Choose folded flyers to make your designs more creative and get your message across. This is one of the most popular ways of advertising in print.
If you are looking for a more sophisticated way to get your message out to clients we also offer the option of folded flyers. They allow for a more bespoke delivery, guiding the reader through the story you have created to tell them what it is you have to offer them, or building up through a variety of options for them to choose from. Each folded design option has its own way of unfolding your message until your customers are drawn in and can't wait to place an order.
Why are our folded flyers so successful?
We know how they work. We know how to design them to subtly (or otherwise!) reveal your message in a way that tells a prospective customer the full story. We work with you to craft that story to draw them in, and we use the folds to let them open up that message and pique their interest.
A quick response to all enquiries, and always within the hour during opening hours.
Flexibility and fast turnaround where required.
A specialism in bespoke orders as well as in designing and printing in large quantities.
Order your folded card flyers directly 24/7 on our partner site printing.com. Benefit from discounted rates on a wide variety of products.
There are many different types of paper we can use to create folded flyers. Pop into our shop and we will be happy to talk you through them. If you already know what you want, then just let us know. We will work around you and your requirements.
All paper we use is Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) approved. It comes from sustainably managed forests and is an eco-friendly way to manufacture paper.
Roll fold. Your leaflet is folded into three and creates one larger section inside when folded out.
Z fold. The leaflet is folded up into a concertina, creating six individual sections for information.
Bi-fold leaflet. Your leaflet is folded over in the middle to create a booklet that is printed on four sides.
Standard matt laminate. Budget-friendly printing with a matt finish.
3D digitally enhanced. We use a 3D effect on your logo and other key areas.
Spot UV. We use a high silk varnish to make your logo stand out.
3D gold and silver foil. Elegant foil finishes with a 3D effect.
Please see our brochure for descriptions of our most popular folded flyer options. Choose the layout you would like, supply your artwork or leave it all up to us. It's as simple as that.
Contact Printingprogress for your full folded flyer quote.


9 Nov 2018 . Fathul Bari Sharah Sahih Al Bukhari Arabic 13 Volumes . Tabligh by Muntakhab Ahadith Free Download English PDF Word Text Urdu PDF.. a al-Bukhr (Arabic: ), also known as Bukhari Sharif (Arabic: . From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Jump to navigation . The text used for this work is Fath Al-Bari, published by the Egyptian Press of Mustafa Al-Babi Al-Halabi in 1959. . Create a book Download as PDF Printable version.. Fath al-Bari bi Sharh Sahih al-Bukhari (5 Vols Complete- Arabic Only) [Imam Ibn Hajar . Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.. 11 Nov 2018 . urdu Pdf Free Download. Volume 1 Pdf In Urdu. Umdah al Qari fi Sharh. Sahih al Bukhari written by. Badr al-Din. Fathul Bari. Sharah Sahih Al-.. 28 Sep 2014 . Language Arabic. www.besturdubooks.wordpress.com. Identifier FathUlBari. Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t0ns3kf13. Ocr language not currently.. 8 Sep 2015 . Arabic Language Books. All-islami-urdu-arabic-books pdf-format. Fath-al-bari-by-allama-abu-abdullah-muhammad-bin-ismail-bukhari pdf-.. However the most celebrated is the magnificent Fath al-Bari ('Victory of the Creator') by Imam Ibn Hajar al-'Asqalani, a work which was the crown both of its.. Download Kitab Fathul Mu'in Oleh . abdurrohim said. 4/06/2013 . Fathul Bari English [EBOOK] Free. Book Fathul Bari English.PDF. eBook Download Fathul Bari.. relevant Arabic sciences, the wisdom it shows in drawing les- sons from the . by the other reliable authorities, and were free from defects. Al-Bukhari . copy of Fath al Bari, and Ibn Hajar was able give him the first three volumes. In 839 the re.. Fat al-Br f Shar a al-Bukhr is a multi-volume commentary on the Sunni hadith . From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia . complete coverage of Bukhari's material, its mastery of the relevant Arabic sciences, the wisdom it shows in drawing lessons (fawa'id) . Create a book Download as PDF Printable version.. . 6 Apr 2016 . Read a free sample or buy Tafsir Sahih Bukhari: Fath al Bari by Imam . This book is available for download with Apple Books on your Mac or iOS device. . its mastery of the relevant Arabic sciences, the wisdom it shows in.. 7 Nov 2018 . Ahadith Free Download. English PDF Word Text. Urdu. PDF. Link . fathul bari english pdffathul bari sharah sahih al-bukhari (arabic) 13.. 3 Jun 2016 . 8 fbssb06. . 852 Hijri Hazrat Imam ibn Hajar al-Asqalani [Al-Haafiz-Shihabuddin-Abulfazl Ahmad ibn Ali ibn Hajar al-Asqalani] (rehmatullah.alayh) . Uploaded by Shaikh Mohammed Shakil (Mureed.e Saiyed Muhammad MadaniMiya) on June 3, 2016.. . Set) Arabic Only [Hafiz Ibn Hajar Al-Askalani] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on . a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.. Fathul Bari : Sharh Sahih Al-Bukhari (Arabic Book) The Explanation of Sahih . Beirut, Lebanon Free Delivery In UK About The Book Fath al-Bari (Victory of the.. Buy Arabic: Fathul-Bari - Sharah Sahih Al-Bukhari (15 Vol. Set) by Hafiz Ibn Hajar Al-Askalani (ISBN: ) from Amazon's Book Store. Everyday low prices and free.. 23 Nov 2017 . Fathul Bari English Pdf Free Download >>> SIMILAR . Arabic.Texts.1,906.1.9K.Faiz-ul-Bari-Tarjuma-Fathul-Bari-.. 9 Nov 2018 . Fathul Bari Sharah Sahih Al Bukhari Arabic 13 Volumes. November . November 4th, 2018 - Fathul Bari English pdf Free Download Here www.


text:
THE HANGOVER PART II
THE HANGOVER PART II has been critically panned. No matter. The collective goodwill that bounced off the first, break-out, film, has enabled the sequel to smash box-office records. Not only is THE HANGOVER PART II the biggest opening on record for an R rated film, but it's also the biggest opening ever for a comedy. So, people are going to watch this flick AND, according to the IMDb ratings, a quarter are scoring it as a perfect ten, with nearly 60% giving it between 8 and 10.
So, what's biting the reviewers?! I guess what disappointed me most about the sequel was its slavish replication of every key scene - every little surprise - from the first movie. This makes the sequel lead-heavy as we fall to checking the boxes from the original, and sucks the air out of every gag. The second problem is that Zach Galifianakis - the break-out star from the original movie - is given way more air-time in the sequel. This brings up a problem I have with a lot of movies - from Galifianakis' previous flick DUE DATE, to most recent movies starring Danny McBride. These guys are funny but in a kind of creepy way, and they work best when used in short cameo scenes to enliven broad comedy. When they move to centre-stage they shatter a movie's equilibrium and start to grate.
The final problem is the movie's setting. Taking the flick from Vegas to Thailand radically changes the sleaze factor of the antics. After all, Vegas has done an amazing job over the past fifteen years, relabelling itself as a family destination and distancing itself from its criminal past. So when our clean-cut heros get into shenanigans, we don't seriously fear for their lives - it's all basically slightly naughty but fundamentally fine. Changing to Bangkok adds a level of grime, grit and stakes that sit at odds with the movie's comedy stylings. For example, in the original, Bradley Cooper's Phil gets tasered. In this flick, he gets shot. In the original, Ken Jeong's Mr Chow gets locked in a car boot. In this flick, he actually dies from a cocaine dose. In the original, Ed Helms' Stu loses a tooth and marries a stripper. In this flick, he gets fucked by a Ladyboy. Not that I'm against explicit material in general. But it just felt that time and again, this movie had moved beyond the same boundaries of the original - and for no real comedic gain. The upshot is that I had a lousy time watching THE HANOVER PART II. I was bored and unamused. The slavishly familiar plot. The lack of a cameo to rival Mike Tyson. The grimier, bleaker environment. It was all, basically, a downer. But what do I know? Director Todd Phillips is sitting on a cash-pile the size of my house.
THE HANGOVER PART II is on release in the UK, USA, Belgium, France, Italy, Sweden, Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, Croatia, Denmark, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, the Netherlands, Peru, Slovenia, Thailand, Brazil, Bulgaria, Colombia, Estonia, Finland, India, Mexico, Norway, Paraguay, Venezuela and Armenia. It opens on June 2nd in Belarus, Greece, Germany, Hong Kong, Kazakhstan, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, Poland and Turkey. It opens on June 16th in Georgia; on June 24th in Spain and on July 1st in Japan.
Labels: bradley cooper, christophe beck, ed helms, jeffrey tambor, justin bartha, ken jeong, mason lee, mike tyson, nick cassavetes, paul giamatti, todd phillips, zach galifianakis
SENNA - a documentary worthy of Ayrton
Never has a movie inspired such tear-stained reminiscence among my close friends and family - some of whom worked in F1 racing - as Asif Kapadia's new documentary, SENNA. For those of us who watched racing in the 80s and 90s, Ayrton Senna was an icon. Young, handsome, rich, for sure, but more than that - brilliant at driving in wet conditions, and bold in exploiting a gap to take the lead. He was everything a racing driver should be.
Of course, at the time, as a kid, while I knew of his rivalry with the French incumbent world champion, Alain Prost, I hadn't realised just how poisonous that rivalry had been, nor the mechanics of their famous clashes in Japan. Nor had I realised just how political FISA had been, with its French boss, Jean-Marie Balestre apparently hand in glove with Prost, the Sepp "Colonel" Blatter of his day. I hadn't appreciated how revolutionary the Williams' team use of electronics in the early 1990s had been, and that this had prompted Senna's move from Maclaren run by the true gent., Ron Dennis. I remembered the tragic build-up to race day at Imola 1994, but I had no idea how reluctant Senna had been to race that day. The memory of that day is still with me. It's like remembering Hillsborough - one of those searing moments where you realise that you are watching tragedy unfold in front of you in real time, and feeling powerless but transfixed - that a young handsome boy who had so much talent had died on, of all things, the seemingly benign Tamburella turn.
The brilliance of this documentary is twofold. First, that the director and producers managed to persuade the Senna family and Bernie Ecclestone to co-operate - giving them access to the home videos, their impressions of what Ayrton was thinking at crucial moments, not to mention the extensive F1 archives, with footage of everything from on-board cameras, to drivers' briefings, to conversations in the pit. This level of access is unprecedented and results in a documentary that has the freedom of a feature film in terms of camera placing and editorial choices. More importantly, it takes the movie beyond recreation of key races to the emotional state of mind of Ayrton - most crucially in interviews with his sister and team-medic.
But access is a necessary but not sufficient condition for a great documentary. And SENNA *is* a great documentary. The reason for that is that it has a clear narrative arc (kudos to writer Manish Pandey) and some of the tropes of a classic fiction drama. This helps focus a film that could've been over-whelmed by the sheer weight of material, and become unbalanced by Imola. Indeed, the wonderful thing about this doc. is that it focuses on Senna's life - gives you a sense of how important his faith was to him, reminds you of his charitable work, situates him within a loving but fearful family, and shows both sides of his character - both the integrity and humility but also the pride and fall from grace in Suzuka 1990.
The resulting documentary is insightful, well-constructed and powerful. I started crying at Interlagos 1991 - the sheer force of will that made Senna drive 10 laps with just sixth gear and to lift that trophy in front of his home crowd. And when the race day at Imola began, it was game over. That sense of anticipation - the directorial choice to keep us with the on-board camera - and Antonio Pinto's sensitive score....What can I say? It all adds up to a documentary that is unmissable for F1 fans, but - and here I can speak to the experience of Doctor007 - a movie that works even for those who have never heard of Ayrton Senna. For Doctor007, SENNA worked as a fascinating character study that gripped him on an almost Shakespearian level. After all, is there anything more archetypal - more universally translatable - as the story of a young pretender facing an older incumbent - of a man of faith battling the corruption of the establishment - of the under-dog making good - of a good man dying young?
SENNA opened in Japan and Brazil in 2010 and in Italy, Germany and France earlier this year. It played Sundance 2011 and opens in the UK on June 3rd. It opens in Australia on July 21st.
Posted by Bina007 at 21:44 1 comment:
Labels: antonio pinto, asif kapadia, chris king, documentary, gregers sall, jake polonsky, kevin macdonald, sport, Sundance
I rarely say this pre-review but you MUST go and see SENNA
Whether or not you are a fan of racing. This is by far the best film I have seen all year. Review to follow...
THOR 3D - a movie so dull it took me two weeks to work up the energy to review it
THOR is a super-hero movie so simplistic that it makes you feel like BATMAN BEGINS never happened. I left the theatre bored and patronized. Not to mention shocked that the director – Kenneth Branagh – who brought us intelligent and subtle readings of Shakespeare – was trading in such trite pastiche. The movie neither challenges intellectually nor delights visually. It is – both in terms of style and content – an absolute zero.
The plot has two parts to it, but both are hackneyed and predictable. The first part is your typical Oedipal tale of familial jealousy and revenge. Papa loves big brother (Thor) more than little brother, so little brother gets his revenge by framing big brother and having him exiled before usurping his father's throne. This all takes place in a Norse superhero world peopled by buff gods in He-Man outfits but decorated by Trump. There is an inter-world travel-ator which looks like a posh version of the Star Trek transporter and is, shock! horror! to comic book fans, guarded by a black god. (The only shock I felt was why Idris Elba – so brilliant in The Wire – was slumming it in this dreck). This brings us to the second part of the story, which is basically your typical, predictable fish-out-of-water rom-com, as last seen in Disney's THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG. Aforementioned big brother gets exiled to earth where he meets a hot chick who just happens to be an astrophysicist. He learns how not to be an arrogant arse after one night's deep and meaningful conversation on top of a camper van, and then buggers off to save his world.
The issue here is that the movie is cheap. It looks cheap and it goes for cheap laughs. Thor is undoubtedly a camp character but then so is Batman. The problem here is that he is also one-dimensional, whereas Batman has nuance and conflict. Thor's character "development" from idiot-jock to sensitive-hippie is boring because it doesn't come by stages but rather at the flick of a switch. The script-writers are simply uninterested in exploring the genre conventions in which they are operating, and to the post-modern viewer, the result is a movie that seems old clunky, simplistic and frankly, just not trying hard enough. At worst, it feels like pastiche. There is little point in discussing performances –for what hope do the actors have to dazzle when they are asked to be little more than cardboard cut-outs? Natalie Portman, as the love interest, Jane, simply has to swoon. Chris Hemsworth, as Thor, simply has to be ridiculous and be-muscled. Anthony Hopkins, as Papa Odin, has to be austere. And poor Tom Huddlestone, used to much finer fair in British independent cinema, is reduced to twirling his pantomime moustaches as little brother, Loki. This cheapens the actors as much as it cheapens the audience. Poor show, all round.
THOR is on release in all markets bar Japan where it opens on July 1st.
Labels: 3D, Anthony Hopkins, chris hemsworth, clark gregg, comedy, fantasy, idris elba, kat dennings, kenneth branagh, natalie portman, ray stevenson, samuel l jackson, stellan skarsgard, tom hiddleston
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES - A movie so dull I walked out after 90 minutes
About fifteen minutes into the latest PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN movie, Dame Judi Dench - her ear be-slobbered by Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow - asks "Is that all?" I felt very much the same way as I waded through this over-stuffed and yet ultimately vacuous blockbuster. For let us be clear: this is an absolutely terrible movie. Derivative, muddled and, sin of all sins, dull. I walked out after 90 minutes, leaving a good 45 minutes of the movie left to run. Still, not to worry. No doubt the shameless hacks chez Bruckheimer are penning episodes 5 asnd 6 of this lucrative franchise as we speak.
So, what it all about, Alfie? Three ships are sailing to South America to find the Fountain of Youth (TM). One ship contains Spaniards, trying to capture the elixir for their king. (We don't hear much more about them.) The second ship contains Captain Barbosa (Geoffrey Rush), who has swapped piracy for privateering - the only credible bit of character development in the film - and an interesting analogy for the way in which this franchise has sold-out from camp farce to clunking establishment milk-cow. The final ship contains Captain Blackbeard (Ian McShane, presumably cast because he is the only working actor more wrinkled than Keith Richards), Blackbeard's daughter Angelica (Penelope Cruz) and Captain Jack Sparrow himself. The movie sees these crews assembled, reach land in South America, do battle with some cannibalistic mermaids, and then set off over land to find the fountain. That's the point at which I left.
I left because it had become painfully clear that ON STRANGER TIDES was suffering from two structural problems that were not going to be resolved by simply hanging about for another forty five minutes. First up, the movie commits the cardinal sin of subverting the very formula that made it successful! In the first flick, which I rather liked, the prevailing atmosphere was "camp family fun"! We had pretty young lovers to root for, a little bit of spookiness, and every now and then a bit of naughtiness in the form of Captain Jack Sparrow - a pirate so effete and ineffectual he was a walking spoof of the pirate movie genre. By contrast, in ON STRANGER TIDES, Sparrow is front and centre throughout, rather than being used as comic relief. His presence tires - he has become the establishment - in fact, he's rather good at getting out of scrapes even if all the set-piece fight scenes are lifted straight out of Indiana Jones or earlier PIRATES films. Worst of all, the camp Jack Sparrow has to sustain the main love story, with a smouldering Angelica, utterly at odds with his camp style. All of this leaves Geoffrey Rush's Barbosa as by far the most interesting, and certainly the only entertaining, figure on screen.
The second big problem is the direction. Rob Marshall is, simply put, a terrible director. And here, I am looking to his previous films too - CHICAGO, NINE and MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA. Marshall seems to direct by throwing everything at the kitchen wall - more characters, more plot, over-loaded production design, more angles, more cuts, more orchestration (Hans Zimmer particularly irritating here). The editing style is the biggest culprit here, especially in the set-pieces. Marshall doesn't seem to be able to trust the action itself - the choreography (ironic given his background) to be interesting enough to hold our attention. So he cuts, cuts, cuts, all the time holding the camera so close to the action that I wanted to pull back for breath. Take for example an early scene where Sparrow is dancing on top of the King's dinner table and then swings from chandeliers. Why not just let the camera sit back and see his quick, deft, steps across the table? The whole thing smacked of complete lack of confidence in the material.
Of course, added to these two big structural problems, there are many minor irritations. The cavalier hijacking of the Indiana Jones format. The way in which the hero and heroine conveniently happen upon trap-doors. The fact that the producers evidently thought - "you know, those vampire movies are making a bunch of money - let's get some hot teenage girls and give them vampire teeth!". Worst of all, the screenwriters actually gave us a love story between a priest and a mermaid. I have seen anything as crass since the notorious soap opera Sunset Beach had the Father Fit storyline. Weak.
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES is on global release.
Labels: dariusz wolski, DV, gemma ward, geoffrey rush, hans zimmer, ian mcshane, jerry bruckheimer, johnny depp, judi dench, penelope cruz, richard griffiths, rob marshall, roger allam, stephen graham
HANNA - visually brilliant - narratively nonsensical
HANNA is a visually stylish; brilliantly edited; powerfully orchestrated action movie let down by inconsistent acting styles; insufficiently developed themes; and a story full of plot holes so large you could drive a horse and carriage through them.
Let's start with the bad. HANNA is a story that simply collapses on its own lack of logic. Papa (Eric Bana) wants to keep Hanna (Saiorse Ronan) safe from evil CIA meanie, Marissa (Cate Blanchett). Lesser-trained peeps might think to hide in plain sight in a major metropolis, camouflaged by banality. But no, ex-CIA tough guy, Papa, decides to keep Hanna in a wintery forest, training herto be a bad-ass assassin, Kick-Girl-stylee, and then, allowing her to press a transponder button that immediately alerts the CIA to her presence! And even then, rather that travel to some safe little town Papa and Hanna engineer a confrontation in Berlin because, hey, without that, there wouldn't be a film. The CIA are similarly idiotic. For those who have seen the film, I simply ask why Marissa didn't run after Erik and the baby after the car accident and end proceedings right there?
Still, let's say we go with this absurd plot and willingly suspend our disbelief, the movie doesn't help by consistently undermining the credibility and authenticity it's so desperately trying to create. (And I'm not just talking about idiot goofs like showing that Hanna's ears have been pierced). The big problem is inconsistent acting styles.
Ronan does a good job in trying to convey what it must be like for an isolated child to suddenly be part of the modern world, with its incessant babbling. Director Joe Wright, together with his DP Alwin Kuchler, and his editor, Paul Tothill, do a stand-up job of depicting sensory overload. I also loved Hanna's tentative first friendship with a teenage camper, played by the scene-stealing Jessica Barden (TAMARA DREWE). There is a real sense of intimacy and authenticity - in particular, I loved the scene in the tent - it was intimate but never felt voyeuristic or exploitative. I also really loved Hanna's reaction to seeing a real family interact for the first time - her simple smile at seeing a mother and father hugging a child. I completely disagree with reviewers and commentators who say that the film loses pace at this point. After all, this is not just an action film but a character-driven film - and Hanna's response to the family moves this film beyond KICK-ASS and into some altogether more interesting territory.
The problem is that all this good character-work is completely undermined by Cate Blanchett's hammy performance as the CIA agent, Marissa. Blanchett's Marissa isn't so much a fully developed character as a colour-coded compendium of caricatured evil: posion-green Prada shoes, bright orange ill-fitting fright-wig and ever-shifting Southern accent (as if, in this post-Osama world, the worst thing you can sound like is a Southern Republican). It was almost as much of an embarrassment as the throw-back costume design of Tom Hollander's sleazy German night-club owner and his skin-head Droogs - as if A Clockwork Orange had been crossed with Smiley's People.
I suspect the problem was that Joe Wright was trying to explore the fairytale themes in the story - Hanna as a little red riding hood in a cottage in the woods and Marissa as a kind of evil step-mother figure and/or the big bad wolf. The cottage in Berlin is out of Hansel and Gretel... These themes are suggested in the visuals - costumes, colour choices, and even more explicitly in the final scene between Marissa and Hanna. But, those themes are obstructions to credibility and are never fully developed. I think that's why, when I finally left the cinema, I felt I had been given a taste of something deeper, something clever, but that the film hadn't followed through.
Still for all those criticisms, and the final sense of disappointment, I really did enjoy watching HANNA and I think it's definitely worth the price of admission for the brilliantly choreographed and scored action sequences and the friendship scenes between Ronan and Barden. Joe Wright needs to make a flick that either pure character-driven action - like BOURNE - or pure character. He needs to stay focussed and pick a script that hasn't been worked over so much that it becomes a mass of contradictions and poorly developed themes.
HANNA is on release in Aruba, Greece, Hong Kong, Canada, the US, Malaysia, South Korea, Taiwan, Iceland, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia and the UK. It opens on May 11th in Belgium, on May 13th in Italy and on May 26th in Germany and Switzerland. It opens on June 9th in France, Argentina, Estonia, Spain and Turkey. It opens on June 16th in Hungary, on June 23rd in Portugal, and on July 7th in Sweden, the Netherlands and Norway. It opens on July 21st in Singapore, on August 27th in Japan and on September 1st in Australia and New Zealand.
Posted by Bina007 at 15:36 2 comments:
Labels: action, aldo maland, alwin kuchler, cate blanchett, cool tunes, david farr, DV, eric bana, jason flemyng, jessica barden, joe wright, olivia williams, saoirse ronan, seth lockhead, tom hollander
Random-DVD Round-Up 4 - FRED: THE MOVIE
FRED: THE MOVIE is the infinitely irritating feature-length flick starring self-appointed YouTube sensation "Fred" aka teenager Lucas Cruikshank. Cruikshank's character is an infantile teen with a passion for day-glo clothes, who speaks in a speeded-up Chipmunk voice and has a two-year-old temper tantrum whenever things don't go his way. This might have been charming in the YouTube short-form but it is absolutely unbearable for 90 minutes. Shame on teen pop star Pixie Lott for jumping on its hopefully short-lived PR bandwagon. As for the movie - the colours are Day-Glo, the direction pedestrian, and the basic plot the same as any other teen comedy: the nerdy protagonist has to triumph over the neighbourhood bully to get the prettiest girl in high school. Frankly, I watched 20 minutes before switching off. Admittedly if the movie had taken a right-turn into a slasher flick wherein the main cast get nastily ripped limb from limb, it might have improved. I will never know.
FRED: THE MOVIE was released as a TV movie in the US in September 2010 and was inexplicably given a theatrical release in the UK and Ireland in December. It is now available to rent and own.
Labels: clay weiner, comedy, david a goodman, DV, john cena, lucas cruikshank, piss-poor, pixie lott, roddy bottum, scott henriksen, teen
Random DVD Round-Up 3 - LEGEND OF THE GUARDIANS: THE OWLS OF GA'HOOLE
I really rather liked LEGEND OF THE GUARDIANS: THE OWLS OF GA'HOOLE. It is a beautifully animated, brilliantly voiced, old-fashioned story in the manner of WATERSHIP DOWN. Moreover, it is blissfully absent of the sort of post-modern wit that propels the SHREK franchise. What's even more astonishing is that it was directed by Zack Snyder - purveyor of visually lush but morally vacuous, if not morally objectionable, fare like 300 and SUCKER PUNCH. The protagonists were sympathetic and endearing and their adventure story more compelling than any plot description would suggest.
The story is based on the Guardians of Ga'Hoole books by Kathryn Lansky books, and this film focuses on two young owls, Soren and Kludd, who are kidnapped by some nasty racial purist owls. Luckily Soren is taken under the wing of a fellow inmate and taught how to outwit his captors and to eventually seek out the Jedi like Guardians who can teach him how to use his Gizzard and "save the world". If this sounds very STAR-WARS then it succeeds for the same reasons that Star Wars succeeds - it's a classic Saturday Morning Adventure Serial with good triumphing over evil, framed as a coming-of-age story.
LEGEND OF THE GUARDIANS: THE OWLS OF GA'HOOLE went on global release in autumn 2010. It is now available to rent and own.
Labels: abbie cornish, animation, anthony lapaglia, children, david wenham, geoffrey rush, helen mirren, hugo weaving, jim sturgess, joel edgerton, miriam margolyes, ryan kwanten, sam neill, zack snyder
Random DVD Round-Up 2 - BARRY MUNDAY aka THE FAMILY JEWELS
I rather liked THE FAMILY JEWELS, although I must admit it was rather betrayed by its marketing. I was rather expecting it to be a gross-out frat-boy comedy in the manner of a Judd Apatow flick. After all, the central conceit is that Patrick Wilson's character - Barry Munday - is a promiscuous, misogynistic David Brent-style loser who gets his balls cut off by the vengeful father of a teenage girl. Just as he realises he can't father children, he's told that a plain-jane one-night stand (Judy Greer) he can't even remember fucking, is knocked up. What then follows is actually a rather sweet, rather earnest little romantic drama, in which Barry comes to accept fatherhood and his baby-mama, Ginger, comes to accept his attentions. The movie may be rather predictable and the direction is certainly workman-like, but it's also peppered with some delicious cameos from the likes of Billy-Dee Williams as Barry's boss; Malcolm McDowell as Ginger's dad; and Cybill Shepherd as her mum. Overall, the movie is not particularly memorable but it was enjoyable enough at the time, and Patrick Wilson is so funny and convincing as Barry Munday I would love to see him do more out-and-out comedy.
THE FAMILY JEWELS played a bunch of minor festivals in 2010 and had a very limited US release in October 2010. It is available to rent and own.
Labels: alison lohman, billy dee williams, chloe sevigny, chris d'arienzo, colin hanks, comedy, cybill shepherd, jean smart, judy greer, malcolm mcdowell, missi pyle, patrick wilson, shea whigham
Random DVD Round-Up 1 - THE ROMANTICS
THE ROMANTICS is a movie about a bunch of late-twenties college friends reunited at the Long Island wedding of two of the group. The marriage forces the group to re-assess their friendships, loyalties and sexual attraction - and all this should create tension around whether the wedding between Tom and Lila (Josh Duhamel and Anna Paquin) will actually go ahead given that Laura (Katie Holmes) is still carrying a torch for the groom. The audience is meant to be drawn into the emotional lives of characters who feel mixed-up and sympathetic - just like us! And debut feature director, Galt Niederhoffer (adapting her own novel, employs lots of obvious tricks to try and manufacture that empathy and a sense that we are watching an hip counter-culture indie flick rather than an inauthentic Hollywood rom-com: gloomy lighting; painfully indie sound-track; deliberately obscure ending. Sadly though, the film fails on every level. Casting 40 year olds like Josh Duhamel breaks the credibility of the film, especially when we're meant to believe he was a peer of THE OC's Adam Brody. The acting is universally bad and yet for diametrically opposite reasons: chip-board performances from Duhamel and Katie Holmes but hammy, over-the-top acting from Elijah Woods, Malin Akerman and Anna Paquin. The whole thing struck me as self-indulgent; pretentious; inauthentic and dull, dull, dull. Distributors were right to scorn it: there is a reason why it appeared in the UK as a straight to video/TV release.
THE ROMANTICS played Sundance 2010 and was released in 2010 in the US and Slovenia. It was released in Iceland in March 2011.
Labels: adam brody, anna paquin, elijah wood, galt niederhoffer, jeremy strong, jon sadoff, josh duhamel, katie holmes, malin akerman, piss-poor, pretentious wank, romance, sam levy, Sundance
Late Late review - London Film Fest 2010 Day 11 - 13 ASSASSINS
13 ASSASSINS is a fantastic film. I literally bounced out of the cinema having watched it! On one level it's a brilliantly lavish Samurai film in the classic mould - beautiful costumes, whole villages created as sets, codes of honour broken, elegantly choreographed sword-fighting - and it reminded me how much I loved Samurai films. On another level, it's typical Takashi Miike mischief - satirising the violence of Samurai movies with a level of gore and blood that is quite simply ridonkulous - and making the village idiot actually a better sword-fighter than the pompous Samurai.
The plot is straight out of Shogun Total War 2. It's mid 19th century Japan with the Shogunate on its last legs but still rich enough to hire Shinzaemon (Kôji Yakusho) to assassinate the evil pretender, Lord Naritsugu (Gorô Inagaki). The first half of the film is a Kurosawa style "putting the band back together" narrative, with the cool twist of having Yusuke Iseya play the provincial dolt who gains a place alongside his hard-core Samurai team-mates. And in the second half of the flick, they turn the town of Ochiai into an A-Team style booby-trap setting up a brutal, bloody massacre.
The first thing to say about 13 ASSASSINS is that it looks amazing. The production design is lavish in style and flawless in its period detail, creating a look typically associated with epic historical drama. The photography (Nobuyasu Kita) echoes this lavish style with Kubrick-like deliberate framing and slow, stylised camera movements. Interior scenes are lit by candelight to give an authentic feel and the detail of the costumes is breath-taking. The second thing to say is that beyond the historic detail, Takashi Miike remains the Director of the Egregious - from the audacious sadism of Naritsugu (e.g. the women crippled so extremely by "total massacre") - to the egregious and dogmatic code of honour of Shinzaemon - to the balletic, operatic, monumental final display of bloodshed in the village. Miike creates a film that is utterly modern in its gorging, self-indulgent, obese display of blood and violence - but also a film that is curiously nostalgic for the age of the Samurai when that bloodshed was part of a self-sacrifice for honour. His film is, then, a bravura performance - modern, nostalgic, bloody, but with depth. Undoubtedly one of the finest films of the London Film Festival.
13 ASSASSINS played Venice and Toronto 2010 and was released in Japan in September. It opens in the UK in May 2011.
Labels: action, costume, Japan, koji yakusho, martial arts, takashi miike, yusuke iseya
I rarely say this pre-review but you MUST go and s...
THOR 3D - a movie so dull it took me two weeks to ...
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES - A mo...
HANNA - visually brilliant - narratively nonsensic...
Random DVD Round-Up 3 - LEGEND OF THE GUARDIANS: T...
Random DVD Round-Up 2 - BARRY MUNDAY aka THE FAMIL...
Late Late review - London Film Fest 2010 Day 11 - ...

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Killer Mike Declared He's Not Voting For Trump Or Clinton For President Because They're The 'Same Thing'
by: Ryan O'ConnellTwitter August 12, 2016
Like many Bernie Sanders supporters, Killer Mike has found himself searching for a presidential candidate to support now that the race has been narrowed to Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton (in addition to a few third-party options.) And also just like some of those diehard Bernie folks, he's not particularly enamored with his choices.
The Run The Jewels member recently told TMZ he's currently not only not voting for Trump, but he's not voting for Clinton either, saying that "voting for Trump or Hillary Clinton, you're voting for the same thing." The "Bernie or Bust" crowd, despite the Senator's numerous protests to avoid that mentality, seems to still be roaring, at least with the Atlanta rapper.
Killer Mike's interview with Sanders was a viral hit, he played the role of Sanders' surrogate following one of the Democratic presidential debates and made his pitch for Sanders on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. He also publicly criticized the former secretary of state in February, taking umbrage with her response to a Black Lives Matter protestor who disrupted one of her events in South Carolina.
So yeah, he's not onboard with jumping from one Democratic candidate to the other and in the TMZ interview, he reiterated his fondness for Sanders, while laying out the choices left on the table.
"As Americans, we have to understand that, in the world, we're an empire — we're an empirical force — and we have to, we need to, as citizens, start demanding. We had one candidate this year, who had a strong chance of winning, who was anti-growing war, and that was Sanders, and we didn't vote him in, so we're getting what we asked for. We're asking for more war. And, if you don't want any war, you'd be voting Jill Stein. If you want less government and war, you'd be voting Gary Johnson. But if you're voting for Trump or Hillary Clinton, you're voting for the same thing. All of us, as citizens, need to kind of get over our classisms and vote for the betterment of us all."
Killer Mike was also asked about Trump's recent remark, in which he suggested (either jokingly or not, depending on who you listen to) that "the Second Amendment" people could do something to stop Clinton.
"I don't think that's what he was saying. I hope that's not what he was saying. He's batsh*t crazy, but I don't think he would call for the assassination of another presidential candidate."
While that may be open to interpretation, these Obama is the founder of ISIS claims Trump is (allegedly sarcastically) making?
"I just think that's crazy, but he's not the only one that said it. I mean, not said that, but said crazy stuff. If you listen to Fox News, you hear the wildest sh*t every day. So, my thing is, Donald Trump, essentially, is repeating the same stuff I hear when I watch Fox News, so I'm not surprised by it, but I don't think our president – but I do think our government has done a great job at destabilizing countries and creating enemies."
So in other words, Killer Mike, how are you feeling about the election?
Okay. Fair enough.
(Via Pitchfork)
Tags: 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, Bernie or Bust, Killer Mike


text:
Dr. Vinay Kumar
Abstract Conclusions
Megaliths Culture among the Khasi and Jaintia tribes of North-East India
Etymologically speaking the word 'megalith' is derived from two Greek words megalithos meaning huge and lithoi meaning stone; hence, it denotes a huge stone. The term 'megalith' may be explained as 'a grave or memorial erected in stone, whether dressed or in its natural form containing, enclosing or erected over the funerary assemblage'. Megalithic culture has no regional bounds as its cultural remnants are found all over the world. These monuments are found in Europe, Africa and Asia, including in the far eastern countries. In the neighbourhood of the Indian sub-continent, the presence of this culture is noticed in Iran and Baluchistan, extending up to Pakistan. In northern India, this culture is sporadic in occurrence as compared to south India.
The North-East region comprises the seven states of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura. It has different cultural, linguistic, religious and ethnic races. The races, which dwelt upon the region since remote antiquity are the Austrics, Mongolians, Dravidians and Aryans. Migration of all these races had contributed the development of composite culture in this region. The explorations and excavations at the sites of Ambari (Dhavalikar 1973:137-49), Guwahati, the ancient centre of Kamrupa kingdom (Das, 2007), Dhansiri-Doiyang valley (Dutta,2001: 92-97), in Arunachal Pradesh (Ashraf, 1998: 64-76), in Manipur (Devi,2011) etc. reveals rich archaeological heritage with art and architectural pieces, ancient settlements, religious sites, potteries etc. The megalithic culture is widespread in the region. The notable feature is the prevalence of these customs in some of the tribal communities of the region. Table stone and menhirs were being erected after the remarkable events of social importance. Typologically these are classified broadly into three categories viz. menhirs, dolmen and stone cists. Menhirs and dolmens are the monumental groups. Menhirs are found erected in the line of three, five, seven etc. whereas the dolmens are usually built in front of the menhirs. Origin of this tradition in this part of the country is perhaps influenced by the Southeast Asian megalithic tradition during the first half of the first million B.C. and perhaps ended during the first century AD. Date of origin of these megalithic traditions, however, is problematic. Some believe that this tradition was spread to this region from the west. According to Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf's observation they belong essentially to south-eastern Asia-Indonesia, Oceania, the Philippines, Formosa and were introduced into north-eastern India by Austro-Asiatic immigrants (Heimendorf 1945: 73–86). Haimendorf has come out with the theory that the Megalithic practices of South East Asia started in the late Stone Age. He says that the 'centre of diffusion of megalithism originated somewhere in Eastern Assam, North Burma or South-west China'. According to him, 'The megalithic types of stone circles and menhirs of the South-East Asiatic type, which still flourishes among Godabas, Bondos and Bastar Gonds reached peninsular India in Late Neolithic times and from an eastern direction, whereas the dolmen and the port-hole reached India from Mediterranean regions'. In his paper 'The problem of megalithic cultures of Middle India' Haimendorf further states that the purpose and meaning of the Megalithic monuments of the Gadabas and Bondos have the same basic idea as that of the Assam tribes. This view is also supported by Gordon Childe (Childe, 1948: 4-13).
The Khasi are an indigenous or tribal people, the majority of whom live in the State of Meghalaya in north east India, with small populations in neighbouring Assam, and in parts of Bangladesh. They call themselves Ki Hynñiew trep, which means "the seven huts" in the Khasi language. Their language Khasi is the northernmost Austroasiatic language. This language was essentially oral until the arrival of European missionaries. Particularly significant in this regard was a Welsh missionary, Thomas Jones, who transcribed the Khasi language into Roman Script. The Khasi people form the majority of the population of the eastern part of Meghalaya. A substantial minority of the Khasi people follow their tribal religion; called variously, Ka Niam Khasi and Ka Niam Tre in the Jaintia region and within that indigenous religious belief the rooster is sacrificed as a substitute for man, it being thought that the rooster "bears the sins of the man and by its sacrifice, man will obtain redemption". The Khasis, Jaintia and Nagas of Assam erect single standing stones (menhirs) or alignments of stones in honour of the dead, who are thereby encouraged to help their living kinsmen. In Assam, as well as in Indonesia and Oceania, a forked wooden post of Y-shape is an alternative to the menhir, and both posts and menhirs are associated with ox-sacrifice. An identical custom occurs in Bastar; and the Koyas and Raj Gonds of Hyderabad erect small forked posts carrying the tails of sacrificial cows on graves or the site of memorial feasts. In all these regions it is the widespread belief that the soul or 'virtue' of the dead man is
attached to the stone or post and benefits his survivors and the village-crops.
One of the striking features of the Khasis is the Megalithic culture whereby they erect megaliths, monoliths, cromlech and dolmens over which lie the foundation of prehistoric origin. It is astonishing to see that this culture is found to be associated with ancient people from all over the world such as the Monkhmer group of South East Asia. Such practices of the erection of stones are found in France and other parts of Europe. The Khasis indeed approach more nearly to the dominant megalithic custom of peninsular India in that they collect periodically the bones of clan- members and deposit them in a free-standing cist, as big as a small house, built of enormous single slabs. The significant aspect of the megalithic tradition is that the tradition is still in vogue in some of the pocket areas of the tribal communities in the Khasi and Jaintia Hills. They are widely distributed in the Khasi and Jaintia Hills of Meghalaya. Some of the megalithic sites in the Meghalaya are Nartiang,
Cherrapunji, Jowai, Maoflong, Lailugkot etc. Amongst several other sites in Ri-Bhoi District of Meghalaya like Mawrong, Mawbri, Iapngar, Tyrso, Umswai, Amjong, Umbi, Nongkhrah; Umjajew, San-Mer, Nongpyiur-Myrkhan and Tynring in East Khasi Hills District; sites around Shilian Myntang-Chei Bnai in Jaintia Hills District, and Nongspung and Wahlang of West Khasi Hills District, the site of Sohpet-Bneng Hill in Ri-Bhoi District situated north-east of Umiam-Barapani site deserves a special mention due to its association with the Khasis as their ancestral site. The Khasis generally erect a monolith as a tribute to a dead person. Immediately after the cremation, a monolith will be erected. These monoliths are comprised of a set of upright and flat stones. The upright stones or the menhirs are known as mawsynsang or the milestone and the table stone or dolmens are known as mawkynthei or the female stone. Menhirs or pillars stand upright, their bane being dumped inside and the dolmens lie flat in the front. They are known a Mawkjat which are laid during the cremation of the deceased or during the disposal of the ashes of the demised members of the house. Mawknaii maw pyrsa commemorating the seniors or juniors usually vary from three tall pillars to eleven or more and are associated with two or more dolmens.
One of the striking features of the Jaintia is the Megalithic culture whereby they erect megaliths, monoliths, cromlech and dolmens over which lie the foundation of prehistoric origin. It is astonishing to see that this culture is found to be associated with ancient people from all over the world such as the Monkhmer group of South East Asia. The Jaintia indeed approach more nearly to the dominant megalithic custom collecting periodically the bones of clan- members and deposit them in a free-standing cist, as big as a small house, built of enormous single slabs. The significant aspect of the megalithic tradition is that the tradition is still in vogue in some of the pocket areas of the tribal communities in the Jaintia Hills. They are widely distributed in the Jaintia Hills of Meghalaya. Like the Khasis the Jaintia also generally erect a monolith as a tribute to a dead person. Immediately after the cremation, a monolith is erected which are comprised of a set of upright and flat stones. Menhirs or pillars stand upright, their bone being dumped inside and the dolmens lie flat in the front. They are known a Mawkjat which are laid during the cremation of the deceased or during the disposal of the ashes of the demised members of the house. The monoliths represent the megalithic culture of the Jaintia people representing thus the Stonehenge of North-east India. The types of the megalithic monuments are menhirs, dolmens and cairns. The stone cairns are the monuments of upright stones in square or circular plan fitted closely. The stone cairns contain the bones of the family members or clans. These are deposited periodically after removing one flat stone. The calcified bones and ashes of the deceased are collected from time to time in an earthen jar and deposited in the cist. The dolmens are differed from the cist structurally as well as in content. Structurally dolmens are comprised of flat table stones and upright stones. But unlike stone cairns these do not contain any bony remains or ashes in jars. The third variety is the monumental groups of menhirs. They are comprised of huge stone slabs erected over the ground. The megalithic monuments of Nartiang in Meghalaya are significant because of larger dimension. Some of the monuments are very big even 9m high. Nartiang used to be the summer capital of the Jaintia Kings of the Sutnga State. The megaliths here are huge granite slabs probably hewn out by the fire setting method. The huge monolith, is said to be erected by Mar Phalyngki, a Goliath of yore. The Nartiang menhir measures 27 feet 6 inches in thickness. The monoliths represent the megalithic culture of the Hynniewtrep people representing thus the Stonehenge of Northeast India. The types of the megalithic monuments are menhirs, dolmens and cairns. The stone cairns are the monuments of upright stones in square or circular plan fitted closely. The stone cairns contain the bones of the family members or clans. These are deposited periodically after removing one flat stone. The calcified bones and ashes of the deceased are collected from time to time in an earthen jar and deposited in the cist. The dolmens are differed from the cist structurally as well as in content. Structurally dolmens are comprised of flat table stones and upright stones. But unlike stone cairns these do not contain any bony remains or ashes in jars. The third variety is the monumental groups of menhirs. They are comprised of huge stone slabs erected over the ground.
When we compare the megalithic culture tradition of North-East India to that of other parts of India we find that this tradition continues in very few pockets of north-eastern states of India, and is not profusely practiced here as seen in Central India. Though the concept of Megalithism has changed a lot from that what was during the time of crude and rough megaliths to the present cemented cenotaphs and the painted memorial, but what yet pleases is the basic core concept of the whole, which is unchanged. However, today there are many obstacles in the way of protection of the practice of this culture among the future generations as the main constrain is the expenditure of the feast which the deceased's relatives have to bear at the time of the installation of the memorial. The second obstacle has been occurred because of anti-laws and political scenario. As many political fractions are trying their best to create political advantages over the sensitive issues related with megalithism which is why these tribal communities think a must according to their tradition. Besides this, authors have observed that today's tribal groups wants to develop themselves as far as possible which is worth applauding but not at the cost of their own separation from their cultures. However, certain exceptions are there as past customs such as megalithism lacks seriousness in present-day tribal group practices. As far as awareness is concerned, authors have noticed that there have been some efforts on creating awareness in the state by the Archaeological Survey of India. For protecting the wooden memorials, shelters are also being constructed over them. Apart from it, newly painted blank boards are still waiting for the fenced protected area.
Ashraf, A. A. 1998. 'Archaeological Remains and Further Prospects in Arunachal Pradesh', Puratattva 28: 64-76.
Childe, V. Gordon. 1948. 'Megaliths', Ancient India 4: 4-13.
Das, P. 2007. History and Archaeology of Northeast India. Agam Kala Prakashan, New Delhi.
Devi, P. Binodini, 2011. Megalithic Culture of Manipur. New Delhi: Agamkala Prakashan
Dhavalikar, M.K. 1973. Archaeology of Gauhati, Bulletin of the Deccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institute, pp. 137-49, Pune.
Dutta, H. N. 2001, Archaeological Importance of Doiyang- Dhansiri valley of Assam, Puratattva 31: 92-97.
Heimendorf, C.von Furer. 1945. 'The Problem of Megalithic Cultures in Middle India', Man in India 25: 73-86.


Atopic dermatitis is an inflammatory, pruritic skin disease that often occurs in early infancy with a chronic course. However, the description of different subtypes of atopic dermatitis, depending on the timing of onset and the evolution of the disease in early childhood, is lacking.
To identify different phenotypes of atopic dermatitis, using the symptoms in the first 6 years of life from a prospective study, and whether they differ in their association with parental allergic status and prenatal farm-related exposures.
1045 children who participated in the birth cohort study, Protection Against Allergy-Study in Rural Environments (PASTURE), were included in the current study. Symptoms of atopic dermatitis were reported by parents from birth to 6 years of age by yearly questionnaires and defined as an intermittent or persistent itchy rash on typical locations. We used longitudinal latent class analysis (LCA) to identify different phenotypes of atopic dermatitis symptoms in childhood based on the first 6 years of life.
The LCA model with the best fit to PASTURE data was a model with 4 classes. Therefore, we could determine 4 phenotypes of atopic dermatitis symptoms, defined as follow: never or infrequent (894, 85.6 %), early-transient (52, 5.0 %), early-persistent (55, 5.3%), and late (44, 4.2%). The parental history of allergies was strongly associated with the early-persistent phenotype. Maternal contact to pets (cat or dog) during pregnancy showed a significantly protective effect only on the early-persistent phenotype. A same tendency was observed with prenatal contact to farm animals, even though not significant. However, maternal consumption of farm milk during pregnancy showed a protective effect, only on the early-transient phenotype of atopic dermatitis symptoms.
Using latent class analysis, 4 different phenotypes of atopic dermatitis symptoms were identified. The association between prenatal exposures and atopic dermatitis symptoms were different depending on the phenotypes of atopic dermatitis.


text:
Senior researchersPostdocsPhD students
Veerle Coupé (Chair)
Veerle Coupé is astronomer by training with a MSc degree in Clinical Epidemiology and a PhD degree in Medical Decision Sciences. Her research concerns mathematical modeling of the development and progression of cancer, in order to predict clinical and economic outcomes of prevention, diagnostics, and treatment. She built micro-simulation models for the evaluation of screening for colorectal cancer and cervical cancer and for the evaluation of treatments in melanoma and lung cancer. She currently supervises PhD students who are modelling diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer, melanoma and colorectal cancer. Furthermore, Veerle Coupé teaches in the area of statistical methodology, mathematical modeling and cost-effectiveness.
Email: v.coupe@amsterdamumc.nl
Hans Berkhof (Co-chair)
Hans Berkhof is chair of the department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the VU University Medical Center and is a researcher in the field of disease modeling and statistics. His research focuses on the development of mathematical decision models and integration of evidence from multiple sources. He has developed HPV disease and transmission models and has advised national health decision makers on HPV screening and vaccination issues. He also teaches in the area of modeling, screening and prevention.
Email: h.berkhof@amsterdamumc.nl
Thomas Klausch
Thomas Klausch is a post-doctoral researcher in biostatistics specializing in the fields of predictive modeling (statistical learning) and causal inference. Before joining VUmc, Thomas was a post-doc at the Department of Methodology and Statistics at Utrecht University, where he also received his PhD degree. His PhD thesis focused on methods for estimating and adjusting errors in survey statistics. In this time, he was additionally a fellow at the methodology section of Statistics Netherlands (Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek). In his current research, he focusses on methods for estimating optimal treatment strategies using patient registry data. He is involved in EU project BD2Decide where he collaborates in an international network on a clinical support system for treatment decision making. Furthermore, he acts as statistical consultant to researchers at VUmc.
Email: t.klausch@amsterdamumc.nl
Birgit Lissenberg-Witte
Birgit Lissenberg-Witte studied Mathematics with a major in Statistics at the VU University Amsterdam and obtained her PhD degree in Mathematical Statistics at the Delft University of Technology. During her PhD research, she developed nonparametric methods to estimate the cumulative incidence of asymptomatic diseases, in particular the incidence of viral infections (HIV and Hepatitis A), and focussed on mathematical properties of these estimation methods. Her current research aims at more applied methodology in health science. She developed algorithms for more accurate estimation of cumulative incidence by correcting for misclassification of events due to limited accuracy of screening tests. Furthermore, she is involved in clinical decision research as a statistical consultant. Birgit teaches in the area of statistical methodology.
Email: b.lissenberg@amsterdamumc.nl
Tiago de Carvalho
Tiago M. de Carvalho did his bachelor degree in Economics at the University of Lisbon (ISEG), and has an MSc degree in Econometrics from the University of Groningen. He completed his PhD at the Department of Public Health, Erasmus Medical Center Rotterdam, where he used a microsimulation model to quantify the harms and benefits of active surveillance after prostate cancer screening. Before joining the VUmc he held postdoctoral positions at University College London and at Erasmus Medical Center Rotterdam. He joins the department to develop a model for the cost-effectiveness of ct-DNA in patients with metastasized colorectal cancer. His research interests include applying simulation and/or statistical models to evaluate health and economic outcomes of cancer care and developing methods based on metamodelling for efficient computation with simulation models.
Email: tm.decarvalho@amsterdamumc.nl
Robine Donken
Robine Donken obtained a Bachelor in Health and Life Sciences at VU University in Amsterdam and received her Master in Epidemiology at Utrecht University. Her PhD project was a collaboration between the VU Medical Center, Amsterdam and the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), Bilthoven in the Netherlands. Her PhD thesis focused on monitoring of the Dutch HPV vaccination program and describes the effects, the change to the two-dose schedule, methodological challenges and future perspective. After her PhD, Robine worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, BC Canada, focussing on the population-based impact of the HPV vaccine as well as optimal immunization schedules. Her current research focusses on optimizing cervical cancer screening through risk-based strategies. She is also the program manager for the European consortium for Risk-based cervical cancer screening (RISCC).
Email: r.donken@amsterdamumc.nl
Marjolein Greuter
Marjolein Greuter has a MSc degree in Research in Health Sciences from VU University Amsterdam, with a focus on health economic modeling. She is also a registered Epidemiologist. She completed her PhD on the ASCCA project (VU University Medical Center), which aimed to use micro-simulation to predict health effects and costs of population-based screening strategies for colorectal cancer (CRC). She has constructed a disease model that describes the natural history of CRC and used this model to predict the long-term health effects of the recently implemented Dutch colorectal cancer screening programme. Her current research focuses on the potential of biomarkers in CRC screening and surveillance. Besides her research, she teaches in the area of health economics and basic statistics.
Email: mj.greuter@amsterdamumc.nl
Ingrid van Maurik
Ingrid van Maurik studied Health and Life Sciences at the VU University Amsterdam and received her MSc degree in Clinical Neuropsychology at Leiden University. She completed her PhD (cum laude) on the ABIDE project which aimed to develop biomarker-based prognostic models and decision support tools for memory clinic professionals. Her current research focuses on the development of multi-dimensional, individualized prognostic and cost-effectiveness models of Alzheimer's disease, as part of the ADDITION project. She is also involved in the ABIDE-clinical utility project and IMI AMYPAD project. Both projects aim to find optimal diagnostic strategies for amyloid-PET in the memory clinic. All projects are in collaboration with the Alzheimercenter Amsterdam.
Email: i.vanmaurik@amsterdamumc.nl
Birgit Sollie
Birgit Sollie is a post-doctoral researcher and received her BSc and MSc in Mathematics at the VU University Amsterdam, where she specialized in stochastic processes, statistics and mathematical biology. She completed her PhD in statistics (VU University Amsterdam) on statistical inverse problems for population processes. She conducted research on population processes of which the parameters are affected by an underlying stochastic process, with the aim to find inference techniques to estimate the parameters, including those related to the underlying process. Her current research focuses on HPV transmission models and on cost-effectiveness assessments of HPV vaccination strategies.
Email: b.sollie@amsterdamumc.nl
Eddymurphy Akwiwu
Eddymurphy Akwiwu had his first degree in Industrial Mathematics at Imo State University, Nigeria. He holds two Masters degrees in Mathematical Sciences and Computational Engineering from the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences and Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland respectively. During his master degrees, he worked on parameter identifiability of epidemiological models using Bayesian methods, and discrete modelling & analysis of contact networks in epidemic models. He is currently doing a PhD on Bayesian methods in modelling cancer screening at VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam. This project aims to develop probabilistic methods for multi-state models with applications to cervical cancer screening and colorectal cancer screening by simultaneously estimating the durations between health states and the accuracy of screening tests from individual-level screening and treatment data, explicitly addressing adequate estimation of uncertainty. In addition, he will develop and teach a course in Bayesian Statistics.
Email: e.akwiwu@amsterdamumc.nl
Zeli Chen
Zeli Chen studied psychobiology (BSc) at the University of Padua and obtained her MSc in Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the University of Amsterdam. She also has a degree of BA in Italian Literature. During her MSc study, she developed an interest in clinical neuroscience and quantitative methods. She is currently working as a PhD student on the ABOARD project at the VUmc. This project aims to develop a personalized diagnosis, prediction and prevention approach of Alzheimer's disease. She will be working on the validation of the risk prediction models, assessing their prediction accuracy based on clinical data.
Email: z.chen1@amsterdamumc.nl
Federica Inturrisi
Federica Inturrisi studied Biology at the University of Catania and received her MSc degree in Molecular Biosciences, major Cancer Biology, from the University of Heidelberg and DKFZ. She also holds a MSc degree in Epidemiology and Biostatistics. After having worked on STI-related projects and in particular in the field of infection and cancer, she started her PhD at the VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam. The aim of the project is to evaluate benefits, harms and cost-effectiveness of the risk-stratification strategy as foreseen in the new Dutch HPV-based cervical cancer screening program implemented in 2017.
Email: f.inturrisi@amsterdamumc.nl
Astrid Kramer
Astrid Kramer studied Health Sciences at the VU University Amsterdam (BSc) and University of Twente (MSc). During her bachelor's, she developed an interest in health technologies and during her master's more specifically in health technology assessments and economic modelling. Subsequently, she started as a PhD student on the COIN-project. In the COIN-project, all research groups in the Netherlands collaborate to take the essential steps to implement analysis of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) in clinical practice in the Netherlands in a controlled, cost-effective and validated manner. Astrid will focus on the early health technology assessment in the COIN-project.
Email: a.kramer1@amsterdamumc.nl
Kelsi Kroon
Kelsi Kroon obtained her master's degree in mathematics at the University of St Andrews in Scotland where she studied mathematics and statistics with a focus on statistical modelling, medical statistics and data analysis. Her masters project on microarray time course and transcription factor analysis in prostate cancer cell lines sparked an interest in the application of statistical methods and data science to medical data, in particular cancer data. She is currently working as a PhD student on the Risk-based cervical cancer screening (RISCC) project at the VU Medical Center in Amsterdam.
Email: k.kroon@amsterdamumc.nl
Arenda Mank
Arenda Mank studied medicine at the Leiden University. She is currently doing a PhD at the VUmc Alzheimercenter on the ADDITION project, in collaboration with the department of epidemiology and biostatistics. The aim of this project is to assess the disease trajectories, care pathways and time to key events of relevance for an individual with Alzheimer's disease. Furthermore, ADDITION aims to develop a multi-dimensional, individualized prognosis and cost-effectiveness model of Alzheimer's disease.
Email: a.mank@amsterdamumc.nl
 Zakile Mfumbilwa
Zakile A. Mfumbilwa studied Statistics at The University of Dodoma and received his Master of Statistics with specialization in Biostatistics from Hasselt University. Currently, he is a PhD researcher at VU University Medical Center, on the TANGO project. This project aims to assess long-term health outcomes and cost-effectiveness of using whole genome sequencing (WGS) result (tumor load) as well as imaging data in the decision to provide immunotherapy in advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and melanoma patients, compared to current practice of immunotherapy treatment.
Email: z.mfumbilwa@amsterdamumc.nl
Francine van Wifferen
Francine van Wifferen studied Biomedical Sciences and received her MSc degree with specializations in Epidemiology and Health Technology Assessment at the Radboud university in Nijmegen. She is currently working as a PhD student on the ASCCA project at the VU University medical center. The ASCCA project aims to optimize colorectal cancer screening and surveillance in terms of effectiveness and cost-effectiveness. She will especially focus on the potential of biomarker tests for the detection of colorectal cancer and its precursor lesions.
Email: f.vanwifferen@amsterdamumc.nl
Harold Wolff
Harold Wolff studied Bio-Medical sciences, with extra-curricular courses in medicine, computer sciences, chemistry and physics, and obtained his MSc degree in Systems Biology at the VU University Amsterdam. After his MSc, he worked as a research assistant at the University of Pittsburgh and as a pre-doc at the Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) on a bio-physical tissue simulation model. He is currently doing a PhD at the VU University Medical Center on a micro-simulation model of non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC). This model aims to predict long-term health-effects and cost-effectiveness of diagnostics and treatments in NSCLC.
Email: h.wolff@amsterdamumc.nl
© 2022 Decision Modelling Center VUmc · Webdesign: Alva Design


text:
require_relative "spec_helper"

def app
  BooksController
end

describe BooksController do

  # describe 'books show page' do
  #     it 'shows all a single users books' do
  #       user = User.create(:name => "becky567", :email => "starz@aol.com", :password => "kittens")
  #       book1 = Book.create(:title => "Lord of The Rings", :summary => "A book about battle of Middle Earth", :user_id => user.id)
  #       author2 = Author.create(:name => "JK Rowling")
  #       book2 = Book.create(:title => "Harry Potter & Sorcerors Stone", :summary => "A magical kid goes to wizarding school", :user_id => user.id)
  #       get "/books"
  #
  #       expect(last_response.body).to include("Lord of The Rings")
  #       expect(last_response.body).to include("Harry Potter & Sorcerors Stone")
  #   end
  # end

end

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
The Construction of Brand Denmark: A Case Study of the Reversed Causality in Nation Brand Valuation
Henrik Merkelsen Department of Strategic Communication, Lund University, Sweden
Rasmus Kjærgaard Rasmussen Department of Communication, Business and information Technologies, Roskilde University, Denmark
Keywords: Nation branding, measurement, reputation, risk, bureaucracy
In this article we unpack the organizational effects of the valuation practices enacted by nation branding rankings in a contemporary case where the Danish government employed branding-inspired methods. Our main argument is that the use of nation branding was enabled by the Nation Brands Index via its efficient translation of fuzzy political goals into understandable numerical objectives. The Nation Brands Index becomes the driving force in a powerful bureaucratic translation of nation branding which in turn has several reordering effects at organizational level. We thus demonstrate how the Nation Brands Index permits bureaucratic expansion in central government administration as it continuously maintains and reconstructs problems solvable by the initiation of more nation branding initiatives and projects and hence more bureaucratic activity.
Anholt, Simon. 2002. "Foreword." Journal of Brand Management 9 (4): 229–239. DOI: 10.1057/palgrave.bm.2540074
Anholt, Simon. 2006. "Why Brand? Some Practical Considerations for Nation Branding." Place Branding and Public Diplomacy 2 (2): 97–107. DOI: 10.1057/palgrave.pb.5990048
Anholt, Simon. 2007. Competitive Identity. The New Brand Management for Nations, Cities and Regions. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
Aronczyk, Melissa. 2008."'Living the Brand': Nationality, Globality, and the Identity Strategies of Nation Branding Consultants." International Journal of Communication 2: 41–65.
Aronczyk, Melissa. 2009. "How to Do Things with Brands: Uses of National Identity." Canadian Journal of Communication 34: 291–6.
Blichfeldt, Bodol Stilling. 2005. "Unmanageable Place Brands?" Place Branding 1 (4): 388–401. DOI: 10.1057/palgrave.pb.5990036
Callon, Michel. 1986. "Some Elements of a Sociology of Translation: Domestication of the Scallops and the Fishermen of St Brieuc Bay." In Power, Action and Belief: A New Sociology of Knowledge, edited by John Law, 205-224. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Callon, Michel, and Bruno Latour. 1981. "Unscrewing the Big Leviathan: How Actors Macro-structure Reality and How Sociologists Help Them to Do So." In Advances in Social Theory and Methodology. Toward an Integration of Micro and Macro-sociologies, edited by Karin D. Knorr-Cetina and Aaron Victor Cicourel, 277–303. Boston, MA: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Christensen, Lars Thøger, Mette Morsing, and George Cheney. 2008. Corporate Communications: Convention, Complexity, and Critique. Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications.
Danish Broadcasting Corporation. 2006. Former foreign minister Ellemann-Jensen in the talkshow 'Debatten'. DR2. 16 February 2006.
Danish Government. 2006. Debatoplæg: Danmarks omdømme [Discussion paper: Denmarks reputation]. Copenhagen: Ministry of Economic and Business Affairs.
Danish Government. 2007. Action Plan for the Global Marketing of Denmark. Copenhagen: Ministry for Economic and Business Affairs.
Danish Government. 2010a. Handlingsplan for offensiv global markedsføring af Danmark 2011-2012 [Action Plan for the Global Marketing of Denmark 2011–2012]. Copenhagen: Ministry of Economic and Business Affairs.
Danish Government. 2010b. Status på implementering af handlingsplanen for Offensiv global markedsføring af Danmark 2009 [Progress report for the implementation of the Action Plan for the Global Marketing of Denmark]. Copenhagen: Ministry of Economic and Business Affairs.
Danish Government 2011. Action Plan for the Global Marketing of Denmark. Progress Report 2011. Copenhagen: Ministry for Economic and Business Affairs.
Danish Government. 2012. Evaluering af Handlingsplanen for offensiv global markedsføring af Danmark 2007-2012 (Copenhagen Economics) [Final evaluation of Action Plan for the Global Marketing of Denmark 2007–2012). Copenhagen: Ministry of Economic and Business Affairs.
Dewey, John. 1939. Theory of Valuation. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Dinnie, Keith. 2008. Nation Branding: Concepts, Issues, Practice (1st ed.). Oxford and Burlington, MA: Butterworth-Heinemann.
Dunleavy, Patrick, and Christopher Hood. 1994. "From Old Public Administration to New Public Management." Public Money and Management 14 (3): 9–16. DOI: 10.1080/09540969409387823
Fan, Ying. 2006. "Branding the Nation: What is Being Branded?" Journal of Vacation Marketing 12 (1): 5–14. DOI: 10.1177/1356766706056633
Fenton, Christopher, and Ann Langley. 2011. "Strategy as Practice and the Narrative Turn." Organization Studies 32 (9): 1171–1196. DOI: 10.1177/0170840611410838
Frost, Randall. 2004. "Mapping a Country's Future." BrandChannel June 2013. Available from http://www.brandchannel.com/features_effect. asp. Accessed June 2015.
Gertner, David. 2011. "Unfolding and Configuring Two Decades of Research and Publications on Place Marketing and Place Branding." Place Branding and Public Diplomacy 7 (2): 91–106. DOI: 10.1057/pb.2011.7
Hacking, Ian. 1990. The taming of chance. Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/cbo9780511819766
Hansen, Hans Krause, and Mikkel Flyverbom. 2015. "The Politics of Transparency and the Calibration of Knowledge in the Digital Age." Organization 22 (6): 872–889. DOI: 10.1177/1350508414522315
Helm, Sabrina. 2007. "One Reputation or Many? Comparing Stakeholders' Perceptions of Corporate Reputation." Corporate Communications: An International Journal 12 (3): 238–254. DOI: 10.1108/13563280710776842
Jansen, Sue Curry. 2008. Designer Nations: Neo-liberal Nation Branding—Brand Estonia. Social Identities 14 (1): 121–142. DOI: 10.1080/13504630701848721
Kaneva, Nadia. 2011. "Nation Branding: Toward an Agenda for Critical Research." International Journal of Communication 5: 117–141.
Kaneva, Nadia. 2012. "Nation Branding in Post-Communist Europe: Identities, Markets, and Democracy." In Branding post-communist nations: Marketizing national identities in the "new" Europe, edited by Nadia Kaneva, 3-22. Routledge, 2011.
Kaneva, Nadia, and Delia Popescu. 2011. "National Identity Lite." International Journal of Cultural Studies 14 (2): 191–207. DOI: 10.1177/1367877910382181
Kavaratzis, Mihalis. 2009. "Cities and their brands: Lessons from corporate branding." Place Branding and Public Diplomacy 5 (1): 26-37. DOI: 10.1057/pb.2008.3
Kavaratzis, Mihalis, and Mary Jo Hatch. 2013. "The Dynamics of Place Brands: An Identity-based Approach to Place Branding Theory." Marketing Theory 13 (1): 69–86. DOI: 10.1177/1470593112467268
Kjellberg, Hans, Alexandre Mallard, Diane-Laure Arjaliès, Patrik Aspers, Stefan Beljean, Alexandra Bidet, Alberto Corsin, Emmanuel Didier, Marion Fourcade, Susi Geiger, Klaus Hoeyer, Michèle Lamont, Donald MacKenzie, Bill Maurer, Jan Mouritsen, Ebba Sjögren, Kjell Tryggestad, François Vatin, and Steve Woolgar. 2013. "Valuation Studies? Our Collective Two Cents." Valuation Studies 1 (1): 11–30. DOI: 10.3384/vs.2001-5992.131111
Klein, Naomi. 2000. No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies (1st Picador USA ed.). New York, NY: Picador.
Lamont, Michèle. 2012. "Toward a comparative sociology of valuation and evaluation." Sociology 38 (1): 201-221. DOI: 10.1146/annurev-soc-070308-120022
Latour, Bruno. 1986. "The Powers of Association." In Power, Action and Belief. A New Sociology of Knowledge?, edited by John Law, pp. 264–280. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Latour, Bruno. 1999. Pandoras Hope: Essays on the Reality of Science Studies. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark. 2006. Challenges of Globalisation. Opening Remarks by the Danish Minister for Foreign Affairs Dr. Per Stig Møller First Meeting of the Advisory Board on Globalisation. Copenhagen 31 March 2006.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark. 2009. Denmark in dialogue with the world: Danish public diplomacy in practice [Danmark i dialog med verden—eksempler på dansk public diplomacy i praksis]. Public Diplomacy and Communication, pp. 1–33.
Olins, Wally. 2002. "Branding the Nation—The Historical Context." Brand Management 9 (4–5): 241–248. DOI: 10.1057/palgrave.bm.2540075
Pamment, James. 2014. "Articulating Influence: Toward a Research Agenda for Interpreting the Evaluation of Soft Power, Public Diplomacy and Nation Brands." Public Relations Review 40: 50–59. DOI: 10.1016/j.pubrev.2013.11.019
Rasmussen, Rasmus Kjærgaard. 2014. Nation Branding in Practice. An Analysis of the Danish Government Administration's Interpretation and Organization of the "Action Plan for the Global Marketing of Denmark 2007-2010." PhD Thesis, University of Southern Denmark, Department of Language and Communication, Odense.
Rasmussen, Rasmus Kjærgaard. Forthcoming. "Re-thinking counter narratives in organizational analysis: master narratives-as-authoritative texts." In Counter-narratives in and around Organizations, edited by Timothy Kuhn, Sanne Frandsen, and Marianne Lumholt. London: Routledge.
Rasmussen, Rasmus Kjærgaard, and Henrik Merkelsen. 2012. "The New PR of States: How Nation Branding Practices Affect the Security Function of Public Diplomacy." Public Relations Review 38 (5): 810–818. DOI: 10.1016/j.pubrev.2012.06.007
Rasmussen, Rasmus Kjærgaard, and Henrik Merkelsen. 2014. "The Risks of Nation Branding as Crisis Response: A Case Study of How the Danish Government Turned the Cartoon Crisis into a Struggle with Globalization." Place Branding and Public Diplomacy 10 (3): 230–248. DOI: 10.1057/pb.2014.13
Ren, Carina, and Can-Seng Ooi. 2013. "Auto-communicating Micro-Orientalism: Articulating 'Denmark' in China at the Shanghai Expo." Asia Europe Journal 11 (2): 129–45. DOI: 10.1007/s10308-013-0346-6
Ren, Carina, and Szilvia Gyimóthy. 2013. Transforming and Contesting Nation Branding Strategies: Denmark at the Expo 2010. Place Branding and Public Diplomacy 9 (1): 17–29. DOI: 10.1057/pb.2012.25
Shore, Cris, and Susan Wright. 1997. "Policy. A New Field of Anthropology." In Anthropology of Policy. Critical Perspectives on Governance and Power, edited by Cris Shore and Susan Wright, 1. London: Routledge.
Special report. 2006. Denmark's International Image Q1 2006. The Anholt Nation Brands Index. Simon Anholt and GMI, Inc.
Stöber, Birgit. 2008. "Place Branding—How the Private Creates the Public." In Critical Perspectives on Private Authority in Global Politics, edited by Hans Krause Hansen and Dorte Salskov-Iversen, pp. 169–187. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Szondi, Gyorgy. 2010. "From Image Management to Relationship Building: A Public Relations Approach to Nation Branding." Place Brand Public Diplomacy 6 (4): 333–343. DOI: 10.1057/pb.2010.32
TimesOnline. 2006. "70,000 gather for violent Pakistan cartoons protest." 15 February. Retrieved from http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article731005.ece, accessed October 2012.
Vatin, François. 2013. "Valuation as Evaluating and Valorizing." Valuation Studies 1 (1): 31–50. DOI: 10.3384/vs.2001-5992.131131
Wartick, Steven L. 2002. "Measuring Corporate Reputation: Definition and Data." Business & Society 41 (4): 371–392. DOI: 10.1177/0007650302238774
Widler, Janine. 2007. "Nation Branding: With Pride against Prejudice." Place Branding and Public Diplomacy 3 (2): 144–150. DOI: 10.1057/palgrave.pb.6000055
Merkelsen, Henrik, and Rasmus Kjærgaard Rasmussen. 2015. "The Construction of Brand Denmark: A Case Study of the Reversed Causality in Nation Brand Valuation". Valuation Studies 3 (2), 181-98. https://doi.org/10.3384/VS.2001-5992.1532181.


text:
Buying Stocks and Investing With Stock Picking Service
Take A Free Trial!
Example Pick
System Tutorial
Current Portfolio
Stock Blog
What A Strange, Strange Trip It's Going To Be | From the Mind of the Gorilla
If there's one thing the 21st Century has taught us is…
There's a market for everything.
Legal or illegal – the odds are that if there is ANYTHING out there that somebody has – somebody else wants it and will be willing to pay hard earned money for it.
However, as child of the 70's and 80's – if there is one thing that has caught the Gorilla off guard – is the fact that something that is still federally illegal (marijuana) is a booming industry with stocks trading daily on the market.
While it's been talked about for decades – there are many people that called the idea of "Pot Stocks" as an impossibility. Yet, here we are in 2020 – with Pot Stocks accounting for almost $20 billion in market value.
But there's something ELSE on the horizon that may shock you even more…
There's a NEW industry growing that a LOT of people didn't coming that could put $$$ into your pocket – if you're willing to take a trip down Gamble Road.
While the Gorilla may SUCK at puns – he does have a pretty good eye for what is and isn't a moneymaker on Wall Street.
It's been both a blessing and a curse – but I wouldn't change a thing.
That said, I'm going to do something strange…
When it comes to this industry – I'm going to reserve judgment on whether I think this will be a viable moneymaker – but definitely thought it was worth bringing to your attention.
What's this new industry that may shock people even more than the emergence of the marijuana industry?
How about psychedelic mushrooms?
The funky mushrooms that have been passed around at every Grateful Dead show since the inception of the band – is now going to be traded, legally – on the major indexes.
Bet that caught some people off guard?
But over the past few years, there's been a resurgence in the use of psychedelic compounds to treat mental disorders such as night terrors, manic depression or PTSD.
Psychedelics are mind-altering drugs that affect the brain chemistry…
For some, these out-of-the-box therapies are nothing short of miracle cures for their ailments – but the problem will always be the stigma that these compounds have been used recreationally for decades.
The most common is an extract from psilocybin mushrooms – more commonly known as "magic mushrooms" – but you knew that already thanks to my terrible puns and the reference to the Grateful Dead.
The push for psychedelic therapy has been interesting…
But it's the market that could be emerging that could be even more interesting – as it could be creating a new market that investors never dreamed would exist – and a new IPO may have just kicked things off with a bang.
Compass Pathways (CMPS) recently went public – making it the first psychedelic drug company to do so on a major American exchange – and it went public in a BIG way…
As shares of the company exploded 70.6%, to close at $29, lifting the market cap to about $1 billion and has the backing from Wall Street big wig, Peter Thiel.
Why the surge?
Well, ever since the FDA gave breakthrough status to Compass' therapy regimen, called COMP360 (a patented compound to be used in treatment-resistant depression) – investors have been champing at the bit for this company to go public.
Now, people are just waiting for full, FDA approval – which may come at any time.
This is a pretty big deal…
Especially in a market that is ruled by tech – this kind of a debut for a biomedical company that's backed from such a prominent power player should raise a few eyebrows.
What was weird about this IPO was there was a last minute change in price…
As it was announced earlier in the week that the stock would debut at anywhere from the $14-$16 – however, a correction was made a few days later and Compass announced it would be setting it's IPO price at $17.
From $17 to $29 is an INCREDIBLE opening – and we can only hope there is more of these to come.
As far at GorillaTrades is concerned, we'll let the dust settle before making a call on both CMPS and its industry…
We're more focused on the stocks we can gather hard data on – rather than hope and emotions.
We'd love to have you with us on our next round of recommendations – which is why I'm urging you to consider becoming a subscriber to GorillaTrades today.
There's a reason why we've become one of the most trusted and successful recommendation sites on the internet today…
And we hope you pull the trigger.
If not – we get it…
But do yourself a favor and take a look at this blossoming industry – it could be worth it in the future!
"It's a very salutary thing to realize that the rather dull universe in which most of us spend most of our time is not the only universe there is. I think it's healthy that people should have this experience." ― Aldous Huxley
Volatility High As Election Looms | State of the Stock MarketYou Ask, I Answer | What is the Recommended Approach to the Weekly Strongest List? | Gorilla Trades
How did you hear about us? Apple App Store Barchart Bing Chart Experts CNBC Earnings Whispers Email Offer Facebook Forbes Friend Google Google Play Store (Android) INO.com Investing Breakout Investors Business Daily Invest Pub Kiplinger Market Deal The Money Show Other Seeking Alpha Stock Gum Shoe Stock Twits Stocks and Commodities Trading Pub Trust Pilot Twitter Yahoo Zacks
By proceeding you are agreeing to GorillaTrades' terms of service and privacy policy.
Buy stocks using the top stock picking service.
© 1999 - 2021 Gorilla Trades - Investing In Stocks Just Got Easier. | All Rights Reserved
Use Governed By Current Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.


text:
Updated: 12:18 PM CST Nov 30, 2021
By RAF CASERT and ANDREW MELDRUM, Associated Press
New findings about the coronavirus's omicron variant made it clear Tuesday that the emerging threat slipped into countries before their defenses were up, as two distant nations announced their first cases and a third reported its presence before South African officials sounded the alarm.The Netherlands' RIVM health institute found omicron in samples dating from Nov. 19 and 23. The World Health Organization said South Africa first reported the variant to the U.N. health agency on Nov. 24. Meanwhile, Japan and France reported their first cases of the new variant that has forced the world once again to pinball between hopes of returning to normal and fears that the worst is yet to come.Much remains unknown about the new variant, including how contagious it might be, but a WHO official said Tuesday that there could soon be a steep rise in infections in parts of southern Africa.It is unclear where or when the variant first emerged, and the Dutch announcement further muddies the timeline. Previously, the Netherlands had said it found the variant among passengers who came from South Africa on Friday — but the new cases predate that.That hasn't stopped wary nations from rushing to impose travel restrictions, especially on visitors coming from southern Africa. Those moves have been criticized by South Africa and the WHO has urged against them, noting their limited effect.The latest news though made it increasingly clear that travel bans would struggle to stop the spread of the variant. The Netherlands, Belgium and France have now all reported cases in people who were in their countries before the European Union imposed flight restrictions.Japan announced that it would ban all foreign visitors beginning Tuesday — but that turned out to be too late. It confirmed its first case that day, a Namibian diplomat who recently arrived from his country.German authorities, meanwhile, said they had an omicron infection in a man who had neither been abroad nor had contact with anyone who was.The WHO warned Monday that the global risk from omicron is "very high." and that early evidence suggests it could be more contagious.The growing number of cases attributed to omicron in Botswana and South Africa suggests that this may be the first sign of a "a steep rise," Dr. Nicksy Gumede-Moeletsi, regional virologist for the World Health Organization, told The Associated Press on Tuesday."There is a possibility that really we're going to be seeing a serious doubling or tripling of the cases as we move along or as the week unfolds," Gumede-Moeletsi said.After a period of low transmission in South Africa, new cases began to rapidly increase in the middle of November. Currently the country is confirming nearly 3,000 new infections per day.The concentration of omicron cases among university students in the capital of Pretoria is a particular cause for concern because that group is very sociable — and will soon be heading for their homes at the end of the year and mixing with friends and family.Doctors in South Africa are reporting patients are suffering mostly mild symptoms so far, but many of them are young adults who generally do not get as sick from COVID-19 as older patients.Still, many officials tried to calm fears, insisting vaccines remain the best defense and that the world must redouble its efforts to get the shots to every part of the globe.European Medicines Agency chief, Emer Cooke, insisted that the 27-nation EU was well prepared for the variant. While it is not known how effective current vaccines are against omicron, Cooke said the shots could be adapted within three or four months if need be.The latest variant makes vaccination efforts even more important, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, noting as many have before that "as long as the virus is replicating somewhere, it could be mutating."In the face of the new variant, some introduced new measures aimed at mitigating the spread.England made face coverings mandatory again on public transport and in shops, banks and hairdressers. And one month ahead of Christmas, the head of the U.K.'s Health Security Agency, Jenny Harries, urged people not to socialize if they don't need to.And after COVID-19 already led to a one-year postponement of the Summer Games, Olympic organizers were beginning to worry about the February Winter Games in Beijing.Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said omicron would "certainly bring some challenges in terms of prevention and control."World markets continued to seesaw on every piece of medical news, either worrisome or reassuring.Global shares mostly slipped Tuesday as investors cautiously weighed how much damage omicron may unleash on the global economy.Some analysts think a serious economic downturn, like what happened last year, likely will be averted because many people have been vaccinated. But they also think a return to pre-pandemic levels of economic activity, especially in tourism, has been dramatically delayed.In a world that is already unnerved by the more contagious delta variant that filled hospitals again in many places, even in some highly vaccinated nations, the latest developments underscored the need for the whole globe to get their hands on vaccines."We have vaccination rates in the United States, in Europe of 50, 60, 70 %, depending on exactly who you're counting. And in Africa, it's more like 14, 15 % or less," Blinken said."We know, we know, we know that none of us will be fully safe until everyone is."___Meldrum reported from Johannesburg. AP journalists from around the world contributed.
BRUSSELS —
New findings about the coronavirus's omicron variant made it clear Tuesday that the emerging threat slipped into countries before their defenses were up, as two distant nations announced their first cases and a third reported its presence before South African officials sounded the alarm.
The Netherlands' RIVM health institute found omicron in samples dating from Nov. 19 and 23. The World Health Organization said South Africa first reported the variant to the U.N. health agency on Nov. 24. Meanwhile, Japan and France reported their first cases of the new variant that has forced the world once again to pinball between hopes of returning to normal and fears that the worst is yet to come.
Much remains unknown about the new variant, including how contagious it might be, but a WHO official said Tuesday that there could soon be a steep rise in infections in parts of southern Africa.
It is unclear where or when the variant first emerged, and the Dutch announcement further muddies the timeline. Previously, the Netherlands had said it found the variant among passengers who came from South Africa on Friday — but the new cases predate that.
That hasn't stopped wary nations from rushing to impose travel restrictions, especially on visitors coming from southern Africa. Those moves have been criticized by South Africa and the WHO has urged against them, noting their limited effect.
[related id='39acd050-ddd7-4427-8703-c02b3115ea2b' align='center'][/related]
The latest news though made it increasingly clear that travel bans would struggle to stop the spread of the variant. The Netherlands, Belgium and France have now all reported cases in people who were in their countries before the European Union imposed flight restrictions.
Japan announced that it would ban all foreign visitors beginning Tuesday — but that turned out to be too late. It confirmed its first case that day, a Namibian diplomat who recently arrived from his country.
German authorities, meanwhile, said they had an omicron infection in a man who had neither been abroad nor had contact with anyone who was.
The WHO warned Monday that the global risk from omicron is "very high." and that early evidence suggests it could be more contagious.
[related id='fc3a43ba-501a-4887-8aee-f647ce4dae95' align='center'][/related]
The growing number of cases attributed to omicron in Botswana and South Africa suggests that this may be the first sign of a "a steep rise," Dr. Nicksy Gumede-Moeletsi, regional virologist for the World Health Organization, told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
"There is a possibility that really we're going to be seeing a serious doubling or tripling of the cases as we move along or as the week unfolds," Gumede-Moeletsi said.
After a period of low transmission in South Africa, new cases began to rapidly increase in the middle of November. Currently the country is confirming nearly 3,000 new infections per day.
The concentration of omicron cases among university students in the capital of Pretoria is a particular cause for concern because that group is very sociable — and will soon be heading for their homes at the end of the year and mixing with friends and family.
Doctors in South Africa are reporting patients are suffering mostly mild symptoms so far, but many of them are young adults who generally do not get as sick from COVID-19 as older patients.
Still, many officials tried to calm fears, insisting vaccines remain the best defense and that the world must redouble its efforts to get the shots to every part of the globe.
[related id='78fc83f0-868c-4cab-84c8-102429898075' align='center'][/related]
European Medicines Agency chief, Emer Cooke, insisted that the 27-nation EU was well prepared for the variant. While it is not known how effective current vaccines are against omicron, Cooke said the shots could be adapted within three or four months if need be.
The latest variant makes vaccination efforts even more important, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, noting as many have before that "as long as the virus is replicating somewhere, it could be mutating."
In the face of the new variant, some introduced new measures aimed at mitigating the spread.
England made face coverings mandatory again on public transport and in shops, banks and hairdressers. And one month ahead of Christmas, the head of the U.K.'s Health Security Agency, Jenny Harries, urged people not to socialize if they don't need to.
[related id='c1574108-1613-4970-95bc-10d3513db470' align='center'][/related]
And after COVID-19 already led to a one-year postponement of the Summer Games, Olympic organizers were beginning to worry about the February Winter Games in Beijing.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said omicron would "certainly bring some challenges in terms of prevention and control."
World markets continued to seesaw on every piece of medical news, either worrisome or reassuring.
Global shares mostly slipped Tuesday as investors cautiously weighed how much damage omicron may unleash on the global economy.
Some analysts think a serious economic downturn, like what happened last year, likely will be averted because many people have been vaccinated. But they also think a return to pre-pandemic levels of economic activity, especially in tourism, has been dramatically delayed.
In a world that is already unnerved by the more contagious delta variant that filled hospitals again in many places, even in some highly vaccinated nations, the latest developments underscored the need for the whole globe to get their hands on vaccines.
[related id='ffc3e9c9-6fad-43e1-a8d1-1509fa097203' align='center'][/related]
"We have vaccination rates in the United States, in Europe of 50, 60, 70 %, depending on exactly who you're counting. And in Africa, it's more like 14, 15 % or less," Blinken said.
"We know, we know, we know that none of us will be fully safe until everyone is."
Meldrum reported from Johannesburg. AP journalists from around the world contributed.


QzFtpClient is a Delphi.Net component supporting List, Download and Upload (Delete and rename can be implemented easily). It uses only System namespace (No Indy) so it can be used in compact framework developement.
TurboFTP SDK is a powerful ActiveX/.Net-ready component and offers a full set of FTP client functionalities. Supports secure FTP over SSL/TLS. Supports blocking and non-blocking modes for calling methods. Supports on-the-fly data compression using MODE Z and firewalls. It comes with a built-in interface that provides a set of methods to decompress archives in multiple formats. Fully tested samples for major programming languages are included.