak to neighbors.
Last year a court ordered mandatory drug treatment for Gayibov, but his family does not know whether he received the treatment.
Пока вы здесь ...
У нас есть небольшая к вам просьба. В среде, где информация находится под жестким государственным контролем, Мейдан ТВ усердно работает над тем, чтобы обеспечить доступ к качественной независимой журналистике. Мы проливаем свет на истории, которые вы иначе не прочитали бы, так как мы считаем, что те, кто не может высказаться, заслуживают быть услышанными, а те, кто находится у власти, должны быть привлечены к ответственности. Мы вкладываем в это значительное время, усилия и ресурсы, поэтому нам нужна ваша помощь.
Ваша поддержка дает возможность нашим смелым журналистам, многие из которых работают под большой угрозой своей личной свободе и безопасности, продолжать свою деятельность. Каждый вклад в защиту независимой журналистики в Азербайджане имеет значение. Спасибо.
Короткие линки: http://mtv.re/s72n61
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"Today is the Day For Salvation!" If you do not know Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Saviour, please do not put off today this Great Gift from God. Can you say that you're 55%, 75%, or 100% sure of where you will spend eternity? You can know today beyond a shadow of a doubt. These simple facts and steps below can give you a peace beyond all understanding, and 100% assuredness of where you will spend eternity.
Drop us a line and let us know, so we can pray with and for you each and every day. God Bless you and your new relationship with the Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
Fellowship with other Christians in a Church where Jesus Christ is preached, and the Bible is the final authority.
4 Tell Others About Christ.
Now that your life has been changed, with the peace that comes from knowing the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Saviour! Tell someone today! Don't keep the "Greatest Gift To Mankind" to yourself. Tell everyone you know how Jesus has changed your life and that they too can come to know this wonderful Lord & Saviour.


One of the first challenges you'll encounter when editing dialogue is picking the audio source you're going to edit with. That is, which microphone's audio are you going to cut onto your timeline?
Want to know what we think? Check out the video (and transcript below) to find out!
Alright, so here are a couple quick tips for working with your various audio sources.
Tip 1: When possible, you'll typically want to cut with the shotgun boom mic.
Will there be times when the lavalier mic sounds better? Louder, cleaner, more understandable? Sure. Most often though, it'll be the boom.
Tip 2: Don't layer your dialogue sources.
That is, don't try to overlay your boom mic on top of your lav mic in the hopes of getting the best of both worlds. It's not going to happen. At best you'll end up with louder dialogue where you can hear everything, good AND bad, that was recorded on set.
At worst, you'll end up with a noisy mess that's plagued by phase issues because the waveforms won't line up perfectly at least not without the touch of a professional sound editor.
Tip 3: Pick the best parts of each audio source.
If you've found that one microphone is sounding best in your scene, odds are you'll stick with it for the entire scene. However, there might be times when you've got a certain word or phrase that doesn't sound too great.
Let's say you're cutting with the lav mic in this case, which isn't an ideal scenario to begin with. Not surprisingly, you encounter a bit of cloth rustling that interferes with a word, making it hard to understand.
If you're looking to get the best possible dialogue mix in your rough cut, you can steal syllables and words from one of your other mics to help patch up your dialogue a bit.
We're always looking to hear from you – any great tips for dialogue editing you'd like to share? Leave a comment below!


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Q: Time complexity of betweenness centrality? What is the time complexity of computing betweenness centrality if we are given the shortest path predecessor matrix of a graph?
Predecessor matrix cells look like this:

*

*if node i and node j are directly connected then value in the cell is 0;

*if node i and node j are not connected then value in the cell is -1;

*else  cell = predecessor(j) - this can be only one predecessor if there is a single shortest path or an array of predecessors if there are more than one shortest paths between i and j.

Thank you for your answer,
I am familiar with Brandes Algorithm. However Brandes Algorithm will compute the betweenness for all the nodes inside a network. I think that time spent for computing CB for one vertex is the same as the time for computing CB for all vertices as Brandes algorithm can't be adapted for such a case.
So, my idea was to store the predecessor matrix, and to be able to compute CB for a certain vertex (and not have to wait for all vertices CB computations).
I am aware I can't achieve smaller time complexity but I think that the difference in amount of time can be made by not computing CB for all 7000 vertices. Instead, by having this matrix I am able to compute CB for only one single vertex.
I think it is possible to compute CB in O(n^2*L) where L is the average shortest path when we have predecessor matrix.
What is your opinion about this concept?

A: As far as I can find out, the best known algorithm for computing betweenness centrality is the one described in this paper:

*

*Ulrik Brandes (2001). A Faster Algorithm for Betweenness Centrality. Journal of Mathematical Sociology 25(2):163-177.

You'll see that this algorithm computes, as a first step, the number of shortest paths between every pair of nodes. It is natural to do so in a way that simultaneously computes the predecessor matrix too. So it appears that there's no benefit to pre-computing the predecessor matrix: you get it essentially for free anyway while executing Brandes' algorithm.
(Of course, this isn't a proof that it makes no difference, and maybe someone else knows better. You might want to ask on cstheory.stackexchange.com.)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


This was such a quick and easy card to make - isn't it sweet?
I mounted a piece of Whisper White cardstock (which I had run through the Big Shot with the Decorative Dots embossing folder) onto a piece of Mint Macaron card. The green striped background piece is actually from the new Envelope Paper Stampin' Up! are bringing out with the new Catalogue (2nd June 2015) - this was punched out with the Decorative Label Punch.
The sentiment is from the Sprinkes of Life stamp set (due out 2nd June 2015) and I cut this out using the Bg Shot and the Bitty Banners Dies. I finished the whole thing off with a Rhinestone.
Back tomorrow with another butterfly card.


Distribution Agreements: Cover Your Bases!
Where are you doing business as a distributor?
Is your state a franchise state?
Are you affiliated with a particular large beer, wine, or spirits producer? Are you independent?
Do you already have products like mine? What are they? How have you increased sales over time for them?
How much wine, beer, cider or spirits did you sell last fiscal year? How does that compare with the last 2-3 years?
What are your total annual gross sales?
How often do your sales people visit accounts?
What length of term do you want for our agreement?
What is the territory covered by the agreement?
Do you have an exclusive right to sell my products in the territory?
Is the distributor entitled to new products that the producer develops after the relationship starts?
What, if any accounts, does the producer already work with and does the producer get to continue to handle those accounts?
Are you willing to meet and jointly develop an annual sales and marketing plan for my brands, including sales goals, marketing activities and pricing?
What performance standards will you agree to in writing?
What happens if we can't agree on sales goals and pricing?
Is the agreement for a fixed term or does it automatically renew if the distributor meets their goals?
Can either of us terminate the agreement if we are not happy?
What happens at termination in terms of payments, return/buyback of product, etc.
Who arranges for delivery of my product? When does risk of loss shift to the distributor?
What types of insurance do you have? What are the limits of liability on the policies?
Who pays for delivery of product to the distributor?
How is my product shipped, stored and delivered to retailers to ensure no impairment in quality?
Who is my sales person and/or Brand Manager?
Are they a top producer?
Can I have my own sales people visit accounts by themselves and, if we want, in tandem with your sales force?
Will you give me the names of all your accounts and all accounts visited to show my wine, beer, and cider?
What kind of marketing events and activities will you do, when, how will they be supported, and who pays for it?
Who pays for by the glass promotions or volume discounts?
What monthly, quarterly and annual reports will I receive regarding orders, depletions, marketing and sales events and related costs?
For alcohol beverage contract-related questions, please contact Chris Hermann at crhermann@stoel.com or visit http://www.stoel.com/wine-law.


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Marilyn Monroe: 15 Things You Didn't Know (Part 2)
puhia.com
We already brought you part one of our list of 15 things you probably didn't know about Marilyn Monroe, and now we're back with part two! Check out eight more random and rare facts about this late legend – who knows, you might learn something new!
Number Eight: She Was a Christian Scientist. When she was 18, Monroe became a Christian Scientists. However, later in life she also investigated Anthroposophy, which was a new age philosophy supported by Rudolf Steiner. Before her marriage to Arthur Miller in 1956, she converted to Judaism.
Number Seven: Her Weight Fluctuated Often. Monroe's weight would change so rapidly and so dramatically that the costume designer for The Prince and the Showgirl had to create dresses in two different sizes. The designer, Beatrice Dawson, is reported as saying, "I have two ulcers from this film, and they're both monogrammed MM."
Number Six: She Went Through Several Acting Coaches. Monroe had an acting coach near her at almost all time. Her first coach was named Natasha Lytess and worked with her over the course of six years and had a very intense coaching style. Her second coach, Paula Strasberg, had a more hands-off approach to coaching Monroe.
Number Five: Her Estate Was Purchased in 2011. In January of 2011, Authentic Brand Groups officially purchased the licensing rights associated with Monroe's estate. They purchased the rights at the very steep price of $30 million.
Number Four: Mariah Carey Has Her Piano. In a 1999 auction, Monroe's white baby grand piano sold for $662,500 to Mariah Carey, Interestingly, the piano was priced at a mere $10,000 to $15,000.
Number Three: She Wore a Wig to Her Funeral. Because part of Monroe's head had to be shaved for her autopsy, she wore a platinum wig to her open casket funeral. She also wore a Pucci sheath dress made of nylon jersey in the color green.
Number Two: She Wanted to Remarry Joe DiMaggio. It is believed that Monroe was interested in remarrying ex-husband Joe DiMaggio at the time of her death. DiMaggio had been working on building their relationship; he was undergoing therapy, quit drinking, and he often read poetry together with Monroe.
Number One: One of Her Gowns Sold for 820,000 Pounds. The gown that Monroe wore when she sang "Happy Birthday" to President Kennedy sold for an impressive 820,000 pounds in 1999. However, this is not the most expensive item of clothing Monroe has ever sold. Her Seven Year Itch dress sold for 2.8 million pounds in 2011.
Tags: joe dimaggio, Marilyn Monroe, seven year itch
PPcorn
PPcorn is a website designed to engage users all over the globe with its variety of content covering news, lifestyle, and entertainment. We bring you the latest trends, videos, and updates before anyone else and we only feature high quality content written by our expert team of creators.
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Marilyn Monroe: Top 7 Most Inspiring Quotes of All Time


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Empowering and enabling participation in human research: Reflections from two Queenslanders living with Multiple Sclerosis0
Posted by Admin in Human Research Ethics on October 1, 2019 / Keywords: Australia, Beneficence, Good practice, Participant protection, Researcher responsibilities, Respect for persons, Vulnerable groups
Dr Gary Allen
MS Qld Ambassador | AHRECS Senior Consultant | Member NS s4 review committee
Natalie Walsh
MS Qld Community Engagement Manager
Participation in ethical human research often provides four positive opportunities for persons living with MS:
(i) A welcome distraction from the sometimes-cruel realities of living with this progressive neurological condition.
(ii) An opportunity to provide insight into the practical challenges of symptoms that may be invisible to observers other than family, close friends and carers, and to give voice to the experiences of persons who are disenfranchised.
(iii) Access to whatever benefits are anticipated as a result of a project.
(iv) An opportunity to make a positive contribution to the body of knowledge and/or other public good.
The exclusion of people living with MS from research is a concern with regard to the ethical values of Justice (e.g. NS 4.5.3) and Beneficence because it denies access to the benefits described above, on the grounds of a disability. It is also a merit and integrity concern because, if a section of the community is excluded from a research project, there is at least the possibility the results might be different for people living with MS.
Prevalence in society
In Australia 1 in 5 people live with a disability. The average age of people diagnosed with MS is just 30 and 3 out of 4 are female.
On average, more than 10 Australians are diagnosed with MS every week. There are over 25,600 people in Australia living with MS, including 4,970 Queenslanders and the condition affects each person differently. The progress, severity and specific symptoms of MS cannot be predicted. MS is a lifelong condition for which a cure is yet to be found. However, doctors and scientists are making discoveries about the treatment and management of MS every day.
MS is one of the most common chronic neurological conditions of the Central Nervous System and may affect the brain, spinal cord and optic nerve and impacts more young people in Australia than any other chronic progressive neurological disease.
Symptoms and research
It is important to note that the symptoms associated with MS can be different differ in both presentation and severity for each individual.
Symptoms of MS will vary and are unpredictable. No two people will experience the same symptoms to the same degree. Symptoms can come and go, and can also be affected temporarily by other factors such as hot weather or an infection.
Although MS can cause a wide variety of symptoms, most people only experience a small number of these. For most of the common MS symptoms, there are now many effective forms of symptom management. It is also important to note that the symptoms listed here are not exclusive to MS and can appear in many different neurological conditions.
The symptoms of MS can be both visible and invisible to others and include:
Changes in memory, concentration or reasoning
Slurring or slowing of speech
Extreme tiredness (unusual fatigue): a debilitating kind of general exhaustion and weariness which is unpredictable disproportionate to the activity
Visual disturbance, including blurring of vision, double vision (diplopia), inflammation of the optic nerve (optic neuritis), pain and (rarely) loss of vision
Emotional and mood changes
Altered sensation, such as tingling, numbness or pins and needles
Altered muscle tone, such as muscle weakness, tremor, stiffness or spasms
Difficulties with walking, balance or coordination: – these include loss of balance, tremors, unstable walking (ataxia), dizziness (vertigo), clumsiness of a limb, lack of coordination, and weakness (affecting in particular the legs)
Sexual changes
Bladder and bowel changes
Sensitivity to heat and/or cold
The exclusion of persons living with MS can typically occur in one of two ways:
(i) Intentionally because of the perceived vulnerability of the population, especially if an individual's symptoms include impact on executive function, such as cognition and memory.
(ii) Unintentionally
……..a. because the research activities don't accommodate the limitations imposed by an individual's symptoms.
……..b. because communication is not extended to the networks outside of the research community.
Empowering and enabling participation
The exclusion of persons living with MS from research should be limited to circumstances where an individual's symptoms would confound the collected data (e.g. a person with a severe intention tremor in their lead hand is unlikely to be able to quickly draw a shape they saw) or where they are especially vulnerable to harm (e.g. high-intensity exercise when their symptoms include autonomic impact on their cardiovascular system).
Rather than excluding potential participants who live with MS, researchers and review bodies are encouraged to consider:
(i) Whether the complexity of the research and nature of the risks are such that the competence of potential participants should be established. This might be explored in a simple conversation, as is recommended by paragraph 4.5.10 of the National Statement, e.g.
…….a. in the case of low risk anonymous data collection, accepting consent without establishing competence.
…….b. considering strategies to scaffold consent and respecting the wishes of individuals, even if substitute consent is required.
…….c. including a support person to provide individual assistance to participants
(ii) Conducting testing in a cool and bright location and at preferred times, such as mornings.
(iii) Allowing participants to request rest breaks with refreshments available
(iv) Supporting screen readers and closed captioning.
(v) Supporting suitable interface controls other than a mouse.
(vi) Reimbursing transport, parking or companion costs if travel is required.
Reference groups
The establishment of a reference group can be a valuable way to explore whether the anticipated benefits of a project are perceived as justifying the risks (as recommended by paragraph 2.1.5 of the National Statement), whether the support strategies are sufficient, and whether the language of the recruitment and consent materials are appropriate.
National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research (2007 updated 2018)
Allen, G. & Walsh N. (1 October 2019) Empowering and enabling participation in human research: Reflections from two Queenslanders living with Multiple Sclerosis. Research Ethics Monthly. Retrieved from: https://ahrecs.com/human-research-ethics/empowering-and-enabling-participation-in-human-research-reflections-from-two-queenslanders-living-with-multiple-sclerosis
Should we Reframe Research Ethics as a Professional Ethics?0
Posted by Admin in Human Research Ethics on October 1, 2019 / Keywords: Culture, Good practice, Institutional Responsibilities, Researcher responsibilities, Resourcing practice, Respect for persons, Social Science, social science research ethics
Dr Nathan Emmerich
Research Fellow in Bioethics at ANUMS
Despite the fact that one of the urtexts of bioethics—Beauchamp and Childress' principles of biomedical ethics—offers a set of concepts that purport to apply to both research and medical practice it is nevertheless the case that we standardly contrast research ethics with professional ethics. The operating presumption seems to be that a proper grasp of professional ethics requires an understanding of the unique role professional's play, whereas the same cannot be said of research ethics. Here the presumption is that researchers are not unique but interchangeable. Furthermore, their individuality is inimical to good, and therefore ethical, research.
Whilst both healthcare professionals and researchers should be objective, the professional enters into a singular relationship with their patients. The position of the researcher can, however, be occupied by any relevantly qualified individual and their function is to report their scientific observations. Thus, underlying this contrast is an epistemological point. The perceived importance of the relationship between doctors and patients means that whilst the ethics of the preeminent profession, medicine, are predicated on professionalism they are equally predicated on something that is distinctively (inter)personal. In contrast, the notion that there might be an (inter)personal dimension to the relationship between researchers and research participants is inimical to the requirement for objectivity, at least for a certain value of objectivity.
Nik Zeps, AHRECS
In this thought-provoking blog, Nathan Emmerich challenges the notion that there is any distinction between research ethics and professional ethics when it comes to social science research. That is, the very nature of the enterprise requires that the researcher be deeply engaged in ethical discourse throughout the conduct of the study and not simply at a point in time to satisfy the regulatory requirements of ethics committees to obtain their approval. Whilst the argument is reserved for the social sciences, and there is some hesitancy to extend it beyond this, it is clear that the arguments made are true for all research, including biomedical. There is a reluctance to challenge notions about the divide between research and clinical practice that have been with us for over 50 years, but perhaps it is time to have a proper discussion about whether this is or is not applicable any longer. Patient centered research with an emphasis on co-design with consumers upends the notion that this type of research maintains a separation between researchers and research participants. Social science research provides an immediate opportunity for rethinking how we behave ethically, but biomedical research should follow hot on the heels.
Therein, of course, lies the rub. According to Stark, the differentiation between research ethics and professional ethics can be traced to the National Institute of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA, circa 1950. Given the existing competition between the codes of professional ethics promulgated by medicine's sub-specialties, the nascent idea of a research ethics was conceived pragmatically and in aprofessional terms. When it came to biomedical research, and the epistemology of the natural sciences, this was not an issue. However, consistent with Schrag's critique of the subsequent development of research ethics as neglecting concerns expressed by social scientists, this is more problematic when it comes to the social sciences, particularly at the more interpretive end of the spectrum.
In qualitative social science the unique perspective, position or standpoint of the researcher is essential to understanding socio-cultural reality and, therefore, to the process of conducting research. Furthermore, it is not something that can be eliminated by the use of (replicable) quantitative measures. This does not mean qualitative research cannot be objective. Rather, it means that the notion of objectivity differs between the natural and social sciences. Doing qualitative social science does not mean embracing subjectivity. Rather, it requires qualitative researchers to embrace epistemological reflexivity and to aim at objectivity as a value, virtue, or standpoint of social research.
When this is coupled with the fact that such research often seeks to give expression to the 'lived experience' of research participants, one can see how a concern for the (inter)personal must return to center stage in discussions of social scientific research ethics. One way of doing so would be to rethink the ethics of social scientific research as a form of professional ethics. Thus, rather than simply 'frontloading' ethical decision-making as a part of the design of proposed research, which can then be subject to peer review or evaluation by committee, we can more clearly acknowledge that engaging with the ethical dimension of research requires ongoing attention. The range of ethical issues researchers might encounter, both in the field and as a function of their role, are such that we cannot hope to fully address them preemptively. In this context, and consistent with the contemporary concern for the integrity of both research and researchers, we might draw on the idea of researchers as professionals and, in so doing, embrace the view that they ought to be guided by a set of internal professional norms or ethics.
Of course, this is not exactly a solution to the ethical issues social scientists might encounter in the course of research. It does, however, invite further engagement with such questions. Indeed, one can say more than this. Rather than thinking of the ethics of research as something to be addressed and codified by external commentators, such as bioethicists, the idea that research might benefit from a professional ethics invites researchers themselves to lead the discussion. No doubt questions remain, not least on what might constitute a profession or professional group in this context. Nevertheless, this proposal suggests that both professional groups and professional researchers should play a privileged role in creating, interpreting and putting into practice the substantive commitments of their own professional ethics. Furthermore, it is for them to set forth, justify and communicate the stance they adopt to other stakeholders.
This suggestion stands in relatively stark contrast to conceptions of research ethics, where external standards and evaluations are seen as having priority. To me, the difference is akin to the one we find when comparing research ethics committees and clinical ethics committees. The former tends to be rather one-sided; it assesses and offers judgment on research proposals or documents. The latter engages with professional actors and, through a process of mutual dialogue and discussion, facilitates and contributes to the individual's own ethical formations. Which approach is more likely to promote the ethics and integrity of research, particularly social scientific research, seems self-evident.
Dr Nathan Emmerich is a Research Fellow in Bioethics at ANUMS. The ideas presented in this post stem from a book chapter entitled 'A Professional Ethics for Researchers?' (online first) recently published in Iphofen (Ed) Handbook of Research Ethics and Scientific Integrity (Springer) as well as an earlier publication 'Reframing Research Ethics.'
Beauchamp, T.L., and J.F. Childress. 2009 [1979]. Principles of Biomedical Ethics. 6th Edition. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Emmerich, N. 2016 'Reframing Research Ethics: Towards a Professional Ethics for the Social Sciences'. Sociological Research Online 21(4):7 http://www.socresonline.org.uk/21/4/7.html
Emmerich, N. 2019. 'A Professional Ethics for Researchers?' In Iphofen, R. (Ed) Handbook of Research Ethics and Scientific Integrity. Springer. Online First: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76040-7_34-1
Iphofen, R. (Ed) Forthcoming 2020. Handbook of Research Ethics and Scientific Integrity. Springer, https://link.springer.com/referencework/10.1007/978-3-319-76040-7
Stark, L. 2011. Behind Closed Doors: IRBs and the Making of Ethical Research. University of Chicago Press. https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/B/bo12182576.html
Schrag, Z.M. 2010. Ethical Imperialism: Institutional Review Boards and the Social Sciences, 1965–2009. The Johns Hopkins University Press. https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/ethical-imperialism
Emmerich, N. (1 October 2019) Should we Reframe Research Ethics as a Professional Ethics? Research Ethics Monthly. Retrieved from: https://ahrecs.com/human-research-ethics/should-we-reframe-research-ethics-as-a-professional-ethics
Ethics, Security and Privacy – the Bermuda Triangle of data management?0
Posted by Admin in Human Research Ethics, Research Integrity on September 30, 2019 / Keywords: Consent, Data, Institutional Responsibilities, Privacy, Researcher responsibilities, Respect for persons
Malcolm Wolski and Andrew Bowness
To manage sensitive research data appropriately, ethics, security and privacy requirements need to be considered. Researchers are traditionally familiar with ethics, but often have not considered the privacy and security pieces of the puzzle. Our reasons for making this statement are:
IT products used in research change rapidly
Legislation changes rapidly and there are jurisdictional issues
Most researchers are not legal or IT experts
No one teaches them enough basics to know what is risky behaviour
The recent revision to the Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research (2018) on Management of Data and Information in Research highlights that it is not just the responsibility of a university to use best practice, but it is also the responsibility of the researcher. The responsible conduct of research includes within its scope the appropriate generation, collection, access, use, analysis, disclosure, storage, retention, disposal, sharing and re-use of data and information. Researchers have a responsibility to make themselves aware of the requirements of any relevant codes, legislation, regulatory, contractual or consent agreements, and to ensure they comply with them.
It's a complex world
However, this is becoming an increasingly more complex environment for researchers. First, privacy legislation is dependent on jurisdiction of participants. For one example, a research project involving participants in Queensland is impacted by not only the Australian Privacy Act but also the Queensland version (Information Privacy Act 2009 Qld), and, if a participant or collaborator is an EU citizen, the General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR).
Secondly, cybersecurity and information security activities in universities have increased dramatically in recent times because of publicised data breaches and the impact of data breach legislation. If your research involves foreign citizens, you may also find foreign legislation impacting the type of response required.
Thirdly, funding agencies, such as government departments are increasingly specifying security and privacy requirements in tender responses and contracts.
These are having an impact on research project governance and practices, particularly for projects where the researcher has identified they are working with sensitive data. While the conversation typically focuses on data identified under the privacy acts as sensitive (e.g. Personally Identifiable Information (Labelled) under the Australian Privacy Act), researchers handle a range of data they may wish to treat as sensitive, whether for contractual reasons (e.g. participant consent, data sharing agreements) or for other reasons (e.g. ethical or cultural).
We have noticed an increasing trend within institutions where researchers are being required to provide more information on how they manage data as specified in a proposal or in a data sharing agreement. This typically revolves around data privacy and security, which is different from the ethics requirements.
What does "security" and "privacy" mean to the practitioner
IT security is more about minimising attack points though process or by using IT solutions to prevent or minimise the impacts of hostile acts or alternatively minimise impacts though misadventure (e.g. leaving a laptop on a bus). Data security is more in the sphere of IT and not researchers. This is reflected in which software products, systems and storage are "certified" to be safely used for handling and managing data classified as sensitive. IT usually also provides the identity management systems used to share data.
We have also noticed that researchers are relying on software vendors' website claims about security and privacy which is problematic because most cloud software is running from offshore facilities which do not comply with Australian privacy legislation. Unless you are an expert in both Australian legislation and cybersecurity you need to rely on the expertise of your institutional IT and cybersecurity teams to verify vendors' claims.
In the current environment, data privacy is more about mandated steps and activities designed to force a minimal set of user behaviours to prevent harm caused through successful attacks or accidental data breaches. It usually involves punishment to force good behaviour (e.g. see Data Breach Legislation for late reporting). Typically, data privacy is more the responsibility of the researcher. It usually involves governance processes (e.g. who has been given access to what data) or practices (e.g. what software products the team actually uses to share and store data).
What we should be worrying about
The Notifiable Data Breaches Statistics Report: 1 April to 30 June 2019 highlighted that only 4% of breaches, out of 254 notifications, were due to system faults, but 34% were due to human error and 62% due to malicious or criminal acts. Based on these statistics, the biggest risk associated with data breaches is where the data is in the hands of the end-user (i.e. the researcher) not with the IT systems themselves.
We argue the risks are also greater in research than the general population because of a number of factors such as the diversity of data held (e.g. data files, images, audio etc), the fluidity of the team membership, teams often being made up of staff across department and institutional boundaries, mobility of staff, data collection activities offsite, and the range of IT products needed in the research process.
For this discussion, the focus is on the governance and practice factor within the research project team and how this relates back to the ethics requirements when it has been highlighted that the project will involve working with sensitive data.
We have worked closely with researcher groups for many years and have noticed a common problem. Researchers are confronted with numerous legislative, regulatory, policy and contractual requirements all written in terminology and language that bears little resemblance with what happens in practice. For example, to comply with legislation:
what does sending a data file "securely" over the internet actually look like in practice and which IT products are "safe"?
Is your university-provided laptop with the standard institutional image certified as "safe" for data classified as private? How do you know?
Is your mobile phone a "safe" technology to record interviews or images classified as private data? What is a "safe" technology for field work?
Within the university sector a range of institutional business units provide support services. For example, IT may provide advice assessing the security and privacy compliance of software, networked equipment or hardware infrastructure and the library may provide data management advice covering sensitive data. At our institution, Griffith University, the eResearch Services and the Library Research Services teams have been working closely with research groups to navigate their way through this minefield to develop standard practices fit for their purpose.
What we think is the best way forward
Our approach is to follow the Five Safes framework which has also been adopted by the Office of the National Data Commissioner. For example:
Safe People Is the research team member appropriately authorised to access and use specified data i.e. do you have a documented data access plan against team roles and a governance/induction process to gain access to restricted data?
Safe Projects Is the data to be used for an appropriate purpose i.e. do you have copies of the underlying data sharing/consent agreements, contracts, documents outlining ownership and licensing rights?
Safe Settings Does the access environment prevent unauthorised use i.e. do IT systems and processes support this and are access levels checked regularly?
Safe Data Has appropriate and sufficient protection been applied to the data i.e. what is it and does it commensurate with the level of risk involved?
Safe Outputs Are the statistical results non-disclosive or have you checked rights/licensing issues?
Expect to see a lot more of the Five Safes approach in the coming years.
Hardy, M. C., Carter, A., & Bowden, N. (2016). What do postdocs need to succeed? A survey of current standing and future directions for Australian researchers.2, 16093. https://doi.org/10.1057/palcomms.2016.93
Meacham, S. (2016). The 2016 ASMR Health and Medical Research Workforce Survey. Australian Society of Medical Research.
Malcolm Wolski, Director eResearch Services, Griffith University
Andrew Bowness, Manager, Support Services, eResearch Services, Griffith University
Wolski, M. and Bowness, A. (29 September 2019) Ethics, Security and Privacy – the Bermuda Triangle of data management?. Research Ethics Monthly. Retrieved from: https://ahrecs.com/research-integrity/ethics-security-and-privacy-the-bermuda-triangle-of-data-management
The F-word, or how to fight fires in the research literature0
Posted by Admin in Research Integrity on July 17, 2019 / Keywords: Good practice, Methodology, Outputs, Public Debate, Research Integrity, Research Misconduct, Researcher responsibilities, Training
Professor Jennifer Byrne | University of Sydney Medical School and Children's Hospital at Westmead
At home, I am constantly fighting the F-word. Channelling my mother, I find myself saying things like 'don't use that word', 'not here', 'not in this house'. As you can probably gather, it's a losing battle.
Research has its own F-words – 'falsification', 'fabrication', different colours of the overarching F-word, 'fraud'. Unlike the regular F-word, most researchers assume that there's not much need to use the research versions. Research fraud is considered comfortably rare, the actions of a few outliers. This is the 'bad apple' view of research fraud – that fraudsters are different, and born, not made. These rare individuals produce papers that eventually act as spot fires, damaging their fields, or even burning them to the ground. However, as most researchers are not affected, the research enterprise tends to just shrug its collective shoulders, and carry on.
But, of course, there's a second explanation for research fraud – the so-called 'bad barrel' hypothesis – that research fraud can be provoked by poorly regulated, extreme pressure environments. This is a less comfortable idea, because this implies that regular people might be tempted to cheat if subjected to the right (or wrong) conditions. Such environments could result in more affected papers, about more topics, published in more journals. This would give rise to more fires within the literature, and more scientific casualties. But again, these types of environments are not considered to be common, or widespread.
But what if the pressure to publish becomes more widely and acutely applied? The use of publication quotas has been described in different settings as being associated with an uptick in numbers of questionable publications (Hvistendahl 2013; Djuric 2015; Tian et al. 2016). When publication expectations harden into quotas, more researchers may feel forced to choose between their principles and their (next) positions.
This issue has been recently discussed in the context of China (Hvistendahl 2013; Tian et al. 2016), a population juggernaut with scientific ambitions to match. China's research output has risen dramatically over recent years, and at the same time, reports of research integrity problems have also filtered into the literature. In biomedicine, these issues again have been linked with publication quotas in both academia and clinical medicine (Tian et al. 2016). A form of contract cheating has been alleged to exist in the form of paper mills, or for-profit organisations that provide research content for publications (Hvistendahl 2013; Liu and Chen 2018). Paper mill services allegedly extend to providing completed manuscripts to which authors or teams can add their names (Hvistendahl 2013; Liu and Chen 2018).
I fell into thinking about paper mills by accident, as a result of comparing five very similar papers that were found to contain serious errors, questioning whether some of the reported experiments could have been performed (Byrne and Labbé 2017). With my colleague Dr Cyril Labbé, we are now knee deep in analysing papers with similar errors (Byrne and Labbé 2017; Labbé et al. 2019), suggesting that a worrying number of papers may have been produced with some kind of undeclared help.
It is said that to catch a thief, you need to learn to think like one. So if I were running a paper mill, and wanted to hide many questionable papers in the biomedical literature, what would I do? The answer would be to publish papers on many low-profile topics, using many authors, across many low-impact journals, over many years.
In terms of available topics, we believe that the paper mills may have struck gold by mining the contents of the human genome (Byrne et al. 2019). Humans carry 40,000 different genes of two main types, the so-called coding and non-coding genes. Most human genes have not been studied in any detail, so they provide many publication opportunities in fields where there are few experts to pay attention.
Human genes can also be linked to cancer, allowing individual genes to be examined in different cancer types, multiplying the number of papers that can be produced for each gene (Byrne and Labbé 2017). Non-coding genes are known to regulate coding genes, so non-coding and coding genes can also be combined, again in different cancer types.
The resulting repetitive manuscripts can be distributed between many research groups, and then diluted across the many journals that publish papers examining gene function in cancer (Byrne et al. 2019). The lack of content experts for these genes, or poor reviewing standards, may help these manuscripts to pass into the literature (Byrne et al. 2019). And as long as these papers are not detected, and demand continues, such manuscripts can be produced over many years. So rather than having a few isolated fires, we could be witnessing a situation where many parts of the biomedical literature are silently, solidly burning.
When dealing with fires, I have learned a few things from years of mandatory fire training. In the event of a laboratory fire, we are taught to 'remove', 'alert', 'contain', and 'extinguish'. I believe that these approaches are also needed to fight fires in the research literature.
We can start by 'alerting' the research and publishing communities to manuscript and publication features of concern. If manuscripts are produced to a pattern, they should show similarities in terms of formatting, experimental techniques, language and/or figure appearance (Byrne and Labbé 2017). Furthermore, if manuscripts are produced in a large numbers, they could appear simplistic, with thin justifications to study individual genes, and almost non-existent links between genes and diseases (Byrne et al. 2019). But most importantly, manuscripts produced en masse will likely contain mistakes, and these may constitute an Achilles heel to enable their detection (Labbé et al. 2019).
Acting on reports of unusual shared features and errors will help to 'contain' the numbers and influence of these publications. Detailed, effective screening by publishers and journals may detect more problematic manuscripts before they are published. Dedicated funding would encourage active surveillance of the literature by researchers, leading to more reports of publications of concern. Where these concerns are upheld, individual publications can be contained through published expressions of concern, and/or 'extinguished' through retraction.
At the same time, we must identify and 'remove' the fuels that drive systematic research fraud. Institutions should remove both unrealistic publication requirements, and monetary incentives to publish. Similarly, research communities and funding bodies need to ask whether neglected fields are being targeted for low value, questionable research. Supporting functional studies of under-studied genes could help to remove this particular type of fuel (Byrne et al. 2019).
And while removing, alerting, containing and extinguishing, we should not shy away from thinking about and using any necessary F-words. Thinking that research fraud shouldn't be discussed will only help this to continue (Byrne 2019).
The alternative could be using the other F-word in ways that I don't want to think about.
Byrne JA (2019). We need to talk about systematic fraud. Nature. 566: 9.
Byrne JA, Grima N, Capes-Davis A, Labbé C (2019). The possibility of systematic research fraud targeting under-studied human genes: causes, consequences and potential solutions. Biomarker Insights. 14: 1-12.
Byrne JA, Labbé C (2017). Striking similarities between publications from China describing single gene knockdown experiments in human cancer cell lines. Scientometrics. 110: 1471-93.
Djuric D (2015). Penetrating the omerta of predatory publishing: The Romanian connection. Sci Engineer Ethics. 21: 183–202.
Hvistendahl M (2013). China's publication bazaar. Science. 342: 1035–1039.
Labbé C, Grima N, Gautier T, Favier B, Byrne JA (2019). Semi-automated fact-checking of nucleotide sequence reagents in biomedical research publications: the Seek & Blastn tool. PLOS ONE. 14: e0213266.
Liu X, Chen X (2018). Journal retractions: some unique features of research misconduct in China. J Scholar Pub. 49: 305–319.
Tian M, Su Y, Ru X (2016). Perish or publish in China: Pressures on young Chinese scholars to publish in internationally indexed journals. Publications. 4: 9.
Byrne, J. (18 July 2019) The F-word, or how to fight fires in the research literature. Research Ethics Monthly. Retrieved from: https://ahrecs.com/research-integrity/the-f-word-or-how-to-fight-fires-in-the-research-literature


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The Birth of American Detective Fiction
The Unlikely Detectives Who Would Launch a Literary Phenomenon
October 2, 2018 By Leslie S. Klinger
VIA PEGASUS
The following is excerpted from the foreword to Classic American Crime Fiction of the 1920s, which includes five of the decade's most famous crime novels—House Without a Key, The Benson Murder Case, The Roman Hat Mystery, Red Harvest, and Little Caesar.
While critics may argue over the exact parameters of the "Golden Age" of crime fiction, most place its beginning between 1908 and 1918 and sweep into its early pantheon writers such as Conan Doyle, E. C. Bentley, Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, Freeman Wills Crofts, H. C. Bailey, Margery Allingham, and Josephine Tey—all notably English. All espoused the clue-based mystery, presenting puzzles for the readers to solve. After Anna Katharine Green, and with the sole exception of Mary Roberts Rinehart, no Americans achieved any fame until S. S. Van Dine, discussed below. As crime fiction historian Howard Haycraft, writing in 1942, put it: "[No American author] was doing work to compare with the exciting developments that were taking place in England. The American detective story stood still, exactly where it had been before the War."
Earl Derr Biggers (1884–1933) was the first to buck that tide. A graduate of Harvard University, he would not have seemed a likely candidate to reinvigorate American crime fiction. He began his career as a journalist for the Boston Traveler, writing humorous columns and theatrical criticism. In 1913, however, he tried his hand at a mystery novel, Seven Keys to Baldpate, which won an immediate following and became an immensely successful stage play, starring George M. Cohan, was filmed seven times, and was adapted for radio and television. Several other of his novels published in the 1910s also had elements of mystery. Biggers also wrote a stream of short stories between 1913 and 1920 for The Saturday Evening Post, The American Magazine, and Ladies' Home Journal, though none were of any particular note.
For decades, the Chinese had been reviled in popular culture, especially in America. As early as 1880, P. W. Dooner wrote a little-known novel titled Last Days of the Republic, published in California—a hotbed of anti-Asian sentiment—depicting a United States under Chinese rule. The 'evil Oriental genius' first appeared in Western literature in 1892. Tom Edison Jr.'s Electric Sea Spider, or, The Wizard of the Submarine World, a "dime novel" published by the Nugget Library, features Kiang Ho, a Mongolian or Chinese (there is some confusion in the tale) Harvard-educated pirate-warlord. Ho, defeated by young Edison, was succeeded in 1896 by Yue-Laou, an evil Chinese sorcerer-ruler featured in The Maker of Moons series by the American writer Robert Chambers.
In 1898, English novelist M. P. Shiel wrote his most popular book, The Yellow Danger. The story tells of Dr. Yen How, who is half-Japanese/half-Chinese ("he combined these antagonistic races in one man") and rises to power in China and fosters war with the West. Yen How is described as a physician educated at Heidelberg and was probably loosely based on the Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat Sen (also a physician). Yen How is defeated by the West in the person of Admiral John Hardy, a consumptive who overcomes his frailties to turn back the Yellow Danger.
Sax Rohmer's short story "The Zayat Kiss" appeared in October 1912 in The Story-Teller, a popular magazine. It was well-received, and Rohmer wrote nine more stories in the initial series. In 1913, the series was collected in book form as The Mystery of Dr. Fu Manchu (published as The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu in America). Fu Manchu appeared in two more series of stories before the end of the Great War, collected as The Devil Doctor (1916) (The Return of Dr. Fu Manchu in America) and Si-Fan Mysteries (1917) (The Hand of Fu Manchu in America).
By 1924, anti-Asian sentiments were at their peak when, with overwhelming support, the United States Congress passed, and President Calvin Coolidge signed, the Immigration Act (also known as the Johnson-Reed Act). The new law adopted the concept of national-origin quotas, limiting overall immigration to 150,000 persons per year, restricting immigration to 2 percent of the quantity of those nationals already present in the United States (according to the 1890 census), and completely prohibiting the immigration of those ineligible for U.S. citizenship. This last standard effectively barred half the world's population and lumped Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Indians, Thais, Indonesians, and others into the category of "Asiatic." Those Asiatics already living in the United States would be barred from citizenship and prevented from bringing other family members into the country.
In 1920, after exhausting himself with work on some very successful stage plays, Biggers traveled to Honolulu. He continued to write a variety of short stories having nothing to do with Hawaii, but he was apparently fascinated by the melting pot that was 1920s Honolulu. He conceived of a mystery set there, and in 1922 he described the work-in-progress to his editor as including "army people, traders, planters. An Americanized Chinese house boy—the star pitcher on the All-China baseball nine—the lawyer for the opium ring—an Admiral of the Fleet . . .—an old Yankee from New Bedford—a champion Hawaiian swimmer—beachcombers—. . . the president of a Japanese bank." There was no mention of a detective. According to Biggers, in the summer of 1924, he stopped by the New York Public Library Reading Room, and while browsing through Hawaiian newspapers, he found an account of the Honolulu police. "In an obscure corner of an inside page, I found an item to the effect that a certain hapless Chinese, being too fond of opium, had been arrested by Sergeants Chang Apana and Lee Fook, of the Honolulu Police. So Sergeant Charlie Chan entered the story of The House Without a Key."
Biggers was no racial crusader, and he certainly had no intention of creating a Chinese character who would fly in the face of American stereotypes or alter the public view of foreigners. Chan is decidedly different: He is described as a fat man, with the chubby cheeks of a baby; yet he walks with the dainty step of a woman. He has ivory skin, short black hair, and amber slanted eyes. He does not speak pidgin-English (as do several of the Japanese characters in the book); rather, he speaks his own brand of English, replete with aphorisms. In this respect, he is as foreign as Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot, whose speech is as distinctive as Chan's. Chan also regularly displays his animosity toward the Japanese—a sentiment common in Hawaii in the 1920s and throughout America. In The House Without a Key, though he eventually appreciates Chan's talents, the young Bostonian protagonist cannot erase his sense of a marked gulf between Chan and himself. In this, Biggers accurately reflected the realities facing the American people: Notwithstanding harsh policies such as the Immigration Act, the ethnic populations of America were here to stay.
[T]he adventures of Charlie Chan struck a chord with the Post's readership. Here, at last, was an American crime writer worth reading, even if his tales were of a slightly less-than-American detective.
First serialized in The Saturday Evening Post between January 24 and March 7, 1925, the adventures of Charlie Chan struck a chord with the Post's readership. Here, at last, was an American crime writer worth reading, even if his tales were of a slightly less-than-American detective. The book publication of The House Without a Key occurred later in 1925, and over the next seven years, five more Chan novels appeared (all first serialized in The Saturday Evening Post): The Chinese Parrot (1926), Behind the Curtain (1928), The Black Camel (1929), Charlie Chan Carries On (1930), and Keeper of the Keys (1932). The novels were extremely popular and were adapted into films, cartoons, comic strips, and radio programs. The last Chan film was in 1947, and a cartoon series ran in 1972–73.
Howard Haycraft, in his masterful Murder for Pleasure: The Life and Times of the Detective Story (1941), summed up the stories of the Chan series: "They are clean, humorous, unpretentious, more than a little romantic, and—it must be confessed—just a shade mechanical and old fashioned by modern plot standards. This absence of any novel or startling departure, in fact, is probably the reason that the first Chan story created no such popular or critical stir as the first Philo Vance case . . . and it was not until two or three of his adventures had appeared that he struck full stride. Once started, however, he has been difficult to stop. . . . Conventional as the narratives often were, Charlie Chan's personal popularity played a part in the Renaissance of the American detective story that can not be ignored."
By 1930, declared J. K. Van Dover, "Philo Vance was the American detective." S. S. Van Dine's books were consistent successes until, after publication of The Scarab Murder Case in 1930, the inevitable decline began. Who was this American phenomenon, the subject of twelve novels and seventeen films, yet barely remembered today? Between 1923 and 1924, Willard Huntington Wright (1888–1939), former editor of The Smart Set and a well-regarded art critic, became ill and read widely in crime fiction. Determined to make his fortune at fiction but anxious to preserve his "high-brow" reputation, he adopted the pseudonym "S. S. Van Dine" (based, he said, probably facetiously, on an old family name and the convenient initials of a steamship). He conceived of the central figure and three plots, summarized them, and presented them to the acclaimed editor Maxwell Perkins, whose other authors included Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Wolfe, and John P. Marquand. Perkins was impressed and immediately bought them for the Scribner's house. The rest was publishing history.
Van Dine had devised his own "rules" for crime fiction and set out to create a detective with a unique style. Some suggest that the character was intended to out-Holmes Holmes, with a deeper erudition and knowledge of useful trivia. A more likely model is Dorothy Sayers's Lord Peter Wimsey, complete with the affected speech of an upper-class Englishman, a pince-nez, a robust collection of wine and modern art, and a butler. In either case, Philo Vance was established as a New York bachelor, with an inherited fortune and the taste to spend it wisely. Accompanied by his attorney, himself "S. S. Van Dine," Vance partnered with New York District Attorney John F.-X. Markham to solve murders—and only murders. The Vance novels are long by the standards of Agatha Christie and are paced slowly, and they include numerous details about the panoply of suspects and the settings.
Vance insists that physical evidence is of much less importance than understanding "the exact psychological nature of the deed." He maintains that understanding the deep-seated urges of seemingly respectable individuals and recognizing their unique psychological signatures is enough to identify a murderer. Vance frequently makes fun of Markham and the police for the logical conclusions they draw from "clues" and circumstantial evidence. Yet despite Van Dine's ignorance of ballistics and other burgeoning forensic sciences and Vance's disdain for police investigations, there are masses of physical evidence in each book; in The Benson Murder Case, for example, Vance relies heavily on tracing the path of the murderous bullet to demonstrate the height of the killer as well as astutely reasoning out the killer's hiding place for the murder weapon.
"Philo Vance makes no apologies for his privileged lifestyle. In the Jazz Age none was needed, as Willard had rightly concluded. A man who knew how to spend his money, a know-it-all with style, had automatic appeal."
Why did Van Dine succeed—at least, while he succeeded? Certainly no one could like Philo Vance. Ogden Nash famously quipped, "Philo Vance/Needs a kick in the pance," and Van Dine appreciated the joke, incorporating it into a footnote in a later novel. An effete white upper-class snob, living in a Manhattan that seemed devoid of life above 120th Street, Vance moved among the rich and famous, a set well-known to Willard Wright. Undoubtedly Van Dine's skill as a writer, his ability to bring a finely-honed purpose and polished literacy to the genre, played a significant part. Another factor was that despite the fantasy that was Vance's life, there was verisimilitude and a certain realism: The first two novels were based on actual unsolved murders that had stunned and fascinated New Yorkers. Perhaps the American public yearned for an urban experience more familiar than Biggers's Hawaii/California milieu or the undistinguished locales of many of Rinehart's books. Certainly New York featured prominently in all of Van Dine's books and was central to many of the Ellery Queen mysteries as well. Perhaps the public reveled in tales of the upper classes. Until Black Tuesday in 1929, princes of Wall Street and the effervescence of the stock markets, which touched rich and poor alike, entranced the American public. John Loughery observes, "Philo Vance makes no apologies for his privileged lifestyle. In the Jazz Age none was needed, as Willard had rightly concluded. A man who knew how to spend his money, a know-it-all with style, had automatic appeal."
Dashiell Hammett was at a loss to understand Van Dine's success. He wrote a scathing review of The Benson Murder Case in the Saturday Review of Literature for January 15, 1927: ". . . The murderer's identity becomes obvious quite early in the story. The authorities, no matter how stupid the author chose to make them, would have cleared up the mystery promptly if they had been allowed to follow the most rudimentary police routine. But then what would there have been for the gifted Vance to do? This Philo Vance is in the Sherlock Holmes tradition and his conversational manner is that of a high-school girl who has been studying the foreign words and phrases in the back of her dictionary. He is a bore when he discusses art and philosophy, but when he switches to criminal psychology he is delightful. There is a theory that any one who talks enough on any subject must, if only by chance, finally say something not altogether incorrect. Vance disproves this theory: he manages always, and usually ridiculously, to be wrong. . . ."
Hammett's own time would come in only a few years, but for the time being, in the late 1920s and through the mid-1930s, the European style of puzzle-mystery dominated American crime fiction, and Willard Huntington Wright was the golden child of publishing and the king of American crime writers. Howard Haycraft credited Van Dine with bringing the American detective story to "a new peak of excellence and popularity," but observed that he did so by doing nothing more than mimic the well-established English tradition. In the end, the pretentiousness and lack of humor of the novels would outweigh readers' initial fascination. Vance's erudition became displayed more and more in large and often gratuitous segments that slowed down the tales, and the snob appeal wore thin. By 1939, when Wright died, both he and Vance had worn out their welcome, and except for the long-lived Ellery Queen mysteries, Van Dine–style stories had been largely replaced by the "hard-boiled" realism of Hammett and others.
Excerpted from Leslie S. Klinger's foreword to Classic American Fiction of the 1920s. Copyright © 2018. Excerpted by permission of Pegasus Books. All rights reserved.
Asian-AmericansbigotryCharlie Chanclassic detective fictionDashiell HammettEarl Derr BiggersEllery Queengolden ageHawaiiHoward HaycraftImmigration ActLord Peter WimseyM. P. ShielNew York CityOgden NashPhilo VanceracismS.S. Van DineSax RohmerThe Saturday Evening Post
Leslie S. Klinger
Leslie S. Klinger is one of the world's foremost authorities on Sherlock Holmes. He is the editor of the three-volume set The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes. The first two volumes, The Complete Short Stories, won the Edgar for "Best Critical/Biographical" work. He has just completed The New Annotated H. P. Lovecraft. Klinger is a member of the Baker Street Irregulars and lives in Malibu.
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