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Being an Applied Sociologist: A Conversation with Chantal Hailey
by Mindy Fried | Apr 1, 2015 | adventure, applied sociology, careers, finding work, gender, making choices, program evaluation, race, social science research, sociology
When attempting to transform communities through social policy, it is imperative to not only understand what the social problem is, but also how and why it exists and persists. Trained sociologists have indispensable tools for this type of applied work. – Chantal Hailey
In my last blog post – Choosing Applied Sociology – I referred to a 2013 article in Inside Higher Ed in which Sociologist Roberta Spalter-Roth, from the American Sociological Association, comments that "In sociology, there is close to a perfect match between available jobs and new Ph.D.s", if you take into account non-academic jobs (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/08/06/sociology-job-market-continues-recover-steadily). She notes that while these "applied" jobs often pay more than university teaching positions, graduates rarely know about them and professors may even discourage their students from entering these professions.
Unfortunately, the majority of Sociology grad students view the tenure-track job market as their only career choice, but there are many Sociologists who have chosen to work in applied settings. The skills gleaned through a Sociology degree are applicable – or dare I say, "marketable" – in a whole host of other venues, including government, corporations, and all sizes of nonprofits, local, state and national. We are researchers, lobbyists, program managers, teachers/trainers, and more.
I decided to organize a panel on this topic at the annual meeting of Sociologists for Women in Society, held in Washington, DC. And on February, 2015, three distinguished Applied Sociologists from the DC area presented about why they chose this route of practice, what they do and for which populations, and how they incorporate sociological principles into their work, framed by a race, class, gender lens. In this post, one of the speakers, Chantal Hailey, talks about her draw to applied work, which she began as a Sociology student at Howard University. After a number of years doing Applied Sociology, Chantal is now a first year doctoral student at New York University.
Mindy: What interested you in doing applied work?
Chantal: Throughout out my childhood, I lived, attended summer camps and had friends and family who lived in low-income urban neighborhoods. I was able to see how low-quality schools, subpar housing, limited opportunities and violence shaped young peoples' lives and limited their potential. I had a passion to transform these communities into places where all people could thrive. But on the other hand, I was a nerd. I enjoyed research, history, math and statistics.
During my internship at a research branch of a community development corporation, I discovered that providing statistical trends on health, education, and housing to nonprofits could help them inform how they served low-income communities. I also discovered that the voices of women and people of color were sometimes absent from these discussions. I knew that in order to get a seat at the table, as a black woman, I needed to have the highest credential possible. So I began my academic journey at Howard University (as an) undergraduate in the Sociology department, knowing that my ultimate goal was to complete a doctoral degree in Sociology.
Mindy: Did you know you were learning about Applied Sociology at that point?
Chantal: While I was at Howard, I didn't know of any distinction between applied and "pure" sociology. I just completed papers on topics that were important to me–public housing, poverty, and education. Urban Institute (UI) kept popping up in my literature reviews and I applied for internship there after my junior year.
Mindy: What did you do when you were at Urban Institute?
Chantal: At Urban Institute (UI), I transformed from an intern to a Research Assistant to a Research Associate. UI's research is a combination of researcher-generated projects and responses to RFPs (Requests for Proposals). Two of my projects exemplify the type of applied sociology I was able to undertake at UI. The first is the "Long Term Outcomes for Chicago Public Housing Families" project (LTO). LTO is a 10-year longitudinal study of families whose Chicago public housing was demolished or revitalized through the Plan for Transformation. We employed mixed methodology – family surveys; in-depth interviews with heads of household, young adults and children; and administrative data review.
We found that after relocation from distressed public housing developments, families generally lived in better quality housing in safer neighborhoods, but many adults struggled with physical illnesses and youth suffered the consequences of chronic neighborhood violence.
Mindy: What was your role there? What did you do?
Chantal: As a team member in this project, I assisted in developing the survey, helped lead data analysis, generated the young adult interview guides and conducted in-depth interviews with the young people in the study. I also co-led and lead-authored research briefs on housing and neighborhood quality and youth. A research brief is a 15-20 page synopsis of research findings. Unlike most journal articles, there is not a long literature review.
This short article allows us to disseminate the findings to wide audiences. In addition to the standard research brief, we also produced blogs, HUD online journal articles, and radio reports; and briefed the Chicago Housing Authority, Senate committee members, and the press. LTO used sociological methods to understand policy, but intentionally shared this knowledge with wider policy makers and practitioners.
Mindy: You say that trained Sociologists have "indispensable tools" for applied sociology. Can you elaborate on this a bit?
Chantal: Sociology can address a plethora of subject areas that often intersect (i.e. inequality, education, crime and violence, health, etc.), and it unveils the mechanisms behind social problems. A Sociology education trains researchers to look for the hidden transcripts among social groups and interactions, not just the most apparent narrative. It allows for simultaneous macro, meso, and micro analysis to understand multiple contributing factors. And it emphasizes the impact social context has on policies' implementation and outcomes.
This was especially apparent in the LTO study. We understood that in addition to families' relocation from public housing, a series of key factors – including proliferating national rates of housing foreclosure, increasing Chicago neighborhood violence, and rising income inequality – also shaped families' experiences in South Side Chicago neighborhoods.
A Sociology education provides an array of methodological tools that can be tailored to best address research questions (i.e. interviews, focus groups, ethnography, quantitative analysis). It pairs theories of race, class, family structure, etc. to better understand social issues. These analytic and research skills allow us to partner with government, non-profit, and academic agencies to both advance sociological theory and offer practical solutions to social problems.
Mindy: Thank you! And can you provide another example of applied work you've done, where you've been able to bring your analytic and research skills to the fore?
Chantal: In D.C., I participated in a Community Based Participatory Grant funded by NIH entitled Promoting Adolescent Sexual Safety (PASS). UI, University of California San Diego, D.C. Housing Authority, and D.C. public housing residents collaborated in the PASS project.
This research team – along with a mix of individuals from different racial, class, and professional backgrounds – aimed to develop a program to increase sexual health and decrease sexual violence.
Mindy: How did you use what you were learning as a Sociology student/practitioner?
Chantal: Again, we used sociological methods to conduct this project, including an adult and youth survey, in-depth interviews with community members, participant observations, and focus groups.
Mindy: You said this project was participatory. Can you talk about who was involved? How was it participatory?
Chantal: Through the grant, we developed a community advisory board, a group of 15 residents who participated in creating the PASS program. The interactions between the community advisory board, community practitioners, and the researchers challenged the researchers to not only study educational, class, geographic and racial inequalities, but also to assess how our interactions dismantled or exacerbated power inequities.
Mindy: Earlier, when we spoke, you talked about what it was like to be an African-American researcher who also had a personal understanding of the experience of people you were researching. Can you talk a little about that?
Chantal: As an African American woman on the project with family who lived in D.C., I was personally challenged to both create distance as a researcher and closeness as a fellow black D.C. resident. I often found myself "code-switching" during community meetings, as I communicated with both my co-workers and the community members. Feeling a responsibility to and, often, sympathizing with the desires of the researchers and the residents, I also had to sometimes explain and mediate diverging understandings during conflicts. This closeness and distance dichotomy was also pertinent during data analysis. While my experiences allowed me to recognize and interpret focus group participants' terminologies and cultural cues, I had to ensure that my sympathies with the community did not cloud my ability to see inconvenient truths.
Mindy: And how did you get what you learned out there to your target audiences?
Chantal: This research project, like most UI projects, focused on dissemination to wider audiences in palatable formats–a community data walk, research briefs, blogs and journal articles.
Mindy: Finally…now you're a doctoral student at NYU and studying Sociology. How do you see yourself moving forward as a Sociologist? How will you incorporate what you've learned into your future practice? (or is that something you're still figuring out!)
Chantal: As I continue in graduate school at NYU, I aim to crystalize my research identity and trajectory. I have methodological and policy research experience through the Urban Institute, and I am gaining theoretical expertise while completing my doctoral degree. I hope to incorporate these elements into my research and become a conduit between academia, policy makers, and urban communities to make inner city neighborhoods a place where all children can thrive. A mentor once advised me that graduate school is a journey where you begin in one place and end in another. I am tooled with amazing applied experiences and I'm excited to see how my graduate school journey directs my path.
Choosing Applied Sociology
by Mindy Fried | Mar 25, 2015 | applied sociology, gender, program evaluation, race, selecting evaluation researcher, social class, social justice, social science research, working with evaluation researcher
After working in the policy world in Massachusetts for many years, going back to graduate school in Sociology felt like going to a candy store in the country* every day, where I could read interesting books, have stimulating conversations, learn how to do research, and then write about it. I admired my professors, and I was kind of amazed that their job was to take me seriously and support my development as a scholar. Later, while I was working on my dissertation, I got a job teaching part-time in a local university while a full-time professor went out on leave. It was challenging; it was fun; and it was an incredible opportunity to experiment with pedagogy. I learned that I loved teaching, and over the next two years, got hired to teach a wide range of sociology classes – about families, sex and gender, feminism, work, and women and leadership – at several other Boston universities.
But the more I learned about the full-time tenure-track teaching world, the more I realized it was just not my thing. First off, I couldn't imagine "starting over" again at the bottom of the career ladder, with what could be six grueling years of slogging towards tenure. Nor could I imagine the idea of a job for life – the promise of tenure – working with the same folks for the next few decades (apologies to my mythical could-have-been colleagues!). Call me fickle, but I enjoyed changing jobs every few years, having new and varied challenges, and working with a diverse array of people.
Learning on the job
By luck, while I was taking research methods classes, I was offered a small consulting job to evaluate the impact of a well-established training program on its activist participants. Here was an opportunity to put my newfound knowledge to use. Except that no one was teaching how to evaluate social programs in sociology graduate programs! I did have some experience with "program evaluation". When I was directing a statewide child care project that was federally funded, some guy was hired by the state to evaluate my program. He met with me once at the beginning of the project, and at the end, he wrote a glowing report.
Every so often, I wondered if he'd be back. In the end, he really had no basis upon which to evaluate the strengths and challenges the project was facing – and believe me, there were plenty. But I wasn't going to complain if he was phoning it in!
Since I had no idea how to evaluate a program, I hired someone who did, and for the next few years, she trained me and my sociologist friend, Claire, in how to use research skills to evaluate social programs. I never intended to continue doing this "applied" work for the next 20 years, but that is essentially what has happened. When I first started, I wasn't very good at it, and I thought it was boring. But a couple decades later, I have learned a whole lot about how to do it well, and (luckily) find this work fascinating.
Making a choice to be an applied sociologist
The choice to be an "applied sociologist" is not a rejection or devaluation of academic sociology. It is a choice that is, in part, a function of economic imperatives – a tight job market, especially if you don't want to move – but also a choice to make a different kind of difference. To impact the social world through organizations that are impacting people: through service, through organizing, and through education and advocacy, in the areas of public health, education, urban planning, climate change, arts and arts education and many more.
I have learned that it makes me happy to use the research and writing skills I learned in graduate school as a tool to help promote social change, through the vehicle of strengthening nonprofit organizations and improving philanthropic decision-making. Once considered the stepchild of the field, applied sociology is now gaining prominence, but largely because the economy has not produced the plethora of academic sociology jobs once predicted.
"Close to a perfect match"
In a 2013 article in Inside Higher Ed, Roberta Spalter-Roth, from the American Sociological Association, commented that "In sociology, there is close to a perfect match between available jobs and new Ph.D.s" (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/08/06/sociology-job-market-continues-recover-steadily). But this is only if you factor in the many government, nonprofit and research analyst jobs out there that require the skills and sociological perspectives learned in graduate school. Spalter-Roth notes that these jobs often pay more than university teaching positions, but graduates rarely know about them and professors may even discourage their students from entering these professions.
This year, my applied sociology friends and I agree that the "applied route" seems to be gaining some traction, with increased interest from universities and professional associations. A number of us have been on a (minor) speaking circuit, talking to graduate students at the request of sociology departments about choosing applied sociology as a career. And this year, the Sociology Department of a major research university, Boston College, hired me to teach a course on Evaluation Research. (Kudos to BC Sociology for recognizing the importance of this avenue for sociologists-in-training!)
Panel at Sociologists for Women in Society: Choosing Applied Sociology (sponsored by the Career Development Committee)
Given this increased interest, and what I believe is a need for sociologists to promote the health and well-being of organizations and communities using research and sociological principles, I organized a panel on this topic at an annual meeting of my favorite national feminist sociology organization, Sociologists for Women in Society.
The panel included three distinguished applied sociologists from the DC area, where the meeting was held, who presented about why they chose this route of practice, what they do and for what populations, and how they incorporate sociological principles into their work, framed by a race, class, gender lens.
The speakers, all based in DC, included Tekisha Everette, a lobbyist for the American Diabetes Association; Andrea Robles, a research analyst at the Corporation for National and Community Service; and Chantal Hailey, who ran evaluation projects at the national Urban Institute and elsewhere, and is currently a sociology doctoral student at NYU. One other panelist, Rita Stephens, was not able to make it because of a blasted snowstorm, but she would have rounded out the panel very nicely as she works at the State Department. The three women spoke to a standing and sitting room only crowd at the meeting, followed by numerous informal conversations, attesting to the fact that there is a hunger for this kind of work.
In my next couple of blog posts, I will allow these amazing women's words speak for themselves. I hope that their words stimulate a dialogue about the value of and choice to pursue sociology outside of the academy. Based on the remarkable response at this meeting and in classrooms where I talk about applied sociology, my sense is that sociologists want to know about alternatives to working within academia. The words of these speakers inspired me and I hope they inspire you.
"I was interested in doing applied work that could lead to positive social
change. Somehow, it seemed like I wanted to be part of making the world
a better place."
Sociologist, Andrea Robles
Check out this excellent blog post by Dr Zuleyka Zevallos, Research and Social Media Consultant with Social Science Insights in Australia, called What is Applied Sociology?, published in Sociology at Work: Working for Social Change: http://sociologyatwork.org/about/what-is-applied-sociology/
*Brandeis University, which is actually in the suburb of Waltham, Massachusetts, but looked like the country to this city girl!
From Applied to Action Sociology: Jamaica Plain Porchfest
by Mindy Fried | Aug 6, 2014 | arts, community, diversity, festival, human connection, music, organizing, porchfest, program evaluation, social science research, sociological imagination
For a couple of decades, I have been an "applied sociologist", meaning that my sociology leaves the classroom and situates itself in organizational contexts. There are many ways that applied sociologists "do sociology". For the most part, my work focuses on evaluating a range of programs and policies to help organizations get stronger and ultimately, bring in more funds so they can continue to do their good work. Applied sociology may be perceived by some as the step child of academic sociology. "Professor" is a far more classy title than Senior Research Associate or even, Wowza Evaluation Research Expert! But academic and applied sociology are equally good options; the choice to pursue one or the other has more to do with the job market, as well as one's career goals and interests. That said, applied sociologists have fewer institutionalized steps along the career ladder to achieve "success", and we certainly experience less institutionalized scrutiny. For better or worse, applied sociologists also don't generally have a "family" of colleagues for life!
A lot of us "applied folks" are happy with our choice. The work is challenging, and the potential to improve programs and policies that improve people's health, education, incomes and more is satisfying. Many of us also love to teach, but generally when we do, we're on the lowest rung of the totem pole as adjuncts, with low wages, no benefits and depending on the institution, no status, even if one is a stellar teacher whose students adore you. But unlike adjuncts who are scraping a living together teaching multiple single courses, we may choose to teach a course, without fully depending on this income.
This spring, I discovered another way to put my sociology into action, when I joined with a friend to organize a neighborhood music festival on porches, called "Jamaica Plain Porchfest"(www.jpporchfest.org).
My type of applied sociology had, for the most part, been stuck in a room, or on occasion, at an event or rally. But I felt ready to break out. While I have been evaluating arts-based programs for a number of years, I found that I could bring my sociological eye to designing and implementing this participatory arts-based musical event. Luckily, I was partnered with an old and dear friend who brought the same sensibility and perspective.
Our sociological eyes went into motion from the very beginning of our planning, as we identified the "outcomes" we wanted to achieve for this event. We live in a community that is considered very diverse, in terms of race/ethnicity, class and sexual/gender orientation. But in reality, the community is very divided. There is a "Latin Quarter" which houses Cubans, Dominicans, Puerto Ricans and Central Americans; there are public housing developments that cloister poor people in large high rises; there are new mixed-income housing developments; there are sections of "town" that are entirely working class, and others that are entirely middle class. Our goal was to bring the various strains of the community together – bridging race/ethnicity and class – using music as the vehicle.
The phenomenon of "porchfests" is not new. The first one was organized in Ithaca, New York in 2007, and now there are 20 of them in cities and towns throughout the U.S., including Tucson, Napa Valley, Boulder, Buffalo (my home town!), Salt Lake City and in Somerville, Massachusetts, the porchfest that initially inspired us. From the looks of the incredible photos on each of their porchfest websites, we can see that they are joyous events that build community. From our conversations with the Ithaca and Somerville porchfesters, we also know how successful they are in promoting community bonding, as people come out on the streets to enjoy music together.
In contrast to some of the neighborhoods where other porchfests take place, around half of Jamaica Plain's residents are people of color, including 25% Latino, 14% African-American, and 4% Asian, and 50% are white. Our commitment was to promote bridging and bonding, by pursuing three strategies: include a diverse range of musicians in terms of their racial/ethnic backgrounds as well as their musical genres; locate and include porches throughout the neighborhood where musicians can play; and engage and bring out diverse audiences. We hoped that these strategies would help to overcome some of the "tri-furcation" or "quadri-furcation" (!) in the 'hood.
Initially, we created a Facebook page with a call for musicians and porch hosts. But a lot of people don't go on Facebook, including 27% of online adults who don't use social media, and another group of people defined as Facebook "resisters".
So we reached out to local non-profit organizations, some of whom serve youth, others who manage low-income housing, others who coordinate small business activity, and yet others who run programs around maintaining a beautiful, large park in one of the neighborhood's low-income neighborhoods. We also reached out to students at a highly renowned local music college. We even "scouted" musicians, sometimes at a local park or other venue, as well as musicians we just heard of through friends.
My organizing partner and I started with the idea that we'd do a "pilot" event, with three bands and three porches. But if were to stay true to our goals, we needed to do more than that. Ultimately, we had 60 bands sign up, and enough porches committed so that two bands could play on each porch. We spent hours poring over the mix of bands and porch hosts we would match, focusing on bringing together a mix of people from diverse backgrounds, by race/ethnicity, gender, and where possible, class. In the end, diverse bands and solo musicians shared a stage – aka porch – hosted by a third party who generously offered her/his porch.
We had been informed that one of the other porchfests almost got shut down one year because there were crowds of people roaming the streets, obstructing traffic and trashing neighbor's lawns. So we created a tiered structure, in which each porch had a "Porch Fun Manager", each cluster of porches in a particular part of neighborhood had a "Cluster Manager", and the overall event had two "Network Managers" (me and my partner), who kept an eye on the whole picture. Organizational sociology in action…
While the two of us organized this event, we realized that we were operating within the construct of social institutions that needed to be privy to our plans, offer advice, and inform us of any limitations. So we met with officials from the City, from the police, and from a neighborhood services department that does city permitting. (We were committed to NOT have permits for each porch! We didn't have the budget and we didn't want to deal with the bureaucracy.)
And did I mention that we had NO budget whatsoever? This was one of the appeals of the event. Nothing commercial. No "brought to you by", banners, logos or even food trucks! We received a few in-kind donations: one from a friend, another from the City of Boston which paid for printing colorful maps of the porch routes to be used on the day of the event, and another from a printer who didn't charge us for printing postcards to announce the event. For many people, the fact that JP Porchfest was commercial-free was a breath of fresh air.
So how did it go? On the day of the event, we had 7,000-8,000 people roaming throughout the neighborhood listening to music, and hundreds showed up at a local restaurant, Bella Luna Restaurant and Milky Way Café, for an after-party which served $5 all-you-can-eat pizza! Anecdotally, it seemed that everyone loved the event from the audience to the musicians to the porch hosts.
But a good "action sociologist" can't just leave it there! We needed to evaluate the impact of the event. In order to count the numbers in attendance, we used porchfest stickers, and had intended to count the leftovers to gauge the size of the crowd, except we ran out of stickers in one hour! We consulted an audience researcher on how to calculate the final numbers, and it's her figures – 7,000-8,000 – that we are citing.
We also distributed very short surveys with a few questions that would help us learn what worked and what didn't work, as well as to identify the demographics of porchfesters.
Nearly 100% reported that the event was excellent or very good (we're still working on analyzing this data). In addition, we had two sociology grad students from Brandeis University (my alma mater) traversing the event and interviewing participants about their experience.
And we queried musicians and porch hosts to provide more detailed feedback on their experiences performing at JP Porchfest, and learned that they made great connections with the other band with whom they shared their porch as well as with their porch hosts. They were pleased that they were able to add people to their mailing lists and increased their CD sales. We also heard that small businesses had increased sales. One of our colleagues and friends from Hyde Square Task Force, a JP youth leadership organization, conducted her own short survey to see if business picked up in the "Latin Quarter", and interestingly, small shops like the local beauty shop and local rotisserie chicken take-out place increased their business by anywhere from 100-400%!
Finally, we wanted to document the event, creating a team of professional filmmakers who shot the event and will produce two videos. One is a documentary about JP Porchfest that centers on three narratives: a long-time Latina political activist who had just moved into affordable housing and wanted to use porchfest as a way to unite her racially divided neighborhood; a veteran rocker musician who writes songs about JP and is a staple in the 'hood; and a group of youth leaders from a local non-profit organization who were accompanied by two filmmakers who documented their response to the event and the different types of music. The other is a 5-minute how-to video, which will be accompanied by a training guide that we write, in order to help other communities produce their own porchfests!
My organizing partner and I were initially worried that no one would show up, and then after the event, we worried that we would experience a post-event malaise. But we have been disproven twice! We are now planning JP Porchfest 2015, this time knowing a lot more than what we knew before we started. Soon we're going to launch a Kickstarter campaign, and Bella Luna/Milky Way has offered us their venue for two fundraisers.
In the end, we determined that we had done a pretty good job, maybe even a really good job! While roughly one-third of our musicians were people of color, we want to increase the diversity of the audience, and we are developing a strategy to do so.
In a follow-up conversation I had with Ayanna Pressley, a brilliant African-American City Councilor who spoke at the event, I lamented that the audience wasn't as diverse as we wanted it to be, and she told me, "you are acting like a woman!" I was startled. What did she mean? She told me that the event was a great success, but I was focusing on the negative. "We'll work on that for next year", she reassured me.
Photos/Video:
1. Woman doing limbo at Nate Smith House, affordable housing for elders. Band was Tempo International Rhythm Section.
2. Sterling Rhyne performing at home of Betsaida Gutierrez, housing activist. Photo credit: Sam Sacks.
3. JP Porchfest banner, created by Hyde Square Task Force Youth Leaders
4. Damn Tall Buildings. Photo credit: Damn Tall Buildings (selfie!)
5. The Amy Hoffman. Photo credit: Jane Akiba
6. Guts and Buttons. Photo credit: Sue Dorfman
7. Cornell Coley and Hyde Square Task Force. Photo credit: Jane Akiba
8. Filmmakers planning Porchfest videos
9. Son of Chris Antonowich, Riding Shot Gun. Photo credit: Sue Dorfman
10. Video, Rick Berlin and Nickel and Dime Band: "I Love My Street"
Save the arts because the arts save lives, part 2…
by Mindy Fried | Jan 13, 2013 | arts education, arts education research, child development, dance education, early education and care, education, federal funding, music education, program evaluation, state budgets, youth theater
Over a year ago, I wrote a blog post about the importance of funding arts education. I'm still thinking about these issues, so here is Part Two: Save the arts because the arts save lives...
The arts – dance, theater, music, writing and the visual arts – have a powerful impact on children, opening the door to deeper knowledge and self-expression. I know from personal experience, and I have seen it in young people far and wide. While the current administration has said all the right things about arts education, this is sadly not enough, because federal, state and local policies STILL favor standardized testing and severely limit arts education funding. With all the concern about remaining competitive in a global market, this is precisely the time to fund arts education and allow our children to thrive.
I started taking dance lessons at age seven. For the first year, I did ballet, but only lasted one year because the teacher was nasty and the movements were too rigid for my soul. Instead my mother found a modern dance teacher, Seenie Rothier, a kind and ageless woman with a lean body and tight bun (and buns), who spoke with a raspy voice as she led her charges through endless contractions, swirls and triplets across the floor. Trained in Martha Graham-style dance, Seenie, as we all called her, had a penchant for the dramatic, and yet she was the most grounding element in my life. I always assumed that my family life was your average normal, and yet looking back, I have realized that it was a household rife with angry silence and disappointment. Seenie's studio on Hertel Street in Buffalo, was just up the block from Kaufman's Deli where they sold frosted brownies, and down the block from my grandparents' working class neighborhood. It was my salvation. She recognized my talent, and by the time I was thirteen, had invited me to join a college dance troupe. Dance was my manna and still is.
While it is hard to "make a living" as an artist, I tried my best, working as a dance therapist in a psychiatric hospital and later, teaching dance as a resident artist in the Syracuse, New York public school system. I discovered the magic of movement as a source of expression for young children. Often in these schools, children were marched into the gym in single file, and told to remain quiet and respectful of the visiting teacher.
Little did they know that the new visitor was about to tell the children to jump up and down like popcorn, express their joy and anger through finger dances, and shout as loud as they could, using only their eyes or feet. There was always one child in every school who attached her- or himself to me, following me around, sometimes sitting on my lap or holding my hand as I moved through the room. Sometimes I imagined that what this child really wanted was to crawl into my womb for safety. And there was always the wild child. Sometimes teachers warned me about him or her, and other times, I learned through my own encounters. If teachers were observing – they rarely participated – they might speak with the child in a stern, warning tone or pull the child away for time out. But when I could, I intervened and said 'no, it's okay', because I could usually figure out a way that that child could use movement to express herself.
Dance is a healer, a universal mode of communication that is good for children. It's natural. It's great exercise. It wakes up the brain. It gives children an outlet. I have observed talented movement professionals use movement with children to help them learn science and math concepts. Dance can strengthen children's emotional intelligence, and their ability to collaborate with others. And it can provide a form of discipline and order, when students are challenged to create dances that have beginnings, middles and ends.
A number of studies (see Critical Links) cite a positive correlation between dance experiences and nonverbal reasoning skills. One study demonstrated that "subjects" who were exposed to creative dance made significant gains in creative and critical thinking. And another study conducted with children with behavioral disorders found that when dance and poetry were combined, students' were engaged and their social skills improved. Another study that promoted reading through dance to elementary children found that students improved significantly on all measures assessed by a reading test, including their ability to relate written consonants and vowels to their sounds.
The research on other arts modalities is equally strong, linking the study of theater to literacy, music education to improvements in spatial-temporal reasoning, achievement in reading, and reinforcement of social-emotional and behavioral skills. And classrooms that integrate the arts are a leveler for all students, including those with disabilities.
In my own research, I've found that teachers who implemented arts-integrated curriculum into their classroom had increased enthusiasm for teaching as they observed the positive response from students, both in terms of their attitudes towards learning, but also their ability to learn.
It's time to broaden the policy dialogue and demand increased funding for arts education!
Why Evaluation Research is Pretty Cool…
by Mindy Fried | Jun 22, 2010 | funders, policy, program evaluation
Despite this current climate of economic belt-tightening – and maybe even because of it – there is growing pressure on organizations to evaluate their programs. More and more, funders are asking for a comprehensive evaluation plan that produces concrete data on the process of implementation and the outcomes of the program. While federal and state grants have historically required evaluation as a part of their budgets, the emphasis has increased in this tough economy and private foundations are not far behind. Funders want to know that their money is being used to do what was promised, that the outcomes promised were achieved, or if not, that there were legitimate reasons.
Many programs approach the notion of evaluation with the fear of being judged ("What if they find that we screwed up?"), annoyance ("This is a waste of time."), or resentment. ("Why do they have to spend so much money on evaluation instead of where it belongs, in the program?").
These reactions may be influenced by people's previous experience with evaluation or a lack of it. My own first experience with an evaluator – nearly 30 years ago – was downright disappointing. I was directing a federally-funded educational program based in state government. And our evaluator "came with" the project; that is, we had no input on his selection. He "interviewed" me a couple of times and seemed friendly enough, but I never really felt he cared about the project or really understood what we were doing, nor did he make much effort to do so. He didn't seem to have an evaluation research design, didn't ask me for input on the interview protocols he used, and I honestly have no idea who he even talked to in the process of evaluating the program.
At the end, he generated a report that was totally useless (to us at least) and didn't really resonate with our experience of the program. Nonetheless, he concluded that we had done a good job, so we were not about to argue! We could say an independent evaluator liked the program… Sad to say, my colleagues and I just thought it was a big joke. But in reality, what a waste of public dollars, and what a missed opportunity for us to actually reflect on our program experience!
A sound evaluation is focused on identifying and supporting the strength of a program, identifying the challenges, and targeting ways to overcome the obstacles. In my view, the goal of evaluation must be to help organizational decision makers make good choices about their programs and/or policies.
All evaluation is aimed at assessing some form of transformation, whether at the micro or macro level, including understanding if all the elements are in place to achieve the desired goals. In the vernacular of sociologists, I bring a "third eye" to help solve problems in diverse organizational settings, such as foundations, nonprofits and universities.
To these "clients", I am an evaluation researcher, organizational analyst, educator, strategic planner, and increasingly a management coach. Some of the questions my colleagues and I have grappled with this year include:
* To what extent do early childhood teachers benefit from state policies aimed at improving quality in child care programs?
* How can a university-community partnership overcome differences to work together more effectively?
* What role can the arts play in improving student outcomes and school culture?
* How can a foundation-initiated leadership program strengthen the nonprofit sector?
When I do evaluation planning with clients, I ask them:
Who wants to know what for what purpose?
* In other words, who is the audience for the evaluation?
* What does the audience want to know?
* And why do they want to know it?
Usually the audience for an evaluation is both internal and external. An internal audience is the program leadership and staff who need robust information about how a program is being implemented and/or developing, so it can stay on course or improve if there are difficulties. An external audience generally refers to funders or policymakers, those who require an evaluation or will use evaluation data for their own decision-making purposes.
That said, I (and most of my evaluator colleagues) often choose to work with organizations that are trying to make a positive change in society with the clients they serve, the policies they promote, the campaigns they run and/or the advocacy efforts they promote. As an evaluator, I present myself to organizations as a "critical friend" who can think big-picture about what they are trying to accomplish and who can work closely with them to understand what is working and what needs some help.
Evaluation can play a key role in supporting program leaders and staff to make good decisions to maximize the possibility of achieving goals, or dare I say, "success", however that is defined…. And it is also key to highlighting the real world challenges programs face that may impede program success.
Increasingly, I am finding that funders want evaluation research to document the process of program implementation, warts and all. Those of us who run or evaluate programs have known for a long time that programs will run into obstacles when they are being implemented. Evaluation can bring a wide lens to understanding and documenting these obstacles, what it takes to overcome them, or if they simply are insurmountable.
In my next posting, I will write about how to select an independent evaluator. It is inspired by my experience and that of my evaluator colleagues who have some very wise things to say. Stay tuned! Meanwhile, here are a few quotes that relate to evaluation research because, as I said, evaluation research is pretty cool…
Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted." Albert Einstein
"Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor." Truman Capote
"My mother drew a distinction between achievement and success. She said that 'achievement is the knowledge that you have studied and worked hard and done the best that is the new. Success is being praised by others, and that's nice too, but not as important or satisfying. Always aim for achievement and forget about success..'" Helen Hayes
"First get your facts; then you can distort them at your leisure." Mark Twain
"Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together." Vincent van Gogh
"True genius resides in the capacity for evaluation of uncertain, hazardous, and conflicting information." Winston Churchill
"Each time he sees me, while all the rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them." George Bernard Shaw
Friend to Groucho Marx: "Life is difficult!"
Marx to Friend: "Compared to what?"


text:
Yulia Marfutova (* 1988 in Moskau; eigentlich Yulia Mevissen) ist eine deutsche Schriftstellerin.

Leben
Abseits ihrer Karriere als Schriftstellerin trat Yulia Marfutova unter dem Namen Yulia Mevissen in Erscheinung. Von 2007 bis 2012 studierte sie Germanistik und Geschichte an der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, die sie mit einem Master verließ. Dabei wurde sie durch ein Stipendium der Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes unterstützt.

Im Oktober 2013 wechselte sie für ihre Promotion von der HU Berlin an die Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, wo sie eine Doktorarbeit zum Thema Der dramatische Modus von Brief- und Dialogromanen des 18. Jahrhunderts erfolgreich abschloss. Während ihrer Promotion erhielt Mevissen ein Stipendium des DFG-Graduiertenkollegs Literarische Form. Geschichte und Kultur ästhetischer Modellbildung. Ab April 2014 wurde sie erneut durch die Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes mit einem Promotionsstipendium (ideelle Förderung) unterstützt. Von Oktober 2014 bis März 2015 führte sie ein Forschungsaufenthalt ans King's College London.

Nach Stationen in Berlin und Münster lebt sie mittlerweile in Boston. Dort arbeitet sie als deutschsprachige Dozentin am College of Liberal Arts der University of Massachusetts Boston.

Werk
Gegen Ende der 2000er-Jahre machte Marfutova als Schriftstellerin auf sich aufmerksam. So gewann sie im Jahr 2007 einen Preis beim Wettbewerb zum Treffen junger Autoren, während ihr Gedicht Das Wiegenlied im Tagesspiegel veröffentlicht wurde. Auch publizierte sie Texte in Literaturzeitschriften wie umlaut (Jan, 2012) oder Anthologien wie Re-covered: neue deutschsprachige Prosa (Jan dreht einen Film und wird gesteuert, 2013).

Der Durchbruch als Schriftstellerin folgte mit ihrem Debütroman Der  Himmel vor hundert Jahren, der im Frühjahr 2021 vom Rowohlt Verlag veröffentlicht wurde. Das Buch handelt von den Einwohnern eines russischen Dorfes um das Jahr 1918, denen die Revolution 1917 und der Bürgerkrieg verborgen geblieben ist. Ihre "zeitlose Geschichte und [...] herausragendes Debüt" gelangte auf die Longlist des Deutschen Buchpreises 2021 und brachte Marfutova im selben Jahr eine Nominierung für den Franz-Tumler-Preis ein. Bereits zuvor hatte sie für die Arbeit an dem Manuskript Der Himmel vor hundert Jahren und anderen Texten eine Vielzahl renommierter Preise und Stipendien erhalten. Ihr Romandebüt fand überwiegend Lob seitens der deutschsprachigen Literaturkritik.

Veröffentlichungen (Auswahl)
 Der  Himmel vor hundert Jahren. Roman. Rowohlt, Hamburg 2021, ISBN 978-3-498-00189-6.

Auszeichnungen und Nominierungen (Auswahl)
 2007: Preisträgerin beim Wettbewerb zum Treffen junger Autoren
 2008: Stipendiatin der Stiftung Niedersachsen, Literatur Labor Wolfenbüttel
 2012: Stipendiatin des Klagenfurter Literaturkurses
 2013: Alfred-Döblin-Stipendium
 2014: Autorenwerkstatt Prosa des Literarischen Colloquiums Berlin
 2015: Schreibwerkstatt der Jürgen-Ponto-Stiftung, Edenkoben
 2017: Förderpreis Literatur der Gesellschaft zur Förderung der westfälischen Kulturarbeit (GWK)
 2018: Arbeitsstipendium der Berliner Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa
 2018: Berliner Literaturstipendium des Literaturforums im Brecht-Haus
 2021: Nominierung für die Longlist des Deutschen Buchpreises (Der  Himmel vor hundert Jahren)
 2021: Nominierung für den Franz-Tumler-Preis (Der  Himmel vor hundert Jahren)
 2021: Debütpreis des Buddenbrookhauses (Der  Himmel vor hundert Jahren)
 2022: Friedrich-Hölderlin-Preis der Stadt Bad Homburg (Der  Himmel vor hundert Jahren)

Weblinks
 Profil auf rowohlt.de
 Yulia Marfutova auf Perlentaucher
 Profil bei der WMU Münster
 Profil bei der University of Massachusetts Boston (englisch)
 Yulia Marfutova auf archiv.gwk-online.de

Einzelnachweise

Autor
Literatur (Deutsch)
Literatur (21. Jahrhundert)
Roman, Epik
Deutscher
Geboren 1988
Frau

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


TaiZhou BESTE Import & Export Co.,Ltd.
provide a complete control system for all water heater applications and gas regulator for natural gas applications,and involves RV parts,bathroom, valve accessories,electrical equipments,clothing,furnitures,etc. Our exclusive product ranges comes from leading qualified supplier for which we can guarantee product quality and assured after sales service.


Timing of Forces in Cartilage - What is optimal?
Home/Degenerated Discs, Load Rate Loading, Research/Timing of Forces in Cartilage – What is optimal?
How and what kind of forces are optimal for cartilage regeneration? The science of how movement influences biology is called mechanobiology. This is an exciting field of research as it looks closely at how forces, and the timing application of them, can make cells come alive and wake up to stimulate metabolism.
For example, in a prize winning study published in Spine (a highly reputable journal) researchers looked at how dynamic loading of the spine at certain frequencies actually enhanced nutritional supply to the intervertebral disc (cartilage). The problem with the healing of damaged cartilage is primarily because cartilage is an avascular structure. In other words, there is no blood in cartilage so when it gets damaged, it is awfully slow in healing. This is where this new study shines because it demonstrated that moving the discs at a .5Hz frequency drew new nutrients into the cartilage.
They also looked at degenerated discs at found that these discs also absorbed fluid to nourish them…indicating a regenerative aspect. For those that wonder what the heck is .5Hz is, well it is a force pulse of every two seconds. Interestingly, this is similar to the breath rate of a normal human. For decades, scientists have been wondering about what forces are optimal for spinal health. This new research reveals that the timing of forces should resemble the timing of the breath rate.
This sets the stage for manual therapists and chiropractors as well as those that are in the business of developing exercise programs. If we can begin to integrate what we have learned from these prize winning studies, we will improve the bottom line for our patients.


Discussion in 'Downhill & Freeride' started by c2001, Jan 7, 2008.
umm...so what does this mean?
Dam that compnay is like strictly Corporate America dude. Hopefully guys at Fox won't be working in shirt/ties.
Wow, Compass Diversified Holdings owns a wide range of companies (hence the Diversified I guess).
Probably doesn't mean anything. From the impression I got from it, it's just for financial backing, which could lead to new products.
It's financial backing only, as a major share holder. Bob Fox remains CEO and a majority share holder.
fox can make its products in usa. THey are going to have to move to asia because their products are already the most expensiveon the market.
Shirts and ties might be a stretch. Maybe to start with, the people who answer the phone can limit the amount of pot they smoke during their shift.
They acquired the company, that is a little more than just financial backing only.
Their products are the most expensive because they are (arguably) the best out there. There are rear shocks that are more expensive than Fox. Besides, its not like they are leaps and bounds more expensive than their competitors. If you want a high performance, premium product, you have to be willing to pay a premium price. End of story. I don't foresee Fox moving production overseas anytime soon, if ever. There are still companies and consumers who take pride in manufacturing/purchasing American made products.
Also, I don't think that Fox produces products in large enough quantities for them to have any significant benefit from overseas production. Not surprisingly, many consumers perceive quality based on origin of manufacturing (and are therefore more easily convinced to pay a premium price for something domestically produced).
Nope. They purchased "a majority interest". They did not acquire the company completely according to the Fox Press Release.
"Bob Fox will retain a significant ownership in FOX - an ownership now shared with senior managers"
i hope that the people on here know that fox doesn't make every of their forks in the USA i.e. the fork lowers.
IINM, generally when a holding company acquires another company (like Fox) its for one of 2 reasons... its to fund a significant expansion, or the company is not doing well financially and needs to get back on track (for any of a number of reasons).
Personally I hope its the first reason. Oh the rumors!
Nope. They purchased "a majority interest". They did not acquire the company completely. Not according to the Fox Press Release.
The Compass Co. is using word "acquired" not me..
I agree they did not purchase it completely, but 51% or more (majority) means the own it, and for the most part control the co.
From the release it sounds like they acquired 76%.
Doesn't matter to me either way, but that is a lot of money..They valued the co, and $85M!
According to Fox's PR, they have been shopping for some backing for awhile and are quite stable financially. My guess is that it's time for an expansion.
transaction in which Compass Diversified Holdings ("CODI&#8221 purchased a majority interest in FOX.
unprecedented growth, and we now look forward to being partnered with Compass for the next chapter in our Company's history.
so far and know FOX will be a stronger company going forward than I alone had the resources to provide for," he stated.
Snowmobiles and Off-Road racing vehicles. World Headquarters are in Santa Cruz County, CA with its Off-Road Division in Santee, CA.
FOX Racing Shox distributes its products in more than 40 countries.
You really believe the spin Fox's PR team is putting on it?
Compass is a public co. The truth will come out in the wash..The SEC filings will say it all.
If it is for expansion good for them..
Nor particularly, but I deal with them enough for a variety of things to know they aren't exactly in dire straits. The purse strings haven't been pulled tight.
As founder of Fox, and the sole owner for over 30 years, I am now very excited about this transition of ownership to Compass. The financial strength and resources Compass provides will enable Fox to continue its strong growth and leadership in all its markets. It will also enable us to aggressively pursue new projects and opportunities. I will continue as President and CEO and will maintain a significant financial interest. On a personal note, I am excited about the opportunity this provides me to focus more of my time and energy doing the design and engineering work, the part of the business I love the most. As a successful, healthy company, Fox had the luxury of looking for and selecting the best partner for this transaction, we chose Compass."
A significant financial interest is clearly not a "majority stake." However, it does seem like Compass' experience with specialized tech manufacturing businesses could be very good for Fox in the long run.
According the public release it sounds like 76/24 with Compass owning majority..
IMO, this is a business move to strengthen Compass position as a public co. The have to acquire companies to grow, and they have stockholders to answer too, so if there wasn't an upside to this ($$$$) they wouldn't have done it.
According to Compass' own press release, they acquired 76%, with 24% remaining with bob Fox and his senior management.
they have stockholders to answer too, so if there wasn't an upside to this ($$$$) they wouldn't have done it.
It only looks positive to me. An investment group with successful niche manufacturing companies, and large capital for Fox to take on the vertical integration of their competitors (Sram, Hayes group). The real question is, who will Fox acquire in their own quest for expansion and vertical integration? At the very least I'd expect them to develop suspension products that hit more of the market than their current high-end-only offerings.
The real question is, who will Fox acquire in their own quest for expansion and vertical integration?
i see it as a good thing, with the other companies in the group, they will make relationships with these and other companies, and will have access to new materials such as metals and plastics(lets hope it doesnt come to that) but they will be able to develop their product even further.
Don't forget that they make products outside of the bicycle industry. I would guess any expansion would take place in the powersport industry.
Unless its to expand into frames?
That would be kewl, FOX frame, shock, and fork combo, factory sorted!
WESTPORT, Conn., Jan 07, 2008 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX News Network/ -- Compass Diversified Holdings (Nasdaq: CODI), Compass Group Diversified Holdings LLC and its subsidiaries (collectively, "CODI") announced today that on January 4, 2008, CODI simultaneously entered into a definitive agreement to acquire and consummated the acquisition of Fox Factory, Inc. ("Fox").
Founded in 1974 and headquartered in Watsonville, California, Fox is a designer, manufacturer and marketer of high end suspension products for mountain bikes, all terrain vehicles, snowmobiles and other off-road vehicles. Fox both acts as a tier one supplier to leading action sport original equipment manufacturers and provides aftermarket products to retailers and distributors. Fox's products are recognized as the industry's performance leaders by retailers and end-users alike.
Under the terms of the transaction, CODI's acquisition of Fox is based on a total enterprise value of $85.0 million, representing approximately 7.5 times Fox's estimated Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization ("EBITDA") for 2007, before taking into account the positive cash flow impact of the tax asset step-up pursuant to which CODI will be acquiring Fox. Fox management will invest in the transaction alongside CODI resulting in an initial minority ownership of approximately 24%.
Regarding the acquisition, I. Joseph Massoud, CODI's CEO, said, "Fox is a strong addition to our current group of subsidiaries. This company possesses the critical characteristics we look for in all of our businesses, including market leadership in a niche industry, strong cash flow and proven management. The Fox brand name is highly recognized and well respected globally in its industry, and Fox's products reflect the company's culture of continual design innovation and superior performance. Robert Fox and the company's senior management team, who will continue to manage the business under our ownership, have driven growth by providing innovative suspension products for over three decades and we look forward to working with them to continue and accelerate this growth."
Upon closing, this acquisition will be accretive to our shareholders and increase our cash flow available for distribution. Our ability to consummate this transaction was facilitated to a great extent by our financing structure, under which we will fund this acquisition through excess cash on hand and our newly expanded credit facility at the CODI level," concluded Mr. Massoud.
Additional information on the acquisition will be available on the Company's current report on Form 8-K that will be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on or before January 8, 2008.
CODI was formed to acquire and manage a group of middle market businesses that are headquartered in North America. CODI provides public investors with an opportunity to participate in the ownership and growth of companies which have historically been owned by private equity firms or wealthy individuals or families. CODI's disciplined approach to its target market provides opportunities to methodically purchase attractive businesses at values that are accretive to its shareholders. For sellers of businesses, CODI's unique structure allows CODI to acquire businesses efficiently with no financing contingencies and, following acquisition, to provide its companies with substantial access to growth capital.
Upon acquisition, CODI works with the executive teams of its subsidiary companies to identify and capitalize on opportunities to grow those companies' earnings and cash flows. These cash flows support distributions to CODI shareholders, which are intended to be steady and growing over the long term.
I've italisized what I think is important as a summary.
It sounds like Bob is still gonna be in some amount of control. And it sounds like Compass isn't out to change the companies, and more improve. Of course this is all after the PR spin.
Fox obviously has their suspension products dialed in, and getting better all the time. That said, a huge influx of money can do any company good ... ask Rock Shox.
Plus, "Fox" the brand is a lot bigger than suspension. Compass probably looked at it as a safe investment with a good probability for returns.
edit: yea, what they said. I guess I should read the whole post before posting!
I agree. Consider at most you'll have at most $2500 of suspension on your bike, but a Trophy Truck could easily get be anywhere from $40-60k for a set full Fox setup.
or just get back to being more involved with product like when he started?
Does Fox have OEM penetration in the motorsports markets like they do in the bike market? I'm not familiar with those markets, but it does seem like Fox puts a lot of Fox-branded shocks on mountain bikes from manufacturers around the world, while if I go into a Honda or Yamaha dealer to buy an ATV or moto, I'm not going to get Fox suspension on it OEM.
From what I've seen in the bike industry, and how many companies year-in, year-out spec Fox suspension across their product lines, they have to be doing at least $15-20 million a year in bike products. That's a decent percentage of their yearly $100 million in revenue.
I also don't think they are a $100M a year. The report said they were valued at $85M which equalled 7.5x earnings. So they are about $11 M per year..
You lost me on this one. They are over $100M in revenue a year, per Bob in the Fox press release.
Revenue and valuation aren't tied together. Your earnings calc is right though.


title Volcanic Dreamscapes entry description The Fire Mountains, a group of volcanoes, are part of the Timanfaya National Park on Lanzarote. It is not allowed to wander through it at will. Only a narrow road leads through, which is allowed for vehicles and bicycles, but without the possibility of stopping or parking. So I decided to walk along the road for hours to photograph this impressive volcanic landscape. Ultimately the best way to experience this fascinating surroundings intensively. about the photographer German based graphicdesigner and photographer, working as a creative allrounder for a group of companies, focused on graphic design (logo, corporate design, packaging, grafic work for concepts and presentations), webdesign and photography.


The Chicago Architecture Biennial is showcasing some innovative, potential makeovers for the Windy City. One of their exhibits, "BOLD: Alternative Scenarios for Chicago," features 18 projects and ideas created for the city of Chicago by more than a dozen local offices.
The BOLD exhibit, organized by Iker Gil (director of MAS studio and editor-in-chief of MAS Context) features many unique designs that might, for most people, seem a little far-fetched for the city of Chicago – but could these designs be just what the city needs?
Port Urbanism's "Big Shift" involves the development of new buildings along the lakefront – similar to the design of Central Park in NYC.
Another BOLD vision that Chicagoans might be a little more accepting of is UrbanLab's Filter Island. UrbanLab has proposed building an island in Lake Michigan that will be able to filter pollutants from the contaminated river. Filter Island would use a series of large-scale bio-cells to clean the river water before releasing it back into Lake Michigan.
UrbanLab's Filter Island suggests the creation of an island to filter pollutants before releasing the water back into Lake Michigan.
David Brown, associate professor and associate director at the University of Illinois at Chicago's School of Architecture, believes that there could be some great uses for the over 15,000 city-owned vacant lots throughout Chicago. Brown calls his project The Available City and according to Wired, the project "…encompasses proposals from nine firms, including raised parks, multi-use education spaces, wellness centers, maker spaces, community kitchens, and micro-housing." One interesting plan in particular is to create a Wellness Center in Humboldt Park.
"The Available City" project would make use of the thousands of empty lots in Chicago.
These proposed designs and many others can be seen in person at the Chicago Architecture Biennial. Already attracting over 31,000 people, the Chicago Architecture Biennial opened to the public on October 3, 2015 and will continue through January 3, 2016. To find out more about this free exhibit, you can visit their website here.
BOLD: Alternation Scenarios For Chicago.


Clogged drains can ruin your day. A backed up sink, drain, toilet or tub can bring your home to a standstill. That's why you need fast and dependable service.
We will make sure you have a safe and secure sewer line leading out to your sewer system. We also offer sewer line location and repair, smoke testing for sewer odors, hydro-jet drain cleaning, slab leak repair and checking of water pressure and flow.
We know this is highly important and we are always careful and considerate when replacing sewer lines and water main lines.


On previous posts, we explored Event Sourcing and how to implement a Fast Lane Notebook in Databricks. Now the question is: How to check the performance of a Spark Application?
On this post, we will tackle aspects of the Load Test, and how existing tools could be adapted to execute appropriately on a Spark Application. For now, we only have Databricks Notebooks. As explained before, as Message Broker we use Azure Event Hub.
Apache JMeter is broadly used for Load Testing purposes but is based on Synchronous Request and Response format. This aspect makes it ready for REST API tests, but not for EventHub messages, that are fundamentally asynchronous.
The solution was to create a custom Java Sampler that could be loaded into JMeter and do the dirty work of connecting to EventHub and returning the answer to a Java Request component, and this is what we see in the JMeter GUI. In the end, this Sampler is transforming the Asynchronous aspect of the Event Sourcing in a request/response for JMeter to understand. The code can be view here.
The first version of the Sampler was created for Functional Test, but the team realise that the same component could be used for Load Testing with improvements on Java Sampler that we created previously. The new solution includes classes to monitor the return stream and fire the proper thread that was waiting for the response.
The key aspect that makes the change of the Sampler to work with Load Test was to send a different Correlation Id for each message, and that could be tracked back from the Event Hub response. Using this approach, each JMeter thread receives one answer and the time is recorded correctly.
This test is already helping us to find performance issues, some not related to our code.
Avoid waiting to go live to check if it works in a high concurrency environment.
Creation of the Sampler was a good solution for the Sync nature of JMeter.


text:
Die Verbandsgemeinde Baumholder ist eine Gebietskörperschaft im Landkreis Birkenfeld in Rheinland-Pfalz. Der Verbandsgemeinde gehören die Stadt Baumholder sowie 13 weitere Ortsgemeinden an, der Verwaltungssitz ist in der namensgebenden Stadt Baumholder.

Die Verbandsgemeinde liegt zwischen dem Hunsrück und dem Nordpfälzer Bergland südlich der Nahe und grenzt unter anderem an den Landkreis Kusel und den Landkreis Sankt Wendel (Saarland). Die Verbandsgemeinde Baumholder liegt zudem im sogenannten Westrich.

In den 14 der Verbandsgemeinde angehörenden Gemeinden leben knapp 10.000 Einwohner. Hinzu kommen etwa 8.000 Angehörige der amerikanischen Streitkräfte.

Verbandsangehörige Gemeinden

(Einwohner am )

Bevölkerungsentwicklung
Die Entwicklung der Einwohnerzahl bezogen auf das Gebiet der heutigen Verbandsgemeinde Baumholder; die Werte von 1871 bis 1987 beruhen auf Volkszählungen:

Politik

Verbandsgemeinderat
Der Verbandsgemeinderat Baumholder besteht aus 24 ehrenamtlichen Ratsmitgliedern, die bei der Kommunalwahl am 26. Mai 2019 in einer personalisierten Verhältniswahl gewählt wurden, und dem Vorsitzenden.

Die Sitzverteilung im Verbandsgemeinderat:

 FWG = Freie Wählergemeinschaft Dr. Nagel e. V.
 LfB = Liste für Baumholder

Bürgermeister
Bürgermeister ist seit 20. August 2016 Bernd Alsfasser (FWG). Bei der Stichwahl am 3. April 2016 setzte er sich mit einem Stimmenanteil von 50,89 % gegen den bisherigen Amtsinhaber Peter Lang (SPD) durch, nachdem bei der Direktwahl im März 2016 keiner der ursprünglich vier Bewerber eine ausreichende Mehrheit erreicht hatte.

Wappen
Die Blasonierung des Wappens lautet: "Schild gespalten durch eine aufsteigende geschweifte goldene Spitze, darin auf grünem Dreiberg ein grüner (Holunder-)Baum, zu beiden Seiten des Stammes je eine silberne Holunderblüte, vorne rotgoldenes Schach, hinten rotbewehrter und -gezungter blauer Löwe in Gold. Schildbord von Rot, Gold und Blau 8-fach geständert."

Das Wappen wurde 1965 vom rheinland-pfälzischen Innenministerium genehmigt.

Weblinks
 Verbandsgemeinde Baumholder

Einzelnachweise

Baumholder


#TourOfSlovenia: Good news in that @CalebEwan is all OK after his crash today. He has taken some skin, but has avoided anything serious.
Better that than to lose som skin.
Question is who he has taken it from!
Yes, it's good to have something to spare in case of a future crash but not particularly nice to take skin off somebody.
Ramsay Bolton comes to mind.
Im a Cavendish fan, but it looks like he is done.
Nifty riding to stay on his bike. I guess in the final sprint he looked at the crazy weaving ahead of him and decided that discretion is the better part of valour.
armchairclimber wrote: Nifty riding to stay on his bike. I guess in the final sprint he looked at the crazy weaving ahead of him and decided that discretion is the better part of valour.
robertcatuara wrote: Im a Cavendish fan, but it looks like he is done.
That is what everyone, including me, said two years ago. I still somehow think he will be very competitive in the Tour.
Caleb Ewan crashed again apparently. Or was it only a mechanical?
Laplaz wrote: Caleb Ewan crashed again apparently. Or was it only a mechanical?
Crashed unfortunately. He's back on the bike.
hope the roads are wider at the finish this time.
Groenewegen absolutely phenomenal. Was in about 25th-30th position at the start of the last 1.5k, went up to the front on his own and destroyed them all.
Last edited by Der Effe on 14 Jun 2018 13:05, edited 1 time in total.
Groenewegen showing great form for the Tour. I wonder what's up with Kittel, he just doesn't seem comfortable with Katusha.
Der Effe wrote: Groenewegen absolutely phenomenal. Was in about 25th-30th position at the start of the last 1.5k, went up to the front on his own and destroyed them all.
He is so unbelievably strong this year. He has beaten virtually every top sprinter this year with ease, except Gaviria I think (they had almost no confrontations). Even Viviani was outclassed (in PN sprint I think).
Brutal sprint and brutal last K by Groenewegen. He is unstoppable this year even when the team fails like today.


text:
The Dark Crystal, Part 1: Journey to a New World
In 1977, Jim Henson set forth on a new film project. He did not have a story or characters in mind, but he knew that he wanted to create a world unlike that of the Muppets. He wanted to be like Tolkien, who built a fantastical realm from the ground up, paying close attention to the physical laws and scenery and species that inhabit it. As he planned this project, he came across a book called The Land of Froud.
One of the original Froud drawings, "The Boy Asking the Way."
The book was just a series of fantastical paintings made by artist Brian Froud. There was no story, but each picture was a window into a world filled with fairy-folk and mystical forests. Henson was mesmerized by the images and he wanted to bring these pictures to life on the big screen. He contacted Froud and asked him to be the conceptual designer for his upcoming film. Froud agreed, and together they mapped out the magical world of Thra, the setting for what would become The Dark Crystal.
For five years, Henson and Froud, along with co-director Frank Oz, worked on making a movie unlike any that had come before it. Henson's team of puppet designers worked tirelessly on creating new creatures that were more life-like than the Muppets they were used to making. Henson wanted to give his audience a feeling of being transported to a new planet, one that looks realistic enough to be plausible but also unfamiliar enough to be admired. Star Wars had just been released to huge acclaim, so the world was ready to enjoy fantasy movies once again. George Lucas even lent Henson some of his crew to create the special effects and sets necessary to bring Thra to life.
Finally, on December 17, 1982, The Dark Crystal was released in theaters.
The story begins "in the Age of Wonder." A thousand years ago, the land was good and peaceful and ruled over by wise, powerful creatures known as UrSkeks, who guarded over the Pure Crystal. Suddenly, the crystal cracked, and the UrSkeks split into two species: the good, peaceful Mystics (or urRu) and the evil, cutthroat Skeksis. The world was thrown into chaos and the broken crystal became known as the Dark Crystal. A prophecy told that one from the Gelfling clan would restore the crystal and bring balance and peace back to the world. Over the next millennium, the Skeksis killed as many Gelflings they could find, so that they could remain in power forever.
The Castle of the Dark Crystal, where the Skeksis reside.
While the Skeksis and Mystics were once plentiful, only ten of each remain. Because they were split from the same original creatures, their lives are linked. So if one Mystic dies, a Skeksis dies, and vice versa. As each side grows weaker, the Skeksis can only gain strength when one of the three suns of Thra provides light into the Dark Crystal.
The Ceremony of the Sun
When all three suns align, the Skeksis will become unstoppable and unfortunately, that date is fast approaching. Even worse, the eldest Mystic who has been training the last Gelfling is on his deathbed, and so the boy must venture out on his quest prematurely.
Even worse than that, the hero of our film looks like this:
He's like a mix between a horse and Pinocchio.
A majority of those five years of film production were spent on the design of the last Gelfling. The future Mrs. Froud, Wendy Midener designed over 50 varieties of humanoid elves to be the sympathetic hero. Every time she presented one to Henson, he'd make her try again. It seems as though they finally just picked one design and ran with it to get it over with, because he is a sorry looking creature indeed.
It's hard to tell from a picture, but his face barely moves. It's like Thunderbirds meets Planet of the Apes.
Anyway, this creepy monkey dude is named Jen (Jim Henson is his puppeteer, Stephen Garlick is his voice) and he is told by his dying master to find the missing crystal shard so that he can restore the crystal. He gives him his instructions by way of magical split pea soup.
The Chamberpot of Secrets
Since the old master Mystic is dying, that means one of the Skeksis is dying as well. The Emperor Skeksis is on his deathbed and uses his dying breath to assert his authority one last time. Of course, the remaining Skeksis want to be in charge and they are just a bunch of vultures waiting for him to die. Literally.
You look like death. Well, we all do.
That leering fellow in the above screenshot is the Chamberlain of the Skeksis (a.k.a. skekSil) and he is by far my favorite character in the film. All of the Skeksis are designed to be grotesque and fearsome, but the Chamberlain is also cunning and crafty. The designers gave him a permanent smirk that none of the others have. On top of that, he always seems pleased about something. Even in the gravest of situations, he mostly communicates by emitting a high-pitched hum as if he just ate a surprisingly good piece of chocolate cake.
"I didn't even know you could bake! MmmmmMMMMMmmmm!"
(On a quick side note, the Skeksis were supposed to represent the Seven Deadly Sins. There are ten of them. Whoops!)
And so, the Emperor turns to dust and the Master fades away. Jen the Gelfling must now set out on an epic voyage to retrieve the crystal shard and make his way into the Castle of the Dark Crystal!
So it begins....
Tomorrow is Part 2, where we see who becomes the next Skeksis emperor and we meet the film's "comic relief."
Labels: brian froud, jen, jim henson, skeksil, skeksis, the dark crystal, wendy froud
Weihnachten in der Sesamstraße
Santa vs. Santa
Must-Have Monstrosity
Grief and Gratitude
Hey, A Movie!
The Land That "Not Ready For Primetime" Forgot
What Ever Happened to Baby Skeeter?
Imitation, Innovation, Imagination
The Search for a Wild Canuck
Born In Sin
The Dark Crystal, Part 5: Destiny Fulfilled
The Dark Crystal, Part 4: Darkest Before the Storm
The Dark Crystal, Part 3: You Are Not Alone
The Dark Crystal, Part 2: Banishment and Discovery
The Color of Life
Please Don't Stop the Music
The Vengeful Vegan
On the Tip of My Tongue

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Will that "Star" producer Stay a Star?
By Allan Starkie, Ph.D., Anthony R. Riotto, and Kenton Thompson. Starkie and Riotto were partners with the search firm of Riotto-Jones & Co., New York City at the time this was written (Starkie now with Knightsbridge Advisors, Inc.). Thompson was president of KeyCorp's private bank unit at the time this was written, but since become president of private banking and wealth management at First Place Bank Warren, Ohio.
There are many factors that can make one broker's "million dollar producer" just average elsewhere. The authors suggest a way to "translate production"
Less than three years ago simply trying to catch a snapshot of the growth of global private wealth was as illusive as photographing a speeding bullet. We tagged it at $27 trillion as it flashed by us — with a momentum that seemed unstoppable.
Leading the charge up the hill of exploding growth were the coveted new business developers — racing to capture assets for their respective firms. As greed turned to frenzy, the compensation of these sales stars ascended into even more surrealistic realms. We never really had the time to develop uniform criteria for measuring their absolute success, nor could we even compare their relative performance from one institution's sales culture to another. We did not have the time and nobody seemed to care.
Then we hit the wall; or more accurately, like a herd of lemmings we collectively threw ourselves over it, into the abyss from which we are just beginning to emerge. We've had the time to reflect. For in the chaos that followed exponential growth, combined with unprecedented consolidation, we created, recruited, and enriched a sales force without really asking ourselves: Who are these people? And, which ones are really good?
It's a complex question; yet the industry's simplistic answer has been, "The Million Dollar Producers!" And so a vague de facto criteria emerged that no one has bothered to clarify. The problem in using a general revenue criterion as a proxy for measurable performance is that no two institutions provide an identical platform in which to compare performance; nor, an absolute gauge to measure results.
The single largest differentiator among the myriad of institutions is client ownership. Does the business development officer (BDO) keep the relationship; or does he turn it over to a relationship manager (RM)? If he turns it over, who receives credit for cross sales? Then come the questions regarding the products sold. Is the BDO credited with the sale of all products? Are his/her sales equally valued or given weighted credit based upon product type?
Solution is a matrix
Also, as open architecture (offering products from multiple sources) has become the ever-growing trend and future of the industry, does the BDO have access to outside managers and at what mark-up?
The answers to these questions are so varied that it is impossible to take the raw performance data of a BDO and directly extrapolate it to a new institution.
The cultural and linguistic barriers between institutions are enormous. To bridge these gaps we need to develop a multidimensional translator that takes the pertinent criteria and translates them into the context of the hiring company.
ranslates them into the context of the hiring company. In attempting to create such a translator, we began by surveying 30 top private client groups and divided them into the following categories:
International money centers
Trust/asset managed companies
We discovered that all data relevant to assessing the success of their respective sales forces broke down into three categories, which we have named the 3 Ps:
By creating a comparative matrix of the pertinent information from these three categories, we are able to produce a means of interpreting past production in the context of the parameters of the hiring company and more accurately predict future performance.
Let's look at each category in turn.
The primary differentiator in this category is client ownership. We found that virtually every international money center employed "the private banking model," in which the private banker acts as both business development officer as well as relationship manager.
The majority of trust companies and almost all regional banks favor a client handoff. If a regional were analyzing the performance of a candidate sourced from an international money center it would then be essential to analyze the size of the book of business of the private banker — then dissect the non-recurring component of his annual revenues. A study would need to be conducted to determine how much time was spent on managing existing relationships as opposed to business development.
Next, an assessment must be made of the degree of backroom support, product support, and sales support offered by both the former as well as prospective institutions.
Finally, it is imperative to determine the sources of the new business as it relates to reliance on internal referrals versus an external network of intermediaries.
A large northeastern regional boasts a number of sales professionals with multi-million dollar annual production; yet, closer examination reveals that 80% of their clients resulted from internal referrals. How successful would these professionals be in a small asset-management firm without an extensive branch banking network or middle market lending capability?
It is first necessary to compare the lists of proprietary products between the two firms. Performance and variety must be analyzed, as well as the comprehensiveness of the product array.
Next, it is important to determine how sophisticated the former institution had been in developing open architecture. Additionally, it is important to divide the candidate's production numbers into proprietary products versus outside managers. Obviously, the fees generated on the mark-up of outside managers are normally lower. As a result, the revenue numbers of any BDO are greatly influenced by the product mix.
Finally, a determination must be made as to the exact nature of the proprietary products sold and which ones were credited to the sales ledger. There are enormous differences industry-wide in allocating sales credit for loans, hedge funds, and derivatives.
The candidate must be evaluated to determine if he even possesses the correct personality predisposition to be successful in a sales role. In researching this component we worked very closely with an industrial psychologist named Dr. Martin Haygood. Dr. Haygood points out that within our sample group only 10% of all candidates possess the personality characteristics likely to result in good sales success, while 50% offer the personality type conducive to good relationship management. Statistically speaking it would be (.1) x (.5) or: one person out of twenty that could perform both jobs successfully! It is most likely the difficulty in identifying private bankers skilled at both selling and nurturing relationships that has resulted in the split ownership models that are so prevalent.
The best way to assess the type of personality fit you can expect from a candidate would be to have a qualified industrial psychologist perform a screening, focusing on an analysis of the five recurring dimensions to the core set of personality variables.
An analysis of the candidate in terms of personality, cognitive ability, and mental alertness can be performed in less than three hours. The goal is to answer: Can I accurately describe this person? Given these traits, how will he perform in the new job, within the specific company culture?
Implementing this structured analysis may seem daunting, but a disciplined analysis conducted on a very simple Excel table can truly rationalize past performance. It allows us to finally apply a quasi-quantitative methodology to a process that has been traditionally relegated to subjective assessment. BJ
See Publication
Wealth Management Recruitment In Challenging Times April 6, 2020
America's Wealth Industry Talent Crunch: What To Do About It? March 18, 2020
A Walk Around RIA Compensation Trends February 24, 2020
You Can't Judge A Book (Of Business) By Its Cover May 15, 2017
Interview Survival Guidebook May 1, 2017
How Do RIAs Compete For Talent Against Big Banks? December 22, 2015
Compensation Trends in Wealth Management: Lessons from the Wirehouses December 21, 2015
Compensation Trends In Wealth Management, part 2 March 25, 2015
Compensation Trends In Wealth Management March 24, 2015
Current Trends Relating to Accelerated Acquisition of Assets through both Organic and Non-Organic Means March 6, 2012
Exhaustion hampers wealth firms growth March 18, 2010
Asset Portability Isn't What it Used to Be August 6, 2009
How to Recruit Top-Level Advisors October 15, 2008
The Surprise Wealth Management Boom March 20, 2008
Meet the New Virtual Client-Facing Investment Professional June 13, 2007
Death of a Salesman September 27, 2004
Will that "Star" producer Stay a Star? August 16, 2003
The Myth of "The Million Dollar Revenue Producer" February 5, 2001


text:
O Complemento C4-A é uma proteína que em humanos é codificada pelo gene C4A.

Função
Este gene codifica a forma ácida do fator 4 do complemento, parte da via clássica de ativação. A proteína é expressa como um precursor de cadeia única que é clivada proteoliticamente num trímero de cadeias alfa, beta e gama antes da secreção. O trímero fornece uma superfície para interação entre o complexo antígeno-anticorpo e outros componentes do complemento. A cadeia alfa pode ser clivada para liberar a anafilatoxina C4, um mediador da inflamação local. A deficiência dessa proteína está associada ao lúpus eritematoso sistêmico e ao diabetes mellitus tipo I. O excesso de produção está associado à esquizofrenia e transtorno bipolar com psicose. Este gene localiza-se na região do complexo principal de histocompatibilidade (MHC) de classe III no cromossomo 6. Existem haplótipos variados desse aglomerado de genes, de modo que os indivíduos podem ter 1, 2 ou 3 cópias desse gene.

Leitura adicional

Genética
Genes
Genes no cromossoma 6
Sistemas de antígenos sanguíneos


Somewhere along the way, a few cowboys realized that horses would likely be willing to do the same job, possibly with more heart, if they were given the ability to learn it in a gentler manner. What I now refer to as "Traditional Natural Horsemanship" was born. This new way of being with horses was FAR superior to how people had been treating them in the past and allowed the horse a bit of breathing room, making it easier for the horse to understand what was being asked of it. However, confusion still remained and there was still room for improvement.
Horses may be gentle and quiet beings by nature but they are certainly not vague or weak. Within their own herds they have a clear and consistent set of rules and there is never any question or variation to these rules. They learn the rules by testing and re-testing each other over and over again. They will know their place in their herd by how the other horses react to their persistent testing and it is always clear what will be expected of them. They are not told they went too far if they get too close to another horse, they are told that they are getting too close.
When it comes to people however, this certainty about where they fit in is often missing. Their testing is often met with discipline. Their attempt to find their place is not met the same way they would expect. They are only told after they cross a boundary and not as they approach it, or they are told over and over again to move back, move over or move forward in a low energy, gentle yet weak way.
In order to truly provide softness to your horse it is important to have a solid balance and a clear and predictable set of boundaries. I don't mean that you need to know how to stand on one foot, balance on an exercise ball while holding a bowl of water on your head or walk with a stack of novels on your crown… I mean that internally& energetically you must have balance. You must be flexible yet consistent, firm yet compassionate, gentle yet strong, and clear yet open to feedback.
Most of us are really good at one or two of the qualities listed above but few of us are well practiced at all of them. Those of you who are saying to yourselves right now, "I am, I am all of those things", I want you to ask yourself, are you all of those things all of the time?
All of the qualities listed above are qualities that belong to the energies of Water, Wind, Ground or Fire and in order to truly provide softness to our horses and get softness in return it is vital that we can become balanced. By becoming a consistent, firm leader who is clear and strong yet gentle and compassionate, flexible and open to feedback, you can become someone your horse will feel safe with. Someone who gives them the same sense of security and predictability provided by their own herd and someone who is fair, letting them know when they are approaching a boundary. Instead of disciplining or correcting a "misbehaviour", learn to help your horse avoid the unwanted action by helping them to understand what is wanted.
If you truly want the softest horse possible, you must start by providing your horse with the balance you hope to see in them. Imagine having a horse who is quiet and solid, full of life and quick to respond, light to both the leg and the bridle/halter and who is right by your side, eager to be with you, work with you and rest with you. A horse who respects your space without fear, responds to your requests without resistance, and who seems to know just what you're thinking and willing to comply to your plans both at home and on the trail. Finding this softness is possible only through a healthy balance in both human and horse and as the leader, it starts with you.
Christa Miremadi does not like to refer to herself as a trainer. Christa prefers to think of what she does as teaching the horse how to learn.
Putting a strong focus on the horse truly learning to understand what is expected of them, Christa sets up each horse that she works with to become a working partner. She not only respects, but honors the horse's opinion and ability to think, feel and even disagree. Each and every response from a horse is valuable feedback and Christa uses this feedback as information. Rather than working towards eliminating unwanted responses and behaviors, she listens to what these responses and behaviors are telling her and works with the horse to create more effective communication, clarifying the areas of confusion and allowing the horse to replace the undesirable behavior and responses with more mutually beneficial ones.