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Lumpen Proletariat on Campus
Jason Stevens
Today is "National Adjunct Walkout Day." If you did not know this, or even what an adjunct is, you're not alone. The word "adjunct" means something added to another thing but not really a part of it. In this case, we're talking about adjunct instructors, who are part-time university and college teachers who carry a hefty portion of the educational load on America's campuses.
National Adjunct Walkout Day is a nationwide proposal for adjuncts to bring attention and reform to abusive working conditions by refusing to teach, or some other similar remedy.
For the record, I've been employed as an adjunct instructor at four different colleges and universities over the past five years. In that time, I've taught almost 30 different classes. I am paid anywhere between $1,500 and $3,500 per semester class.
Although I've considered writing about this topic for some time, I'm doing so now for two reasons. First, I'm concerned about the direction of recent events, especially National Adjunct Walkout Day. Second, I seek to challenge the prevailing opinion that adjuncts are somehow the victims of unfair employment practices.
On the surface, the case for reform seems strong. Many colleges and universities depend upon adjuncts to teach the majority of course offerings. To meet budget expectations, schools have increasingly relied on low-cost, high-yield adjunct and non-tenure-track professors. From 1999 to 2011, their numbers grew steadily from roughly half a million to a full million. Back in the 1970s, less than half of all university and college faculty was composed of adjuncts and other temporary teachers; today, that proportion has swelled to around three-quarters.
The Great Recession has been a mixed bag for adjuncts especially. Drops in enrollment and retention over the last six years or so mean fewer students, hence fewer classes. Some colleges and universities have responded by increasing class sizes and requiring tenure-track and tenured professors to teach more classes, with little to no increase in compensation. This means fewer employment opportunities for adjuncts. But many other institutions have responded by hiring even more adjuncts, who work for far less than tenure-track and tenured faculty while producing comparable results.[1]
The Affordable Care Act has also been a mixed bag for adjuncts. The law's mandate to provide health insurance for employees working 30 hours or more a week has led schools to avoid this obligation by lowering the number of classes an adjunct can teach and limiting the amount of time he or she can legally spend on prepping and grading. This forces adjuncts to look elsewhere for teaching opportunities that once were to be found all in one place. It also means that the school can now hire an even greater number of new adjuncts, providing more employment for more people. The same work that used to be done by one teacher before the advent of Obamacare is now being done by two or more.
But if more adjuncts than ever before are currently working, with new positions opening all the time, what's the basis of the complaint? Why National Adjunct Walkout Day? The industry is booming right now because adjuncts are typically hired for $1,800 to $5,300 per class. The school pays the instructor a price roughly equivalent to what a single student pays the school to take the instructor's class. The school ends up pocketing enormous sums, which vary depending on the total number of students enrolled in the course.
As a result, many adjuncts live below the poverty line, are on food stamps, and have little to no health or other employment benefits. Many lack offices of their own and have little to no job security from semester to semester. These employees are sometimes right to feel abused.
But these and many other arguments notwithstanding, the current plight of adjuncts is largely of their own making. It stems from a variety of causes, all related to the lack of ambition and prudence. The reluctance or inability to secure additional employment, to publish in reputable journals, to finish the Ph.D. degree, or to do the very best work in the worst of conditions are the main causes of all present misery and discontent.
Adjunct work is part-time work. This means that even if one manages to cobble together several classes at several different institutions, there is still a lot of valuable time left over for other pursuits. And considering that adjuncts always teach the same class or classes over and over again, prepping and grading ought to consume less time as well. The adjunct position ought to be a supplement to an already existing income, rather than the main source of household revenue.
For example, some adjuncts have day jobs in addition to teaching evening and weekend courses. Some will argue that the education level required to be an adjunct excludes the possibility of getting another job, even at minimum wage. Working elsewhere for minimum wage is seen either as beneath the dignity of the well-educated, or extremely difficult given the hiring preferences of companies.
But since National Adjunct Walkout Day is also going by "Adjunct Dignity Day" in some places, and since these kinds of jobs are truthfully very easy to obtain for anyone of any education, there is little actual worth to the argument. For those who want to make a career of teaching, adjunct work certainly shouldn't last forever. It should be temporary as the name implies—a stepping stone to greater things.
And it can only be that if you put in the work. This means, among many things, publishing in reputable journals. The prospect of a full-time, tenure-track job is considerably enhanced by the publication of a substantial scholarly article. While I have no evidence to support this, my suspicion is that at least the majority of discontented adjuncts threatening to walk out of class are currently unpublished.
More than publishing, finishing the Ph.D. degree should be the number one concern of every adjunct. Even with the rising numbers of graduate students earning doctorates each year, compared to the shrinking number of tenure-track faculty positions, the problem shouldn't be enough to deter those who have already started from finishing.
Many adjunct positions only require a Master's degree; some don't even require that, if the candidate has prior field-related work experience. However, almost all tenure-track positions require a Ph.D. in hand, or at least strong evidence that the work will be completed soon. The best remedy for the suffering adjunct, then, is not walking out of the classroom, or some other public display of frustration, but private effort and tenacity.
Finally, no matter the harshness of the situation, no teacher should ever threaten to walk out because of money or other selfish motivations. Not ever. There is a deep, permanent obligation to the student that takes precedence over almost every other consideration. The Marines say, "God, Country, Corps." We should say, "God, Country, Class." National Adjunct Walkout Day harnesses a torrent of misplaced emotion and envy that now threatens to make shipwreck of conscience. We must do the day's work. That means doing our best, without complaint, for the good of all involved.
Jacques Berlinerblau wrote in the Chronicle of Higher Education that "To read an account of a part-timer's daily grind is like reading One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich." While all honest, free-thinking part-timers would reject this as overblown, you would have thought it was true to hear some of the moaning that has led up to this day, with thousands apparently preparing to walk out. Just spend some time on the organizers' Facebook page.
If any literary comparison is needed, a better one might be the beginning of Shakespeare's Henry V. Consider young Hal's odyssey among "courses vain" to prepare himself for later life, and the surprise deliberateness and eventual success of his plan
If any literary comparison is needed, a better one might be the beginning of Shakespeare's Henry V. Consider young Hal's odyssey among "courses vain" to prepare himself for later life, and the surprise deliberateness and eventual success of his plan:
The strawberry grows underneath the nettle,
And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best
Neighbored by fruit of baser quality;
And so the Prince obscured his contemplation
Under the veil of wildness, which, no doubt,
Grew like the summer grass, fastest by night,
Unseen yet crescive in his faculty.
The comparison has its limits, of course, but the main point is that adjuncts who don't want to be adjuncts forever should be actively engaged in working and preparing among the nettle, not complaining about it. They shouldn't be threatening to cheat their employers out of something, and I don't mean deans or other campus administrators.
In the end, we don't work for a college or university. We work for the student. And we should start acting like it.
[1] While some adjuncts and their advocates argue that this represents a case of "equal pay for equal work," the evidence suggests otherwise. Students taught primarily by adjuncts have lower retention and graduation rates than those taught primarily by full-timers.
Article III's Case-or-Controversy Requirement: The Original Meaning
Jason Stevens is a Ph.D. candidate in Politics at the University of Dallas.
"Students taught primarily by adjuncts have lower retention and graduation rates than those taught primarily by full-timers."
What should have been expected? Full-time staff have more time to devote to their students, as opposed to the part-timer that divvies more of her time elsewhere out of necessity.
If anything, this fact should be of some concern to the school's administration, that those students receive less attention from their part-time instructors, for some "unknown" reason.
IEIUNUS
When Andrew Scott, a composition instructor in Indianapolis, explained adjuncting to some of his students, he wound up being called into his supervisor's office for a scolding. A group of his students at the private university where he was adjuncting (he also had a full-time position at Ball State) had arrived early for class, and were talking in the hallway. When one student mentioned a history teacher who seemed eager to get the students to like her, and whose class didn't have a lot of work, Scott explained how her work situation was involved: "I knew the instructor was an adjunct, and that she taught at several places to cobble together a living. I told the students that she was an adjunct, and that the class was easy because she was afraid of losing her job." Adjuncts are often evaluated solely based on student evaluations. As Rebecca Schuman put it in her Slate article "Confessions of a Grade Inflator," "popularity is the only thing keeping them employed."
Scott had this conversation with his students outside of class, because the students had brought it up, and because he considered it "a teachable moment." But it still got him into trouble, probably because of this comparison: "I said that the university pays the janitor who scrapes the gum off their desks more per year than me and most of the people who teach their first-year classes. My private university students couldn't believe that, but it was true.
When I was adjuncting at Columbia, I remember calculating the maximum number of hours I could spend on my class before I reduced my pay rate to under $15/hour. It was less time than I would have liked to spend, but I couldn't work for less than that. So I taught differently: I assigned fewer drafts, I held shorter and less frequent conferences, I read student essays faster and homework assignments hardly at all. When I realized I was not going to be able to do right by my students, I stopped classroom teaching.... Others have written about how the circumstances of adjuncting force them into grade inflation, or into designing easier courses so that they'll get better student evaluations.
nobody.really
Can not tell if the last section is autobiographical - if so, I feel for you, my friend. Hopefully your situation has improved.
It does tend to make one look long and hard at Mr. Stevens essay above. in my own experience, one of the best teachers I ever had was an adjunct (he sometimes posts here BTW) - but he was an exception. I wonder how many parents know (or care?) about these circumstances and the effect it has on the quality ( actually breadth and depth) of their child's education.
Lawler has [posted on the issue as well - with a somewhat different spin on it.
I am curious as to what YOU would propose in this matter.
"In the end, we don't work for a college or university. We work for the student. And we should start acting like it."
Maybe in some abstract, otherworldly sense of morality and duty, one that's Kantian much more than Platonic. The modern university classroom ain't exactly an olive grove where philosophic friends meet to discuss the true, the good, and the beautiful.
An adjunct is literally employed by the university, not the students, who don't exactly pass the hat to provide the material support a good adjunct needs. The university sets the formal terms of employment (via the contract) and the practical (and intellectual) situation of teeaching. Most signficant about this situation is the admission policies for students, the specific courses that are required, the size of courses and sections, the broader curricululm in its intellectual substance (or lack thereof), and -- as the reply above illustrates -- the popularity ratings of "student evaluations" as the *only* was of assessing an adjunct teacher's merit and performance.
So the adjunct teacher inherits all of the mindless, bureaucratic, utilitarian, trendy organization of current universities and their constituents, but without the minimum of leisure and material security that tenured professors (of whom no one should assume are ispo facto better teachers, better writers, or better minds).
It is fundamentally true, of course, that every adjunct who teaches under these conditions has chosen to accept them. And it's also true that is is just to keep one's promises (to teach, as formally contracted to).
Still, the notion that the conditions under which adjuncts attempt to teach are acceptable, economically and otherwise, and that adjuncts should not try to improve that situation by collective action -- or, more insultingly -- that adjuct work is just punishment for unambitious teachers, is simply unreal. "Higher" education is rife with defects and dishonesty and administrative morass, but individual adjucts, as the sub-janitors, are the very least repsonsible for institutional ills.
JQA
Can not tell if the last section is autobiographical – if so, I feel for you, my friend.
You're very kind – but no, all that text was written by Rachel Riederer, editor of Guernica Daily. I have embedded a link to Guernica Daily in the text, but this website displays links so faintly that I'm not surprised you didn't see it.
What to do about our educational system? Wish I knew. Allegedly we have the best in the world, yet it seems to generate a lot of waste and dissatisfaction.
To focus on one aspect of the problem, universities justifiably value research and publishing. Perhaps less justifiably, they regard the task of teaching undergrads merely as a way to pay the bills. Good teachers may be more common than ground-breaking researchers, so universities are not crazy to tacitly encourage people to specialize, and to reward the scarcer specialty more highly. The plight of adjuncts is merely the fulfillment of this dynamic – except that rather than giving priority to research and publishing, hiring committees are exclusively focused on it. They treat the people who teach undergrads as glorified babysitters, hired by the project, with no expectation of quality short of refraining from hurting anyone.
Where is the push-back from the consumer? Students go to college to gain a credential, the institution's prestige, a four-year adventure away from home, and an education. The education is the hardest part to evaluate; if you haven't received a good education, by what standard would you judge the quality of the education you are receiving? And in any event, by the time a student gets to experience the low quality of the education, she's sufficiently invested as to have little incentive to blow the whistle and leave. So the situation persists, a kind of "Emperor's New Clothes" scenario.
Add to this the fact that much of the cost of universities is borne by the public, through grants and foregone tax revenues, and you have market failure in a box.
Psych 101: A correlation does not imply cause and effect.
Several thoughts here, in no particular order:
1. I advise my students not to take lower level classes with adjuncts, for all the reasons nonbodyreally notes in her post above. You are more likely to get a rigorous education studying with someone who does not have to depend on student evaluations for their continued employment. Of course, many students are perfectly ok with getting an "A" for doing not much work. That is a good plan in the short run, but in the long run bad for the student, but many of them only think about the short term. That goes with being 18, among other things.
2. Not all adjuncts are bad. The woman who teaches con-law at my university is a full partner in the most presigious law firm in town. She has a Ph.D. to go with her J.D., and is a terrific teacher. But she makes considerably more than most of my tenured colleagues from her day job. She teaches because she wants to. In my department, we had a superb teacher, a published scholar, who taught upper division courses in Renaissance/Reformation history. She did this not because she needed the paycheck, but because she wanted to retain a connection with a university. Most adjuncts do not do the kind of work as these two do. But let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater either. Sometimes adjuncts are win-win for everyone involved.
Kevin R. Hardwick
on March 01, 2015 at 01:00:35 am
Continuing from above:
3. At my university--a good teaching university, of the sort that is fairly typical at least in Virginia--we do not hire people who can not teach well. Granted, there are limits to what the hiring process can tell you, and we do on occassion hire people who turn out not to be great teachers. But in my experience, we succeed more often than we fail. This is the experience too of most of my colleagues who teach at universities similar to mine. But teaching is not something one learns in graduate school. Rather, it is learned in the doing. And since we will not hire someone who does not have a track record of teaching success, and who can not demonstrate teaching skill in an actual classroom as part of the on-campus interview, what this tends to mean is that pretty much everyone we hire has some prior experience as an adjunct. Its rare to hire someone directly from graduate school, with no independent teaching experience. We--and our students--clearly benefit from this. In essence, adjuncting is a kind of apprenticeship, in which adjunct professors can acquire valuable job skills. The people damaged by this system, it seems to me, are the ones unable for whatever reason to compete successfully for a tenure track job, and who nonetheless persist in the job for many years.
In my experience--it is partial and anecdotal, so take with a grain of salt--anyone with the intelligence, self-discipline, communication and analytical skills necessary to complete a Ph.D. can, if they choose to do so, transition into another career. The skills possessed by Ph.D.s hold up reasonably well in the non-academic job market. I have known quite a few people who successfully have made this transition--almost always into jobs that pay much better than does university teaching. So the people who become career adjuncts do not do what they do because they lack alternatives.


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CAREERCHOICEGUIDE
Real-World Tested Job Search and Career Planning Strategies
Unusual Job Interview Techniques
Readers share unusual job interview techniques they have experienced and share tips for surviving an unorthodox job interview.
Interview With a Mad Woman!
Roger Parminter
My first interview out of college was with a firm in Chicago that offered internships with guaranteed positions for virtually all applicants. The pay was good, and the company was well respected.
The human resources person - I'll call her Dana - brought in 20 applicants on the same day, at the same time. Once all the applicants had arrived at the prescribed time and stood milling around the waiting area with freshly pressed suits, briefcases and high hopes afoot, Dana comes bursting out of her office, directs everyone to leave the building and meet her at the park across the street.
Confused, we all obliged. Dana beat us over to the park where she already had a number of "props" set up. For the next two hours, we all participated in classic "team building exercises" with other applicants (and competitors) under Dana's watchful eye. Catching tossed eggs, pretending that the grass was lava and we had to get across without touching our feet...
A surprising number of people simply refused to do it and left. Others were so bashful that they waited on the sidelines and watched the others. About ten of the original twenty applicants played along and oddly enough, we had a great time!
You sure get to know someone when you're trying to balance next to them while standing on a 2X4 board!
After it was over, everyone who stuck around and played along was hired on the spot.
Lisa's Response
Roger, I've heard a lot of job interview stories in my day, but yours is definitely at the top of the list of most unusual job interviews.
I experienced a similar job interview when I was in university (a group interview that involved doing several crazy stunts and activities), but unlike your job, mine was for a job as a summer camp counselor, so it wasn't hard to see why they were conducting the interview in that way.
Return to Unusual Job Interview Techniques.
An Unusual Job Interview Technique
It was 1999 and I was interviewing for the assistant manager position at the now defunct "World of Science" toy store chain. At the interview I had mentioned that I was (at the time) a chemistry major, at which time the store manager asked me to wait a minute while she went into the store room. She emerged with a giant plastic volcano (think science fair), handed me $10, and said "I want you to go downstairs to CVS and buy the materials necessary to make this volcano erupt."
A bit stunned, I went to the store and returned with a bag full of goodies (which included alka selzer). The manager said thank you and offered me the job.
"What was the purpose of the volcano?" I asked. She replied "I have interviewed 5 people so far who claimed to be some kind of science major. The other 4 all came back and said 'The girl at the counter didn't know what would make a volcano explode'"
Moral of the story? Pay attention in college!
Dress for the Interview
I had an interview to work as a grounds keeper for a funeral home. The job description was to pick up and clean the grave yard and surrounding area.
I went into the interview in a suit and tie. The manager was wearing overalls and dirty boots.
All of the employees were on break and hanging around the managers office. We did the interview with the door open and his staff interrupting us with silly questions. He asked me when I could start and I told him immediately. He said great, and proceeded to take me on a tour of the grounds.
The first stop was the crematory. He asked if I every saw a body burn before? After that exciting moment, we got into a dump truck and toured the rest of the grounds. He then dropped me off at the garage, told me to grab a shovel.
We went out to a tombstone and re-level it. So, here I am on my interview leveling a tombstone. Once we were done, he asked if I still wanted the job. I said yes. He said, finishing leveling the rest of this row, and then you go home and start again tomorrow!
If I knew I was going to work that day, I would have dressed for it. My advice is to bring a change of clothes to your interview. You never know what can happen.
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Home False Claims-Qui Tam
The Month in Qui Tam Cases (So Far)
Ana Popovich
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The qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act (FCA) allow private citizens to file lawsuits on behalf of the U.S. government if an individual or a company is defrauding the government. If the government is able to make recoveries from an FCA case, the whistleblower in the case can receive a portion of the recovery.
The False Claims Act has one of the strongest whistleblower reward laws in the U.S. Under the FCA's whistleblower reward provision, whistleblowers "are entitled to a minimum payment of 15% and a maximum payment of 30% of the proceeds collected by the government," according to whistleblower law firm Kohn, Kohn and Colapinto (KKC). Additionally, there are no caps on the size of whistleblower awards, meaning that a whistleblower is entitled to any amount of money as a reward based off of the amount of money the government recovers in an enforcement action. "The larger the sanction, the larger the award," KKC's website states. This reward system incentivizes FCA whistleblowers to come forward and report corruption with the best evidence possible.
In the 2020 fiscal year, which ended on September 30, 2020, the Department of Justice (DOJ) "obtained more than $2.2 billion in settlements and judgements from civil cases involving fraud and false claims against the government," the DOJ website reports. This article recaps the qui tam decisions and lawsuits that the DOJ announced this month so far.
Professional Compounding Centers of America Inc.
On November 8, the DOJ made two announcements relating to qui tam cases and the False Claims Act. One press release announced that the Justice Department is filing a complaint under the False Claims Act against Houston-based company Professional Compounding Centers of America Inc. (PCCA). PCCA "sells active pharmaceutical ingredients and other products and services to compounding pharmacies." The DOJ alleges that the company "reported fraudulent and inflated Average Wholesale Prices (AWPs) for its ingredients that bore no relationship to the actual prices at which it sold those ingredients to its pharmacy customers." This alleged activity led the pharmacies "to submit inflated compound prescription claims to TRICARE," which is the federal "health care program for uniformed service members, retirees, and their families around the world," according to the program's website.
The lawsuit against PCCA was originally brought under the FCA's qui tam provisions by whistleblower Peter Hueseman. "Hueseman was formerly a part owner and pharmacist at a pharmacy that purchased compound ingredients from PCCA," the press release states. The qui tam case is titled United States ex rel. Hueseman v. Professional Compounding Centers of America, Inc., No. 5:14-cv-212 (W.D. Tex.). A November 2019 press release reports on settlements with Freedom Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Pharmacy Services Inc., "which were also defendants in this matter." The 2019 press release notes that the qui tam whistleblowers in that case received "a combined total of $3,749,000 plus accrued interest from the proceeds of the settlement."
The DOJ explains that "[c]ompounding pharmacies purchase ingredients for use in compound drugs from ingredient suppliers such as PCCA." Suppliers like PCCA then "establish and report AWPs for their ingredients to pricing compendia used by federal health care programs and commercial health insurance companies." TRICARE partially uses the reported AWP for "each of the ingredients in a compound drug" to calculate the "level of reimbursement for compound prescription claims."
Thus, the complaint alleges that "PCCA knowingly established and reported AWPs for its ingredients that were greatly inflated above their actual selling prices." As an example, the company allegedly sold its "top customers" the chemical Fluticasone Propionate "for between approximately $135 and $197 per gram in 2014, but it reported an AWP for that ingredient of $3,630.90 per gram — approximately 18 to 27 times the actual selling price." The DOJ states that in the same year, PCCA "typically sold the ingredient Resveratrol to its top customers for under $2 per gram but reported an AWP of $818.68 per gram," again a huge increase from the ingredient's real selling price.
PCCA's alleged behavior "caused its pharmacy customers to submit tens of thousands of false and fraudulently inflated compound prescription claims containing PCCA ingredients to TRICARE, costing the program hundreds of millions of dollars in excess reimbursement," the DOJ states. Additionally, the complaint alleges that "PCCA offered additional inducements to pharmacy customers, such as annual all-inclusive travel packages, in exchange for ingredient purchases and purchase commitments."
The press release states that the case is being handled by attorneys from the DOJ's Fraud Section. It also emphasizes the FCA's important role in combating fraud.
Arthrex Inc.
On November 8, the DOJ also announced a settlement with Florida-based medical products company Arthrex Inc. The company agreed to pay $16 million to settle allegations "that it violated the FCA by paying kickbacks that caused the submission of false claims to the Medicare program."
The DOJ reports that Arthrex, a company that "specializes in orthopedic products," allegedly paid "kickbacks to a Colorado-based orthopedic surgeon." According to the settlement, Arthrex is resolving allegations that it "agreed to provide renumeration to the surgeon in the form of royalty payments purportedly for the surgeon's contributions to Arthrex's SutureBridge and SpeedBridge products when the renumeration was in fact intended to induce the surgeon's use and recommendation of Arthrex's products." The DOJ states that this alleged behavior constituted as an Anti-Kickback Statute violation as well as an FCA violation because the alleged actions led to "the submission of false or fraudulent Medicare claims."
As part of the settlement, Arthrex "entered into a five-year corporate integrity agreement with HHS-OIG." The agreement also establishes requirements for "future compliance."
This settlement resolves a qui tam case brought by Joseph Shea, who will receive a whistleblower award of $2.5 million from the FCA settlement.
Medical kickback schemes often erode accountability in the medical industry and system, especially when these schemes take advantage of federal medical programs. Additionally, kickback schemes that defraud federal medical programs also shortchange the recipients of said programs, further breaking down patient trust in the system and negatively affecting public opinion of federal medical programs. Thus, the FCA is an important and effective tool in detecting and combating this type of medical fraud.
kaléo Inc.
On November 9, the DOJ published a press release announcing that Virginia-based pharmaceutical manufacturer kaléo Inc. agreed to pay $12.7 million to resolve allegations that it "caused the submission of false claims for the drug Evzio." Evzio is "an injectable form of naloxone hydrochloride indicated for use to reverse opioid overdose." According to the DOJ, "Evzio was the highest-priced version of naxalone on the market, and insurers frequently required the submission of prior authorization requests before they would approve coverage for Evzio."
The DOJ's lawsuit alleged that between March 14, 2017 and April 30, 2020, kaléo "directed prescribing doctors to send Evzio prescriptions to certain preferred pharmacies." These pharmacies would then submit "false prior authorization requests" for the drug that misrepresented who sent the request and/or "contained false or misleading assertions about the patients' medical histories, such as false statements that patients had previously tried and failed less costly alternatives to Evzio." The DOJ also alleged that these preferred pharmacies would dispense Evzio "without collecting or attempting to collect co-payment obligations from government beneficiaries."
Additionally, the DOJ alleged that kaléo "knew of or deliberately ignored" the pharmacies' misconduct and "provided illegal remuneration to prescribing physicians and their office staff," resulting in violating the Anti-Kickback Statute.
kaléo's civil settlement includes a resolution of claims brought by whistleblower Rebecca Socol, who formerly worked for kaléo. For her role in bringing light to kaléo's alleged actions, Socol will receive $2,548,600. Like the Arthrex settlement, this case displays how misconduct in the medical and healthcare industries harm federal programs but also highlights the importance of the whistleblower's help in bringing attention to the case.
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans
The case the DOJ published a press release about on November 15 concerns the 2005 Hurricane Katrina tragedy. According to the DOJ, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans (Archdiocese of New Orleans) agreed to pay over $1 million "to resolve allegations that it violated the False Claims Act by knowingly submitting false claims for payment to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for the repair or replacement of certain facilities" that experienced damage from the hurricane.
The DOJ alleged that from 2007 through 2013, the Archdiocese of New Orleans "knowingly signed certifications for FEMA funding that contained false or fraudulent damage descriptions and repair estimates that were prepared by AECOM, an architecture and engineering firm." One example of one of these alleged false claims was "purported damage to a nonexistent central air conditioning unit."
This settlement resolves allegations that were originally brought by a whistleblower under the FCA's qui tam provisions. Robert Romero, an AECOM Project Specialist, filed the lawsuit and will receive $199,500 for the settlement with the Archdiocese of New Orleans.
In the press release, several individuals mentioned FEMA's goal to help victims of disaster and the effect of defrauding the program. "Federal disaster funds are an instrumental component in the effort to assist disaster victims with their recovery," said the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana. "The favorable resolution of this False Claims Act matter illustrates the collaborative efforts and firm commitment by our federal partners to use all available remedies to address signs of fraud, waste and abuse."
"Funds fraudulently obtained from FEMA deprive deserving recipients and communities truly in need," added Inspector General Dr. Joseph V. Cuffari for Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General (DHS OIG).
Read more qui tam/FCA news on WNN.
Categories: False Claims-Qui Tam
Tags: False Claims / Qui TamFalse Claims/Qui Tam
Diabetic Shoe Company to Pay $5.5 Million to Settle False Claims Act Allegations; Whistleblower to be Rewarded
By Ana Popovich January 13, 2022
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We went to our archives and created a collection for the month of April!. This pack features vintage stickers from 1986 to 1997! Check out the giant bunny, the opalescent blossoms, colorful jelly beans, pansies and more! Plus each pack will include a special mystery mod!
Please note: These are vintage stickers–they may have variations in color and stickiness due to age.


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Institut für Theoretische Physik
Director of the Institute
Postdoctoral Staff
Bachelor and Master Students
Quantum Effects in Biology
Open Quantum Systems and Control
Diamond Sensors and Simulators
Quantum Many Body Systems and Control
Quantum Information and Entanglement Theory
Quantum Simulations With Trapped Particles
Martin Plenio is selected as Highly Cited Researcher for 2019!
Second ERC Synergy grant for the group
Congratulations to Zhenyu on the birth of his baby girl Qian-Qian!
Julen Pedernales wins the best poster award!
Reinhart Koselleck-Projekt: 1,5 Millionen Euro für "risikobehaftete Forschung"
Congratulations to Ish Dhand for winning a "Foschungsbonus"
Martin Plenio is selected as Highly Cited Researcher again in the 2018!
Congratulations to Joachim on the birth of his baby!
2018 Summer BBQ
Ping pong 2018!
Albert finally comes home!
Congratulations to Ewa on the birth of baby Helena!
Benedikt was awarded for the best presentation by the participants of the QuantumFutur Academy!
Korbinian and Pelayo participated in IQST's Quantum Science Slam
Martin Plenio is listed as Highly Cited Researcher 2017
A 4-year long project bears fruit with a publication in Nature Physics
ITP work is chosen as Editor's Suggestion in PRL
Jorge is a dad!
Work of the group is published in Science
Quantum biology work of the group features in a full page particle in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung
ITP and the Center of QuantumBioSciences is part of newly approved Collaborative Research Center 1279
The work of the Institute was mentioned in The Economist
Congratulations to Jorge Casanova for winning a "Forschungsbonus"!
Two articles from ITP in first issue ever of QST journal
Biologists do not take a quantum physics course during their studies because so far they were able to make sense of biological phenomena without using the counterintuitive quantum laws of physics that govern the atomic scale. However, in recent years progress in experimental technology has revealed that quantum phenomena are relevant for fundamental biological processes such as photosynthesis, magneto-reception and olfaction. We have helped to initiate the development of this research field and are now working to discover how nature is harnessing quantum dynamics to optimize biological function.
S.F. Huelga and M.B. Plenio. Vibrations, Quanta and Biology. Contemporary Physics 54, 181 (2013) and E-print arxiv:1307.3530
Environment assisted biological quantum dynamics: It is remarkable that quantum phenomena can play a role in warm, wet and noisy biological systems. One important reason is that some biologically relevant phenomena take place on rather short timescales that prevent the environment from destroying quantum coherence completely. More interestingly a few years ago we proposed that environmental noise can actually collaborate with quantum dynamics to achieve the best possible efficiency in biological processes. We continue to explore this phenomenon with the aim of uncovering the design principles by which nature has optimized quantum biological function in noisy environments.
M.B. Plenio and S.F. Huelga. Dephasing assisted transport: Quantum networks and bio-molecules. New J. Phys. 10, 113019 (2008)
F. Caruso, A.W. Chin, A. Datta, S.F. Huelga and M.B. Plenio. Highly efficient energy excitation transfer in light-harvesting complexes: The fundamental role of noise-assisted transport. J. Chem. Phys. 131, 105106 (2009)
A.W. Chin, S.F. Huelga and M.B. Plenio. Coherence and Decoherence in Biological System: Principles of Noise Assisted Transport and the origin of Long-lived Coherences. Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. A 370, 3638 (2012)
Environment assisted biological quantum dynamics: Biological environments are not merely creating white noise but do actually possess a complex spectral structure. Indeed, an important aspect of biological environments are vibrations which originate from proteins and embedded molecules. At specific frequencies this vibrational motion can be long-lived and interact in highly non-trivial fashion with electronic motion which we proposed to give rise to fast transport, molecular recognition or long-lived quantum coherence in biological systems.
J. Prior, A.W. Chin, S.F. Huelga and M.B. Plenio. Efficient simulation of strong system-environment interactions. Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 050404 (2010)
A.W. Chin, J. Prior, R. Rosenbach, F. Caycedo-Soler, S.F. Huelga and M.B. Plenio. The role of non-equilibrium vibrational structures in electronic coherence and recoherence in pigment-protein complexes. Nature Physics 9, 113 – 118 (2013)
M. del Rey, A.W. Chin, S.F. Huelga and M.B. Plenio. Exploiting Structured Environments for Efficient Energy Transfer: The Phonon Antenna Mechanism.
J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 4, 903 – 907 (2013)
Environment assisted biological quantum dynamics: Theory in this field needs to be verified by experiment. Indeed, recent advances in nonlinear optical spectroscopy have demonstrated the presence of long-lived quantum coherences in biological systems. These coherences reflect coherent features in biological processes, such as coherent transport and coherent electronic-vibrational (vibronic) coupling. Identification of the microscopic origin of experimentally observed coherences is a key to understanding the role of quantum effects in biological processes. We are studying how different structures of biological environments can be distinguished in experiments with the aim of unraveling the underlying mechanisms in biological processes and applying them to artificial systems.
M.B. Plenio, J. Almeida and S.F. Huelga. Origin of long-lived oscillations in 2D-spectra of a quantum vibronic model: electronic versus vibrational coherence. J. Chem. Phys. 139, 235102 (2013).
J. Lim, D. Paleček, F. Caycedo-Soler, C.N. Lincoln, J. Prior, H.von Berlepsch, S.F. Huelga, M.B. Plenio, D. Zigmantas and J. Hauer. Vibronic origin of long-lived coherence in an artificial molecular light harvester. Nature Communications 6, 7755 (2015).
Delocalization directs absorption: The early steps of photosynthesis involve the excitation of reaction centres (RCs) and light-harvesting (LH) units by light. Historically, the electronic coherence across RCs and LH units has been neglected as it does not play a significant role during the relatively slow energy-transfer steps of the primary process. However, we showed that spatially extended but short-lived excitonic delocalization across RC-LH units plays a relevant role in general photosynthetic systems, as it causes a redistribution of direct absorption towards the charge separation unit. We also contributed to the experimental verification of this effect.
F. Caycedo-Soler, C.A. Schroeder, C. Autenrieth, R. Ghosh, S.F. Huelga and M.B. Plenio. Quantum delocalization directs antenna absorption to photosynthetic reaction centers. E-print arxiv:1504.05470
C.A. Schroeder, F. Caycedo-Soler, S.F. Huelga and M.B. Plenio. Optical signatures of quantum delocalization over extended domains in photosynthetic membranes. E-print arxiv:1505.05485
Avian magneto-reception: It is well established that birds use the earth's magnetic field to navigate during migration. How birds achieve this remarkable feat is a subject of current research. One proposed mechanism for magneto-reception is based on the radical pair mechanism which involves the quantum dynamics of electrons in interaction with their nuclear spin environment. We are exploring this hypothesis theoretically and aim to understand what the principles for the optimal design of such a quantum magnetic compass might be.
J.M. Cai, F. Caruso and M.B. Plenio. Quantum limit for avian magnetoreception: How sensitive can a chemical compass be? Phys. Rev. A Rapid Comm. 85, 040304(R) (2012)
J.M. Cai and M.B. Plenio. Chemical compass for avian magnetoreception as a quantum coherent device.Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 230503 (2013)
Most Recent Papers
Multicolor Quantum Control for Suppressing Ground State Coherences in Two-Dimensional Electronic Spectroscopy, Physical Review Letters, 123, 233201 (2019)
Nanoscale Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy Using a Carbon Nanotube Double Quantum Dot, Physical Review Applied, 12, 054025 (2019)
Exciton transport enhancement across quantum Su-Schrieffer-Heeger lattices with quartic nonlinearity, Physical Review B, 100, 104307 (2019)
Institute of Theoretical Physics
Albert-Einstein-Allee 11
D - 89069 Ulm
Tel: ++49 / 731 / 50 - 22911
Fax: ++49 / 731 / 50 - 22924
Office: Building O25, room 410
Click here if you are interested in applying to the group
Ralf Aurich


text:
, también conocida como Rumble Garanndoll en inglés, es una serie de televisión de anime japonesa original animada por Lerche. Se emitió de octubre a diciembre de 2021. Una novela web titulada Gyakuten Sekai no Denchi Shōjo: Garan Senki de Ukyō Kodachi ha comenzado la serialización en línea a través del sitio web de manga Comic Newtype de Kadokawa Shoten lanzado en diciembre.

Personajes

, Jeremy Herrera (español latino)

, Amanda Hinojosa (español latino)

, Vianney Monroy (español latino)

, Edith González (español latino)

, Víctor Kuri (español latino)

, Gabriela Gris (español latino)

, Sofía Huerta (español latino)

, Karla Tovar (español latino)

, Héctor Estrada (español latino)

, Tania Becerra (español latino)

, Joaquín Rendón (español latino)

, Óscar de la Rosa (español latino)

Contenido de la obra

Manga
Una adaptación de manga con arte de Left Hand comenzó la serialización en línea a través del sitio web de manga Comic Newtype de Kadokawa Shoten el 12 de octubre de 2021. Se ha recopilado en un solo volumen de tankōbon.

Anime
El proyecto de anime original de 12 episodios se reveló el 2 de abril de 2021. Está producido por Lerche y está dirigido por Masaomi Andō y escrito por Makoto Uezu. Akio Watanabe proporciona los diseños de personajes originales, mientras que Keiko Kurosawa adapta los diseños para la animación. Larx Entertainment está produciendo la animación 3DCG, con Daisuke Katō como director de CG. Egg Firm está produciendo la serie. La serie se emitió del 11 de octubre al 27 de diciembre de 2021 en AT-X, Tokyo MX, ytv y BS11. Mia Regina interpretó el tema de apertura "Fever Dreamer", mientras que Aina Suzuki interpretó el tema de cierre "Reverse-Rebirth". Funimation obtuvo la licencia de la serie fuera de Asia. Muse Communication obtuvo la licencia de la serie en el sur y sureste de Asia.

El 22 de octubre de 2021, Funimation anunció que la serie recibió un doblaje en español latino, que se estrenó el 1 de noviembre.

Referencias

Enlaces externos

Anime de 2021
Anime con guion original
Crunchyroll
Manga de 2021
Series de anime basadas en manga
Series de anime realizadas por Lerche
Series de manga
Series de manga publicadas por Kadokawa Shoten
Series dobladas al español en México
Seinen
Webcómics de Japón

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Use this powerful healing symbols for inner equilibrium and healing.
Rebirth of Water: Allow the power of movement in your life. Be calm go with the flow. Wear it on your right wrist to welcome its energy.
This powerful healing symbol helps humanity achieve inner equilibrium by applying the forces of the cosmos: nature and creation.
Be virtuous with your word, don't presuppose, and always strive for personal perfection!
Invoke the power of creation for protection, strength, love, wisdom, joy, grace, beauty and truth!
Allow the power of movement to compel new positive opportunities to enter into your life!


text:
Une prime aux bogues (aussi appelée chasse aux bogues ; en anglais, bug bounty) est un programme de récompenses proposé par de nombreux sites web et développeurs de logiciel qui offre des récompenses aux personnes qui rapportent des bogues, surtout ceux associés à des vulnérabilités. Ces programmes permettent aux développeurs de découvrir et de corriger des bogues avant que les pirates informatiques et le grand public en soient informés, évitant ainsi des abus. Des primes aux bogues ont été mises en place par les sites internets Facebook, Yahoo!, Google, Reddit, et l'entreprise de paiement mobile Square (qui a changé de nom pour Block en 2021).

Historique

La première prime aux bogues fut la création de Jarrett Ridlinghafer alors qu'il travaillait au soutien technique de Netscape Communications Corporation en tant qu'ingénieur.

Netscape encourageait ses employés à dépasser leurs limites et faire ce qui devait être fait pour que le travail soit fini et, au début de l'année 1995, Ridlinghafer a ainsi eu l'idée de la prime aux bogues.

Il s'est rendu compte qu'il y avait de nombreux enthousiastes autour des produits de Netscape, presque des fanatiques, surtout concernant le navigateur Web Mosaic/Netscape/Mozilla. Il a donc commencé à étudier ce phénomène plus en détail et il a découvert que ces fanatiques étaient en réalité des ingénieurs logiciels qui s'occupaient de corriger les bogues du navigateur de leur côté et qui publiaient leurs corrections ou leurs solutions de contournement :
 sur les nouveaux forums qui avaient été lancés par le soutien technique de Netscape afin de permettre une aide par la collaboration (une autre idée de Ridlinghafer durant ses quatre années de travail à Netscape) ;
 sur le site non officiel Netscape U-FAQ où tous les bogues connus et les fonctionnalités du navigateur étaient listés, ainsi que des instructions concernant les solutions de contournement et les correctifs.

Ridlinghafer pensait que l'entreprise devait tirer profit de ces ressources, il a donc écrit une proposition pour le programme de prime aux bogues qu'il a présenté à son superviseur qui lui a suggéré de présenter son projet à la prochaine réunion exécutive de la compagnie.

À la réunion exécutive suivante, à laquelle participaient James Barksdale, Marc Andreessen et les directeurs de chaque département incluant le service d'ingénierie, chaque membre a reçu une copie de la proposition et Ridlinghafer a été invité à présenter son idée à l'équipe exécutive de Netscape.

Toutes les personnes présentes à cette réunion ont été emballées par l'idée, excepté le directeur de l'ingénierie, qui ne voulait pas en entendre parler, pensant que c'était une perte de temps et de ressources. Néanmoins, le reste de l'équipe exécutive est passé outre l'avis du directeur de l'ingénierie et a donné à Ridlinghafer un budget initial de  afin de mettre en place sa proposition. Le programme fut lancé en 1995.

Ce programme a eu tellement de succès qu'il est encore mentionné dans de nombreux ouvrages traitant des succès de Netscape, et de nombreuses organisations (notamment Google) ont affiché sur la page de son programme de prime aux bogues un crédit à mozilla.org.

Programmes notables

Facebook a commencé à payer des chercheurs qui trouvent et rapportent des bogues de sécurité en leur délivrant une carte de crédit customisée White Hat qui peut être rechargée à chaque fois que les chercheurs découvrent de nouveaux défauts. « Les chercheurs qui trouvent des bogues et des améliorations de sécurité sont rares, nous reconnaissons leur travail et nous devons trouver une solution pour les récompenser », a dit Ryan McGeehan, manager de l'équipe sécurité à Facebook, dans une interview à CNET. « Avoir cette carte noire exclusive est une autre façon de les reconnaître. Ils peuvent aller dans une conférence, montrer cette carte et dire J'ai fait un travail spécial pour Facebook. » En 2014, Facebook a décidé d'arrêter de distribuer ces cartes à ses chercheurs.

En , Google a annoncé un changement majeur à son programme de prime aux bogues qui couvrait déjà  de nombreux produits Google. Le changement étendait le programme à une sélection de logiciels libres considérés à haut risque et de bibliothèques logicielles, en priorité celles conçues pour les réseaux informatiques ou pour les fonctionnalités précises des systèmes d'exploitation. Les soumissions qui respectaient les critères de Google étaient éligibles à des récompenses variant de  à .

Dans le même ordre d'idées, Microsoft et Facebook se sont associés en  pour commanditer The Internet Bug Bounty, un programme offrant des récompenses pour des rapports sur des exploits et des bogues concernant une large gamme de logiciels liés à Internet. Dans les logiciels couverts par ce programme, on trouve Adobe Flash, Python, Ruby, PHP, Django, Ruby on Rails, Perl, OpenSSL, Nginx, Apache HTTP Server, et Phabricator. De plus, le programme offre des récompenses pour les exploits concernant les systèmes d'exploitation et les navigateurs fréquemment utilisés.

En Europe, les principaux acteurs sont les français YesWeHack et Yogosha, Intigriti, le néerlandais Zerocopter, tandis qu'au niveau mondial HackerOne est leader .

Pays d'origine des chasseurs de bogues
L'Inde, qui est le second pays au monde avec le plus de chasseurs de bogues, trône au sommet du Programme de prime aux bogues de Facebook avec le plus grand nombre de bogues valides. « Les chercheurs en Russie gagnent le plus en 2013 avec leurs rapports de bogues, recevant une moyenne de 3961 $ pour 38 bogues. L'Inde a le plus de bogues valides, 136 au total, avec une récompense de 1353 $. Les États-Unis ont rapporté 92 problèmes et ont une récompense moyenne de 2272 $. Le Brésil et le Royaume-Uni étaient les troisième et quatrième du classement concernant le volume rapporté, avec respectivement 53 bogues et 40 bogues, et une récompense moyenne de 3792 $ et 2950 $", a rapporté Facebook dans un article.

Incidents
Yahoo! a été sévèrement critiqué pour avoir envoyé des T-shirts Yahoo! comme récompense aux chercheurs en sécurité qui ont trouvé et rapporté des vulnérabilités de Yahoo!, provoquant ce qui a été appelé le T-shirt-gate : , une société testant la sécurité des applications et basée en Suisse, a publié un communiqué disant que Yahoo! offrait  par vulnérabilité (soit le prix d'un t-shirt) en bons d'achat pouvant être utilisés uniquement pour des produits de la marque Yahoo! comme des t-shirts, des tasses et des stylos. Ramses Martinez, directeur de l'équipe de sécurité de Yahoo a déclaré plus tard dans une publication de blogue qu'il était derrière le programme de récompense en bons d'achat et qu'il a dû payer lui-même ces bons. On comprend dans l'interview qu'il n'y avait pas d'arrière pensée, et qu'il souhaitait juste remercier le chasseur de bogues avec plus qu'un simple email. Par réaction, Yahoo! a lancé son nouveau programme de prime aux bogues le  de la même année, permettant aux chercheurs de soumettre les bogues qu'ils ont trouvés et de toucher une récompense entre  et , dépendant de la sévérité des bogues découverts.

Références

Voir aussi

Liens externes
 List of All Bug Bounties & Disclosure Programs
 List of Bug Bounty Programs
 The Internet Bug Bounty
 Google Vulnerability Reward Program
 The History of Bug Bounty Programs
 Le business du Bug Bounty
 The ultimate Bug Bounty List & Disclosure Programs
 Plateforme de bug bounty bounty factory

Sécurité informatique
Sécurité du système d'information


text:
iPod Serial and the iPhone
I have discovered that I am unable to get Advanced Remote mode to work with the iPhone 3G or 3GS. I had been doing all my recent work on Advanced Remote mode with an iPod Photo so as not to put my iPhone through any pain. It was really hard to test before but I wrote an AdvancedRemote_ethernet example sketch (it's in the library in github) to help with that. Recently I spoke with Ben, who is doing some RFID work with a jailbroken iPhone. He could get his iPhone to receive serial commands but not transmit them, and the key for him ended up being the presence of the 500kOhm resistor on pin 21 - without it his app on the iPhone couldn't transmit to the serial port.
Because Ben had been asking me about it, I tried the Advanced Remote mode on my iPhone 3GS and then my wife's 3G. I was surprised to find that the iPhone sees the commands but it sends back a "feedback" response with error 4. The exact same code works perfectly with the old iPod Photo. At first I hoped this was because I'd removed the resistor on pin 21 - which wasn't needed for the iPod Photo - so I put it back, but still no luck. Then I thought that perhaps the iPhone is fussier about the value of the resistor - I was using a 560kOhm and it's supposed to be 500kOhm - so I ordered some 500kOhm resistors from digikey. These arrived yesterday so I swapped the resistor, but I saw the same problem. So it looks like the resistor is needed for applications on an iPhone to be able to transmit serial data, but for the built-in iPod application there needs to be either something more than that or something instead of that.
I know the iPhone is incredibly specific about the inputs it sees before it will charge itself through the dock connector, so I'm guessing there's something like that about it wanting to see something on some other pins before it's willing to be controlled via Advanced Remote mode too. It has to be possible because my car does it with my 3GS, and it's the kind where the car has a separate display and can show track information etc, so it must be using Advanced Remote mode. I may probe the cable that comes with my car if I can find some time.
The Simple Remote mode commands do work with the iPhone though. I wrote a SimpleRemote_ethernet example sketch and was able to go through the menus, change the volume, play/pause, etc. on my 3GS. The initial remote I had in my old car with the Easy button used this approach.


text:
Alston Town Hall is a municipal building in Front Street, Alston, Cumbria, England. The town hall, which is currently used as a public library, is a Grade II listed building.

History
The construction of the building was an initiative by the locally-born industrial chemist, Hugh Lee Pattinson, to create an events venue in the town. It was built and financed by a specially formed company for which he was one of the largest subscribers. The site chosen was a large rectangular piece of land known as the Vicarage Croft, which was donated to the company by the trustees of Greenwich Hospital.

The foundation stone for the new building was laid by Pattinson in 1857. It was designed by Alfred Burdakin Higham of Newcastle upon Tyne in the Gothic Revival style, built in rubble masonry at a cost of £2,000 and completed in 1858. The design involved an asymmetrical main frontage with five bays facing onto Front Street; the third bay from the left was formed by a four-stage clock tower with an arched doorway in the first stage, a two-light mullioned and transomed window in the second stage, a small rectangular window in the third stage and a square turret with clock faces in the fourth stage: the tower was surmounted by a pyramid-shaped roof. The second and fourth bays were gabled and the fourth bay featured a large four-light mullioned and transomed window with tracery: the window was flanked by niches. Internally, the principal rooms were the main assembly hall, a courtroom, facilities for the local mechanics' institute and a reading room.

Following significant population growth, largely associated with the status of Alston as a market town, the area became an rural district with the town hall as its headquarters in 1894. The town hall continued to serve as the headquarters of the rural district council for much of the 20th century, but ceased to be the local seat of government when the enlarged Eden District Council which was formed in 1974.

The building subsequently became home to the local tourist information office and also accommodated a branch of the Trustee Savings Bank until the late 1980s, while the local public library, which had relocated to the Market Place, returned to the town hall in 2008.

See also
 Listed buildings in Alston Moor

Notes

References

Government buildings completed in 1858
City and town halls in Cumbria
Alston, Cumbria
Grade II listed buildings in Cumbria


text:
ALONE TOGETHER: A MEMOIR
by Bexar Blum
"Alone Together invites the Big Questions: What parts of ourselves are worth sacrificing to love? Will God save us? Why is it so hard to find comfort? In these pages Blum exam...
"Alone Together invites the Big Questions: What parts of ourselves are worth sacrificing to love? Will God save us? Why is it so hard to find comfort? In these pages Blum examines the weird stage of the human, unpacking its possibility and disappointment with tender detachment."- Tatiana Ryckman, author of The Ancestry of Objects
"In Bexar Blum's Alone Together, the one body we enter and leave this world with becomes a humble instrument of hope on which they play a smoldering song about intimacy, faith, and healing." - Tomás Q. Morín, author of Let Me Count the Way
Publishing date: December 3, 2021
Paperback: 124 pages
Dimensions  :  6 x 0.3 x 9 inches
Bexar Blum is passionate about community and ethics. They studied English and Spanish at Texas State University. No, they do not want to cuddle you, but they support you finding people who do.


One of the more intriguing home openers this week in baseball will take place Friday at Chicago's Wrigley Field, the fabled ballpark that this year turns 100 years of age.
Originally built for the Chicago ChiFeds of the short-lived Federal League, and later assumed by the Cubs in 1916, Wrigley remains pretty much the same as it was since it was built, having of course been updated with enlarged seating capacity and electronics. It has been called everything from the "Peter Pan of a ballpark" to, more lately, a "dump." Charming or decrepit, it can't be said it's hardly unusual with its ivied brick outfield walls and upscale knothole views on from the residential rooftops across the street.
Wrigley has the distinction of being the first National League park to draw a million fans (1927), the first ballpark to use an organ (1941) and, as everyone well knows, the last to install lights for night games in 1988.
Despite the fact that the Cubs have still yet to win a World Series since residing at Wrigley, the Friendly Confines have seen more than its fair share of baseball history. What follows are, in our opinion, the ten most memorable moments in Wrigley Field history.
10. No-Hitter as Disappointment. On September 3, 1972, the Cubs' Milt Pappas is an out away from a perfect game and has a 0-2 count on San Diego pinch-hitter Larry Stahl. But he draws the count full and then fires a fastball that umpire Bruce Froemming—in his second of 37 years umpiring—calls just outside the strike zone for a walk. Pappas walks off the mound and barks at Froemming before settling for the no-hitter.
9. The Sandberg Game. Chicago second baseman Ryne Sandberg establishes himself as a MVP force to be reckoned with on June 23, 1984 as he demolishes the rival St. Louis Cardinals with five hits and seven RBIs. What makes the day special is how Sandberg does it; after the Cubs trail by as much as six runs, he ties the game with a homer in the ninth and ties it again in the tenth with his second blast before the Cubs finally win it in eleven innings, 12-11. It's a seminal victory for a Cubs team that will go on to make a rare postseason appearance.
8. A Curse is Born. The Cubs enter Game Four of the 1945 World Series up two games to one over Detroit, but not among those in the sellout crowd at Wrigley that day is William Sianis, owner of a Greek restaurant who tries to bring in his billy goat. Denied, he angrily replies, "Cubs, not gonna win no more." The Cubs would lose three of the next four games and the series to the Tigers; they have yet to return to the Fall Classic.
7. Striking Out His Age. Kerry Wood, a 20-year-old rookie who has shown nothing in his first four major league appearances for the Cubs, blindsides the visiting Houston Astros on May 6, 1998 with a performance for the ages; the Texan native fires a two-hit shutout and becomes only the second pitcher (after Roger Clemens in 1986) to strike out 20 batters in a nine-inning game.
6. Streakin' to the Pennant. The Cubs clinch the 1935 NL pennant and extend their winning streak to 21—the longest pure (no ties) run in major league history—with a doubleheader sweep of the Cardinals. Bill Lee wins his 20th game of the year in the first contest, outdueling Dizzy Dean; the Cubs win their 100th on the year in the nightcap by rallying late after trailing, 3-0.
4. Let There be Lights. Wrigley was originally going to install lights in the early 1940s, but World War II got in the way; the Cubs remained exclusive to daylight for nearly another 50 years, and after continuous armwrestling with local residents were finally able to go bright at night on August 8, 1988 with pregame pomp and ceremony befitting of an All-Star game. Then Mother Nature ruined it all; a heavy thunderstorm rolled through and brought a halt to the game in the fourth inning with the Cubs leading Philadelphia, 3-1. The "official" first night game was played in its entirety a day later, with the Cubs beating the New York Mets, 6-4.
3. The Homer in the Gloamin'. On September 28, 1938, Gabby Hartnett hits the greatest home run no one ever saw when he belts one deep over the Wrigley wall in evolving darkness to break a 5-5 ninth-inning tie, delivering victory and an emotional crush upon the visiting Pittsburgh Pirates, who won't recover and concedes the NL pennant to Chicago after holding a 6.5-game cushion over the Cubs just weeks earlier.
2. The Called Shot. Even more legendary than Hartnett's homer is the one deposited at Wrigley by Babe Ruth six years earlier, which he calls by pointing to the center-field fence just before Cubs pitcher Charlie Root fires away…or did Ruth call it? Even today, debate over the topic still rages. One thing's for sure: Ruth's homer is an unmistakable blast considered one of the longest ever hit at Wrigley, and it ignites the New York Yankees to a 7-5 victory in Game Three of a 1932 World Series they would sweep over Chicago.
If you think this week's agreement by Major League Baseball and the players' union to lengthen PED penalties will deter those taking them—and if the players' guesses per an ESPN poll (below) is accurate, 10% of the big league workforce is juiced up—think again. Such PED users may have given pause to the extended suspension numbers—80 games for a first offense, 162 for a second and a lifetime ban for a third—but probably shook it off when, over the next few days, they heard these numbers: $292 million and $144 million.
Those last two figures are what Miguel Cabrera and Mike Trout, respectively, will receive per record-setting extensions signed this past week. Cabrera's deal is the biggest for any player in any sport, ever; Trout's is easily the largest for a player with only two full years of service to vouch for, and it's backended to the point that Trout will earn over $34 million in each of his final two years of the deal, the most currently guaranteed to any one player.
We've said, time and time again, that the only way to completely rid baseball of steroids is zero tolerance: An effective lifetime ban on the first offense. The reward of tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars the juicers can receive if uncaught is certainly worth the risk; when the alternative is making a minimum salary of $500k or, worse, minimum-wage minor league income, the allure of PEDs is particularly attractive. That's even more so now with the mega-extensions given to Cabrera and Trout. Granted, these are arguably baseball's two best players, but there's no denying that the numbers they'll get will raise salary levels—and thus, the temptation of PEDs—for the lesser players.
The teeth given to the new anti-PED process has gotten a bit sharper. Avoiding detection will become a riskier business for any doper; MLB will more than double the number of urine tests, and blood tests for Human Growth Hormone (HGH) will also increase. And for the first time, MLB will unleash a gizmo called Carbon Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometry (IRMS) that is said to be more accurate in detecting HGH in blood samples.
Here's an interesting new wrinkle in the rules: It's now decreed that any player who tests positive for PEDs during the year will automatically be banned from playing in the postseason should his team make it—even if his suspension has already lapsed by October. At first thought, it seems eye-opening that the union would allow that, but then one must think how upset the clean players were to see Biogenesis users Jhonny Peralta and Nelson Cruz participating in the playoffs last season.
Just days before the tougher PED penalties were agreed to, Tampa Bay pitcher Alex Colome became the second major leaguer—and the second guy named Alex—to be punished this year for PED use, getting docked 50 games for using a drug usually administered to horses. Perhaps this will give him a better shot at winning the Kentucky Derby.
Colome was slated to begin his season in the minors, so this is not crippling for the Rays. The question is: If MLB had discovered that he tested positive after the amended rules were announced, even if the test was done before, would he have been given 50 games or the revised 80?
A week before the start of the regular season, members of the media were given a tour of the "War Room" or MLB's video replay center, where every questionable call challenged by managers will be looked over by rotating umpires and technicians at their side. Judging from the pictures, the center is a dizzying mosaic of monitors big and small, an overall makeup even Lucius Fox with his massive array of NSA-like surveillance screens in The Dark Knight would have impressed.
Behind this gluttonous use of hi-tech energy lies the essence of its existence: Getting the calls right. It seems much ado about something that could be simpler—such as TGG's method of comprehensive video review that we spelled out nearly four years ago.
The warts in MLB's process are apparent as you read the take of Yahoo's Jeff Passan.
Managers who are burdened with the challenges, for instance, will need to study the rules regarding how long they have to make the decision to call for a review depending on the situation, all to avoid potential abuse via delay of the process. It's a whole new set of bylaws for which the managers, who have enough on their mental plates already, will have to review and recall. Using our method—with the review team in a booth above the field calling for the challenges—the managers can tend to their usual business, with potential controversies avoided.
Baseball is hoping that the average review falls in the area of 60-90 seconds—but that doesn't count the time spent on the field where the manager calls for the review and the umpires walk over to grab the headset. All told, the average replay in spring training has been around two-plus minutes. Our method easily allows for a maximum stoppage of 60 seconds to avoid disrupting the flow of the game—and lengthening it as a result.
Passan writes: "Each team has its own video suite in every stadium, manned by a video coordinator or coach, to help inform the manager whether he should use his challenge." What a waste of space, manpower and time that again burdens the team and its manager.
Passan, again: "On busy nights, umpires will watch two games at a time." TGG believes it's almost essential that one group of reviewers is there, at the game—one game—feeling the flow and understanding better the context of the moments in question. We previously warned of the potential for a logjam in the War Room in which too few review officials are overwhelmed by too many reviews at once.
There's one thing we should also note about the replay rules we had previously misreported. Originally we said the manager would get as many challenges as he wanted so long as they were successful. That's part true; if a challenge is upheld, you do lose your privilege to challenge again. But if you win the first challenge, you only get one left, period. Quotas, grrr.
The brave new world of comprehensive replay, for better or for worse, is upon us. The growing pains are inherent, of course. Nothing is perfect. But MLB's method is far from it. We said last summer when all of this was unveiled for the first time that baseball will be wishing a year later that they hadn't gone forward with their idea of video review. We still stand by that.
Let's see who's wrong by August.
Spring training broke up from its Florida and Arizona bases with teams playing their final tune-ups either at home or in neutral sites such as San Antonio…and Montreal, where the Toronto Blue Jays and New York Mets played the first major league games of any kind since the Expos exited to Washington at the end of 2004.
The energy stored up over a decade was palpable for the 96,000 fans who showed up at Olympic Stadium, the Expos' maligned old home. Many attended wearing Expos flair and showed enormous enthusiasm—alas, too much for one second-deck fan in the first game who helped rouse the crowd into a wave by foolishly standing atop a railing on the first row and losing his balance, falling 40 feet down to the first level; at upload time, the unidentified man, 40 years of age, was in critical condition.
On the field, the past was not forgotten as Expos heritage was celebrated before each game. On Friday, there was a tribute for the late Gary Carter, the Hall-of-Fame catcher who proved to be one of the most popular to wear a Montreal uniform; on Saturday, the bulk of the snake-bitten 1994 Expos, the low-budget wonder who looked to be honing in on the World Series before the players' strike cancelled it, showed up and were feted.
The raucous atmosphere proved a solid audition in Montreal's bid to get back into the MLB sphere. There currently is a grass-roots effort in town to generate interest and brink big league baseball back, and this two-game series justified the movement. Now it's up to someone in baseball to give serious thought north of the border. Can you say "Rays" in French?
An ESPN poll surveying 143 current major leaguers—that's 19% of the total workforce—revealed some interesting tidbits. Among the data: Half of the respondents want Alex Rodriguez kicked out of the players' union; 80% say they're "ready" for an openly gay teammate; 44% say that the New York Yankees are the most overhyped team, while 23% believe the Oakland A's are the most underrated; Washington's Bryce Harper is considered the most overrated player, edging out Rodriguez and Los Angeles' Yasiel Puig; believe that nearly 10% of all players are still using some form of illegal performance enhancement; and while the vast majority is against a salary cap, a surprisingly more-than-zero amount of 6% believe it's a good thing.
As for which teams they think will win the World Series, 19% of the vote went to St. Louis, followed by 18% for Detroit, 15% for the Dodgers, 11% for Boston, and 7% each for Washington and (despite all the injuries) Atlanta.
According to figures researched by the Associated Press, the Dodgers will have baseball's highest payroll at $235 million—ending a 16-year run by the Yankees, who check in at $203 million. Those two are followed on the list by Philadelphia—saddled with a number of bloated contracts to aging players—at $180 million, the defending world champion Boston Red Sox at $163 million and Detroit at $162 million. Bringing up the rear are the Houston Astros—whose $45 million payroll is still a huge bump up from last year's miniscule $18 million figure—and the Miami Marlins, who will pay their players a collective total of $48 million.
Los Angeles will also field the player receiving the biggest paycheck this season, and that's pitcher Zack Greinke, who'll earn $24 million in salary and prorated signing bonuses according to the AP. Greinke temporarily replaces Rodriguez, who would have grossed $25 million had he not been suspended for the year.
If you're in San Francisco and bouncing about following the Giants' home opener on April 8, come to the historic Ferry Building and Book Passage for a book signing and chat with author-illustrator Ed Attanasio and designer-writer Eric Gouldsberry—the two guys who just happen to also be This Great Game—starting at 6:00 p.m. The book, of course, is Bushers: Ballplayers Drawn From Left Field, but a little TGG will be spoken as well. Hope to see you all there!
In a week with many polls like the ESPN one above also came this one from Money Magazine naming the World's 50 Greatest Leaders. Number One was the Pope. Among those following him in the top ten were German chancellor Angela Merkel, Warren Buffet, Bill Clinton, rock star Bono, the Dalai Lama and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. Guess who just missed the cut for the top ten at no. 11? Derek Jeter.
A week after lashing a line drive off the face of Cincinnati closer Aroldis Chapman, Kansas City's Salvador Perez got beaned in a Cactus League game against San Diego. Unlike Chapman, who won't pitch until at least May, Perez survived without major injury.
Miami Marlins president David Samson gave a public plea to his players and coaches to speed things up at Marlins Park, throwing out an average game time target of two hours and 40 minutes—15 minutes quicker than the ballpark with the fastest average time last year, at Toronto's Rogers Centre. After all, you don't want to depress the Miami fans any longer than you have to.
The games aren't the only things in need of being sped up. Boston's Shane Victorino said this past week that the Red Sox—and other major league teams—are being instructed to limit the time of "walkup" music that audibly escorts a player to the plate to no more than 15 seconds. This doesn't sit well with Victorino, whose signature walkup of Bob Marley's Three Little Birds usually needs 20 seconds to relay its full effect. It does sit well with us, however; call us traditional purist lackies, but we'll take the classic ballpark organ over the bass-shaking rock and rap cuts—as easygoing as Three Little Birds is.
The Yankees lost the game to the Senators, 5-3. Ruth was 0-for-2 with a walk before being removed late in the game; the winning pitcher for Washington was 37-year-old Walter Johnson, on his way to his 12th and final 20-win campaign.
How money-conscious is agent Scott Boras? He even wants a cut of contracts from players he doesn't represent. When Boras repped outfielder Carlos Beltran, he threw in a clause that called for him to receive 5% of any future contract if Beltran "prematurely terminated" him. That's exactly what Beltran did, and Boras wanted that 5% when the All-Star signed with St. Louis in 2012 through a different agent. Beltran filed a grievance against Boras and won.
When it comes to baseball, Vin Scully has seen it all—and you can say he's now felt some of it as well. During Friday's exhibition game at Dodger Stadium between the Dodgers and Angels, Scully was working the Dodgers' TV broadcast when a 5.1 earthquake shook up the Los Angeles area. You can see the camera shaking as the quake takes place, and you can hear the crowd roar (but not panic); Scully himself seems hardly shaken, calmly describing the "tremor" he had just felt in the press box.
According to baseballsavant.com, the Seattle Mariners will travel farther than any other major league team this year, at 51,540 miles. The Mariners perennially top this list thanks to its proximity—or lack thereof—to every other MLB town; the nearest one is Oakland, 700 miles away. Not even Los Angeles or Arizona will travel as much in the air this season even when counting in their marathon flights to and from Australia. Who travels the fewest miles, you may ask? Try the Chicago Cubs, who will add 22,969 miles to the odometer in 2014.
Nice to see that some teams' promotion spots reference the controversies of yesteryear. Check out this ad for the Minnesota Twins in which former first baseman Kent Hrbek uses the team mascot to teach current players how to knock opponents off the bag, as he infamously did to Atlanta's Ron Gant in the Twins' seven-game World Series triumph over the Braves in 1991.
"Dice-KKK off to a quick start. He strikes out the side in the 1st inning." —The New York Mets. Our question: Was there Kevlar protection under the pointed white cap Daisuke Matsuzaka was apparently wearing?
It's a new season with fresh hopes—and fresh aches for those who'll miss Opening Day and beyond. Among those entering the House of Pain is Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw, making his first-ever DL appearance with a bad back; Cleveland outfielder Michael Bourn (hamstring), Texas pitching ace Yu Darvish (neck) and catcher Geovany Soto (torn meniscus, out three months); Washington starting pitcher Doug Fister (back); San Francisco second baseman Marco Scutaro (back) and reliever Jeremy Affeldt (knee); Boston reliever Craig Breslow (shoulder); and top major league prospect Byron Buxton, whose wrist will keep him from starting the year with Minnesota's Class-AA team.
Meanwhile, two more pitchers appear headed for Tommy John surgery: Arizona reliever David Hernandez and Atlanta reliever Cory Gearrin.
Our next edition of the Comebacker will go into full in-season mode with our weekly picks for our Best and Worst of the Week and our day-by-day review of major league action. All that, plus our usual notes like those above.
Our review of the week's best and worst hitters, pitchers and teams returns next week as the 2014 regular season gets underway in full.
Who will reign as the best, worst and most surprising baseball teams for the upcoming 2014 season? Let Eric, Ed and a few Bushers tell you all about it.
After two years of internal misery, the Boston Red Sox come together and give an emotional lift to a wounded city with an inspirational championship effort.
Eddie Bockman discusses his four years in the majors with the Yankees and Indians, and life as a player-manager in the Pacific Coast League.
Trying to maintain an elite level of baseball excellence proved most difficult for these ten MVP winners, whose performance hit the skids just a year after earning the big prize.


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During the 1991–92 English football season, Sunderland A.F.C. competed in the Football League Second Division.

Season summary
In the 1991–92 season, Sunderland subsequently struggled in the Second Division. However, in that season, the Black Cats embarked on a run leading to the FA Cup final, where they lost 2–0 to Liverpool, They had previously beaten Chelsea in a quarter-final replay. Smith had quit as manager during the season, and was replaced by his assistant Malcolm Crosby.

Final league table

Results
Sunderland's score comes first

Legend

Football League Second Division

FA Cup

League Cup

Players

First-team squad
Squad at end of season

Left club during season

References

Notes

Sunderland A.F.C. seasons
Sunderland


Despite a gradually slowing economy, India is likely to see a rise in consumption expenditure of four times to reach $4 trillion by 2025, according to a report released on Tuesday by the Boston Consulting Group's (BCG) Center for Customer Insight (CCI). The report called The New Indian: The Many Facets of a Changing Consumer states that nominal year-over-year expenditure growth of 12 percent is more than double the anticipated global rate of 5 percent and will make India the third-largest consumer market by 2025.
In terms of spending, the two top categories – elite and affluent – will become the largest combined segment by 2025, and will account for 40 percent of consumption compared to 27 percent in 2016. "By 2025, wealthy urbanites will be responsible for one-third of total consumption," the report says.
According to the study, the shape of the growth will be led by the following factors: Emerging cities (those with populations of less than 1 million) will be the fastest growing and will constitute one-third of total consumer spending by 2025; three-fourths of all households will be nuclear families and from the financial spending side, digital channels will influence 30-35 percent of all retail sales by 2025 and 8-10 percent of retail spending will be online.
India's economy, which is domestic consumption demand-led, is quite insulated at this stage, experts Forbes India have spoken to say. Earlier this month, official data showed that India's economy grew by 7 percent in the October to December 2016 quarter, beating most expectations, when it was assumed that the impact of demonetisation would be most felt. The government has also kept the full year forecast for the economy unchanged at 7.1 percent.
The report researches extensively into India's growing urbanisation and the impact it will have on expenditure and incomes. About 40 percent of India's population will be living in urban areas by 2025, and city dwellers will account for more than 60 percent of consumption. "Expenditures in these cities are already rising by nearly 14 percent a year, while consumer spending in India's biggest cities is increasing at about 12 percent a year," the report says.
BCG in its report also said digital spending would be on the rise. "Digitally influenced spending is currently at about $45 to $50 billion a year [worth]. This figure will increase tenfold to $500 to $550 million – and account for 30-35 percent of all retail sales – by 2025," the report says.


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"Site under" è una tecnica pubblicitaria per il web che sfrutta lo stesso principio del pop under: a differenza del pop-up, la pubblicità si apre sotto la pagina correntemente visualizzata (oppure in una diversa scheda) e viene quindi visualizzata solo nel momento in cui un utente chiude la pagina.

Questo offre il vantaggio di evitare di interrompere l'esperienza di navigazione dell'utente.

Tuttavia può anche essere usato per impedire di capire da quale pagina sia stata aperta, dato che l'utente potrebbe aver navigato diversi siti prima di chiudere la finestra principale.

Si distingue dalla tecnica pop under per il fatto che viene mostrato un intero sito (solitamente il sito del committente della pubblicità) anziché un semplice banner.

Tab up e tab under

Aree cliccabili nascoste
Per fare in modo che l'utente faccia click su un'area che aprirà il messaggio pubblicitario (tab up, un tab under, un site up, un site under, o un popup), alcuni siti fanno in modo che esso lo faccia senza volerlo. Esempio su un video in un sito di streaming:

Le tecniche CSS più utilizzate per nascondere i link che portano a pagine, tab o siti pubblicitari:
pubblicità

pubblicità

pubblicità

h1 {
  display: none;
}
div {
  visibility: hidden;
}
h2 {
    overflow: hidden;
}
img {
  opacity: 0.0;
}Dopo uno o più click dell'utente sulle aree cliccabili, tramite degli script (solitamente in JavaScript) esse scompaiono per permettere all'utente di cliccare i tasti del video play, volume, tutto-schermo, ecc.$(document).mouseup(function(e)
{
    var container = $("pubblicità");

    if (!container.is(e.target) && container.has(e.target).length === 0)
    {
        container.hide();
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});Un'altra tecnica è coprire il video con un'immagine trasparente della stessa dimensione (GIF, PNG o JPG con opacità "0") e inserire su essa delle aree shapes cliccabili e invisibili, in modo che l'utente creda di cliccare ad esempio "play" e invece clicca l'area cliccabile che lo porterà al messaggio pubblicitario.

<map id="pubblicita" name="pubblicita">
<area shape="rect" coords="0,0,82,126" alt="Sun" href="sun.htm">
<area shape="circle" coords="90,58,3" alt="Mercury" href="mercur.htm">
<area shape="circle" coords="124,58,8" alt="Venus" href="venus.htm">
</map>
Generi di pubblicità
Sito web


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Irish motorists leave €816,000 in cash sitting at toll booths by overpaying for car journeys and not taking change
Operators of nine of the country's busiest roads collected €173,000 in excess tolls even after the cost of toll evasion was factored in
Ken Foxe
(Image: Colin Keegan/Collins)
Irish motorists have left €816,000 in cash sitting at toll booths by overpaying for their car journey and not taking their change.
Figures from Transport Infrastructure Ireland reveal that "excess tolls" collected during 2020 came to a total of €429,000, compared to the €392,000 which was logged in unpaid tolls.
And data for January to October last year shows that €387,000 was collected in overpaid tolls against just €251,000 lost to motorists evading charges.
Taken together, the data shows that operators of nine of the country's busiest roads collected €173,000 in excess tolls … even after the cost of toll evasion was factored in.
The most lucrative road for excess tolls was the M1 motorway, connecting Dublin to Dundalk with €143,000 left at the toll gates by drivers between January 2020 and October 2021.
It was followed by the M7/M8 toll plazas in Co Laois, where a combined €120,000 was paid out by drivers in excess tolls.
Next on the list was the M3 toll in Co Meath, where overpaid tolls totalled €112,000, according to the records from Transport Infrastructure Ireland.
Other excess toll tallies included the M4 between Kilcock and Kinnegad at €104,000, the M8 in Cork at €89,000, the Limerick Tunnel at €96,000, the Waterford Bypass at €86,000, and the Dublin Port Tunnel at €36,000.
The toll plaza at the Dublin Port Tunnel (Image: Colin Keegan/Collins)
Unpaid tolls on all nine roads totalled €643,000; however, Transport Infrastructure Ireland did not provide a breakdown of which roads were most affected.
Major change on roads from January as toll charges set to rise - including the M50
Can a speed van catch you from the opposite side of the road? All the details and myths explained
They said this would compromise their ability to target those responsible, particularly drivers that repeatedly evade the charges.
There were no excess tolls collected on the country's busiest motorway, the M50 around Dublin, where a barrier-free system is in operation.
Transport Infrastructure Ireland said toll revenue collected on the M50 came to €123.78 million in 2020, with a bad debt charge of €3.35 million for unpaid charges and evasion.
In the first 10 months of last year, a total of €111.68 million was collected on the capital's ring road with bad debt listed as €3.43 million.
An information note said: "Cash or coin collection does not arise on the M50 eFlow system."
Transport Infrastructure Ireland said all the other nine roads charging tolls offered at least one booth or lane where change was provided to motorists on a 24/7 basis.
Rules of the road you may not know about making a U turn, pulling in and beeping the horn
The 9 biggest fines Irish motorists face for breaking rules of the road with penalties reaching €20,000
Figures provided by them under FOI show that the M1 between Dublin and Belfast saw toll revenue collected of €26.1 million between January and October 2021.
Of that, 20.2% was paid in cash, 11.1% by credit or debit card, and more than two-thirds – or 68.6% - of tolls were paid through electronic tolling cards, or other similar systems.
Other roads were far more dependent on cash payments however, with 36.2% of all payments on the Limerick Tunnel made through cash.
A cash payment rate of just above 30% was also logged on the M8 motorway, which links Cork to the M7/M8 interchange in Co Laois.
On the M50, almost 69% of all tolls collected last year were through an electronic toll card or tag, while 16.5% were processed via a video registration system.
Another 14.6% of drivers using the road were unregistered, meaning the motorists had to later log on and make payment for their journey.
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What are the changes coming to Dublin's M50? Motorway to be 'managed' with new speed limit rules
Calls for motorway operators to donate 'unearned cash' from road tolls to charity


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Category: Startups News
Theranos founder Holmes' lawyers claim profane chants in company meetings are 'normal'
Federal prosecutors plan to have witnesses tell jurors in the upcoming fraud trial of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes that in company meetings she uttered profane chants about a competing business and a Wall Street Journal reporter, her lawyers noted in a court filing. That kind of behavior is "normal," her legal team argued. Holmes, who […]
Bay Area startup wants to make it easier for H-1B holders, recent immigrants to open a checking account
When Rohit Mittal first came to the U.S. a decade ago, he didn't even have a checking account to his name — at least, not an American one. As a student from India, he had to pay everything with cash and traveler's checks for at least a week while he got the paperwork he needed from […]
This Bay Area startup wants to turn your windows into solar panels
By Rishi Iyengar | CNN Business What if every window in your house could generate electricity? One Redwood City, California-based startup thinks its technology can achieve that by transforming the way solar power is collected and harnessed. Ubiquitous Energy has developed transparent solar cells to create its ClearView Power windows, a kind of "solar glass" […]
Northern California startup could revolutionize how we find parking
For entrepreneurs Mathew Magno and Charles Chen their Friday consisted of talking with a mail carrier about packages that were too heavy to be delivered through the mailbox, putting trash toters on the street outside their home in Woodland's southeast area. But in the coming months, the UC Davis graduates could be negotiating contracts with […]
Why tech has been slow to fight California wildfires, extreme weather
By RACHEL LERMAN | The Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO — For two years running , California's wildfires have sent plumes of smoke across Silicon Valley. So far, that hasn't spurred much tech innovation aimed at addressing extreme-weather disasters associated with climate change. It's true that tech companies from enterprise software-maker Salesforce to financial-technology firm Stripe […]
Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes slams prosecutors' delay
A plea by federal prosecutors for more time to produce court-ordered evidence in the criminal case against Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes was slammed Monday by Holmes' legal team as an "unworkable" delay that would harm her defense. At issue are documents and other materials from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that Holmes, through her […]
Electric moped rentals now available in Oakland
OAKLAND — The latest tech firm to offer smartphone-backed transportation in Oakland made its debut Friday, as the moped rental startup Revel began depositing a fleet of Vespa-style electric motorcycles on the city's streets. The company plans to roll out 1,000 of its black and baby blue mopeds — which have a top speed of […]
Scooter not enough for you? You could rent an electric moped in Oakland 'very soon'
OAKLAND — If you love zipping around Oakland on an electric scooter, but want something with a little more power, keep your eye out for sleek black and baby blue mopeds that could soon show up on the city's streets. Revel, a New York-based tech startup that rents Vespa-like electric motorcycles to riders through a […]
The plan to turn your car into a virtual ATM
By Alastair Marsh | Bloomberg Chris Ballinger came away from a year of crunching numbers at Toyota Motor Corp.'s Silicon Valley skunkworks convinced that his dream of automotive automation was no more fanciful than his bosses' ambition to make a vehicle that can drive itself. So the former derivatives trader who spent 14 months as […]
Blood-from-the-young startup is back to juicing up the old despite FDA warning
Despite a Food and Drug Administration public warning that draining blood from young folk and infusing it into older people might be harmful, startup Ambrosia says it has resumed doing just that. The enterprise earlier this year stopped selling young blood by the liter to old people and filling them up with it, immediately after […]