text:
Year : 2010 | Volume : 5 | Issue : 1 | Page : 1-4
Rapid response systems in acute hospital care
Saad Al-Qahtani1, Hasan M Al-Dorzi2
1 Department of Intensive Care Unit, King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
2 Department of Intensive Care Unit, King Abdulaziz Medical City, Riyadh, Central Region, Saudi Arabia
Date of Submission 04-Jul-2009
Saad Al-Qahtani
Departement of ICU, King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences, Riyadh
Al-Qahtani S, Al-Dorzi HM. Rapid response systems in acute hospital care. Ann Thorac Med 2010;5:1-4
Al-Qahtani S, Al-Dorzi HM. Rapid response systems in acute hospital care. Ann Thorac Med [serial online] 2010 [cited 2023 Jan 27];5:1-4. Available from: https://www.thoracicmedicine.org/text.asp?2010/5/1/1/58952
Rationale for Rapid Response Systems
Medical emergencies frequently occur in hospitalized patients. [1],[2],[3],[4],[5] They include unplanned admission to the intensive care unit (ICU), in-hospital cardiac arrest and death. These events do not happen without warning. Several studies indicate that almost all critical inpatient events are preceded by warning signs for an average of 6-8 hours. [3],[6],[7] Such warning signs include: change in vital signs (such as tachycardia, tachypnea, and hypotension), acute dyspnea, and change in level of consciousness. [2],[6],[7] Simultaneously, suboptimal patient care is common. Studies in the US, [1] Canada, [8] Australia, [9] and the UK [10] estimate that adverse events occur in 10% of hospitalized patients with a mortality rate of 5-8%, [8],[9] half of which are judged to be preventable. [8] Another study found that suboptimal care occurred in 54% of the hospitalized patients who required ICU admission with an ICU mortality of 48%; almost twice the mortality of well-managed patients. [10] This contributes to the failure to rescue at-risk hospitalized patients.
Failure to rescue patients in a healthcare facility is due to the following problems: failure of organization, lack of knowledge, failure to appreciate clinical urgency, lack of supervision, and failure to seek advice. [10] Should at-risk patients receive early intervention, in the form of better assessment and aggressive resuscitation, acute decompensation may be corrected before critical deterioration leading to improved outcome. This has triggered initiatives to improve the quality of care of acutely ill in-hospital patients. Bringing intensive care expertise to any acutely ill patient irrespective of location within the hospital, envisioned as 'critical care without walls' is one of these initiatives. [11] This is reflected by the increasing implementation of Rapid Response Systems (RRSs), variably named as medical emergency teams (METs) in Australia, rapid response teams (RRTs) in the US, critical care response teams (CCRTs) in Canada, and critical care outreach teams in the UK. [12]
The most common RRS, is a team of clinicians who bring critical care expertise to the bedside outside the ICU with the aim of intervening in the hours when patients show first sign of deterioration, thus, averting critical illness and cardiac or respiratory arrest. [12],[13] The RRT is based on the notion of early and rapid intervention and is originally inspired by the management strategies of severe trauma, which included two key elements: the early detection of deterioration coupled to a rapid response. More recently, deployment of such teams was one of the main interventions recommended by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in its '100,000 Lives Campaign' that was launched in 2005. [13] Since then, thousands of RRTs have been instituted in North America and worldwide. [13]
Components of the RRS
All RRSs are made up of at least four essential components. [12],[13],[14] The following is a description of these components:
An afferent limb which consists of ward healthcare givers who would recognize a deteriorating patient and activate the RRT. [12],[13],[14] This component is crucial as it links the actual team with the at-risk patient. Ward healthcare givers, such as, nurses and respiratory therapists, should be educated on the early signs of deterioration and the importance of early intervention. It should be noted that many healthcare facilities allow family members to activate the team.
An efferent limb, which is the actual team, [12],[13],[14] its composition depends entirely upon institutional goals, constraints, and resources. Hence, it can be either nurse- or physician-led and usually includes a respiratory therapist. [12],[13],[14] If nurse-led, the nurse usually has critical care experience and would request physician assistance if needed. When physician-led, the physician can be a hospitalist, a critical care fellow, an intensivist or an emergency physician. Regardless of the team composition, it should have all of the following: (a) ability and authority to prescribe medications; (b) advanced airway management skills, advanced cardiac life support certification is a must; (c) capability to establish central venous access; and (d) ability to provide an ICU level of care at the bedside. [12],[13],[14] Other key roles include transferring patients to ICU if needed and educating the ward staff. [12],[13],[14] Frequently, the team members carry with them medications and specialized equipment [14] to facilitate the timely treatment of the deteriorating patient. An essential requirement for the RRT success is building a friendly relationship with the afferent limb members. The notion of being ready to help at all times and the acceptance of soft activations should be part of every day job.
An administrative limb, which oversees all system components, empowers the team to be able to function and provides the needed resources. [12],[13],[14] Support from hospital administration is crucial for both team success and durability.
A quality improvement limb, which periodically reviews RRT activations, provides feedback on team function, [12],[13],[14] and monitors certain quality indicators such as staff satisfaction, monthly cardiac arrests occurring outside the ICU, ICU utilization, and annual hospital deaths per 1,000 discharges. [12],[14]
Activation of the Rapid Response Team
To early recognize the deteriorating patient in hospital wards and to facilitate the activation of the RRT by the afferent limb, the physiologic parameters reflecting or preceding clinical deterioration have been identified and used to formulate track and trigger warning systems. These are either single- or multiple-parameter systems, or aggregate weighted scoring systems. [15] The physiological parameters commonly used in single-parameter systems for RRT activation [13],[14],[16],[17],[18] are shown in [Table 1]
Multiple-parameter systems involve more than one criterion being met for the system activation and are rarely used. [15] The aggregate weighted scoring systems assign weighted scores to certain physiological parameters such as the heart rate, respiratory rate and body temperature, and compare the aggregate score to a predefined trigger threshold. Aggregate scoring systems are mainly used in the UK hospitals and most are based on modifications of the Early Warning Score, developed by Morgan et al. [15],[19]
A systemic review of physiological track and trigger warning systems used to identify patients at risk showed that the commonly used warning systems had little reliability, validity, and utility. [15] This suggests that they should be used as adjuncts to clinical judgment as many at-risk patients will be missed if ward staff only relies on such objective criteria. [15] Hence, including a subjective activation criterion, such as serious concern or worry about a patient's condition is reasonable. [14] This empowers the ward staff to act upon their previous experience and clinical intuition in the absence of the above physiologic abnormalities. [14]
When a patient has any of the above criteria, the afferent limb members would activate the RRT either by overhead announcement or a dedicated pager or portable phone. [14] The RRT is expected to reach the at-risk patient within 15 minutes. Clear communication between the activating healthcare giver and RRT is important and hence communication using the situation-background-assessment-recommendation (SBAR) technique is recommended. [20] Having medical records and recent laboratory results readily available to the RRT facilitates prompt and optimal assessment of the situation. Documentation of the details of RRT encounter including assessments and recommendations is essential and should be part of the patient's medical record. RRT communication with the patient's attending physician or designee is also beneficial.
The Evidence for RRS
The deployment of RRS in hospitals appears to be intuitive as it is inherently associated with better care, which is the goal of all healthcare givers. Several studies have evaluated the effectiveness of RRT. The majority of these studies are nonrandomized, before-and-after trials. Some of these studies suggested an outcome benefit in terms of reduced deaths, cardiac arrests, hospital length of stay, ICU length of stay, and cost. [16],[17],[18],[21] For example, Buist et al. reported a reduction in unexpected death in hospital from 3.77 to 2.05 per 1,000 hospital admissions after implementation of MET. [16] The mortality from in-hospital cardiac arrest decreased in parallel from 77% to 56% [16] Similarly, Bellomo et al. showed that after implementation of MET, there were reductions in cardiac arrests by 65% (P = 0.001), deaths from cardiac arrest by 56% (P = 0.005), duration of ICU stay post arrest by 80% (P = 0.001), and inpatient deaths by 25% (P = 0.004). [17] Similar findings have been seen in pediatric patients. [21] In a cohort before-and-after study, implementation of an RRT was associated with a statistically significant reduction in hospital-wide monthly mortality rate by 18% and code rate outside of the pediatric ICU setting by 71%. [21] On the other hand, other studies showed neutral or negative effects of RRS implementation. [22],[23],[24],[25],[26],[27],[28] Bristow et al. evaluated the outcomes of patients at three hospital, one of which introduced MET, and found no significant difference in the rates of cardiac arrest or total deaths between the three hospitals. [22] Chan and colleagues prospectively assessed pre- and post-RRT outcomes in 24,193 and 24,978 adult patient admissions respectively and found no significant reduction in hospital-wide code rates [adjusted odds ratio (OR) = 0.76; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.57-1.01; P = 0.06), and mortality (3.22 vs. 3.09 per 100 admissions; adjusted OR = 0.95; 95% CI, 0.81-1.11; P = 0.52). [24] Jones and colleagues found a significant increase in hospital mortality in medical patients after MET implementation. [25] In a retrospective before-and-after MET review, Brilli et al. found no significant difference in the incidence of pediatric cardiopulmonary arrests (risk ratio= 0.39; 95% CI, 0-1.4, P = 0.11) or hospital mortality (0.43 vs. 0.24 per 1,000 nonICU admits; risk ratio 0.55; 95% CI, 0-2.1, P = 0.23). [27]
Up-to-date, there are two cluster randomized controlled trials that evaluated RRS in the management of hospitalized adult patients. [28],[29] Priestley and colleagues matched and randomized 16 hospital wards of a single nonteaching hospital in England to have either criticalcare outreach or standard care. They found that critical care outreach was associated with a reduced in-hospital mortality (adjusted OR = 0.52; 95% CI, 0.32-0.85) and with an increased mean length of stay (hazard ratio = 0.91; 95% CI, 0.84-0.99). [28] The other trial by Hillman and colleagues was done in 23 public hospitals across Australia and New Zealand and is known as the MERIT trial. [29] After two-month baseline period, 12 hospitals introduced METs (experimental hospitals) and 11 hospitals continued the usual management of patients using cardiac arrest teams (control hospitals) for four months. This was followed by six-month study period. Results showed that both groups of hospitals had a statistically significant 30% reduction in mortality compared to the baseline period. Moreover, the trial found no differences in the incidence of cardiac arrests, unplanned ICU admissions and unexpected deaths in the two groups of hospitals at the end of the intervention period. [29] Despite its robust design (cluster randomization), number of issues may have contributed to the trial inability to show a significant effect of METs. [12],[30] These included: (a) incomplete and inconsistent implementation of METs in the experimental hospitals, as METs were activated for only 30% of patients who had physiologic deterioration according to MET activation criteria; [12],[29],[30] (b) possible implementation of RRSs by the control hospitals, which was not accounted for. This may have occurred as many of the hospitals were teaching hospitals; [12],[29],[30] (c) insufficient monitoring of relevant physiological variables in general ward patients; [12],[30] and (d) low experimental power to detect improvements by MET because there were fewer events than expected and greater inter-institutional variability in event rates than anticipated when the trial was designed. [12],[30] The latter point required the participation of higher number of hospitals to detect difference in outcomes. [12],[30]
More recently, a systemic review of two randomized controlled trials, 16 uncontrolled before and after studies, three quasi-experimental studies, one controlled before and after study and one post-only controlled study, all done between 1996 to 2004, showed mixed results with respect to the following outcomes: mortality, cardiac arrest, unplanned critical care admissions from wards, length of stay, and critical care readmission rates. This suggested that the evidence for RRSs on improving the outcomes of hospitalized patients remains inconclusive. [31] Another systemic review showed that when comparing RRSs to control, the pooled relative risk for hospital mortality was 0.76 (95% CI, 0.39-1.48) in the same two randomized trials and 0.87 (95% CI, 0.73-1.04) in five observational studies. In addition, the pooled relative risk for cardiac arrest was 0.94 (95% CI, 0.79-1.13) in one of the randomized studies and 0.70 (95% CI, 0.56-0.92) in four observational studies, and for unanticipated ICU admissions was 0.84 (95% CI, 0.55-1.26) in four observational studies. [32] The authors concluded that the evidence that RRSs are associated with a reduction in hospital mortality and cardiac arrest rates is weak and that limitations in the quality of the original studies, the wide confidence intervals, and the presence of heterogeneity limited their ability to conclude that RRSs are effective interventions.
Obviously, research evaluating the effectiveness of RRS faces multiple challenges and difficulties. [33] Most of the studies done have been observational, nonrandomized and had before-and-after design. Before-and-after studies lack rigor and generalizability. [33] Moreover, the magnitude of the effect of a RRS may be influenced by the team structure, which is variable among hospitals and depends on institutional policies and available resources. It is also difficult to avoid the Hawthorne effect. [33] This may improve the care of control patients and reduce the differences in outcomes. Finally, cluster randomization of hospitals, which is the ideal methodology for RRS evaluation, requires the participation of large numbers of centers, which is difficult. [33]
In summary, RRSs take the skills and expertise of the critical care team beyond the walls of the ICU within minutes to the bedside of deteriorating patients, whose condition may well progress to cardiac or respiratory arrest. RRSs would stabilize patients, prevent development of critical illness or cardiopulmonary arrest and contribute to the optimization of the care of other patients through education of healthcare givers working in the general medical and surgical wards. Their implementation requires significant resources and involves a change in the culture of healthcare provision. Although their merits look obvious and thus their deployment in hospitals seems to be intuitive, the available evidence for their effectiveness in improving the outcomes of such patients is weak and of suboptimal quality. Whether they should become the standard of acute hospital care needs to be answered.
1. Kohn LT, Corrigan JM, Donaldson MS. To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System. Washington DC: National Academy Press, 2000.
2. Hillman K, Parr M, Flabouris A, Bishop G, Stewart A. Redefining in-hospital resuscitation: the concept of the medical emergency team. Resuscitation 2001;48:105-10. [PUBMED] [FULLTEXT]
3. Hillman KM, Bristow PJ, Chey T, Daffurn K, Jacques T, Norman SL, et al. Duration of life-threatening antecedents prior to intensive care admission. Intensive Care Med 2002;28:1629-34. [PUBMED] [FULLTEXT]
4. Kause J, Smith G, Prytherch D, Parr M, Flabouris A, Hillman K, et al. A comparison of antecedents to cardiac arrests, deaths and emergency intensive care admissions in Australia and New Zealand, and the United Kingdom--the ACADEMIA study. Resuscitation 2004;62:275-82.
5. Braithwaite RS, DeVita MA, Mahidhara R, Simmons RL, Stuart S, Foraida M, et al. Use of medical emergency team (MET) responses to detect medical errors. Qual Saf Health Care 2004;13:255-9.
6. Schein RM, Hazday N, Pena M, Ruben BH, Sprung CL. Clinical antecedents to in-hospital cardiopulmonary arrest. Chest 1990;98:1388-92. [PUBMED] [FULLTEXT]
7. Goldhill DR, White SA, Sumner A. Physiological values and procedures in the 24 h before ICU admission from the ward. Anaesthesia 1999;54:529-34. [PUBMED] [FULLTEXT]
8. Baker GR, Norton PG, Flintoft V, Blais R, Brown A, Cox J, et al. The Canadian Adverse Events Study: the incidence of adverse events among hospital patients in Canada. CMAJ 2004;170:1678-86. [PUBMED] [FULLTEXT]
9. Wilson RM, Runciman WB, Gibberd RW, Harrison BT, Newby L, Hamilton JD. The quality in Australian health care study. Med J Aust 1995;163:458-71. [PUBMED] [FULLTEXT]
10. McQuillan P, Pilkington S, Allan A, Taylor B, Short A, Morgan G, et al. Confidential inquiry into quality of care before admission to intensive care. BMJ 1998;316:1853-8. [PUBMED] [FULLTEXT]
11. Hillman K. Critical care without walls. Curr Opin Crit Care 2002;8:594-9. [PUBMED] [FULLTEXT]
12. Devita MA, Bellomo R, Hillman K, Kellum J, Rotondi A, Teres D, et al. Findings of the first consensus conference on medical emergency teams. Crit Care Med 2006;34:2463-78. [PUBMED] [FULLTEXT]
13. Million Lives Campaign. Getting Started Kit: Rapid Response Teams. Cambridge, MA: Institute for Healthcare Improvement; 2008. [cited may 4, 2009]. Available from: http://www.ihi.org
14. Fanning RM, Lighthall GK. Rapid Response Systems: Bringing Critical Care Medicine Out of the ICU. PCCU volume 21, lesson 2 [Internet]. Northbrook, Illinois: American College of Chest Physicians; c:1999-2009. [published 2007, cited May 4, 2009]. Available from: http://www.chestnet.org.
15. Gao H, McDonnell A, Harrison DA, Moore T, Adam S, Daly K, et al. Systematic review and evaluation of physiological track and trigger warning systems for identifying at-risk patients on the ward. Intensive Care Med 2007;33:667-79. [PUBMED] [FULLTEXT]
16. Buist MD, Moore GE, Bernard SA, Waxman BP, Anderson JN, Nguyen TV. Effects of a medical emergency team on reduction of incidence of and mortality from unexpected cardiac arrests in hospital: preliminary study. BMJ 2002;324:1-6.
17. Bellomo R, Goldsmith D, Uchino S, Buckmaster J, Hart GK, Opdam H, et al. A prospective before-and-after trial of a medical emergency team. Med J Aust 2003;179:283-7. [PUBMED] [FULLTEXT]
18. Bellomo R, Goldsmith D, Uchino S, Buckmaster J, Hart G, Opdam H, et al. Prospective controlled trial of effect of medical emergency team on postoperative morbidity and mortality rates. Crit Care Med 2004;32:916-21. [PUBMED] [FULLTEXT]
19. Morgan RJM, Williams F, Wright MM. An early warning scoring system for detecting developing critical illness. Clinical Intensive Care1997;8:100.
20. Haig KM, Sutton S, Whittington J. SBAR: A shared mental model for improving communication between clinicians. Jt Comm J Qual Patient Saf 2006;32:167-75. [PUBMED] [FULLTEXT]
21. Sharek PJ, Parast LM, Leong K, Coombs J, Earnest K, Sullivan J, et al. Effect of a rapid response team on hospital-wide mortality and code rates outside the ICU in a Children′s Hospital. JAMA 2007;298:2267-74. [PUBMED] [FULLTEXT]
22. Bristow PJ, Hillman KM, Chey T, Daffurn K, Jacques TC, Norman SL, et al. Rates of in-hospital arrests, deaths and intensive care admissions: the effect of a medical emergency team. Med J Aust 2000;173:236-40. [PUBMED] [FULLTEXT]
23. Kenward G, Castle N, Hodgetts T, Shaikh L. Evaluation of a medical emergency team one year after implementation. Resuscitation 2004;61:257-63. [PUBMED] [FULLTEXT]
24. Chan PS, Khalid A, Longmore LS, Berg RA, Kosiborod M, Spertus JA. Hospital-wide code rates and mortality before and after implementation of a rapid response team. JAMA 2008;300:2506-13. [PUBMED] [FULLTEXT]
25. Jones D, Opdam H, Egi M, Goldsmith D, Bates S, Gutteridge G, et al. Long-term effect of a Medical Emergency Team on mortality in a teaching hospital. Resuscitation 2007;74:235-41. [PUBMED] [FULLTEXT]
26. Zenker P, Schlesinger A, Hauck M, Spencer S, Hellmich T, Finkelstein M, et al. Implementation and impact of a rapid response team in a children′s hospital. Jt Comm J Qual Patient Saf 2007l;33:418-25. [PUBMED] [FULLTEXT]
27. Brilli RJ, Gibson R, Luria JW, Wheeler TA, Shaw J, Linam M, et al. Implementation of a medical emergency team in a large pediatric teaching hospital prevents respiratory and cardiopulmonary arrests outside the intensive care unit. Pediatr Crit Care Med 2007;8:236-46 [PUBMED] [FULLTEXT]
28. Priestley G, Watson W, Rashidian A, Mozley C, Russell D, Wilson J, et al. Introducing Critical Care Outreach: a ward-randomised trial of phased introduction in a general hospital. Intensive Care Med 2004;30:1398-404. [PUBMED] [FULLTEXT]
29. Hillman K, Chen J, Cretikos M, Bellomo R, Brown D, Doig G, et al. MERIT study investigators. Introduction of the medical emergency team (MET) system: A cluster-randomised controlled trial. Lancet 2005;365:2091-7.
30. The "MERIT" Trial of Medical Emergency Teams in Australia: An Analysis of Findings emergency teams.Crit Care. 2008;12:205and Implications for the 100,000 Lives Campaign. [Internet]. Cambridge, MA: Institute for Healthcare Improvement; 2007. [cited April 24, 2007]. Available from: http:// www.ihi.org
31. Esmonde L, McDonnell A, Ball C, Waskett C, Morgan R, Rashidian A, et al. Investigating the effectiveness of critical care outreach services: a systematic review. Intensive Care Med 2006;32:1713-21. [PUBMED] [FULLTEXT]
32. Winters BD, Pham JC, Hunt EA, Guallar E, Berenholtz S, Pronovost PJ. Rapid response systems: A systematic review. Crit Care Med 2007;35:1238-43. [PUBMED] [FULLTEXT]
33. Tee A, Calzavacca P, Licari E, Goldsmith D, Bellomo R. Bench-to-bedside review: The MET syndrome--the challenges of researching and adopting medical emergency teams. Crit Care 2008;12:205. [PUBMED] [FULLTEXT]
1 Paediatric family activated rapid response interventions; qualitative systematic review
Shannon Cresham Fox, Nicola Taylor, Takawira C. Marufu, Elizabeth Hendron, Joseph C. Manning
Intensive and Critical Care Nursing. 2022; : 103363
2 Development of a machine learning model for the prediction of the short-term mortality in patients in the intensive care unit
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Journal of Critical Care. 2022; 71: 154106
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Philip Hodgson, Jane Greaves, Glenda Cook, Angela Fraser, Lesley Bainbridge
Nursing Open. 2021;
4 Exploring factors affecting critical care response team service at a tertiary hospital in Riyadh: A retrospective cohort study
Abdulmajeed Alhaidari, Maram Busuhail, Sara Alsultan, Sultan Alshammari, Abdullah Alshimemeri
Saudi Critical Care Journal. 2020; 4(4): 123
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Al-Qahtani S
Al-Dorzi HM
Rationale for Ra...
Components of th...
Activation of th...


text:
Crunchyroll Drops New 'Jujutsu Kaisen 0' Trailer and Images
TOHO's prequel to the anime series, 'Jujutsu Kaisen,' based on Gege Akutami's acclaimed dark fantasy manga of the same name, comes to theaters nationwide March 18; tickets for the U.S. and Canadian release are now on sale.
By Debbie Diamond Sarto | Wednesday, March 16, 2022 at 12:58pm
In 2D, 3D, Anime, CG, Digital Media, Films, People, Television, Voice Acting | ANIMATIONWorld, Headline News | Geographic Region: North America
Crunchyroll has unveiled a new trailer and additional images for its upcoming March 18 theatrical release of the 2D anime Jujutsu Kaisen 0, the much-anticipated prequel to the series, Jujutsu Kaisen, based on Gege Akutami's acclaimed dark fantasy manga of the same name. The film from TOHO Animation will be available in both English dub and subtitled and will arrive in more than 1,500 theaters nationwide. It will also be released in select U.S. based IMAX theaters. Tickets are on sale in the United States and Canada, more information is available here.
In the movie, after being haunted by the curse of his childhood friend Rika Orimoto, who was killed in a traffic accident right before his eyes, Yuta Okkotsu enrolls in the mysterious Tokyo Jujutsu High School under the guidance of Satoru Gojo. There Yuta meets his classmates, Maki Zen'in, Toge Inumaki, and Panda, and finally finds his own determination to say and believe: "I want the confidence to say it's okay that I'm alive!" and "While I'm at Jujutsu High, I'll break Rika-chan's curse."
The anime series Jujutsu Kaisen is based on the best-selling manga of the same name, serialized in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump, that has sold over 60 million copies in Japan. In the U.S., the series is published by VIZ Media. The anime series was named Anime of the Year by the Crunchyroll Anime Awards in 2021. Both Crunchyroll and Funimation have the entire series on their platforms, both subbed and dubbed, for fans to catch up on before seeing the theatrical experience.
Source: Crunchyroll
Breaking Rika-chan's Curse!
Animated Feature Films
feature film animation
Jujutsu Kaisen 0
TOHO Animation
Sunghoo Park
Hiroshi Seko
Kana Hanazawa
Mikako Komatsu
Koki Uchiyama
Tomokazu Seki
Yuichi Nakamura
Takahiro Sakurai
Warner Bros. Moves 'Black Adam' and Other Upcoming Movie Release DatesPrevious Post
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'Jujutsu Kaisen' Coming Exclusively to Crunchyroll This Fall

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
dependency-check
================

 |Travis CI|  |GitHub Issues|  |License|  |Latest Version|

Shim to easily install the `OWASP dependency-check-cli`_ tool into Python projects.

.. contents:: **Table of Contents**

.. _setup-start:

:Code:          https://github.com/jhermann/dependency-check-py#readme
:Docs:          https://github.com/jeremylong/dependencycheck#readme
:CI:            https://travis-ci.org/jhermann/dependency-check-py
:Issues:        https://github.com/jhermann/dependency-check-py/issues

Overview
--------

``dependency-check`` scans application dependencies and checks whether they contain any published vulnerabilities
(based on the NIST `NVD`_).
It runs in the JVM, so you need some form of ``java`` available in your ``PATH``.
The script should work on Linux, Mac OSX and Windows, but right now is only tested on Linux.

Usage
-----

After installation, you'll have the ``dependency-check`` command available that, on first use,
will automatically download and install the OWASP release archive once for all projects.
It'll then redirect any calls to that installation, meaning the downloaded NVD data is shared
amongst projects.

.. code-block::

    dependency-check --disableAssembly -s . -o build --project "$(python ./setup.py --name)" \
        --exclude ".git/**" --exclude ".venv/**" --exclude "**/__pycache__/**" --exclude ".tox/**" \
        && xdg-open build/dependency-check-report.html

Please see the `DependencyCheck site`_ for more configuration and usage details.

To install from PyPI, add ``dependency-check`` to your ``dev-requirements.txt``
or a similar file. For more installation options, see the "Installation" section below.

 |Installation Demo|

Customization
-------------

Using environment variables, you can change the version and download location of the release archive,
and the directory for the local installation.

=============================== ==============================================================================================
Variable                        Default
=============================== ==============================================================================================
``DEPENDENCY_CHECK_VERSION``    ``6.2.2``
``DEPENDENCY_CHECK_URL``        ``https://github.com/jeremylong/DependencyCheck/releases/download/v{version}/dependency-check-{version}-release.zip``
``DEPENDENCY_CHECK_HOME``       ``~/.local/dependency-check``
``DEPENDENCY_CHECK_NVD_URL``    *Use NIST NVD URLs*
=============================== ==============================================================================================

To update to a new version of the OWASP software,
delete ``~/.local/dependency-check/bin/``,
set ``DEPENDENCY_CHECK_VERSION`` to the new version number,
and call ``dependency-check``.

The variable ``DEPENDENCY_CHECK_NVD_URL`` can be used to point to a local copy of the various NVD feeds,
in a flat hierarchy with compressed JSON files.

.. code-block:: shell

    export DEPENDENCY_CHECK_NVD_URL='https://repo.local/nvd/nvdcve-1.1-%d.json.gz'

If you set this, the options ``--cveUrlBase`` and ``--cveUrlModified`` will be added to each call.
Note that the ``%d`` representing the year is replaced by ``modified`` for the latter.

Remove the ``~/.local/dependency-check/data/`` directory to force a full data reload.

Installation
------------

To just get the ``dependency-check`` CLI tool installed into your home,
independent of any project, call ``python3 -m pip install --user dependency-check`` as usual,
see `releases`_ for an overview of available versions.

If you prefer an **isolated and easily removable venv installation**,
consider using `dephell jail install dependency-check`_ instead.

To get a bleeding-edge version from source, use these commands::

    repo="jhermann/dependency-check-py"
    python3 -m pip install -r "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/$repo/master/requirements.txt"
    python3 -m pip install "https://github.com/$repo/archive/master.zip#egg=dependency-check"

As a developer, to create a working directory for this project, call these commands::

    git clone "https://github.com/jhermann/dependency-check-py.git"
    cd "dependency-check-py"
    command . .env --yes --develop
    invoke build --docs test check

You might also need to follow some
`setup procedures <https://py-generic-project.readthedocs.io/en/latest/installing.html#quick-setup>`_
to make the necessary basic commands available on *Linux*, *Mac OS X*, and *Windows*.

Other Python Security Tools
---------------------------

* `openstack/bandit`_ – Security linter designed to find common security issues in Python code, by static AST analysis.
* `pyupio/safety`_ – Safety checks your installed dependencies for known security vulnerabilities.

  * `pyupio/safety-db`_ – A curated database of security vulnerabilities in Python packages.

* `eliasgranderubio/dagda`_ – Static analysis of known vulnerabilities, trojans, viruses, malware & other malicious threats in Docker images, and runtime monitoring of containers for anomalous activities.
* `anchore/anchore-engine`_ – A service for inspection, analysis and certification of container images, provided as a ready-to-deploy Docker container image.
* `sonatype-nexus-community/jake`_ – An OSS Index integration to check your Conda environments for vulnerable Open Source packages.

* `vintasoftware/python-linters-and-code-analysis`_ – Curated list of Python linters and code analysis tools.

.. _`openstack/bandit`: https://github.com/openstack/bandit
.. _`pyupio/safety`: https://github.com/pyupio/safety
.. _`pyupio/safety-db`: https://github.com/pyupio/safety-db
.. _`eliasgranderubio/dagda`: https://github.com/eliasgranderubio/dagda
.. _`anchore/anchore-engine`: https://github.com/anchore/anchore-engine
.. _`vintasoftware/python-linters-and-code-analysis`: https://github.com/vintasoftware/python-linters-and-code-analysis
.. _`sonatype-nexus-community/jake`: https://github.com/sonatype-nexus-community/jake

.. _`NVD`: https://nvd.nist.gov/
.. _`OWASP dependency-check-cli`: https://github.com/jeremylong/dependencycheck#readme
.. _`DependencyCheck site`: https://www.owasp.org/index.php/OWASP_Dependency_Check
.. _`pip script installer`: https://github.com/mitsuhiko/pipsi#pipsi
.. _`releases`: https://github.com/jhermann/dependency-check-py/releases
.. _`dephell jail install dependency-check`: https://dephell.readthedocs.io/cmd-jail-install.html

.. |Installation Demo| image:: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jhermann/dependency-check-py/master/dependency_check.gif

.. |Travis CI| image:: https://api.travis-ci.org/jhermann/dependency-check-py.svg
    :target: https://travis-ci.org/jhermann/dependency-check-py
.. |Coveralls| image:: https://img.shields.io/coveralls/jhermann/dependency-check-py.svg
    :target: https://coveralls.io/r/jhermann/dependency-check-py
.. |GitHub Issues| image:: https://img.shields.io/github/issues/jhermann/dependency-check-py.svg
    :target: https://github.com/jhermann/dependency-check-py/issues
.. |License| image:: https://img.shields.io/pypi/l/dependency-check.svg
    :target: https://github.com/jhermann/dependency-check-py/blob/master/LICENSE
.. |Development Status| image:: https://img.shields.io/pypi/status/dependency-check.svg
    :target: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/dependency-check/
.. |Latest Version| image:: https://img.shields.io/pypi/v/dependency-check.svg
    :target: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/dependency-check/
.. |Download format| image:: https://img.shields.io/pypi/format/dependency-check.svg
    :target: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/dependency-check/
.. |Downloads| image:: https://img.shields.io/pypi/dw/dependency-check.svg
    :target: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/dependency-check/

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
/YPw1RwjmyZQ
Installation shot.
Some of the artist's works on exhibition.
About One to Watch
Each month, we showcase an emerging artist from around the world who is already garnering attention for their work. "One To Watch" presents some of the most exciting artists on Saatchi Art helping collectors to discover strong emerging talent.
August 21, 2014Posted by Saatchi Art
A native from the island of Maui, Los Angeles-based Edwin Ushiro attended the Art Center College of Design and graduated with a BFA in Illustration with honors. Upon graduating, he worked in the film industry as an Art Director, Visual Effects Consultant, Storyboard Artist and Concept Designer on projects such as, CSI: Miami, Battlestar Galactica: Caprica, and Angel.
For his own artistic projects he combines digital and traditional techniques, starting each work with traditional drawings done in graphite and ink, and paintings done in watercolor and acrylic paint. He then scans these works into his computer, and colors the works with Photoshop. He exports them as prints onto clear acetate, which he then paints on the front and back in order to create a sense of depth, as well as to alter the colors to his suiting. The works on acetate are then mounted onto Lucite or Plexiglas.
Edwin's artwork has been exhibited at Art Basel, Miami, in solo shows in New York and Los Angeles, and in many international group shows including Berlin, Zurich, Spain, Amsterdam, South Korea, and Tokyo. You can see Edwin working in his studio in this video made by Ashton Kutcher and his team at Thrash Lab.
What are the major themes you pursue in your work?
The major themes in my artwork include my childhood growing up on the island of Maui, as well as the history, myths, and ghost stories that surrounded me during those precious years.
What was the best advice given to you as an artist?
My mother's friend, Mr. Richard Hashi, told me before I left to attend the Art Center College of Design, to never forget where you came from. I didn't really understand that at the time. It wasn't until I decided to create personal art that his message returned to me. Never forget where you came from. It became very clear to me that I wanted to create imagery about my childhood on Maui and the importance of living in that time.
Prefer to work with music or in silence?
Hawaiian music!
If you could only have one piece of art in your life, what would it be?
My favorite art is in nature. And I would love to have a panoramic view of the southern ocean of Maui spanning to the West Maui Mountains.
Who are your favorite writers?
Dr. Glen Grant.
Works for sale by Edwin Ushiro
The Makamakaole Gulch Man 3,500
Edwin Ushiro View artwork
The Secret Life of a Rustling Brush 3,000
I Wasn't Sure If It Was The Brightness of the Sun or That They Were So Beautiful, But I Could Not Stare For Too Long 3,500
olling Atop Hills Knowing Full Well That Nothing Exists Beneath You 3,000
Foundation of Pre-Empted Lingering 5,500


text:
Q: I have managed to get data writing into Google Sheets but I would like to be able to 'overwrite' the data rather than 'insert_row' The error I get when I try and do 'update_row' is the following:
AttributeError: 'Worksheet' object has no attribute 'update_row'
Here is my code:
listing = soup.find_all('div', 'result-contain')
for details in listing:
title = details.find('h3')
if not title:
    continue
title = title.text.strip()[0:28]
price = details.find('div', 'price')
mileage = details.find_all('li')[0]
just_miles = mileage.text.split()
miles = just_miles[:-1]
adjusted_miles = str(miles)[1:-1]
adjusted_miles = adjusted_miles.replace("'", "")
link = details.find('a')

print(title, price.text, adjusted_miles, link['href'])
index = 2
row = [title,price.text,adjusted_miles,link['href']]
sheet1.insert_row(row,index)

Amy ideas please?

A: gspread has no update_row method, you must be looking for worksheet.update() method.
Tip: You could use python's dir() method to view all properties and methods of the specified object.
This example is from gspread worksheet object:

Reference:
gspread Documentation

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


One of Maritz & Young's finest colonial homes located in Ladue on a 3.13 acres. Beautiful level property w/pool. 9,500 sq ft home with all brick elevations, slate roof, copper gutters, 5 car garage, and double wide circular drive. Exceptional architectural features throughout the house. Intricate moldings, herringbone flooring, arched French doors, 10' ceilings, five fireplaces. Foyer, floating circular stair, landing with stunning 10 foot arched window 12' domed ceiling and intersecting center hall with groin vault ceiling provide direct access to all main rooms and the kitchen hearth room. Two story sun room extending from the living room on the South end of the house is spectacular. Upstairs Master Suite accessible by elevator with his/her dressing rooms & baths, five additional family bedrooms, large second floor laundry room, exercise room, & plenty of storage. Splendid yard with 20'x40' pebble sheen pool, 60'x 60' terrace & pool deck. Exclusions listed on feature sheet.


At Nourished Life, we stock a range of the most pure and gentle skin care for newborns, infants and toddlers. From bottom balm to natural sunscreen to teething powder, we've got everything to help care for your little one naturally. Make bath time a breeze with certified organic baby bath teas and fragrance free bubble baths for sensitive skin, and simplify your baby's nappy change routine with natural baby wipes, balms, creams and lotions.
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text:
In enzymology, a N-acetyllactosaminide beta-1,6-N-acetylglucosaminyl-transferase () is an enzyme that catalyzes the chemical reaction

UDP-N-acetyl-D-glucosamine + beta-D-galactosyl-1,4-N-acetyl-D-glucosaminyl-R  UDP + N-acetyl-beta-D-glucosaminyl-1,6-beta-D-galactosyl-1,4-N-acetyl-D- glucosaminyl-R

Thus, the two substrates of this enzyme are UDP-N-acetyl-D-glucosamine and beta-D-galactosyl-1,4-N-acetyl-D-glucosaminyl-R, whereas its 3 products are UDP, N-acetyl-beta-D-glucosaminyl-1,6-beta-D-galactosyl-1,4-N-acetyl-D-, and glucosaminyl-R.

This enzyme belongs to the family of glycosyltransferases, specifically the hexosyltransferases.  The systematic name of this enzyme class is UDP-N-acetyl-D-glucosamine:beta-D-galactosyl-1,4-N-acetyl-D-glucosaminide beta-1,6-N-acetyl-D-glucosaminyltransferase. Other names in common use include N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase, uridine diphosphoacetylglucosamine-acetyllactosaminide, beta1->6-acetylglucosaminyltransferase, Galbeta1->4GlcNAc-R beta1->6 N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase, and UDP-GlcNAc:Gal-R, beta-D-6-N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase.  This enzyme participates in glycosphingolipid biosynthesis - neo-lactoseries and glycan structures - biosynthesis 2.

References

EC 2.4.1
Enzymes of unknown structure

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Brand Protection & IP Enforcement
Insurance Investigation Support
Security Consulting & Protection
Access Myanmar
Cambodia: Economic risk update
San José Overview
By most measurements, the Cambodian economy is healthy. The Asian Development Bank forecasts economic growth of 7% in 2019 and 6.8% for 2020, while the World Bank considers economic growth to be "better than expected" because of increasing exports, growing internal demand, and consistency in foreign investment. But structural problems persist. Cambodia is repeatedly ranked as one of the worst countries in Southeast Asia for corruption. Money laundering remains rife, especially in the gaming and property sectors. The global money-laundering watchdog Financial Action Task Force (FAFT) put Cambodia on its list of countries "highly vulnerable to money laundering" in February. Meanwhile, almost all international financial institutions recommend faster diversification away from low-cost, low-skilled manufacturing, and for Cambodia to carve a niche in high-skilled assembly before others nations in Southeast Asia, namely Thailand and Vietnam, dominate certain industries.
Castelo Branco EBA
The major concern is that Cambodia's numerous political problems weaken the economy. Democratic deterioration since 2017 could lead the European Union (EU) removing Cambodia from its preferential Everything But Arms (EBA) scheme, which grants almost all Cambodia exports zero-tariff and quota status. Cambodia is a highly export-dependent economy – worth more than half of GDP – and the EU purchases roughly two-fifths of all Cambodian exports, making it the largest export destination. The European Commission is expected to file its report on the political situation in Cambodia by November, and the Cambodian government must then demonstrate progress before the final decision is made by the EU on removal from the EBA scheme in January or February 2020.
Independent economists predict that this would have a disastrous impact on the country's manufacturing sector, chiefly the garment and footwear sectors, which produce most of the country's exports and are the single largest employers in the country. The World Bank estimates that the EBA's withdrawal could cost Cambodia roughly $600 million per year, as higher tariffs forces European purchasers to look for supply chains in other Asian nations. Garment exports would decline by between $320 million and $381 million. In 2018, total garment exports were worth $9.5 billion. The National Union Alliance Chamber of Cambodia takes a fairly radical estimate, claiming that about 45% of garment workers and 20% of footwear workers (about 250,000 combined) would be made unemployed if Cambodia is removed from the EBA scheme. The European Parliament takes a more conservative view, with a report published in April 2019 claiming that something around 4% of the workforce may lose their jobs – this figure was the percentage of garment sectors workers who lost their jobs in Sri Lanka when the EU removed its GSP status between 2011 and 2017.
A public statement by the European Chamber of Commerce in late September said that the EU's withdrawal of Cambodia from the EBA scheme would be "tantamount to sanctions that will jeopardize European investments, the European business community, European development initiatives and the livelihoods of Cambodian citizens." So far, there are few signs of panic in the sector. The ADB forecasts a sectorial growth rate of 10.6% this year. But the chief executive of a large, international garment manufacturer, which has been active in Cambodia for more than a decade, said that long-term investments are being held back, while a number of manufacturers are making contingency plans to swiftly move operators out of Cambodia in case of EBA withdrawal.
A major concern is a snowball effect, even if job losses and drop in exports in the manufacturing sectors aren't as bad as predicted. At least one (and often more than two) other person depends on the earnings made by garment workers. Often the majority of these workers' salaries are remitted to rural areas to pay for family members, usually the elderly or young. Therefore, a loss of 50,000 jobs in the manufacturing sector could directly affect the finances of between 100,000 – 150,000 people. If earnings by manufacturing workers sent home to family in the countryside are cut, it could indirectly affect the finances are vastly more people, as large sums of remitted money would be taken out of the rural economy.
None of this is helped by the government's decision, announced on September 20, to yet again raise the legal minimum wage for workers in the textiles and footwear sectors to $190 per month, a 4.4% increase from the 2019 wage of $182 per month. It will take effect from early 2020. Employers will also pay an additional health insurance costs for their employees, including a new 2.6% contribution for accident insurance, from 2020. A source at the Collective Union Movement of Workers, a trade union, said: "We accepted the new minimum wage rise to $190 per month, but we wanted $195. There was not much pressure from our side, though. Our main concern is the EBA."
A member of the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia, an industry association, complained:
"Some members, who are already struggling, won't be able to cover the new costs of higher wages and more contributions for insurance. It will affect the smaller companies more, and Cambodians own the smaller companies. The larger companies are foreign-owned. Other manufacturers are seriously thinking of moving operations to Vietnam."
Minimum wages in Vietnam vary depending on location, but the highest, in urban Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, are $180 per month – already lower than Cambodia's. Vietnam's lowest minimum wage, in rural areas, is just $125 per month. Electricity supplies are cheaper and more reliable. Infrastructure is of a much higher standard. And, most importantly, Vietnam agreed a free-trade deal with the EU this year, which, when signed later this year or in early 2020, will dramatically reduce tariffs for exports. This could come at the same time as tariffs on reintroduced on Cambodian exports.
cheap Pregabalin Debt
The second – and not unconnected – concern is household debt. "The growth of domestic credit in Cambodia has been faster than any other country in East Asia – increasing nine-fold in 12 years," the World Bank reported in 2018. And its economic update, published in May, reported:
"Total outstanding loans financed by the banking and microfinance sectors reached more than 100 percent of GDP, or 104.2 trillion riels in 2018. Of which 80 percent was provided by the banking sector and the remaining 20 percent by the microfinance sector."
The National Bank of Cambodia (NBC), in its latest Financial Stability Review, published in April, warned of individual debt having potentially "destabilising effects on the economy". An economist at the central bank said:
"We're acting as though it is not a problem today. But if the property sector falters slightly – if more Chinese people take their money out of the country, it could happen rapidly – and if we see a downturn with foreign investment, debt will become a major problem."
An official at the Ministry of Finance said the problem is "worse than official reports let on, from the World Bank and IMF, because classifications are inconsistent." In the banking sector, reported nonperforming loan (NPL) ratios rose to 2.8% in 2018, up from 2.3% in 2017. NPL ratios in the agricultural sector, however, were at 8%, and in the manufacturing sector at 4%. Sources said that efforts must be made to reduce the speed at which debt is growing and, at the same time, to increase deposit-taking. Sources also contend that the full extent of Cambodia's debt problem is being masked by high levels of foreign investment, especially in the property sector, by artificially keeping land and sale prices high – and if foreign investment declines, many debts will become unmanageable.
Over the last two years, there has also been growing concern about the microfinance sector. Roughly 2.4 million Cambodian borrowers now have $5.4 billion in outstanding micro-loans. After a report by two local NGOs in August reiterated the negative impact of microfinance loans on poor communities – including the forced sale of land to pay for outstanding debts, increased emigration and often forced labour – the Council of Ministers spokesman called staff of the NGOs to an unprecedented meeting and demanded they retract the report. They refused. Cambodia has only rudimentary laws on personal bankruptcy, which favours the repossession of debtors' goods by creditors. An official at the Ministry of Information said:
"The government is extremely worried about microfinance debt at the moment. It doesn't know what to do. Advisers tell ministers not to interfere. But [staff at the Information Ministry] see that the government is criticised because of the debt, not the companies or advisers."
A provincial manager at a large MFI in Cambodia admitted that the culture has changed in recent years towards being more profit-motivated. They added:
"Years ago, we were very focused on helping people and improving lives. Now, my bosses are looking for profit. We are pressured to issue more loans and higher loans. And we are getting stricter on repayment. I don't know, sometimes, if many borrowers really understand the terms."
In 2017, the government intervened to impose a maximum interest rate of 18% per year on microfinance loans, when rates had previously been as high as 30%. But sources said MFIs just introduced new charges to compensate for the lost money. An official at a foreign institution that invests in Cambodia's microfinance sector said:
"I am advising against investing any more in the sector. It's overheated, it cannot keep on going as it is, and, at some point, we are going to see a backlash as poor Cambodians get more desperate. Also, Cambodia MFIs have been bought out by international companies in the last two years, and they aren't aware of Cambodia's specific problems – the microfinance sector is worse in Cambodia than anywhere else in the world – and are more profit-drive."
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The third economic risk is that Cambodia's economy is negatively affected by downturns in the Chinese economy. Downturns in China are already hurting Cambodia's tourism sector. The number of visitors to the famous Angkor Wat complex fell by 12% in the first nine-months of this year, compared to the same period in 2018, and the Ministry of Tourism has put this down to declining Chinese visitors. An official at the Ministry of Tourism in Siem Reap province said the sector is currently in a flux, as the government has pushed hard to appeal mainly to Chinese visitors. The Ministry aims to welcome 3 million Chinese tourists annually by 2020, rising to 5 million by 2025 and 8 million by 2030. But the official said:
"Because many Chinese come on cheap package deals [so-called "zero-dollar tourism"] local shops, restaurants, hotels, and operators are losing money. Many spent a lot to change to accommodate Chinese tourists – not Americans or English, who they appealed to in the past – but haven't seen better income. What some of us realize now is that 10 Chinese tourists could spend the same as one America. It's not about numbers."
The official also said that some Western-orientated travel companies and operators are putting less focus on Cambodia, and investing more in Vietnam and even Laos, which "are not seen as overrun with Chinese tourists."
The biggest economic development in recent months has been to Cambodia's gaming sector. In August, Prime Minister Hun Sen ordered a halt to issuing new licenses to online gambling operations, and to close them down by the end of 2019. Most of such operations are Chinese-run in Cambodia, and sources said Beijing instructed the Cambodian government to do this, in order to crackdown on capital illegally exiting China. New gaming taxes and regulations are expected to come into effect later this year or early 2020 in Cambodia. But an independent analyst in the Asian gaming sector said that "the government might see the money lost because of the online gambling ban, and because of more regulation of casinos, and change its mind. I think the casinos won't be affected too much."
Another unsteady sector is energy. In early 2019, much of Cambodia experienced daily blackouts for months because of power shortages as unusually-long draughts reduced output from hydropower dams. The cost to businesses hasn't yet been publicly announced, though reports at the time suggested that it cost the economy tens, if not, hundreds of millions of dollars because of lost working hours and ruptures in supply chains. In response, the government has shown greater interest in renewable energy, especially solar-power, and several new solar farm. An independent economist said:
"If I was an investor, I would look at Cambodia's energy market. The appeal of renewables is really great. The government is slow to realize this, even now. But it's getting there, and there could be good profits here in the coming years."
This comes at a particularly bad time for Cambodia's hopes on oil and gas extraction. The Singaporean firm KrisEnergy owns 95% of Block A in the Gulf of Thailand – one of six offshore blocks in Cambodia – after buying the shares of Chevron and Mitsui Oil Exploration. Cambodia's state-run National Petroleum Authority controls the other 5%. In September, KrisEnergy was given a three months of court protection from creditors' legal action in September while it restructures its $476.8 million debt. An official at the Ministry of Information, who is knowledgeable of the deal, said "some ministers are ready to give up on oil and gas. It's been far too confusing and long for some." A report by Fitch Solutions Macro Research published on September 10 states that the "outlook for Cambodia's onshore oil and gas is more sombre, with 12 out of 19 available blocks remaining unassigned at the time of writing, and only one showing recent progress".
Investors should be wary of intra-elite tensions at the moment. There have been unusual disputes between the government and some business tycoons in recent months. In March, Kith Thieng, the brother of prominent tycoon Kith Meng, was arrested for alleged drug dealing. In July, tycoon Mr Sam Ol was arrested for illegal timber logging. That some tycoons engage in illegal activity is an open secret, but the government has rarely taken action against them. A political analyst said that "the government is making sure the business elite are in check and they don't have any plans to try to usurp power while the government is politically weak." Other analysts, however, claim that since the government is keen to appear to be tackling corruption, it serves as an ideal time for politicians to get rid of unpopular or unwanted tycoons. Indeed, the arrest of some tycoons could be a favour for other tycoons. It would also be advisable for investors to steer clear of companies owned by military officials. The government is making changes to how military officials can run businesses.
Vietnam: Political and security risk update
Cambodia Counterfeits: Sales of fake luxury brands are surging as retail sector and online sales take off
Malaysia: Political and Security Update
Philippines: Telecom and energy deals send disquieting signals


If websites, databases and other content are the landscape of the virtual world, then search engines are the maps. Without search engines, the landscape is confusing and getting lost a certainty. With them, finding one's way through the dense forest of information is possible if occasionally made difficult with unexpected detours and dead-ends.
Disappearing from the results of dominant search engines leads to invisibility. And if one has a website, a blog, an ecommerce site, or a database that no one knows exists, it is useless. Given how critical maps are to successful navigation, having accurate, affordable maps that fulfill the variety of needs of a diverse population is key. So, how would we all feel about giving one for-profit company the exclusive right to map, say, New Jersey or Mexico? If no one else could produce a map of New Jersey, there would be no market incentive to produce the best maps that met all the various needs of the population (shortest route to Delaware from New York, coffee with baby-changing stations). If the mapper wanted to direct traffic to its stores in Toms River, there would be no incentive to produce maps that showed the most direct route to Delaware instead of detouring through Toms Rivers.
Yet giving just such exclusive rights to some important internet territory is one of the key issues involved in a proposed settlement between Google and all the book publishers and authors in most of the English-speaking world.
Briefly -- Google undertook a project to digitize millions of books in the libraries of several major universities such as the University of Michigan and Stanford. Google copied books in their entirety that are in the public domain, as well as those still in copyright. A handful of US publishers and the Authors' Guild, a not-for-profit organization representing US book authors, sued Google for copyright infringement. Just a few weeks ago in federal court in downtown Manhattan, the judge listened to a day's worth of objections and support for a proposed settlement agreement that runs over 300 pages.
This complex agreement accomplishes several things that would be beneficial to the public, authors, and the scholarly community. Under it, digitized books that are part of Google's database would be made available in snippets as search results, and, unless the publisher or author objected, the entire book could be part of paid-for library subscriptions or various kinds of ebooks. Previously buried and obscure works would suddenly see the light of day. And, because Google would facilitate text-to-speech functions for this database, all of these some 17 million books (Google has given varying estimates of the numbers digitized) would become available to those who have sight disabilities.
Why would Google spend all that money -- millions to digitize, more millions to litigate the case it had to know would come, and more millions to settle that case -- for what will amount to a library lending and ebook business? Keep in mind that Google's revenue alone last year was $23.6 billion. This is more than half the $40.3 billion in total revenue generated in the United States by more than 100,000 publishers. And not one dollar of Google's revenue came from publishing books. It came from the enormous ad revenues generated by Google's search and Ad Sense business. With a profit margin of approximately 25%, search in 2010 is far more profitable than publishing.
If the settlement is approved by the Court, Google will be the only search engine that will serve up search results that include the contents of some 5-10 million books -- the books whose authors, publishers, copyright holders can't be found or don't want to be found. Because of the intersection of copyright and class action law woven together by the proposed settlement, no one else will be able to do that. What does that mean for Google? It means that the results and experience from a Google search, as opposed to the results from any other search engine, will be richer. It means that Google's ability to refine its algorithms for search results and its analysis of consumer behavior, interests, and needs will have a depth and a range that no one else can match.
A recent article in Ars Technica described Google's current practice of keeping consumer data for 9 months, much longer than any other major search engine, because it uses the data for a variety of important (and profitable) business needs: "Search data is mined . . . by watching how users correct their own spelling mistakes, how they write in their native language, and what sites they visit after searches. That information has been crucial to Google's famously algorithm-driven approach to problems like spell check, machine language translation, and improving its main search engine."
Google's exclusive ability to map these books, and to observe how consumers interact with that map and the content that these books represent, would give Google a significant competitive advantage in the most profitable internet related market in which it is already dominant. Not surprisingly, the Department of Justice has announced that it is investigating.
Google has publicly proclaimed that without this settlement these out-of-print books will remain buried in libraries with no ability for most people to find them. But is that necessarily true? If it is indeed a public good for these books to be accessible, then shouldn't it be public institutions, perhaps with private cooperation and funding where appropriate, that accomplish that result?
Couldn't the Library of Congress start to assemble a digital database that would be used (perhaps for a fee) by all search engines? After all, US copyright law currently requires that two copies of every work registered be deposited with the Library of Congress, unless exempted by regulation. Why not have one of them be digital with appropriate safeguards? Couldn't (and shouldn't) Congress finally enact some kind of safe harbor or compulsory license scheme so that digital copies of past work are made available for limited uses such as search with compensation to rightsholders where appropriate?
After all, if the goal is to create a library for benefit to the public then a private database won't cut it. If this settlement is approved and actually starts to operate, Google's insuperable advantage may well prevent all the other possible players, both public and private, from helping to create something truly public and accessible to all.


Fonons - Essential components of all matter on planet Auldrant.
Ages ago, a new type of fonon was discovered �Ethe Seventh Fonon. Its discovery threw humanity into chaos, for if one could use the Seventh Fonon, one could learn the future. Wars over the Seventh Fonon raged across the lands, ending only when the miasma �Ea poison from within the planet �Ecovered the entire world. This is when Yulia appeared.
As fonist skilled in prophecies, Yulia saw thousands of years into the future and foresaw a way to seal away the miasma. With the guidance of her prophecies, humanity sealed the miasma deep within the planet.
Over two thousand years passed.
The world is ruled by Yulia's prophecy, known as the Score. People believe in the coming �unprecedented prosperity�Epromised in the Score, never straying from the path set forth in the Score which will lead them to that prosperity. They look to the Score as revealed by the Order of Lorelei, the religion Yulia founded, and believe that the greatest virtue is to follow the Score faithfully.
Yulia's Score tells of a young man who is necessary in order to bring �unprecedented prosperity.�EHis name is Luke fon Fabre. An heir to the throne of the Kingdom of Kimlasca-Lanvaldear, he was kidnapped as a child by the kingdom's enemy, the Malkuth Empire. Since his return he has been confined to his family's manor for his own safety. He has no idea of the evil that now draws close.
* Right click the link and click "Save Target As..." to download the RAR file. To open a RAR file, you will need a RAR extractor, such as WinRAR (Google it XD).