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Rangers win streak ends with loss to Canucks; Buchnevich scores again
Photo courtesy of MSG Photos.
The New York Rangers (10-4-0) had their win streak broken at five as well as their home-ice winning streak. The Vancouver Canucks (5-8-1) snapped a nine game losing streak and scored a season high five goals, the most the Rangers have given up this season.
Usually, teams take penalties quite often when they are being pressured for extended periods of time. And that is exactly what the Canucks did. However, it didn't cost them because the Rangers couldn't seem to sustain any consistent zone time. Credit Vancouver for blocking some shots and passes, but the Rangers could have still done a better job with their playmaking. Maybe they needed some practice on the power play after not having one in the previous game against Boston.
Arguably the best chance of the first period came from the Rangers when Jimmy Vesey and Derek Stepan went racing down the ice on a two on one. Vesey waited just a little too long to make a pass, and Stepan wasn't able to control it enough to get a shot off.
Zuccarello made a great play on the Canucks' power play to allow the game to remain scoreless. He stole the puck from between the circles, played it off the boards to himself and dumped it down the ice. His team would finish the night two for two on the penalty kill.
While the first period didn't see much action, the second period saw a little more with the Rangers making an impact first. They still were unable to convert on their second power play, but it looked better than before and allowed them to get their speed game going. Just over five minutes into the second period the Rangers had a missed opportunity on another two on one, this time with Zibanejad and Kreider. However, it also led to a goal shortly thereafter that extended Pavel Buchnevich's goal scoring streak to three games and Brady Skjei's point scoring streak to six games. Buchnevich received a pass in front of the net that he tapped in for the one-goal advantage.
The best chance for Vancouver came when Eriksson received a pass in front of the net that a sprawled Raanta wasn't able to stop. Eriksson waited just long enough before putting it on his backhand to tie the game up at one late in the middle period.
With just under three minutes to go in the second, the home team went on the power play for the third time in the game, but the opposition did a great job blocking them from entering in the zone. This is why they were held to only one shot on goal on this power play. Keep in mind that the Blueshirts lead the NHL in goals scored in the second period (26) this season. That should go to show the good defensive play of the Canucks.
Henrik Sedin took a penalty for high-sticking Nash less than a minute into the final period of play, but he ended up flying out of the penalty box and scoring as he was all alone. He beat Raanta short side for his team's first lead of the game.
On a goalie interference call, the Blueshirts finally capitalized on their fifth power play of the night. This one was especially great because it was Rick Nash's 400th NHL career goal that he slid behind the goaltender.
Antti Raanta suddenly left the game, removed by one of the league's concussion spotters, and Henrik Lundqvist came in his relief. Shortly after, Alexander Burrows scored his first goal of the season. The initial shot was blocked in front, but Lundqvist couldn't reach across in time to keep the loose puck from finding its way in. Baertschi, soon after his team's power play ended, scored as he was fed the puck in front of Lundqvist.
Antti Raanta came in the game after getting briefly checked out by trainers. On six shots, Lundqvist gave up goals, and his frustration was very evident as he went back to the bench. Raanta wasn't too happy to see the scoreboard either as he took the net, again. With just over three minutes to go in the period, the Rangers pulled Raanta, but Eriksson found the empty net that sealed away the game for the Canucks.
Mika Zibanejad had the final word in the game, as he ended his scoring drought with a snap shot in front of the Canuck's goaltender.
It was mentioned in the post-game that teams should be allowed to warm up their goaltender when the starter is pulled out. For concussion protocol, Raanta left the game, and he said that last season when he had the concussion, the symptoms were much different, so he knew it wasn't as bad as last year.
Either way, the Rangers lost this game partially because of the mess with their goaltenders in the third period, but also because Vancouver did a great job of limiting their chances. They broke up plays in the neutral zone, stopped passing jobs on the power play, and restricted the natural speed of the team. They did this by clogging neutral ice and having patience with the puck.
In order to learn from this mistake, the Rangers must realize that patience is key. When they weren't able to get their goal-scoring game going, they seemed to freeze up a little. There was barely any offensive pressure, and everyone knows how capable this team is of scoring. It just happened to be a bad night, compounded by the goaltender situation.
The Rangers look to start up another winning streak as they hit the road on a western Canada trip. Their next game is Saturday at 10 p.m. against the Calgary Flames.
Posted on November 9, 2016, in Game Recaps and tagged Antti Raanta, Henrik Lundqvist, Mika Zibanejad, New York Rangers, New York Rangers blog, NHL, NYR, NYR blog, Pavel Buchnevich, Raanta injury, Rangers, Rangers blog, Rangers highlights, Rangers recap, Rangers vs Canucks, Rick Nash, Sedin, Vancouver Canucks. Bookmark the permalink.	Leave a comment.


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By the mid-17th century, the existence of a land in the south referred to as Terra Australis was generally known and understood by the Europeans, and incrementally, its shores were observed and mapped. Van Diemen's Land, an island off the south coast of Australia now called Tasmania, was identified in 1642 by Dutch mariner Abel Tasman, and a few months later, the intrepid Dutchman would add New Zealand to the map of the known world.
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Helen Davenport, governess for a wealthy London household, longs for a family of her own—but nearing her late twenties, she knows her prospects are dim. Then she spots an advertisement seeking young women to marry New Zealand's honorable bachelors and begins an affectionate correspondence with a gentleman farmer. When her church offers to pay her travels under an unusual arrangement, she jumps at the opportunity.
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The happiness paradox: your friends are happier than you
Johan Bollen1,
Bruno Gonçalves2,
Ingrid van de Leemput3 &
Guangchen Ruan1
EPJ Data Science volume 6, Article number: 4 (2017) Cite this article
Most individuals in social networks experience a so-called Friendship Paradox: they are less popular than their friends on average. This effect may explain recent findings that widespread social network media use leads to reduced happiness. However the relation between popularity and happiness is poorly understood. A Friendship paradox does not necessarily imply a Happiness paradox where most individuals are less happy than their friends. Here we report the first direct observation of a significant Happiness Paradox in a large-scale online social network of 39,110 Twitter users. Our results reveal that popular individuals are indeed happier and that a majority of individuals experience a significant Happiness paradox. The magnitude of the latter effect is shaped by complex interactions between individual popularity, happiness, and the fact that users strongly cluster by similar level of happiness. Our results indicate that the topology of online social networks, combined with how happiness is distributed in some populations, may be associated with significant psycho-social effects.
We are a profoundly social species [1]. The ability to establish face-to-face, physical, relationships in a rich social environment is paramount to our happiness and individual well-being [2–4]. However, technology is now playing an increasing role in forming our networks of social relationships. Nearly \(1/7\)th of the world's population and over \(2/3\)rd of the US population [5] use some form of social media which enables individuals to maintain virtual social networks that extend beyond geographical, economic, cultural, and linguistic boundaries.
Evidence has been accumulating that online social networking is associated with elevated levels of loneliness, anxiety, displeasure, and dissatisfaction [6–10]. The reason for this apparent contradiction is unknown, but it may be found in universal social network connectivity patterns. Surprisingly, measured in number of connections, most people will have fewer friends than their own friends do on average. This phenomenon, commonly referred to as the Friendship Paradox [11, 12], has been attributed to an inherent structural bias in social network that favors popular individuals: they are by definition more likely to belong to someones social circle, thereby elevating local levels of popularity. One may speculate that if an individual compares their own popularity to that of their friends, this effect may, in some cases, lead to increased levels of dissatisfaction (see Figure 1).
A Happiness paradox, like a Friendship paradox, could result from skewed degree distributions. (A1) Like the examples above, most social networks are characterized by very skewed degree distributions: a few individuals have very many connections, while most individuals have only few connections. The number of connections are marked within each node. Those with many connections are by definition more likely to be someone's friend. As a result their higher number of connections can increase the average degree of given friendship neighborhoods throughout the network (marked above each node) leading to a Friendship paradox (red nodes) in which most individuals nodes are less popular than the average of their friends. (A2) When popular individuals are also more likely to be happy, their Happiness becomes more prevalent, raising average happiness levels throughout the friendship circles in the network. A Happiness paradox may result in which most individuals are less happy than their own friends on average. Individuals may cluster based on their Happiness or even the degree to which they experience a Happiness paradox.
The effects of this Friendship Paradox may extend beyond popularity. If popular individuals tend to be happier, their elevated happiness will become more prevalent as well. This may in turn lead to a Happiness Paradox, where most individuals are less happy than their friends on average (see Figure 1). In fact, the latter may contribute more directly to the negative psycho-social effects of social networking since it affects how individuals assess their own Subjective Well-being, i.e. general happiness or life satisfaction [13, 14], relative to that of others [15, 16].
At this point, however, it has not been established whether (1) popular individuals are indeed happier and (2) a Happiness Paradox does in fact occur in social networks. Given the magnitude of social media adoption, these are questions of global importance that may affect the well-being of billions of individuals.
Here we present the first large-scale longitudinal study of happiness and popularity levels for a network of 39,110 Twitter users that are connected by 'friendship' relations.
To generate a friendship network among Twitter users we start with an initial set of 4,844,430 randomly chosen users (years 2008-2009), for which we downloaded the full list of users that they 'follow' or that they are 'followed' by [17]. Reciprocal 'Follow' and 'Following' ties are taken as an indication of a friendship and mutual interaction relation between the two individuals [18]. We selected the Largest Connected Component of the resulting network. The resulting network consists of 102,009 individuals that share 2,361,547 edges.
We automatically assess each individual's Subjective Well-Being (SWB), on a scale of \([-1,+1]\) according to a procedure outlined in [17]. For each user we collected the 3,200 most recently submitted tweets, serving as a comprehensive longitudinal record pertaining to the individual user. We subject this entire timeline, not its individual tweets, to a sentiment analysis [17] based on the OpinionFinder (OF) subjectivity lexicon [19]. The procedure consists of counting the number of words that are members of either the set of highly positive or highly negative words in the OF subjectivity lexicon, and calculating their fractional difference (number of positive words-negative words over all OF words in the timeline). Aggregating this information for all Tweets in an individual Twitter record, we determine the individual's overall Subjective Well-Being.
The OF toolkit, although different from the above described application of its subjectivity lexicon, was ranked 11th out of 24 tools in a large-scale survey of 2- and 3-way sentiment classification tasks against a variety of data sets [20]. Its accuracy in scoring individual tweets ranged from 57.60 to 80.77, mostly approximating, and sometimes exceeding, that of top rated tools such as VADER or AFINN, with coverage levels from 41.23 to 54.98, depending on the specific data set against which OF was tested. We stress that our procedure uses the OF Subjectivity Lexicon against an entire 6 month timeline of up to 3,200 tweets by the same individual Twitter user, not individual tweets. Hence the reported coverage values are expected to be a significant underestimation relative to our application. In addition, we exclude users with SWB values of exactly zero.
Finally, we restrict our analysis to individuals with more than 15 friends in order to exclude individuals with excessively low social activity and those that have non-zero SWB, i.e. that have shared some subjective information. This reduces our final cohort to 39,110 subjects that are connected by reciprocal friendship relations, have at least 15 friends, and have non-zero SWB values.
We quantify an individuals 'Happiness' as their SWB value and quantify their 'Popularity' as their number of network friends counted in our bidirectional social network of reciprocal connections. Simply put, we deem an individual 'Happy' when they have high SWB values and 'Popular' when they have many friends. The Happiness and Popularity values of all subjects are then used to determine:
the fraction of individuals that has lower popularity than their friends on average (P);
the fraction of individuals that has lower happiness than their friends on average (H);
the correlation between individual happiness and popularity, R (Happiness, Popularity).
We assess the magnitude of the Friendship Paradox in our network by calculating the fraction of the number of users \(u_{i} \in U\) whose Popularity, denoted \(D(u_{i})\) (degree of \(u_{i}\)) is lower than the average Popularity D̄ of their nearest neighbors (or 'friends') \(\mathcal{N}_{u_{i}} \subset U\) vs. the total number of individuals in the network \(\|U\|\). This yields the magnitude of the Friendship Paradox as:
$$ P = \frac{ \| \{ u_{i} \in U: D(u_{i}) < \bar{D}(\mathcal{N}_{u_{i}}) \} \| }{\|U\|}. $$
The magnitude of the Happiness Paradox can be obtained in a similar way to how we measure the Friendship Paradox. We simply calculate the fraction of users \(u_{i} \in U\) whose Happiness, denoted \(H(u_{i})\) (SWB value of \(u_{i}\)), is lower than the average Happiness H̄ of their nearest neighbors, \(\mathcal{N}_{u_{i}}\), vs. the total number of individuals in the network \(\|U\|\):
$$ H = \frac{\| \{ u_{i} \in U: H(u_{i}) < \bar{H}(\mathcal{H}_{u_{i}}) \} \|}{\|U\|}. $$
A Friendship or Happiness Paradox for our sample is indicated by P and H values larger than 50%, i.e. a majority of individuals have lower Popularity or Happiness than their friends, on average.
To assess the correlation between Happiness and Popularity we calculate Pearson's R between the SWB values and \(\log(\mathrm{degree})\) of all subjects in our cohort. The use of \(\log(\mathrm{degree})\) is meant to compensate for the very skewed distribution of degree values in our network.
We assess the robustness of our results by performing a bootstrapping procedure in which we randomly sample 10% of subjects and their network connections with replacement 5,000 times to assess the distribution of our paradox indicators for different samples of our network. Furthermore, we validate the statistical significance of our results by comparing them to a null-model where we reshuffle the SWB values across all individuals in our network. In this way, we are able to maintain the same identical distribution of SWB values and network structure, while completely eliminating any possible correlation that might be present. The null-model was bootstrapped 20,000 times and, as expected, it eliminated the Happiness paradox.
Finally, we determine the sensitivity of our results to reductions of the sample due to the 'minimum friends threshold' by recalculating all Happiness Paradox magnitudes for values of the threshold ranging from 1 to 200.
As shown in Table 1, we find that \(P=94.3\), 95% CI \([93.7,94.9]\), indicating a very significant Friendship Paradox across all subjects, meaning that the great majority of users are less popular than their friends are on average. We also find a modest but robust value of \(H=58.5\%\), 95% CI \([57.2,59.8]\), indicating the presence of a Happiness Paradox. Hence a majority of subjects is indeed less happy than their friends on average. Our null-model indicates the absence of a Happiness paradox when the effects of network structure on Happiness levels are removed by random re-assignment. The lower magnitude of the Happiness Paradox could result from the rather low, yet robust, correlation between Happiness and Popularity (Pearson's \(R=0.100\), 95% CI \([0.076,0.140]\)).
Table 1 Magnitude of Friendship Paradox, Happiness Paradox (compared to null-model produced by randomly re-assigning SBW values across all subjects), and Happiness-Popularity correlation coefficient (Pearson's R ) for all subjects ( \(\pmb{N=39\text{,}110}\) )
As shown in Figure 2 the joint distribution of individual Happiness levels and mean neighbor happiness in our sample is distinctly bi-modal. There exists some evidence that Subjective Well-Being itself can be distributed in a bimodal fashion across several cultures and nations [21] matching previous observations by [17]. In this case, bi-modality also occurs at the level of our friendship network which separates subjects into 2 distinct groups: Happy subjects with Happy friends (the 'Happy' group) and Unhappy subjects with Unhappy friends (the 'Unhappy' group). This result follows earlier reports of happiness being homophilic or assortative in social networks [17, 22, 23]. Note that this phenomenon is not the result of the distribution of our SWB values, but is determined by network connections; i.e. unhappy people tend to have unhappy friends and happy people tend to have happy friends.
Overview of the magnitude of the Happiness and Friendship paradox for the sample of Twitter subjects; individuals positioned above the diagonal experience a Happiness or Friendship paradox. (B1) Happiness Paradox: Distribution of individual Happiness (x-axis) vs. average Happiness of one's friend's average (y-axis). Happiness is measured in terms of longitudinal Subjective Well-Being (SWB) scores. Subjects above the red paradox line experience lower happiness (SWB) than their friends' average. The distribution of SWB scores places a majority of subjects well above the diagonal Paradox line. Ellipses indicate the boundaries of 2 Gaussian Mixture Model components used to demarcate a Happy (red) and Unhappy (blue) groups of subjects. Paradox magnitudes are expressed in terms of the percentage of users who experience lower happiness than their friends. The 95% confidence intervals are calculated by a 5,000-fold bootstrapping of a 10% sample to determine the sensitivity of our results to random network sampling variations. (B2) and (B3) Friendship Paradox: Distribution of individual Popularity (x-axis) vs. average Popularity of one's Friends (y-axis). Popularity is measured in terms of \(\operatorname{log}(\mathrm{degree})\) in the Friendship network. Subjects above the red paradox line experience lower popularity than their friends on average. As shown, we find significant Happiness and Friendship Paradoxes for all users, but Happy users experience a stronger Friendship Paradox whereas Unhappy users experience a stronger Happiness Paradox.
Since a Happiness Paradox specifically compares individual happiness to the average happiness of one's friends, this homophilic bi-modality must be factored into our analysis. By performing a separate analysis for Happy and Unhappy groups of users, we attempt to equalize the effects of neighbor happiness across the two groups.
As shown in Figure 2 we use a Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) to demarcate our Happy and Unhappy groups. We determine the location and distribution of two separate Gaussian components in the distribution of individual happiness vs. mean friend happiness and demarcate both groups by simply determining whether the SWB value of a subject and the mean SWB values of their neighbors fall within 2 standard deviations from the center of either one of the components (illustrated by the 2 ellipses in Figure 2). We thereby split our sample in 2 groups of subjects: a group of Happy individuals with Happy friends (\(N=29\text{,}033\)) and a group of Unhappy individuals with Unhappy friends (8,018). This procedure assumes a Gaussian density distribution which roughly matches the quantiles of the empirical density as shown by the contour lines of Figure 2, so that both Gaussian components capture 95% of our sample. These groups are well-separated in the underlying social network. Of all edges adjacent to individuals in the Happy group only 0.682% connect to individuals in the Unhappy group. Vice versa, of all edges adjacent to individuals in the Unhappy group only 3.103% connect to individuals in the Happy group.
We re-run our analysis for the Happy and Unhappy groups separately. The results are summarized in Figures 2 and 3.
Bootstrapped estimates of the correlation between Happiness and Popularity, and the magnitude of the Friendship and Happiness Paradox for Happy and Unhappy subjects. Top: Estimated Pearson's R correlation coefficients (95% Confidence Intervals in brackets) between individual Happiness (Subjective Well-Being) vs. individual Popularity (log degree) for All subjects: 0.109 \([0.077, 0.140]\), Happy group: 0.126 \([0.081, 0.171]\), and unhappy group: -0.047 \([-0.08, -0.013]\). Middle: Distribution of Friendship Paradox values for all subjects 0.943 \([0.937, 0.949]\), happy group: 0.958 \([0.951, 0.964]\), and unhappy group 0.888 \([0.869, 0.906]\). Bottom: Distribution of Happiness Paradox values for all subjects: 0.585 \([0.581, 0.589]\), happy group: 0.578 \([0.573, 0.582]\), and unhappy group 0.666 \([0.657, 0.674]\).
These results reveal that the Happy group experiences a strong Friendship Paradox but a weak, yet very robust Happiness Paradox. The Unhappy group experiences a weaker Friendship Paradox, but a significantly stronger Happiness Paradox than the Happy group, in spite of subjects being surrounded by less Happy friends.
To determine whether the strong Happiness Paradox for the unhappy group, in spite of its lower correlation between Popularity and Happiness, may be related to interpersonal effects, we examine the relation between individual happiness and the average happiness of ones neighbors. As visually indicated by the distribution of individuals in Figure 2, the strength of the relationship between a subjects' Happiness and the average Happiness of their friends may differ between the Happy and Unhappy group. The results of a linear regression predicting mean neighbor SWB from a user's own SWB values match the visual tilt of the separate GMM components. For the Happy group we find \(F(1,29\text{,}031)=6\text{,}580\), \(p<0.001\) with an adjusted \(R^{2}=0.185\). The resulting regression equation is Mean Neighbor \(\mathrm{SWB} = 0.1768 + 0.1815\) (own SWB). For the Unhappy Group we find \(F(1,8\text{,}018)=3\text{,}274\), \(p<0.001\) with an adjusted \(R^{2}=0.290\). Here, the resulting regression equation is Mean Neighbor \(\mathrm{SWB} = 0.0135 + 0.5716\) (own SWB). An ANCOVA analysis to predict Average Neighbor SWB from the interaction between a user's own SWB and their membership of the Happy or Unhappy group results in \(F(3,39\text{,}106) = 70\text{,}040\), \(p<0.001\) with an adjusted \(R^{2}=0.843\). On the basis of this last result we reject the null-hypothesis that the regression slopes between own SWB and mean neighbor SWB are equal between the Happy and Unhappy group. This outcome suggests that unhappy users may be more strongly affected by the lower happiness of their friends, possibly explaining why this group exhibits a stronger Happiness Paradox in the absence of a strong correlation between Popularity and Happiness. However, we caution that further investigation is warranted on this matter.
Finally, to determine the sensitivity of our analysis to the choice of our minimum neighbors threshold (the minimum number of neighbors a user must have to be included in our sample), we recalculate Happiness paradox values for all threshold values between 1 and 200. We use the same GMM component locations for every calculation to provide an equal basis for comparison. As shown in Table 2 and Figure 4, we find that requiring a minimum threshold of 15 neighbors for each individual in our data constitutes a significant reduction of our sample, but we still retain more than 45% of the entire sample. In exchange for this reduction, we attempt to increase the chances of removing noise caused by socially inactive, and possibly automated or defunct accounts. The value of this threshold is notably much lower than recent estimations of the online Dunbar number [18].
Minimum neighbor threshold vs. percentage of sample retained. In our calculation of the Happiness Paradox we apply a minimum neighbor threshold for each user, i.e. a minimum number of neighbors the individual must have to be included in our sample, to (1) reduce the chances of including defunct, automated, or particularly socially inactive users and (2) ensure that a mean neighbor degree or SWB is calculated on the basis of no less than 15 data points. This threshold leads to a reduction of our sample. This graph visualizes the magnitude of the reduction at chosen threshold value of 15 and all other values between 1 and 200. Values provided in Table 2.
Table 2 Percentage of sample remaining after applying a minimum number of neighbors threshold
The results of our sensitivity analysis, shown in Figure 5, indicate that the magnitude of the happiness paradox is largely independent from our choice of threshold, with the exception of extremely large values, i.e. where less than 10% of the original sample remains and only individuals with more than 150 friends are included, thus approaching the Dunbar limit [18]. We find a significant happiness paradox for the Unhappy group for all values of the minimum neighbor threshold indicating that this result is largely independent from our choice of threshold.
Happiness paradox values for Happy and Unhappy group at different minimum neighbor threshold values, with 95% confidence intervals. Overlayed are the remaining sample size for the same threshold values. The gray area indicates paradox value below 50%, i.e. no happiness paradox. We find a significant happiness paradox, under all but the most extreme values of the minimum neighbor threshold.
We find that a majority of both Happy and Unhappy social media users will experience a significant Popularity and Happiness Paradox, i.e. they will be less popular and less happy than their friends on average. One may speculate that previous observations reporting decreased happiness among social media users may be associated with a widespread inflated perception of the happiness of one's friends. Although happy and unhappy groups of subjects are both affected by a significant happiness paradox, unhappy subjects seem most strongly affected. This is counter-intuitive for two reasons. First, the correlation between happiness and popularity is lowest for individuals in the unhappy group. A happiness paradox can result from a friendship paradox when popularity and happiness are correlated, since more popular and thus more prevalent individuals will increase the average happiness of ones circle of friends. As a result, the unhappy group, with the lowest correlation between popularity and happiness, should experience the lowest happiness paradox. Second, the strong assortativity of happiness in our social network reduces the prevalence of happy subjects in the social network circle of unhappy subjects. Therefore, it should be easier for individuals in this group to surpass the average happiness of their friends. Our results show that neither is the case. We speculate that a possible explanation may lie in the stronger relation between the happiness of individuals in this group and the overall happiness of their friends. This effect may point to an alternate origin for the occurrence of a Happiness paradox; instead of resulting from the greater prevalence of popular and happy individuals, in some cases, a happiness paradox may result from the complex social interactions between individuals and their friends, e.g. through mood contagion [24–26] and potentially verbal commiseration and mirroring.
Our results suggest that social media use may be associated with increased levels of social dissatisfaction and unhappiness if individuals are subject to unfavorable comparison between their own happiness and popularity to those of their friends. Happy social media users may think their friends are much more popular and slightly happier than they are while unhappy social media users will likely have unhappy friends that will still seem much happier and more popular than they are on average.
However, our study has limitations. First, the assessment of Subjective Well-Being from social media using text analysis algorithms may not be perfectly reliable. However, given the large number of individuals in our dataset, the absence of consistent directional bias, and the magnitudes of the observed effects, we expect this will not affect the validity of our observations. Future improvements in sentiment and mood analysis, and ground truth obtained from user surveys, may increase the reliability of our SWB estimates. Second, given the large role that social media plays in the social lives of billions of individuals, we speculate that these environments may induce longitudinal changes in the public social behavior and may over time alter the very nature of social relations themselves [27]. Further analysis will be required to determine the extent and significance of these changes, and how they affect the propensity of online users to experience the effects of a Friendship and Happiness Paradox over time. Lastly, we stress that our study is, by definition, observational in nature. We do not and can not make any claims with respect to the causal nature of the relationships between Subjective Well-Being, popularity, mood contagion, and social network use. This will require an extensive program of experimental verification over extended periods of time which we are planning.
Apicella CL, Marlowe FW, Fowler JH, Christakis NA (2012) Social networks and cooperation in hunter-gatherers. Nature 481:497-501
Dunbar R (2010) The social role of touch in humans and primates: behavioural function and neurobiological mechanisms. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 34(2):260-268
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Tromholt M, Lundby M, Andsbjerg K, Wiking M (2015) The Facebook experiment: does social media affect the quality of our lives? Technical report, The Happiness Institute
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We thank Marten Scheffer and Filippo Raddichi for their feedback on earlier versions of this manuscript.
School of Informatics and Computing, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA
Johan Bollen & Guangchen Ruan
Center for Data Science, New York University, New York, USA
Environmental Sciences, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands
Ingrid van de Leemput
Johan Bollen
Guangchen Ruan
Correspondence to Johan Bollen.
Bruno Gonçalves thanks the Moore and Sloan Foundations for support as part of the Moore-Sloan Data Science Environment at NYU. Johan Bollen thanks the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency (NGS2 2016 #D17AC00005) and the National Science Foundation (SMA-SBE: 1636636) for their support.
The authors declare that they have no competing financial interests.
JB designed and executed the experimental methodology, performed the data analysis, and wrote the manuscript. IL performed data analysis, advised on methodological and analytical issues, and co-authored the manuscript. BG collected the data, advised on methodological and analytical issues, and co-authored the manuscript. GR collected and processed the raw data. All authors reads and approved the final manuscript.
Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
Bollen, J., Gonçalves, B., van de Leemput, I. et al. The happiness paradox: your friends are happier than you. EPJ Data Sci. 6, 4 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1140/epjds/s13688-017-0100-1
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1140/epjds/s13688-017-0100-1
subjective well-being
friendship paradox

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Shutting down a lecture by Netanyahu, Obama spoke of his own personal obstacles
Ron Kampeas
President Barack Obama, right, meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., Nov. 9, 2015. (Olivier Douliery/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Barack Obama once invoked his own unlikely trajectory to the presidency to make the case to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he understood what it took to overcome obstacles.
The revelation of another wrinkle in the contentious relationship came during an extensive interview Obama gave Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic that was posted online Thursday.
Obama describes his frustrations with world leaders, including Arab and Muslim leaders. In Netanyahu's case, he says he believes Netanyahu might have been the leader to forge a peace deal with the Palestinians but is hemmed in by Israel's politics.
"Bibi, you have to understand something," Obama recalls telling Netanyahu after the Israeli prime minister launched into what Obama considered a "condescending" explanation of the hard realities of the Middle East. "I'm the African-American son of a single mother, and I live here, in this house. I live in the White House. I managed to get elected president of the United States. You think I don't understand what you're talking about, but I do."
The leaders did not always disagree. Netanyahu, Goldberg writes, was the rare figure who agreed that Obama's handling of the Syrian chemical weapons crisis was a success.
Obama's major foreign policy frustration, Goldberg makes clear in the article, is that his 2013 decision to pull back from a threat to bomb Syria should it use chemical weapons against insurgents is, in the conventional wisdom, seen as a capitulation. Once it was clear Syria had used the weapons, Obama backed away from his pledge to strike and instead sought — but did not receive from Congress — a go-ahead to bomb. Subsequently, he worked with Russia to strip the Assad regime of its chemical weapons capabilities. Goldberg reports that Netanyahu described the deal as "the one ray of light in a very dark region."
Obama acknowledges that his 2009 speech in Cairo addressing the Islamic world was not a success in that it did not spur reflection among some Muslims and Arabs about the reflexive tendency to blame Israel.
"My argument was this: Let's all stop pretending that the cause of the Middle East's problems is Israel," he told Goldberg. "We want to work to help achieve statehood and dignity for the Palestinians, but I was hoping that my speech could trigger a discussion, could create space for Muslims to address the real problems they are confronting — problems of governance, and the fact that some currents of Islam have not gone through a reformation that would help people adapt their religious doctrines to modernity. My thought was, I would communicate that the U.S. is not standing in the way of this progress, that we would help, in whatever way possible, to advance the goals of a practical, successful Arab agenda that provided a better life for ordinary people."
The speech, at the outset of both leaders' terms, helped sour relations with Netanyahu, in part because Obama appeared to justify Israel's existence by invoking the Holocaust, and also because Obama did not travel to neighboring Israel during the tour, something his closest advisers have since said was a mistake.
Obama also says for the first time that he would have struck Iran if it came close to nuclear breakout.
"I actually would have," he told Goldberg, who has written in the past about the skepticism he has encountered among Israelis and some in the pro-Israel community, who believe Obama was bluffing. "If I saw them break out."
Obama said striking Iran's nuclear program "was in the category of an American interest."
Instead, Iran and six major powers, led by the United States, agreed last year to a sanctions relief for nuclear rollback deal. Netanyahu believes the deal, while stripping Iran of its weapons capability for now, allows it to quickly resume its capability once some of the regimens in the deal lapse in 15 years.


Countering norms that reinforce privacy is an opportunity to prevent violence in a lasting, comprehensive way. This web conference highlighted specific strategies and efforts that seek to change norms related to gendered violence. Different norms were examined with regard to their historical context, distinct challenges, and opportunities for collaborative work.
Dorothy Edwards, Ph.D., Executive Director, Green Dot, et cetera, Inc.


text:
Man caught allegedly trying to steal iPad from library reportedly assaults officer
A man was arrested on suspicion of assaulting a police officer Tuesday at the Main Library after allegedly trying to steal an iPad, multiple sources told The San Francisco Examiner on Thursday.
Chris Jones, 25, was reportedly trying to steal an iPad on the fifth floor of the facility in what library officials call the newsstand area.
Witnesses reported that Jones was using some type of tool to disconnect the iPad from the table it was tethered to, Officer Gordon Shyy said.
The iPad that Jones was allegedly trying to steal was part of the library's eNewsCenter, which provides tablets that can only access newspaper content, library spokeswoman Michelle Jeffers said Thursday.
A source inside the library told The Examiner that at one point while trying to unscrew the iPad, Jones pounded the table with some type of tool and swore in a loud voice.
After security was notified, a guard contacted a police officer stationed at the library and they went to investigate, Shyy said.
When they confronted the suspect, he reportedly ran down to the third floor and took off his baseball cap to try and blend in with the crowd, according to a source at the library.
He was apprehended on the third floor and sources said he was wearing a pouch that contained a variety of tools.
When they walked him to the security office, Jones reportedly put on blue bike gloves and refused to provide any sort of identification. The officer attempted to get Jones into the office and he resisted.
Then, according to a source at the library, Jones ran up the stairs toward the Grove Street entrance. The officer and two library security guards ran after him. It was at this time that the officer was punched several times in the face and head, Shyy said.
Ultimately, backup police officers arrived and helped subdue the suspect, with the assistance of library security.
The officer was taken to the hospital for his injuries, which were minor.
Jones also requested to be taken to the hospital, Shyy said. After he was cleared out of the hospital, he was booked into County Jail on numerous charges.
The District Attorney's Office charged Jones with one felony count of assault on an officer, one felony count of threats to an executive officer, misdemeanor commercial shoplifting, misdemeanor possession of burglary tools and misdemeanor giving a false identity to police, Assistant District Attorney Alex Bastian said.
Jones was expected to be arraigned on the charges Thursday, but his arraignment was put over until Friday, Bastian said. He remains in custody on $170,000 bail.
The incident was a surprise to library officials, who said that with new security staffing and resources that criminal and nuisance instances were down.
"We've seen incidents go way down after adopting a new code of conduct," Jeffers said. "We just haven't had things where the police have gotten involved."
Earlier this month, the City Controller's Office issued a report at the request of the library to analyze its security system. The analysis found that the library failed to deploy security staff appropriately and that security was inadequately staffed. The report also found that the most dangerous times at the library are in the afternoon.Bay Area NewsCrimeCrime & CourtsSan Francisco District Attorney's OfficeSan Francisco Police DepartmentSan Francisco Public Library
SF grants another extension to Academy of Art University over code violations
Daly City retains Allied Waste as sanitation service provider


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Back to news and opinion index page for links to archived stories | Commentary | Our YouTube page
A smile is a curve that sets everything straight. - Phyllis Diller
June 15 - 19: Ster ZLM Toer
June 16 - 19: Route du Sud
June 22: Halle-Ingooigem
July 2 - 24: Tour de France (all stage maps and profiles posted)
Most of the major cycling countries are having their national championships through June 26. Here's where I'm posting the results. If you are interested in historical national champ info, here's a lot of data.
National Championships news
This from Orica-GreenEdge:
Asian champion Cheung King Lok enjoyed a successful weekend at the Hong Kong Championships winning both the time trial on Saturday and the road race on Sunday.
The 25-year-old ORICA-GreenEDGE rider beat his nearest rival by 45seconds in the time trial before soloing to the win ahead of the field in Sunday's road race.
Cheung King Lok (on right)
"I am very happy to have won these events," said King Lok. "My time in the time trial was 40seconds faster than my record last year on the same course. I am a better rider than I was three months ago, but the gulf between myself and the world's top riders is still quite big. It is difficult to see when I will be racing on par with them, but I am happy to come home and take these victories."
King Lok has settled in well at ORICA-GreenEDGE and continues to develop after recent solid performances riding in support of Jack Haig at the Tour of Slovenia.
Sport director Matt White praised the versatility of King Lok and noted how difficult the transition can be moving from Asia to Europe. "For Cheung (King Lok) it has been a big culture shock moving over to Europe from Hong Kong," said White. "It can be a pretty tough transition changing continents and European racing is very different to Asian racing."
"The transition is a work in progress and we see this with all our new professionals, but the pleasing thing is he has fitted into the team very well and is more than willing to learn. Cheung is continuing his development at WorldTour level and is building towards the Olympics and the World Championships in October.
"He has a world class background on the track and is showing his versatility by now developing into a world class road racer."
Hong Kong Time Trial Championships results:
Cheung King Lok (ORICA-GreenEDGE) 00:20:13
Fung Ka Hoo (HKSI-Pro-Cycling) 00:00:45
Mow Ching Ying (HKSI-Pro-Cycling) 00:01:20
Hong Kong Championships Road Race results:
Cheung King Lok (ORICA-GreenEDGE)
This came from BMC:
26 June 2016, Lacs de l'Eau d'Heure (BEL): Philippe Gilbert has become the Belgian Road Race Champion for the second time in his career, defeating Tim Wellens (Lotto Soudal) in a one on one battle to the line. Greg Van Avermaet rounded out the podium in third place for the second consecutive year.
A 25-rider move, including Gilbert, Van Avermaet, Dylan Teuns and Loïc Vliegen,
went away early in the 231 kilometer race. Gilbert launched an attack with just
under 50 kilometers to go and was followed by Wellens and Laurens De Plus (Etixx- Quick-Step), who was later dropped, leaving Gilbert and Wellens to go head to head for the win. Gilbert launched his last attack within the final 300 meters to secure the Championship.
Philppe Gilbert winning a stage at the Tour of Luxembourg earlier this year
Philippe Gilbert: "The bunch almost came back to the breakaway on the climb when we were inside the last four laps and I saw them so I attacked on the top. My goal was not really to go away but to speed the pace up and get the group working again. Greg went after and then I went again with Tim Wellens. I knew that if I went alone I would have teams chasing behind me so I needed a Lotto-Soudal rider with me. It worked well to have Wellens with me, and also Laurens De Plus, so the three biggest teams were represented up the front and no one was really chasing. It was the perfect trio."
"When De Plus was dropped I was thinking that this might not be good as Etixx Quick-Step would be riding behind us, but in the end we held the gap. The final was a hard one because Wellens went full gas. I was able to respond to his attacks and I was always there, really focusing on the sprint. I didn't want to start playing too far from the line in case the others came back, so we really waited until the last kilometer. I was nervous because I wanted to win so much. When you are in this situation it is there that you make mistakes. So I was trying to think positive thoughts and think of my family and my future, and not going crazy. That's what I did and that relaxed me a bit."
"It's completely different to my first championship. When I won in 2011 I was in the best period of my career. I wasn't expecting to win then because the course didn't suit me too much. But here I was working really hard after my accident in
April to get back to this level. I was already happy after the Tour or Luxembourg
as I felt some good sensations. Then at the Tour de Suisse I wasn't sure how my
level was, but then I was back feeling good in the last days. This win gives me
a lot of confidence and I'm looking forward to wearing the jersey at the Tour of Poland."
Valerio Piva: "It was a good early move that went away in the second lap, like in the last couple of years. Last year we missed the move and chased all day and in the end we had third place with Greg Van Avermaet. This year it was clear that we needed to pay attention so everyone was ready for the move. 25 riders went with Philippe Gilbert, Van Avermaet, Dylan Teuns and Loïc Vliegen. Dylan and Loïc did a fantastic job to set the pace and protect Philippe and Greg, our leaders."
"With 3.5 laps to go, Philippe went with Wellens and De Plus. De Plus was dropped but Philippe and Wellens established a gap of over one minute and Greg was behind in the chase group protecting Philippe, jumping in every counter attack. Everyone was riding for the team today. I am proud for Philippe, especially after the bad luck he has had this year. It was a nice victory and he deserved it. All of the team deserved the win today, they all played a big part in it."
Race Profile:
Belgian National Road Race Championships, Lacs de l'Eau d'Heure - Lacs de l'Eau d'Heure (231km)
Top 3: Philippe Gilbert (BMC Racing Team), Tim Wellens (Lotto Soudal), Greg Van
Avermaet (BMC Racing Team).
Tinkoff sent me several releases. Here they are:
Juraj Sagan and Roman Kreuziger champions as Tinkoff dominates the Slovak and Czech national road races.
It was glory for the Tinkoff riders in the Czech and Slovak national championships today on a race that saw members of the team take the top spot in both, while the team took the entire podium in the Slovakian race. Successes in today's races, which were run side-by-side, build on the team's strong performances in the Time Trial national championships, held in the past week.
Tinkoff riders continued their successes in their respective national championships today with two of the team's riders crowned in the Czech and Slovak National Championship road races, with Tinkoff dominating the podium at the Slovak race, where Juraj Sagan took the national champion's jersey from his younger brother, Peter, crossing the finishing line forty-one seconds ahead. Teammate Michael Kolar came third, making it a Tinkoff 1-2-3 on a hard-fought race. Juraj's win comfortably defeated his brother's hold on the race, having held the Slovakian national champion's jersey since 2011.
After the race, Juraj was justifiably thrilled with the outcome. "I'm proud to be the new Slovak Champion. It's such a great feeling, especially because this is my first victory as a professional rider, so it adds a special value to it. It was also a nice feeling to have Peter on the podium with me. We were the two brothers together, him wearing the World Champion jersey and myself with the Slovak Champion jersey. Thanks to all our team-mates for the hard work in today's tough race."
In the Czech National Championships, Roman Kreuziger took the top spot, improving on his 8th position in last year's race. Roman, who has ridden a stellar season in support of Alberto Contador, most recently at the Critérium du Dauphiné, took centre stage on a day where his competition included big names from the professional peloton, challenging him until the finish. Roman finished the race six seconds faster than his closest competitor, taking the jersey for the first time.
Roman Kreuziger
After the race, the new Czech champion was taking stock of what had been an incredibly busy race. "The Czech and Slovak Championships are always a hard race to predict. Since the year 2000, the two federations have been holding them together, so we have four titles at stake simultaneously: Czech and Slovak Elite and Czech and Slovak U23. That makes for a bigger peloton and it isn't always easy to understand who races where. However, we had Erik Baska and Michael Kolar in the early breakaway and they did an excellent job, taking the pressure off us. It was up to the other teams to do the hard work and everything went according to the plan we made this morning with our Sport Director, Ján Valach. I'm really happy to wear the Czech national champion's jersey."
Having worked hard to take the title in last year's race, coming eighth, Roman was thrilled to finally have the jersey on his shoulders. "It's the first time in my professional career I wear the national champion's jersey. In the early years of my career I wasn't so much focused on it but since three years now, I was keen on having it. It's, obviously, a great result and I hope to honour my national jersey in the big races ahead! The two previous holders had a number of wins in the Classics and other special races, so I will try to continue flying the Czech colours with success in the future."
Sport Director, Ján Valach, gave some insight into how the race unfolded. "It was a tough race course, 185km long, consisting of a circuit that was raced nine times. It had two climbs of 2km each and our strategy going into the race was to put riders in the breakaway as soon as possible. A nine-man break was formed right from the start, with seven Czechs, and two Slovaks, Erik Baška and Michael Kolar. The stayed in the front until the last lap and with 10km to go they were joined by Peter Sagan, Juraj Sagan, Roman Kreuziger, Zdenek Stybar and a couple of other riders. With 1km to go, Kreuziger attacked and took the solo win, ahead of Stybar and Juraj Sagan. It was a good result for Tinkoff, with the Czech and Slovak champions now flying our colours."
Czech National Championship
Roman Kreuziger (Tinkoff) 04:45:17
Zdenek Stybar (Etixx-Quick Step) +00:00:05
Martin Hunal (Whirlpool Author) +00:00:53
Slovakian National Championship
Juraj Sagan (Tinkoff) 04:45:21
Peter Sagan (Tinkoff) +00:00:41
Michael Kolar (Tinkoff) +00:02:46
Tinkoff had a good day at the British Championships:
Blythe sprints to British victory to become the fourth of Tinkoff's national road champions
In the north of England, Adam Blythe became the fourth Tinkoff team member to pull on the road champion's jersey of their respective nation. In Stockton-on-Tees, Adam beat one of the fastest sprinters in the world, Mark Cavendish, to the line after a tough day ended in a bunch sprint. In spite of spending almost the whole day either chasing or subsequently riding in a break, Adam still had the strength to contest the win, and rode away as British champion.
On the day, some of the strongest names in British cycling were lined up at the start – many of whom Adam had raced against throughout the season. It was going to be a hard task to take the win, especially as from the start of the race, the breakaways went out and having then been reeled in, another escaped up the road, meaning more energy was expended pulling them back in.
Adam Blythe in 2014, winning RideLondon
Having formed part of a four-man breakaway – the third escape of the race – Adam and his breakaway compatriots had managed to stay out for much of the closing stages of the race. In spite of chasing, catching, and then becoming part of a breakaway himself, Adam saved the energy he had left to contest the sprint, as he explained from the finish. "I'm so chuffed - it feels great to have won the jersey. It was a long day really, from 70km out there were four of us tapping through and when we entered the circuit the gap wasn't that big. After it came back together behind I just sat in and saved what I could for the sprint. I never knew I was going to get it but I never thought I wouldn't as well, I just gave it my all and crossed the line first."
Having started the day as the only Tinkoff rider in the race, it was going to be a hard task to fight for the win when some of the other teams had several riders who could work together to bring their fast man to the finishing stretch. Adam made the most of the opportunities that presented themselves to him, reading the race expertly and making the key decisions at just the right time. "Not having any teammates in the race meant it was all about selecting the right move. The circuit wasn't too difficult so it was all about timing, only attacking when it was worth attacking."
As he heads to a team training camp in Livigno next week, Adam will be one of three other Tinkoff team members – Roman Kreuziger, Juraj Sagan and Rafal Majka – who are each wearing their national champion's jersey for the first time. Each will be receiving new outfits from Tinkoff's kit supplier, Sportful. Adam was excited to be wearing the colours of the British national champion. "I'm looking forward to the getting the new white kit now! It's the highlight of my career so far. I just want to get the jersey and all the kit to go with it – white shorts, white bike…"
British National Championship
1. Adam Blythe (Tinkoff) 04:31:07
2. Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data) +00:00:00
3. Andrew Fenn (Team Sky) +00:00:00
Here's another Tinkoff national champs release:
At the Polish national championship race, Rafal Majka joined the ranks of Tinkoff riders to wear their national champions' jersey in the races ahead, after a team effort helped him take the win. After a successful season that has seen him take 5th at the Giro d'Italia, Rafal fought against an ever decreasing breakaway before pushing away on the final climb for the win.
Rafal Majka took the win in a hard race where all the odds were stacked against him. The parcours consisted of six laps of a 37km circuit with hilly terrain and a total altitude of nearly 3,200m climbed, making the 222km route a long day in the saddle for all of the riders, and strong winds only added to the difficulty. With Polish teams dominating the start-line, it was going to be a hard push for Tinkoff, who only had three riders in the race – Rafal, Maciej Bodnar and Pawel Poljanski – while one of the other teams alone had fifteen riders contesting the race.
After a breakaway of twelve riders formed from the start with no Tinkoff rider present, it seemed unlikely that the team would be able to add to its impressive tally of national medals, but after the second lap, Maciej and Rafal attacked, riding strong to pull in the break.
In the front group in the last three laps, Rafal was among twenty riders in the third lap to go, a group that dropped down to ten riders in penultimate lap due to the crushingly-fast pace, and by the final it was only Rafal and one other left to contest the win.
With one lap left, Rafal took his chance to take the lead and build up a small advantage, using the climbing legs he put to good use in the Giro d'Italia, he built up an advantage that in spite of the best efforts of his rival, he was able to hold until the finish. Rafal will now pull on the Polish champion's jersey for the coming year.
The new Polish champion was delighted with the outcome – which for him he wasn't expecting so soon after a training camp. "I'm very excited and thrilled to be crowned road champion of Poland for the first time in my career. I came yesterday, directly from the high-altitude training camp in Livigno and jumped right into the race, so I consider this to be a very good result."
Joining the ranks of Tinkoff riders with national champions' jerseys, Rafal was excited to be joining the team at the Tour de France after such a strong performance at this race. "It was a hard race, with nearly 3,200 meters of altitude gain and climbs of 3-4 kilometers but that's exactly the kind of profile that suits me and that I like to race on. I felt in very good form, my legs were really strong and that is a very positive sign for the Tour de France. Starting next Saturday, I will be ready to give my best to support Alberto in his fight for the yellow jersey."
As has been characteristic of all of Tinkoff's victories this season, it was teamwork that won the race against great odds, and Rafal was quick to thank his fellow riders today. "Unlike the other Polish teams with lots of riders, we were only three here. However, I told Maciej Bodnar and Pawel Poljanski that I felt very strong and I was aiming for the gold, and they put on a strong performance to help me. I'd like to thank them for their effort."
Polish National Championship
Rafal Majka (Tinkoff) 05:24:50
Marek Rutkiewicz (Wibatech Fuji) +00:00
Sylwester Janiszewski (Wibatech Fuji) +00:01:39
Here's Lotto-Soudal's happy national championship press release:
Lotto Soudal gained a national title today, the German one, thanks to André Greipel. In Belgium and France a rider of the team claimed the silver medal, Tim Wellens at Lacs de l'Eau d'Heure and Tony Gallopin in Vesoul. Lotte Kopecky became second in the Belgian road race for women elite.
Emotionally, it was a difficult weekend for the team with the news about the condition of Stig Broeckx, but with the slogan 'Fight for Stig' the riders showed their courage in the race.
Erfurt hosted the German Championships this year. Unlike the Belgian road race it was a completely flat course without any obstacles. André Greipel beat Max Walscheid and Marcel Kittel in the sprint.
André Greipel earlier this year
André Greipel: "Despite the nature of the course you can never be sure it will end with a sprint, because the big teams could have other tactics. Sibi and I had decided to race attentively and join every big breakaway. And we succeeded in doing that. With 45 kilometres to go for example, we were part of a break, but Giant-Alpecin didn't have a rider in that group and that's why we didn't stand a chance. Sibi made sure I was positioned perfectly for the sprint. John Degenkolb launched the sprint for his teammate Walscheid, I remained on his wheel. I started sprinting with two hundred metres to go and nobody could pass me. I've seen the images and the gap was rather big."
"Of course I am happy that I've become national champion for the third time ever. When it's this type of course, it's always a goal for me. I am proud to wear the jersey for a year and I am looking forward to show it in the Tour. This victory, my eighth of the season, is good for the confidence."
The road race of the Belgian Championships took place at Lacs de l'Eau d'Heure, it became a real elimination race. Already in the second lap a group of 21 riders was in front with five Lotto Soudal riders: De Bie, De Clercq, De Gendt, Wallays and Wellens. After a while De Bie got replaced by Jürgen Roelandts who had made the jump to the front. Thomas De Gendt animated the finale by going solo. He got half a minute lead. Laurens De Plus and Philippe Gilbert closed the gap on the Lotto Soudal rider, with Tim Wellens on their wheel. Thomas then gave all he got left to help Tim and then it was up to him. In the last lap Wellens and Gilbert left De Plus behind and battled for the victory. Tim couldn't get rid of Phil and they entered the final kilometre together. Gilbert turned out to be the strongest and is the new Belgian champion, Wellens went home with the silver medal.
Tim Wellens: "Silver is nice, but only one place counts in this race. It would have been very nice to take the title on this beautiful and selective course. It was hard right from the start and soon the peloton split. As a team we were well represented in the front group, but unfortunately someone was stronger. I was realistic, I knew it wouldn't be easy to drop Gilbert and he is strong at the finish. I tried to ride away from him, but he remained on my wheel. I began the sprint in second position, but couldn't get passed Gilbert as he was too strong."
"It was a really difficult weekend for the team. Yesterday evening we got more info about the condition of Stig and that was really emotional. It is difficult to cope with it, but today we fought for him."
This morning Lotte Kopecky had already won the silver medal at the Belgian Championships for women elite. The Lotto Soudal Ladies rode a strong race. Isabelle Beckers was part of an early break of five. Their lead got up to more than two minutes. After a while twelve riders took off from what was left of the peloton, all four other Lotto Soudal Ladies were in that group: Decroix, De Vuyst, Kopecky and Vekemans. In the last lap Gitta Michiels attacked in front, but she couldn't stay ahead. In the background several groups had come together, all five Lotto Soudal Ladies were in the first group now. Anisha Vekemans then pulled the sprint for Lotte Kopecky. Unfortunately Lotte got beaten by Kaat Hannes, Jolien D'hoore completed the top three. For the third consecutive year Lotte finished on place two, but she is the winner of the U23 title.
Lotte Kopecky: "I am disappointed that I didn't win the title. Kaat Hannes passed me by on the left and I couldn't do anything about it anymore. We did have a good race with the team, starting with Isabelle who was part of the early breakaway. Then the four of us got in a second group of twelve riders. That did mean we were expected to take control. It was a tough course at Lacs de l'Eau d'Heure, you did feel it in the legs after a few laps. Still, we finished with a rather big group. If more riders had taken initiative, the split could have been final, but it wasn't."
Tony Gallopin finished second in Vesoul, where the French Championships were held. He rode to the finish line together with two of his fellow countrymen. Arthur Vichot won the race, Alexis Vuillermoz got third.
Tony Gallopin: "I am very disappointed. Last year I was second as well, but the circumstances were different. It was a very hectic sprint and another type of course, now it was perfect for me with two hills on the course. It's not easy without a teammate. In the last lap I took off from a front group of fifteen together with two others. It really was a goal of mine to win here and it's painful when you don't achieve such a goal. On the other hand, because all what has happened to Stig, I can put it in the right context. It is a very difficult time: aiming for results on the one hand and coping with all the emotions on the other hand."
"The good news after today is that my condition is fine. I rode a good time trial on Thursday, I got third. That was already a good sign and my performance today has confirmed that. Although losing the race hurts. But there will be new goals quite soon, we're leaving for the Tour on Tuesday."


text:
Zhao Lab
School of Pharmacy - Pharmacology & Toxicology
lzhao@ku.edu
Malott Hall, Room 2046
1251 Wescoe Hall Drive
Research Scientist, Molecular Pharmacology and Toxicology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA (2002-2006)
Postdoctoral Fellowship, Beijing Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Beijing, China (2002)
Ph.D., Pharmaceutical Sciences, Shenyang Pharmaceutical University, Shenyang, China (1999)
Research Assistant Professor, Research Associate Professor, Pharmacology and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA (2006-2013)
Director of Translational Research Laboratory, Director of Core Facilities and Services, School of Pharmacy, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA (2009-2013)
Liqin Zhao's research focuses on neurobiology and neuroendocrinology of aging and neurodegenerative diseases with an emphasis on late-onset Alzheimer's that are investigated at both mechanistic and translational levels. Zhao has authored over 50 research articles, 80 conference presentations, and six patents with four granted. She and her research have been featured by multiple news outlets including USC News, USC Trojan Family Magazine, USC Pharmacy Magazine, KU News, Lawrence 6News, NPR News, Nature Medicine, Society for Neuroscience, and Alzheimer's Association under Spotlight on Researchers Dedicated to Alzheimer's.
At the KU School of Pharmacy, in addition to directing a research lab, Zhao teaches in both Pharm.D. and graduate (M.S. and Ph.D.) programs, with a teaching focus on pharmacology of the nervous system including both autonomic and central nervous system. Dr. Zhao also directs the "Beyond the Lab" career development program.


text:
Watch now, pay later: Amazon offers installment plan for Fire TV
by Blair Hanley Frank on May 2, 2014 at 10:12 am May 2, 2014 at 10:12 am
Amazon launched a promotion to try and get its Fire TV set-top box in the hands of as many of its loyal customers as possible. The company sent an email out to shoppers who have had an Amazon account for more than two years offering them the option to pay for the new box in monthly installments, instead of covering the $99 cost all at once.
After making their first $19.80 payment with the purchase of the box, Amazon will ship customers the Fire TV. They'll then be on the hook for four more payments over the next four months in order to pay off their set-top device. Amazon won't be charging interest, and won't perform a credit check to determine whether users are eligible for the promotion. The email says it's a limited-time offer, though it's unclear when the promotion will end.
The promotion is limited to one Fire TV per customer, so people interested in having more than one box will either need multiple eligible Amazon accounts or enough money to pay for a full price unit up front.
Amazon has already offered similar quarterly installment plans for its Kindle Fire HDX tablets, though it's unclear how many people have taken advantage of that offer. Like the Kindle Fire promotion, customers who can't pay for further installments could get their Fire TV deregistered, which would lock them out of streaming further comment through Amazon's service.
The move could make the Fire TV attractive to people who would otherwise avoid buying a set-top box at all, or choose a cheaper alternative, like Google's Chromecast dongle. Amazon has plenty of incentive to offer its box to consumers at as low a price as possible, since it gives people more reason to use the company's Instant Video service.
Reviews of the Fire TV have been largely positive, and Amazon has been on a full-court press to promote its new device. Earlier this week, the company released an advertisement for the box featuring 15 minutes of Gary Busey talking to things in his house in order to promote the Fire TV's voice search function.
Blair Hanley Frank is GeekWire's Bay Area Correspondent. He has also worked for Macworld, PCWorld and TechHive. Follow him on Twitter @belril and email him at blair@geekwire.com.
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Filed Under: Amazon Tagged With: Fire TV • Kindle Fire
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Add. Reduce to the lowest terms, if necessary.
Since the factors cannot be reduced any further, the correct answer is .
Ms. Thompson and Mr. Bloomberg decided to throw a pizza party for their class. While taking orders, they found that of the students in Ms. Thompson's class, and of the students in Mr. Bloomberg's class wanted supreme pizza. What fraction of the two classes combined wanted supreme pizza?
In order to find the fraction of students who wanted supreme pizza in the two classes combined, we must add the fractions. To add fractions, however, we must first find a common denominator. Since and share the least common multiple , each fraction can be written with a denominator of .
In order to convert into a fraction with a denominator of , we multply the top and bottom by .
In order to convert into a fraction with a denominator of 24, we multiply the top and bottom by .
Now we add the two fractions, but when we add fractions with the same denominator, we only add the numerators. The denominator will remain the same.
Next we simplify by dividing both the numerator and denominator by .
If and are negative numbers, which of the following statements is true?
If two negative numbers are multiplied, the answer is always positive (greater than ).
We need to convert this improper fraction back into a mixed number. To do this, divide by to get with a remainder of . The remainder becomes the numerator of the fraction. remains the denominator. Therefore the answer is .
In order to add fractions, each fraction must have the same denominator. We must convert the fraction into a fraction that has a denominator of 10.
We multiply the numerator and denominator by 2.
Then we add the numerators together: .
We keep the same denominator (10), and the answer is .
Felicity has 4 jackets, 5 sweaters, and 10 t-shirts. How many pieces of clothing does she own?
This problem requires adding up all of the different clothing items . The answer is 19.
Compare the fractions and fill in the box with the appropriate sign.
This problem is asking you to determine the relationship between the two fractions. Think of the fractions as pieces of a pizza. Which fraction has more pieces? does, so that is your answer. Then, you have to pick the correct inequality sign. Since is greater, the point of the inequality sign must be pointing to the lower fraction. Therefore, is the correct sign.
Which of the following is the sum of eight-ninths and one-third?
First, add feet and inches separately.
In five years, Allen will be twice as old as his sister Elaine, who is nine years old now. How old is Allen now?
Elaine is nine years old now, so in five years, she will be years old. Allen will be twice this, or , so now, he is years old.


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Many people are frightened by the word "piranha." These fish have gotten a bad reputation from books, television, and movies, where they are usually depicted as enemies of unwary human swimmers.
The truth is that piranhas, like most other predators, are very unlikely to attack something so much bigger than themselves. They are meat-eaters, but their diet consists almost entirely of smaller fishes. Some piranhas are even vegetarians (plant-eaters).
Piranhas are native to the warm waters of northern South America, particularly the Amazon River Basin of Brazil. There are 16 kinds (species) of piranhas, and they come in several colors: white, red, spotted, and black. The largest kind grows two feet long, but most are no larger than 15 inches.
Piranhas are excellent, fast swimmers. They travel in groups, or schools. They have small, heavy mouths and powerful jaws. Their lower and upper teeth interlock like shears.
The natives of South America work and bathe freely in rivers where piranhas live. They have no fear of these fishes. In fact, piranhas are a sought-after food item.
PIRANHAS were sold as aquarium fish in the United States until 1961. That's when further importation of wild piranhas was banned by federal law passed by the US Congress.
When regularly fed and not in a school, piranhas were not as aggressive as those in the wild and adapted well to life in an aquarium. Their gentler side is shown in the parental care they give their young.


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In the world according to urban folklore, horrors await us at every turn, lurking even in the most ordinary places. Consider how dangerous it can be just to lick an envelope. An urban legend circulated that cockroach eggs on envelopes could infest your tongue. It was only a hoax.
Subject: If you lick your envelopes... You won't anymore!
This is a true story... Pass it on.
A similar tale was reported as happening to a "co-worker's wife" in Virginia. Either there was a widespread infestation, or these were an urban legend in the making. Any way you tell it, the urban legend is false.
A pregnant cockroach carries her eggs in a hard capsule called an ootheca, in which they incubate, intact, until the larvae (or "nymphs") hatch, bursting the capsule open from the inside. The eggs themselves are tiny and delicate, and couldn't survive at all outside the ootheca, let alone flourish within the body of a mammalian host. It would be highly improbable to find viable cockroach eggs strewn about on random surfaces—least of all on the folded flap of an envelope.
Consider, too, the logical inconsistencies in the story. How is it that when the victim visited her doctor the first time, reporting a paper cut and showing visible signs of "abnormal swelling," he found "nothing wrong"? And what was the point, during the second doctor visit, of X-raying the woman's tongue? It's not a bony structure, and the lump was already in plain sight.
Infestation legends derive from and play on people's horror of insects. The subtype in which "creepy crawlers" invade the human body provoke an especially visceral response and are particularly popular for that reason. "Roach Eggs on Envelopes" is very similar to the 1998-vintage "Roach Eggs in Tacos" legend, wherein cockroach larvae ingested in a fast food restaurant purportedly incubated in the lining of the victim's mouth.
In a general way, both stories resemble "The Spider Bite," an older legend about a traveler in a foreign country who discovers a seemingly innocuous insect bite on her body after an outing. Then while brushing her hair, she touches the spot and the sore bursts open with hundreds of tiny spiders.
Wayward insects sometimes find their way into crevices of the human body. But the bulk of infestation legends are just that: legends. It's hard to resist sharing them with the ones you love. Reuters ran a news story a few years back about a British woman who complained to her doctor of a headache and "strange noises in her ear." On examining her, the doctor found a large spider lodged next to her eardrum.
"The doctor removed the spider with a syringe," the article continued, "but also raised an unsavory possibility—that the arachnid was a female intent on laying eggs." No spider eggs were found during the examination, but they could not resist raising the creepy possibility.
In 1999, rumor had it that a number of people died after moistening the glue on ATM deposit envelopes with their tongues. Supposedly, someone had adulterated the glue with cyanide, a fatal poison. The moral of the story was clear: envelope licking can be hazardous to your health. If true, it would have been widely publicized, but it was not verified.
As fewer and fewer people send snail mail and many envelopes and most stamps are self-adhesive, there are fewer chances to expose yourself to any hazards of licking. You likely have nothing to fear, but you can always use a sponge to do the job to make it more sanitary for you, the mail handlers, and the recipient. Meanwhile, don't forward any similar email or repost a similar message on social media.


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