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The challenge of designing culturally
At the crossroads of globalisation and urbanisation, how can we continue to evoke identity through allusions in modern design and construction?
In his seminal book "Leaves of the Same Tree: Trade and Ethnicity in the Straits of Melaka", Professor Leonard Andaya paints a picture that reaches out in time, beyond the confines of the present geographical boundaries of nations. The memory of lands bordering the Straits of Melaka—known as lands within the Sea of 'Malayu'—were rich and 'rhizomic' in expression, filled with multicultural crisscrossing of forces.
For centuries, this Southeast Asian region was a dynamically-charged field in which traders from China, India and the Middle East met and exchanged goods, services and cultural ideas.
Each ethnicity, race and group had their role and place, yet they were able to sustain their own identity amid a system of mutual benefits. Then, art and architecture co-existed, collided and criss-crossed with one another in varied syncretic forms of expression. Syncretism refers to two different cultures, beliefs and sets of principles and forms fusing and grafting onto each other, breeding new visions, patterns and forms, including its own identity.
At the epicentre of the region, Malaysia and its settlements, populations and urban centres have historically been a cultural quagmire of influences, with its own forms of tensions and hybridity. In the early 1900s, for example, local timber masonry designs appear to offshoot from each other into different forms, yet they support and sustain one another as they grow from the same 'root'.
A city, with its forms and language, should forge its own pathway and find its own identity by enculturating from its own ancient past.
Water, steps, columns and trees are some of the kampung elements that can be used to create interstitial spaces in the city
IDENTITY CROSSROADS
As Asia as a region urbanises, we arrive at a crossroads in which global forces threaten our rich and distinctive identities. The speed of modernisation and urbanisation seems to outpace the region's socio-cultural frameworks of thoughts and ideas and the evolution of social ideas and local movements.
In terms of architectural landscape, such trends are ever more evident. Our cities are increasingly shaped by global trends and forces, instead of local values. We no longer see architecture and the applied arts as a form of resistance. We become prone to homogeneity as a result of globalisation.
We surrender to external forces that overwhelm any internal resistance, including identity-making. If cities in this region are not seen to enculturate— to learn the traditional content of a culture and assimilate its practices and values—how then do we move forward? A city, with its forms and language, should forge its own pathway and find its own identity by enculturating from its own ancient past.
A return to sense and sustainability, through critical interpretation and infusion of cultural forms and vocabulary—the Malay vernacular, which arise from our local context—is crucial to create alternatives to faceless cubes and shoebox-like buildings.
The mute flushed façade that veers towards the sleek silent box can be embraced, yet there must be an enculturation through evoking references to a region that is rich in traditions, details and expressions of culture. The local is synonymous with the Green—both movements are rooted in the same soil, in which sustainability means a return to the ethics and values of the past, and should be more than speckles of greenery or elements that appear as afterthoughts.
Culture is a key driver of urban growth, enabling cities to compete yet forge increasingly global connections. Culture allows the region to distinguish cities and generate distinctive place identities amid a globalising world.
A contemporary youth cultural centre with imageries of past traditions of Kelantan
RESILIENCE OF TRADITION
To propose the idea of rootedness in Asia, the growth of a style must begin with its roots in order not to end up merely cosmetically transmuting or regurgitating the West. It must go deep, unearthing timeless and enduring principles and recalling more generic archetypes from the deep layers of history and a wide range of cultural forms.
Form and architectural language in Southeast Asian tropical antiquities, although linked to its humble 'vernacular' origins and timber-based traditions, are far from simple or simplistic. They recall richness in language and resonate principles that resemble the classic Renaissance architecture marvels of Europe, yet with their own proportions and character in the variations of post, beam and lintel structures and decorative ornamentations.
Though traditionally linked to artisanal traditions of timber and bamboo, these type-forms can be transposed into modern assembly of building systems. Timber traditions of the Malay world, example, are not only simple forms arising from cross beams supported by posts and secured by wedges, but they contain 'a grammar' that can elevate a modern structural and constructional framework.
Yet, rather than copying blindly, or nostalgically evoking the past, without reference to the city, we can focus on some of the perennial principles of the local vernacular that can be recalled and transposed in modern form, such as the following:
•an emphasis on a protective roof and roofline;
•the use of interstitial spaces, shaded extensions and projections;
•the presence of columnar spaces, rather than column-free spaces;
•a level of 'complex' motifs and decorative devices;
•an emphasis on 'infusing climate', rather than sealing from it; and
•façade expression through motifs and flora and fauna-based patterns.
The Asian path is one that is strewn with the above. Such a return to tradition can take on a faithful transformation, in which the infusion of such motifs, insertions and inflections are carried through modern adaptation and transmutation. We discuss some of these principles in greater detail here.
Evoking an identity is also about instilling soul in architecture and the applied arts via subtle yet detailed ornamentation.
Infusing Climate
Identity can be rhetorically, yet ecologically, expressed. Designing culturally means going beyond specifying a certain glass type towards a more profiled approach—embracing climate not only thermally, but expressively, in terms of the configured form and envelope, fine-tuned towards layering and shade.
Strong pitched roof forms are a feature of this region, yet these must be seen in their layering, rather than merely surmounting concrete blocks with roof forms. The roof should extend shade well beyond the wall-line, as shading the mass of concrete structures helps reduce heat absorption and night-time heat release.
The Malay house is also known to be wellventilated, with heightened doors and windows, as well as adequate space for air to flow through the roof and beneath the house. Among the most recognisable and defining elements of the Malay house are common spaces such as the anjung (porch) and serambi (veranda). When electricity was non-existent, the anjung and serambi evolved as a result of indigenous knowledge and local ingenuity.
These passive climatic features were naturally articulated for optimum comfort without consuming energy. These transitional zones also allow a person entering it to adapt his/her thermal comfort expectations, from the hot outdoors to the cool indoors, and vice versa.
Many have attempted to express 'climate' in city forms, such as incising or 'punching' an otherwise monolithic form with sky courts and deep balconies to recall the timeless character of the veranda. More explorations are needed to infuse tradition, its nuances and traits into bioclimatic forms, including elevated structures that can 'free' the ground floor, increase permeability and air change in the increasingly dense urban city, while at the same time, encouraging and facilitating the habits of walking under such shaded enclaves.
In spatial and urban terms, the ideas of Mustafa Kamal Bashar, a Master of Science candidate at the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM), combine water, steps, columns and trees—essential elements of the Malay kampung—to create interstitial spaces in the city.
The result goes beyond the 'introverted' airconditioned sealed façade to an 'extroverted' play of tectonics that subscribes to the environmental agenda, creating an alternative to the Modernist glass-and-steel-curtain-wall that characterises many modern tropical cities.
Applying Arts
Evoking an identity is also about instilling soul in architecture and the applied arts via subtle yet detailed ornamentation. Artisanship is a hallmark of traditional Asia, especially in the Malay world.
Malay carvings, as seen in wooden panels and walls, typically depict universal and transcendent patterns of nature—leaves, flowers, shoots and creepers. The spirituality of the culture is embodied and celebrated in its delicate and sinuous patterns, found in inscriptions, carvings, on texts, pottery, utensils and structures.
Abstracted patterns through ornamental elements can be adapted to modern high-tech settings, expressed not only as roof shapes, but also in façade systems, interior decorative panels, ventilation panels, sun-shading devices, brackets and balustrades.
A rich vocabulary of louvres and lattices, of gables and balustrades, is part of our identity and separates us from the rest of the world. Yet, it also emphasises the co-existence of modernity, tradition and history. The hovering pitch of roof planes, the formal elements and the projecting details appear to criss-cross each other into a play of poetics and contrasts. This recalls a sense of rootedness and evokes a sense of place making.
C2S Nusajaya: A reinterpretation of traditional Malay forms into a modern complex
MODERN REINTERPRETATIONS
One example of the modern reinterpretations of cultural identity is found in the final year interior design project of Maisarah Shaari, then an IIUM Bachelor of Applied Arts and Design (Interior Design) student. She took up the challenge of realising traditional character in an urban context with modern materials and treatments.
The brief was for a contemporary youth cultural centre with facilities and activity spaces, and the outcome is enculturated without copying culture, traditionalised without retreating into tradition. The interior scheme recalls the timeless principles of balance but inserts delicate patterns and imageries of past traditions, specifically with memories of the arts and culture of Kelantan and the local people.
Before the arrival of Islam, the east coast of peninsula Malaysia had already been a port call for traders from India and the Far East, with influences from other civilisations. With the arrival of Islam, motifs such as Kala, Makara, Garuda, Gunungan, Naga and Stupa were altered in accordance with the Islamic philosophy and faith. For example, the Kala and Makara were transformed into floral elements. The motivation and concept of the design for the youth cultural centre were to identify the cultural elements of the region and to innovate them with a contemporary approach, while still preserving the original identity.
At the other end of the spectrum, yet representing the same 'tradition-modern' dilemma is the C2S, a low-rise office complex commissioned by the Johor state government. Rather than drawing its design inspirations from the Middle East and Arab-Islamic eclecticism, the C2S forged a reinterpretation of traditional Malay forms into a modern complex. HL Reka Sdn Bhd was asked to create a complex steeped in the traditions of Johor and its ancestral influences from Riau, Jambi, Javanese and Bugis. Led by Huzir Hj Lip, the team studied variants of spaces in Malay palaces, with their steep, pitched roof planes and low-lying eaves, to learn from the layering of spaces and profiles.
The roof elements actually represent a layered form in which the cantilever reaches almost down to the earth, providing sufficient shade. The common pelantar (platform)—which acts as a divider between the front and back areas of a Malay house and often serves as a secondary entrance—was adopted and modified into a space that can be used for present-day functions, such as cafés or gyms. The allusion to the serambi, often connected to the core area with a slight drop in elevation in the style of an elephant nursing its calf (gajah menyusu), is intended to express the Malay values preserved in a modern space, where each vantage point provides views at different elevations.
Identity can be expressed through a tectonic theme, in which connectors and cross beams are dramatised with Malay beams and columns that connect like 'joints without nails'. Spatially, an atrium is convened as a common space. In C2S Nusajaya, a multilevel gathering and viewing gallery was used to express a spatial and formal hierarchy of patterns, while subtly interweaving elemental references to Malay traditional forms and motifs.
The traditional floral motif (bunga banji) is transferred onto panels of etched glass in the atrium balustrades and repeated across all panels, while the pagar musang, a decorative grill commonly used on windows in traditional houses of Terengganu and Kelantan, is used in the complex.
The pagar musang decorative grills are common in traditional Terengganu and Kelantan homes
THE RESISTANCE OF DESIGN
Criticality in regionalism, as defined by historian Professor Kenneth Frampton, is described as 'a design position of 'resistance". Resisting means defying the more expedient and seductive position of giving in to the normative form, a position of consumption and expediency. Often, this takes on the position of subtly, or starkly, opposing the 'cult of the orthogonal and the straight line'.
As we traverse into the 21st-century world of connectivity, we increasingly become unaware that our consciousness and preconceptions are being bombarded from every direction, particularly by the latest fads. This information bombardment does not just inhibit our ability to think deeply and broadly, but also narrows our bandwidth too, resulting in tunnel vision. Therefore, the Internet-savvy Pinterestinspired architect or designer breed of today's world sometimes end up with an outer shell form, space or envelope defaulted to the simplest design.
Malay allusions in architecture present one form of resistance. The Asian traditions hold many more such resistive pathways.
DR SHIREEN JAHN KASSIM
Associate Professor Applied Arts and Design International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM)
Dr Puteri Shireen is both an academician and a practicing specialist. She completed her doctorate in architecture at the University of Brighton. At IIUM's Faculty of Architecture and Environmental Design, she teaches and supervises PhD and Masters students on building technology, sustainable building and energy-conscious design.
An authority on computational simulations and Green building standards, she has led companies and agencies to achieve their sustainability and low carbon emission targets. She is currently the lead supervisor in coordinating the steering committees on the Malaysian government's Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) and Public Works Department (JKR) to develop and launch an integrated carbon-based sustainable building rating assessment system for Malaysia.
She sits on the editorial and peer review board of Elsevier's International Journal of the Sustainable Built Environment and is on the Scientific Committee for the International CONVR Conferences. She is currently the head of Architecture and Environmental Subcluster of the Transciplinary Research Group on Sustainable Cities.
Together with Norwina Mohd Nawawi and Noor Hanita Abdul Majid, she recently co-authored a book titled "The Resilience of Tradition: Malay Allusions in Contemporary Architecture".
CIDB and IRDA form partnership to accelerate productivity and sustainability in construction works
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\section{Introduction}

The question of instability of the mixing time was thoroughly studied in \cite{DP, H, HK, HP}. Sharp bounds were established on the ratio of the mixing times between two quasi-isometric graphs, for several notions of mixing times, total variation distance, $l^2$ and $l^{\infty}$, when the walk started from the worse starting vertex. The spectral gap is quasi - isometric invariant. By the relation between mixing times and spectral gap,  when the degree is bounded, the ratio of the mixing times when starting from worse starting vertex can be at most $\log$ the size of the graph.

In this note we construct a growing family of rooted bounded degree  graphs, denoted $G_n$,  were by a quasi-isometry any of the above notions of mixing times, jumps from
$ \log |G_n|$ to $|G_n| \over{ f(n) }$, for a function $f(n)$ that grows arbitrarily slow to infinity.
Such a gap can not be obtained in a vertex transitive graph. Let me advertise the remarkable, yet involved vertex transitive  example in \cite{HK}.
Is this  the largest possible  ratio? that can be achieved?

\medskip

We now recall the definition of the total variation mixing time and quasi - isometry.

For any two distributions $\mu$ and $\nu$  on a finite state space, e.g. the vertices of the graph, their total variation distance is defined as
$1/2 \sum_{x} |\mu(x) - \nu(x)|$. The total variation distance for a random walk starting at $x$ at time $t$ is defined
as $d^x(t)  =  ||P^t_x - \pi||_{TV}$. Where by $P^t_x$ we denote
the distribution of the simple random walk starting at $x$ by time $t$ and $\pi$ is the stationary distribution.
The $\epsilon$ - total variation mixing time for a random walk starting at $x$ is defined as
$ t_{mix}(\epsilon)  = \inf \{t : d^x(t) < \epsilon\}$.
\medskip

A {\it quasi-isometry} between
two metric spaces $X$ and $Y$ is a map $\psi : X \rightarrow Y$ such that for some numbers $(a, b)$
we have $\forall u, v \in  X$

$a^{-1} d(u,v) - b \leq d(\psi(u), \psi(v)) \leq a d(u,v) + b$.

where $d$ denotes the distance (in $X$ or in $Y$ , as appropriate); and further such that
for every $y \in  Y$ there is some $x \in X$ such that $d(\psi(x), y) \leq a + b$. We say that
$X$ and $Y$ are $(a, b)$ quasi-isometric if such a $\psi$ exists.

In our setup, we will have fixed $(a,b)$ and a sequence of pairs
of bounded degree graphs, growing in size, in which the graphs of  each pair are $(a,b)$ quasi isometric.

\section{The example}
A fact used by all the constructions cited above (\cite{DP, H, HK, HP}) is that in the  rooted infinite binary tree (or any $d > 1$ - regular tree, there is a subset of vertices, deonted by $A$, such that simple random walk on the binary tree will visit infinitely often with probability one. Yet after a quasi - isometry of the tree, the random walk on the modified tree starting from the root  will not hit $A$ with probability that can be made arbitrarily close to one. Denote by $A_n$ the intersection of $A$ with the ball of radius $n$ around the root. To get $A$,  take all the vertices so that in their representation as words in $0,1$, for turning left or right along the path from the root, when drawing the tree in the plane, the ratio of the number of $0$ to the number of $1$ is between $0.9999$ and $1.0001$. For the  quasi-isometry replace each right turning edge by a path of length ten. Such a quasi - isometry will asymptotically change the density of $1$'s in the vertices visited by the simple random walk.
\medskip

Consider a family of growing $d$-regular, vertex transitive, large girth expanders, denote by $H_n$. Were $H_n$ is chosen such that balls of radius $\Omega(n)$ (say $2^n$) are trees. E.g. Ramanujan graphs \cite{HLW}.

To construct the example, denoted $G_n$, for each $n$, take two copies of $H_n$ pick a root in each of the copies. A ball of radius $n$ centred at each of the roots, in the respective copies is a $d$-tree up until the leaves. By isomorphically mapping the ball to the ball in the  infinite tree  choose an identification of  $A_n$ in each of the copies.  To get $G_n$ connect, {\it by a path of length two}, each vertex in the identification of $A_n$ in one of the copies to it's identical vertex in the identification of $A_n$ in the other copies. Note that the ball around the root that contained $A_n$ has size which is $o(|G_n|)$. This is the example, see figure.

The quasi - isometry will be replacing in the $n$  - ball around the roots,  each right turning edge by a path of length ten.
\medskip

\begin{figure}
  \includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{The_example.pdf}
  \caption{The example.}

\end{figure}

Note that for any $k >0$, with probability going to one with $n$, simple random walk starting from the root will visit  $A_n$ is each of the copies more than $k$ times.  Thus with high probability the simple random walk will cross to the other copy. Couple two simple random walks, one starting from each of the roots, so that the walks takes identical steps, each walker in her copy, and move to the middle vertex on a length two paths between elements of $A_n$ together.  Once they meet in the middle of one of the length two paths, let them continue together.  This event  happens  with probability arbitrarily close to one before reaching distance $n$ from the respective roots. Conditioning on meeting, the probability the walkers will absorbed after exiting the $n$-balls in each of the copies, is $1/2$. Therefore the mixing time of $G_n$, conditioning on meeting is the mixing time, is that of the expander $H_n$, which is $\log |H_n|$.
\medskip

After applying the quasi - isometry in the  ball of radius $n$ around the roots, with probability which can go to one with $n$, Simple random walk starting at any of the roots, will exit the $n$-ball before hitting $A_n$ and will mix in the copy it started. Simple random walk on an expander mixes in order  $\log$ size steps, which happens with high probability, before returning to a polynomially small fixed ball if starting at distance growing to infinity with $n$ from the ball. Therefore the hitting time of $A_n$ from a uniform starting vertex in the copy is a lower bound on the mixing time of $G_n$, which is bounded from below by $|G_n| \over{|A_n|}$.
To sse this let $T$ be the hitting time of the set $S$
let $V_t(S)$ be the number of visits to $S$ up to time $t$.
Starting from stationary distribution we have by Markov's inequality,
$$
 \mathbb{P} [ T \leq t ] \leq \mathbb{P} [ V_t(S) \geq 1 ] \leq \mathbb{E} [ V_t(S) ] = \pi(S) t
$$
where $\pi$ is the stationary measure
if $\pi$ is uniform (for regular graphs), then this will be small as long as $t < \frac{1}{\pi(S)} = \frac{N}{|S|}$
\qed
\medskip

The properties of  $H_n$ we used are that as $n$ grow, balls of radius growing to infinity around the roots are trees, and that $H_n$ has logarithmic mixing time.

\noindent{\bf Remark:} As we commented  a key to all the examples is the fact that in the infinite binary tree, there is a set that absorbeds the simple random walk. Yet after a quasi - isometry simple random a.s. visits the set finitely many times. In \cite{BR} it was shown that such a set
exists on some amenable groups including  the lamplighter over $Z$, with respect to two symmetric generating sets. It is of interest to know what other Cayley graphs admits such an unstable absorbing set? Does all super polynomial Cayley graphs admit an unstable absorbing set?

\noindent
{\bf Acknowledgements:} Thanks to Jonathan Hermon, Elad Tzalik and  Ariel Yadin for useful discussions.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv


We're now 6 months into 2014… has anyone kept their New Year's Resolution?? I didn't make any. I feel like in Minnesota it's really hard to get motivated to do anything in January. Christmas is over, it's #stupidcold outside and you know you've got at least two more months ahead of you. I'm cold just thinking about last winter. Below is a picture of dark-haired, pissed-it's-so-cold-outside, I-can't-warm-up me and of Sophie tunneling through the snow.
But now that it's the end of June and I'm feeling pumped! My goal this summer is to simply do more miles than I did last year. I use mapmyride.com and mapmyrun.com to track all my outdoor workouts. It's free and I like how I can combine my running and biking. [prepare to hear my horn toot] Last year I did a total of 100 workouts, adding up to 1243 miles, not crazy but nothing to sneeze at either. This includes biking, running, hiking and walking the dog. I don't always have the app on when I'm walking Sophie, but now I should because every mile will count! As of today I've completed 20 workouts for 272 miles. Only 971+ miles to go! I should have included the duathlon I did in the spring- run 3, bike 14, run 2.5, during which I didn't have the app running. toot. toot. toot. Just saying, if I end up 19.5 miles short I'm going to call it good.
Why make such a goal?
I like exercising [most of the time].
Because I love food! Like the 50 ways to grill a steak in the latest Food Network Magazine.


Allow your spirit to come alive as the Aztec Sun sets on these shorts. You'll be able to party all night long in these premium athletic shorts, printed with vibrant eco-friendly inks that will never fade.
Aztec Sunset Men's Athletic Shorts has a rating of 4.25 stars based on 8 reviews.
Nice comfy shorts though the coloration on the shorts in person looks more purple and red, while online it seems like black and red. Either way, its comfy and great for workouts.
The shorts look fine, but they fit small!
For some reason this review is not letting me adjust the slider. The shorts look fine, but they're a bit uncomfortable simply due to the fact that they're small. I ordered a 32 which is a medium and it's shorter and tighter than any of my medium athletic shorts at home. Warning to anyone looking to order. SIZE UP AT LEAST ONE LEVEL.
I didn't realize there was a back pocket inside the waistband. Excellent pocket.
I am having a very awesome time with my clothes and really appreciate the amazing effort you guys put in!
Superb quality and very impressed with the design and how it looks in person!
Super nice comfy shorts, a lot more like gym shorts than your standard khaki style. But regardless they are really soft and I love wearing them around!


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Julie Burchill speaks of sadness at death of son Jack
Posted On 01 Jul 2015 at 10:03 am
By : Jo Wadsworth
Julie Burchill has today spoken of her sadness at the death of her "beloved son" Jack, who killed himself earlier this week.
Posting on Facebook, the Brighton journalist told friends Jack Landesman was now at peace and urged people to look after those they love.
She said: "My beloved son Jack Landesman killed himself earlier this week. He is at peace now and in pain no longer and of course I don't believe that life ends with death, so I am lucky.
"Look after the people you love, as I tried to and failed."
She added: "Thank you for all your good wishes and offers of support, but I have my Dan, who was a wonderful stepfather to my poor boy for more than half of his life."
Jack was born in 1986 to Julie and her then husband Cosmo Landesman, was a bass guitarist and is pictured here playing with the Simon Lawrence band, which also featured his uncle Miles Davis Landesman.
Following his parents' divorce, his mother said she fought hard for custody of him, but he went to live with his father. However, during a Desert Island Discs interview in 2013, the writer said he was then living with her.
In 2008, he studied at the British and Irish Modern Music Institute in Kemp Town.
Principal Vaseema Hamilton said: "We are all really sorry to hear the sad news that former BIMM Brighton diploma student Jack Landesman has passed away.
"Our thoughts are with his parents Julie Burchill and Cosmo Landesman, as well as his friends and fellow students, at this incredibly difficult time.
"Jack studied Level 3 Diploma (Bass) in 2008/9. He was a very well liked young man and a talented musician, who went on to play with his uncle, Miles Davis Landesman. He will be sadly missed."
Brighton police hunt thief to return him to prison
Patients, carers and staff asked to help shape mental health services at Brighton event

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Kevin Kisner Betting Tips & Odds to Win The 2022 RBC Heritage – April 14-17
Media by Associated Press: Kevin Kisner hits from the tee on the first hole during the second round of play in The Players Championship golf tournament Saturday
Kevin Kisner enters the 2022 RBC Heritage at Harbour Town Golf Links with +4500 odds after missing the cut at the 2021 RBC Heritage, his last event here. In this article, we'll break down his recent form to help you make your best bets on Kisner before he tees off in Hilton Head, South Carolina.
Last 4 Tournaments: Kevin Kisner
April 7-10 Masters Tournament 44 75-70-75-77 (+9) 19 $51,000
March 17-20 Valspar Championship 33 70-66-73-69 (-6) 11 $41,600
March 10-14 THE PLAYERS Championship 4 68-74-68-68 (-10) 3 $980,000
March 3- 6 Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard MC 75-77 (+8) — $0
Recent Form Insights: Kevin Kisner
Kisner has made the cut in three straight events.
In his past four events, Kisner has finished in the top five once.
Kisner has finished within three shots of the leader in one of his past four appearances. In that same span, he finished with a better-than-average score once.
He has carded an average score of -2 in his past four events.
Over his last 14 rounds, Kisner has finished below par seven times, while also registering one par-or-better round and seven rounds with a better-than-average score.
He has carded a top-five score once and a top-10 score on five occasions in his last 14 rounds played.
Last 4 Tournaments Breakdown: Kevin Kisner
Kisner was in the 20th percentile on par 3s at the Masters Tournament, averaging 3.31 strokes on the 16 par-3 holes.
He averaged 4.23 strokes on par-4 holes (of which there were 40) at the Masters Tournament, which landed him in the 49th percentile among the competitors on par 4s.
On the 16 par-5 holes at the Masters Tournament, Kisner was better than 64% of the competitors (averaging 4.69 strokes per hole).
Kisner recorded a birdie or better on one of the 16 par-3 holes at the Masters Tournament (the tournament average was 1.6).
On the 16 par-3 holes at the Masters Tournament, Kisner had six bogeys or worse (more than the field average of 3.1).
Kisner's eight birdies or better on par-4 holes at the Masters Tournament were more than the tournament average (3.7).


Being remembered for the wrong reasons is better than being forgotten. Right?
Scene: Office conference room. 6:30 pm. Working on a project with a team member. CEO arrives from headquarters for a two day visit, walking through the office.
Me: Welcome back, we met last fall when you were in town.
CEO: Right. You have a lot more hair now.
CEO: [turning to projector screen] So what are you guys working on?


text:
Infiltration tactics of Britain's 'spy cops' on trial
The controversial decades-long practice of Britain's "spy police" finally came under the spotlight as a public inquiry began last week after a five-year wait.
By Martine Pauwels
November 9, 2020 05:13 GMT
In 2010, friends told Kate Wilson that her ex-boyfriend and confidant Mark Stone, whom she met at an anti-G8 meeting, never existed.
He was in fact a British police officer, whose real name was Mark Kennedy. He had a wife and children and was a veteran infiltrator of environmental activist groups.
Victims hope it will lift the lid on officers who used stolen identities, including of dead children, and embarked on years-long romantic relationships to infiltrate activist groups.
"It's absolutely awful, it's very, very difficult to describe," Wilson, a 42-year-old nurse, told AFP of her ordeal.
"You have memories and you have an idea of your own life story and what relationships are, and it's totally destroyed."
The controversial decades-long practice of Britain's "spy police" finally came under the spotlight as a public inquiry began last week after a five-year wait. Photo: AFP / Daniel LEAL-OLIVAS
Lisa, the pseudonym of another of Kennedy's victims who had been in a relationship with him for six years, also discovered his real identity in 2010 after stumbling upon his actual passport.
"He'd been the person that I shared everything with," she wrote on the website of the group "Police Spies Out of Lives".
"He was the person who supported me after my father's death. He was the person I went on holiday with."
The website was set up to support women like Lisa who suffered what they said was "sexual and psychological abuse" at police hands. But her story is not unusual.
Undercover cop "Bob Robinson" had a son with Jacqui, a young woman who believed he shared her love of animals, a year after they met in 1984.
He disappeared two years later after his son was born, claiming he was being hunted by the police; in fact, he had just completed his mission.
Britain's then prime minister Theresa May (R) speaks at a memorial service in 2018 with Doreen Lawrence, mother of Stephen Lawrence, a young black man killed by a white gang in London in 1993. Photo: POOL / Victoria Jones
did not learn his true identity until a 2012 newspaper report.
Revelations about Britain's "spy cops" and their work have been accumulating over the last decade.
But it was only when Britain's most notorious racist murder case became implicated in the saga that it exploded into a full-blown scandal.
In 2013, former infiltrator Peter Francis said he had spied on the parents of Stephen Lawrence, a young black man killed by a white gang in London in 1993, in order to discredit them.
According to British media at least 139 police officers have infiltrated more than 1,000 groups since 1968, mostly trade unions, environmental organisations, and anti-racist, pacifist or feminist associations. Photo: AFP / ALESSANDRO ABBONIZIO
He said his operation was conducted after a public inquiry found the initial London Metropolitan Police probe into the killing was tainted by "institutional racism".
Then interior minister, later prime minister Theresa May, established a public inquiry in 2015.
But as a result of years of delays due to the sensitive nature of the evidence and then the coronavirus pandemic, the first hearings did not kick off until last Monday.
Its conclusions are not expected before 2023.
"This investigation will be seeking out the truth," said David Barr, a lawyer with the investigative team.
According to British media reports, at least 139 police officers have infiltrated more than 1,000 groups since 1968, the year that Scotland Yard created the so-called Special Demonstration Squad to monitor protests against the Vietnam War.
The groups are mostly left wing -- trade unions, environmental organisations, and anti-racist, pacifist or feminist associations -- but the far right was also targeted.
The squad was disbanded in 2008, as was a similar body, the National Public Order Intelligence Unit, two years later.
"Some of those groups, they were so on the fringes, they were so low level that the operations could hardly be justified," lawyer Lydia Dagostino, who coordinates the defences of those targeted, told AFP.
The people who were spied on have a "genuine desire... to know the truth... so that it does not happen again," Dagostino said.
Some of the women were "hugely damaged and they'll never get over it", she added.
Police apologised to several women in 2015, compensating them financially, and said this week that sex with "targets" was no longer allowed.
Infiltration is now based on "clear ethical guidelines and a legislative framework", they added.
But that comes as little comfort to Kate, one of the many women who shared Kennedy's life during a deployment that also took him to France, Germany and Spain.
Dagostino said the deliberate "emotional manipulation" of agents was a common tactic, and slammed the hearings, which are not open to the public or broadcast online, as a "state cover-up".
Transcripts are published online but Dagostino said she was angry that dozens of police officers had not been identified, even by their cover names.
Copyright AFP. All rights reserved.
Related topics : Theresa May


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US national team savor 2017 CONCACAF Gold cup title: "It means a lot"
By Geoff Lepper @quakesbeat
U.S. Men's National Team 2-1 Jamaica | 4-Minute Highlights
SANTA CLARA, Calif. – United States national team coach Bruce Arena came into this summer's Gold Cup tournament looking to see new faces, striving to unearth players who could be of use in the Americans' remaining qualifying matches for the 2018 World Cup. The group stage games were a laboratory of sorts, trying out different combinations and new permutations.
Once the Americans made the knockout rounds, however, the focus shifted to one simple goal:
Grab that trophy.
It was a close-run contest, but the US finally did that Wednesday, besting a game Jamaica side 2-1 on Jordan Morris' 88th-minute strike in the final at Levi's Stadium.
And when it was over, even if the stakes weren't as high as they'll be next year, the celebration seemed similar to what one might expect to find on July 15, 2018 at Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow.
"The Gold Cup is important," Arena said. "If you're in it, you've got to be in it to win it. And we accomplished that."
Each member of the US squad had something different to think about as they received their winner's medal.
Forward Jozy Altidore, whose screaming free kick put the US ahead in the first half, could ponder his injury-ravaged history in tournament play.
"I'm really happy, because I wanted to come in and win this championship," said Altidore, who was one of the USMNT's six replacements ahead of the quarterfinals. "It means a lot; people from the outside may take it for granted, but we as players don't get a lot of chances to win trophies. To me, this is a massive moment."
Some get more chances than others, of course. Goal-scoring talisman Clint Dempsey is now a three-time champion, having participated in the 2005 and '07 triumphs before coming back a decade later for more.
"I would say this is the most special because the older you get, you appreciate it more," Dempsey said.
That was a feeling shared by veteran goalkeeper Tim Howard, who was in net for the 2007 title game against Mexico and wanted to savor his latest – and possibly last – Gold Cup memories.
"As you get older, you realize these come few and far between," Howard said. "I've been very fortunate to go to quite a number of cup finals. I've not won as many as I would have liked. There's a time when you think they're going to just keep coming. And you realize now that there might not be another one after this. It's hard to tell the young players that, because they're young and they think it's coming again. But for me, I know that this may be my last chance, so it's beautiful, it's sweet and I'll continue to celebrate."
Howard's attitude did not go unheeded. Morris, the 22-year-old in his first senior international tournament, spoke like a veteran – albeit one who doesn't yet have a trophy case to display all his hardware.
"It's just going in my room," Morris said of his medal. "But it's very special, obviously. You don't get a ton of opportunities to play for championships in your career and you've got to take advantage of them. For me to be a part of this team, it's so special, something you dream about."
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