text:
Towards a rational design of a continuous-flow method for the acetalization of crude glycerol: scope and limitations of commercial Amberlyst 36 and AlF3·3H2O as model catalysts
The acetalization of six different types of glycerol including pure, wet, and crude-like grade compounds of compositions simulating those of crude glycerols produced by the biodiesel manufacture, was carried out with two model ketones such as acetone and 2-butanone. The reaction was investigated under continuous-flow (CF) conditions through a comparative analysis of an already known acetalization catalyst such as Amberlyst 36 (A36), and aluminum fluoride three hydrate (AlF3 center dot 3H(2)O, AF) whose use was never previously reported for the synthesis of acetals. At 10 bar and 25 degrees C, A36 was a highly active catalyst allowing good-to-excellent conversion (85%-97%) and selectivity (99%) when either pure or wet glycerol was used as a reagent. This catalyst however, proved unsuitable for the CF acetalization of crude-like glycerol (CG) since it severely and irreversibly deactivated in a few hours by the presence of low amounts of NaCl (2.5 wt %) which is a typical inorganic impurity of raw glycerol from the biorefinery. Higher temperature and pressure (up to 100 degrees C and 30 bar) were not successful to improve the outcome. By contrast, at 10 bar and 100 degrees C, AF catalyzed the acetalization of CG with both acetone and 2-butanone, yielding stable conversion and productivity up to 78% and 5.6 h(-1), respectively. A XRD analysis of fresh and used catalysts proved that the active phase was a solid solution (SS) of formula Al-2[F1-x(OH)(x)](6)(H2O)(y) present as a component of the investigated commercial AF sample. A hypothesis to explain the role of such SS phase was then formulated based on the Bronsted acidity of OH groups of the solid framework. Overall, the AF catalyst allowed not only a straightforward upgrading of CG to acetals, but also a more cost-efficient protocol avoiding the expensive refining of raw glycerol itself.
GUIDI, SANDRO
NOE', Marco
RIELLO, Pietro
PEROSA, Alvise
SELVA, Maurizio
Titolo: Towards a rational design of a continuous-flow method for the acetalization of crude glycerol: scope and limitations of commercial Amberlyst 36 and AlF3·3H2O as model catalysts
Rivista: MOLECULES
Digital Object Identifier (DOI): http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/molecules21050657
2016 Molecules - GlyAlF3.pdf articolo principale Documento in Post-print Open Access Visualizza/Apri


text:
Newton Hightower provides a framework for change that anyone can use. The author starts by establishing his credentials - he is not only a professional therapist but has had an anger problem that nearly ruined his life.
Anger Busting 101
The New ABC's for Angry Men & the Women Who Love Them
You may find it impossible to believe that a single book could ever help solve a problem as serious and life-damaging as anger and rage. You may find counseling quite satisfying, but when it comes to the bottom line, you are raging as much as ever. You may have been told that you are going to have to take psycho-archaeology expeditions back to your childhood to discover and piece together the various elements that may be causing your anger problem. That may be helpful--or it may be a way to avoid changing your behavior.
Some new clients tell me, "I know I need to work through my issues with my mother and father and that it will take a few years." I worry that in the meantime they may be divorced, fired, in prison, or dead if they can't change their angry ways sooner. You can change right now.
There are men who want to stop their fault-finding, sarcasm, arguing, self-justification and self-righteous indignation, rage and violence. There are men who do not want to be divorced and lose their families. They want to be able to say, like I have for the last 10 years, "I am happily married and my life is good." This book is for the men stuck in the same jam and for the women who could love them again.
In "Anger Busting 101" Newton Hightower provides a framework for change that anyone can use. The author starts by establishing his credentials - he is not only a professional therapist but has had an anger problem that nearly ruined his life. He tried the therapies that were thought to help but was not successful. In fact, he found that many of the traditional therapies actually made his problem worse.
In this text he goes over the techniques that he found actually worked to change his life. These techniques came out of a whole new approach to anger, this approach is to treat anger as a recovery situation. This brings me to the only item that I had had a problem with in the book. In chapter 3 he discusses how to respond to questions of "why" from a spouse, sibling, or other person. For example, if asked why you got so angry and threw the lamp against the wall then you should use one of the answers given in the text. The basic idea of the answers is understandable as they focus on the angry person taking responsibility for their anger and actions. However, the way they are worded is highly questionable. For example, one response is "I'm crazy" or another is "I'm stupid". Current traditional psychotherapy would say to word it more along the lines of "What I did was a crazy thing to do" or "I did a stupid thing". Taking responsibility for your actions is one thing but taking it to the point of putting yourself down and endangering your self esteem when angry people often already have low self esteem does not seem like a good idea to me. Then again it is hard to argue with the results. From the cases listed in the book and the comments from other people that have used it successfully it does seem to work.
If anger is controlling you in any way and you want to start living a positive and fulfilling life then this book is for you. I would use caution with the wording in Chapter 3 and feel that you could take responsibility without the self-deprication, but other than that this book seems to offer hope to people who have been unsuccessful in controlling their rage in the past. A highly recommended read.
Anger Busting 101 :The New ABC's for Angry Men & the Women Who Love Them (eBook)
SKU: XE-110
Publication date: Jan 2015
Imprint: Bayou Publishing
Book Format: Digital PDF
eBook Size: 3.63 MB
Newton Hightower
Newton Hightower is Founder and Director of the Center for Anger Resolution, inc., in Houston, Texas. A licensed psychotherapist for more than 30 years, he is a popular speaker at national and regional professional associations and is a frequent guest on both radion and TV talk shows.
Anger Busting 101 (Print)
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Anger Busting 101 has recently won the prestigious publishers marketing association Benjamin Franklin award for psychology self-help books, awarded by nationally recognized book experts. Anger Busting 101 was also a silver medal winner for the Foreword Magazine psychology self-help Book of the Year awards.
Alcoholics Anonymous. (1939). Alcoholics Anonymous - Big Book 4th Edition. New York, New York: AA World Services.
Alcoholics Anonymous. (1953). Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. New York, New York: AA World Services.
Betancourt, Marian. (1997). What to Do When Love Turns Violent: A Practical Resource for Women in Abusive Relationships. New York, NY: Harper Perennial Library.
Berry, Dawn Bradley. (1998). The Domestic Violence Sourcebook. Los Angeles, CA: Lowell House.
Bradshaw, John. (1988). Healing the Shame that Binds You: Recovery Classics Edition. Deerfield Beach, FL: Health Communications, Inc.
Burns, David. (1989). The Feeling Good Handbook. New York, NY: Plume Books.
Chaiken, Jan. (2000, January). Crunching Numbers: Crime and Incarceration at the End of the Millennium. National Institute of Justice Journal. 1-17.
Chopra, Deepak. (1995). The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success: A Pocketbook Guide to Fulfilling Your Dreams (One Hour of Wisdom). San Rafael, CA: Amber-Allen Publishing.
Dass, Ram and Gorman, Paul. (1985). How Can I Help? Stories and Reflection on Service. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf.
Deschner, Jeanne. (1984). How Can I Help? Stories and Reflection on Service. New York, NY: The Free Press.
Feshbach, Seymour. (1956). "The Catharsis Hypothesis and Some Consequences of Interaction with Aggression and Neutral Play Objects," Journal of Personality, 24, 449- 462.
Feshbach, Seymour, Zagrodzka, Jolanta & Feshbach, Sisney (Eds.). (1997). Aggression: Biological, Developmental, and Social Perspectives. New York, NY: Plenum.
DiGiuseppe, Raymond. (February, 2000). Second National Conference on Anger, Rage and Trauma. Washington, DC.
Gottman, John M. and Silver, Nan. (1999). The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country's Foremost Relationship Expert. New York, NY: Three Rivers Press.
Greenfeld, Lawrencea & Rand, Michael. (1998, March). Violence by Intimates: Analysis of Data on Crimes by Current or Former Spouses, Boyfriends, and Girlfriends. U.S. Department of Justice.
Hanh, Thich Nhat. (1991). Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life. New York, NY: Bantam Books.
Jacobson, Neil and Gottman, John M. (1998). When Men Batter Women. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.
Jayne, Pamela. (2000). Ditch That Jerk: Dealing With Men Who Control and Hurt Women. Almeda, CA: Hunter House.
Justice, Blair & Justice, Rita. (1976). The Abusing Family. Norwell, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Lockman Foundation. (1971). Holy Bible: New American Standard Bible (NASB). La Habra, Ca: Foundation Press.
Lozoff, Bo. (1999). DEEP & SIMPLE A Spiritual Path for Modern Times. Durham, NC: Human Kindness Foundation.
Moltz, D. (1992). "Abuse and Violence: The Dark Side of the Family," Journal of Marriage and Family Therapy, p. 223.
Murphy-Milano, Susan. (1996). Defending Our Lives: Getting Away From Domestic Violence & Staying Safe. Landover Hills, MD: Anchor Books.
O'Hanlon, Bill. (1999). Do One Thing Different: Ten Simple Ways to Change Your Life. New York, NY: William Morrow.
Rennison, Callie. (2001, June). Criminal Victimization 2000: Changes 1999-2000 with Trends 1993-2000. Bureau of Justice Statistics—Crime Victimization Survey. U.S. Department of Justice.
Rennison, Callie & Welchans, Sarah. (2000, May). Intimate partner violence and age of victim, 1993-99 (Special report). US Department of Justice.
Seligman, M. P. & Seligman, M.E.P. (1995). What You Can Change…and What You Can't. New York, NY: Fawcett Books.
Simon, Thomas; Mery, James, & Perkins, Craig. (2001, June). Injuries from violent crime, 1992-98. U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Sonkin, Daniel & Durphy, Michael. (1982). Learning to Live Without Violence: A Handbook for Men. Volcano, Ca: Volcano Press.
Stout, Karen & McPhail, Beverly. (1998). Confronting Sexism and Violence against Women: A Challenge for Social Work. New York, NY: Addison-Wesley.
Talbott, Douglas T., M.D. (1988). Keynote Address: "Eating Disorders and Other Addictions: A Holistic Disease."
Tavris, Carol. (1989). Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion. New York, NY: Touchstone Books.
Walker, Lenore. (1980). Battered Woman. New York, NY: HarperCollins.
Weiner-Davis, Michele. (1998). A Woman's Guide to Changing Her Man: Without His Even Knowing It. New York, NY
Golden Books.
Williams, Redford & Virginia. (1994). Anger Kills: Seventeen Strategies for Controlling the Hostility That Can Harm Your Health. New York, NY: Harper Perennial Library.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
namespace views {
class WebView;
}

namespace xwalk {

class TopViewLayout;

class NativeAppWindowViews : public NativeAppWindow,
                             public views::WidgetObserver,
                             public views::WidgetDelegateView {
 public:
  explicit NativeAppWindowViews(const NativeAppWindow::CreateParams& params);
  virtual ~NativeAppWindowViews();

  virtual void Initialize();

  // NativeAppWindow implementation.
  gfx::NativeWindow GetNativeWindow() const override;
  void UpdateIcon(const gfx::Image& icon) override;
  void UpdateTitle(const base::string16& title) override;
  gfx::Rect GetRestoredBounds() const override;
  gfx::Rect GetBounds() const override;
  void SetBounds(const gfx::Rect& bounds) override;
  void Focus() override;
  void Show() override;
  void Hide() override;
  void Maximize() override;
  void Minimize() override;
  void SetFullscreen(bool fullscreen) override;
  void Restore() override;
  void FlashFrame(bool flash) override;
  void Close() override;
  bool IsActive() const override;
  bool IsMaximized() const override;
  bool IsMinimized() const override;
  bool IsFullscreen() const override;

  views::Widget* GetWidget() override;
  const views::Widget* GetWidget() const override;

 protected:
  TopViewLayout* top_view_layout();
  const NativeAppWindow::CreateParams& create_params() const {
    return create_params_;
  }

  void ViewHierarchyChanged(
      const ViewHierarchyChangedDetails& details) override;

 private:
  // WidgetDelegate implementation.
  views::View* GetInitiallyFocusedView() override;
  views::View* GetContentsView() override;
  base::string16 GetWindowTitle() const override;
  void DeleteDelegate() override;
  gfx::ImageSkia GetWindowAppIcon() override;
  gfx::ImageSkia GetWindowIcon() override;
  bool ShouldShowWindowTitle() const override;
  void SaveWindowPlacement(
      const gfx::Rect& bounds, ui::WindowShowState show_state) override;
  bool GetSavedWindowPlacement(const views::Widget* widget,
      gfx::Rect* bounds, ui::WindowShowState* show_state) const override;
  bool CanResize() const override;
  bool CanMaximize() const override;
  bool CanMinimize() const override;
#if defined(OS_WIN)
  views::NonClientFrameView* CreateNonClientFrameView(
      views::Widget* widget) override;
#endif
  // views::View implementation.
  void ChildPreferredSizeChanged(views::View* child) override;
  void OnFocus() override;
  gfx::Size GetMaximumSize() const override;
  gfx::Size GetMinimumSize() const override;

  // views::WidgetObserver implementation.
  void OnWidgetClosing(views::Widget* widget) override;
  void OnWidgetCreated(views::Widget* widget) override;
  void OnWidgetDestroying(views::Widget* widget) override;
  void OnWidgetDestroyed(views::Widget* widget) override;
  void OnWidgetBoundsChanged(
      views::Widget* widget, const gfx::Rect& new_bounds) override;

  NativeAppWindow::CreateParams create_params_;

  NativeAppWindowDelegate* delegate_;
  content::WebContents* web_contents_;

  views::WebView* web_view_;
  views::Widget* window_;
  base::string16 title_;
  gfx::Image icon_;

  bool is_fullscreen_;
  gfx::Size minimum_size_;
  gfx::Size maximum_size_;
  bool resizable_;

  DISALLOW_COPY_AND_ASSIGN(NativeAppWindowViews);
};

}  // namespace xwalk

#endif  // XWALK_RUNTIME_BROWSER_UI_NATIVE_APP_WINDOW_VIEWS_H_

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


The exquisite woven silks of 18th century Europe were the inspiration. A delicate trailing filigree entwined with floral motifs is interpreted with a contemporary hand. Damask works in repeat as a beguiling continuous trail. It is equally effective and charming arranged in clusters.
The excitement of creative pursuits is the allure of the unexpected result. The unique is a rare luxury. Damask, like all of Genevieve's work, is a creative element ready to be evolved. The material, colour, scale and configuration are all critical factors in turning every commission into a unique piece.
Damask also works beautifully in soft neutral coloured leathers. The discretely luxurious detail incorporated into bespoke joinery applications such as doors, headboards and wall coverings lends a deep and durable beauty to a privileged environment. It's practical qualities make it equally suitable for private residential, hospitality and commercial projects.
As people begin to reject the mass produced and homogenous there is a growing awareness of the luxury of the unique. Off the shelf convenience is a small sacrifice compared to the delight in creating and owning something that is truly one of a kind.


text:
COUP LEADER IS HAWKISH TOWARD INDIA
Uli Schmetzer, Tribune Foreign CorrespondentCHICAGO TRIBUNE
Gen. Pervaiz Musharraf, the man who staged Pakistan's military coup Tuesday, is a battle-hardened soldier who came up through the ranks during the turbulent years when Muslims and Hindus massacred each other at the dawn of India's and Pakistan's independence.
Born in New Delhi in August 1943, when the Indian capital was still under British rule, Musharraf and his parents joined millions of Muslims who migrated to Pakistan after partition in 1947 separated the subcontinent into mainly Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan.
Although he has spoken little about an experience that must have left an indelible impression, Musharraf is a veteran of two of the three Indo-Pakistan wars and is known as a hawk on relations with India.
Indian military sources consider him the architect of the infiltration by Pakistani-backed guerrillas of Indian Kashmir this summer, an incursion that nearly caused a fourth war between the two rivals. The conflict turned into three months of artillery duels and bloody mountain fighting.
Musharraf joined the army as a common soldier in 1964 and served first in an artillery regiment before he was admitted to the prestigious Kakul Military Academy.
He saw action during the first war against India in 1965 in the fierce battles of the Khem Karan sector in the Punjab. He fought in the second war with India in 1971 as commander of the elite Special Services Group, a commando outfit. After the war he was in command of armored divisions and infantry brigades.
His last field post in 1995 was at his own request as commander of Mangla, the key border post with India, a volatile region that would be in the front line of any war.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif appointed Musharraf army chief last year after firing his predecessor, Gen. Jehangir Karamat, for criticizing the way Sharif was running the country.
However, the prime minister soon realized that Musharraf did not articulate his dissent in public but simply did as he pleased.
Hostility between the two men flared over the Kashmir invasion. Sharif said he had not been informed about the invasion, and the general was livid when the prime minister ordered a withdrawal of the well-entrenched Pakistani forces.


text:
The distribution of maternity services across rural and remote Australia: does it reflect population need?
Margaret I Rolfe1Email author,
Deborah Anne Donoghue1,
Jo M Longman1,
Jennifer Pilcher1,
Sue Kildea2,
Sue Kruske3,
Jude Kornelsen4,
Stefan Grzybowski4,
Lesley Barclay1 and
Geoffrey Gerard Morgan1
Accepted: 9 February 2017
Australia has a universal health care system and a comprehensive safety net. Despite this, outcomes for Australians living in rural and remote areas are worse than those living in cities. This study will examine the current state of equity of access to birthing services for women living in small communities in rural and remote Australia from a population perspective and investigates whether services are distributed according to need.
Health facilities in Australia were identified and a service catchment was determined around each using a one-hour road travel time from that facility. Catchment exclusions: metropolitan areas, populations above 25,000 or below 1,000, and a non-birthing facility within the catchment of one with birthing. Catchments were attributed with population-based characteristics representing need: population size, births, demographic factors, socio-economic status, and a proxy for isolation - the time to the nearest facility providing a caesarean section (C-section). Facilities were dichotomised by service level – those providing birthing services (birthing) or not (no birthing). Birthing services were then divided by C-section provision (C-section vs no C-section birthing). Analysis used two-stage univariable and multivariable logistic regression.
There were 259 health facilities identified after exclusions. Comparing services with birthing to no birthing, a population is more likely to have a birthing service if they have more births, (adjusted Odds Ratio (aOR): 1.50 for every 10 births, 95% Confidence Interval (CI) [1.33-1.69]), and a service offering C-sections 1 to 2 h drive away (aOR: 28.7, 95% CI [5.59-148]). Comparing the birthing services categorised by C-section vs no C-section, the likelihood of a facility having a C-section was again positively associated with increasing catchment births and with travel time to another service offering C-sections. Both models demonstrated significant associations with jurisdiction but not socio-economic status.
Our investigation of current birthing services in rural and remote Australia identified disparities in their distribution. Population factors relating to vulnerability and isolation did not increase the likelihood of a local birthing facility, and very remote communities were less likely to have any service. In addition, services are influenced by jurisdictions.
Healthcare disparities
Rural health services
Catchment area (health)
Equitable health outcomes are defined by the World Health Organization as "the absence of avoidable or remediable differences among groups of people, whether those groups are defined socially, economically, demographically, or geographically" [1]. Achieving such equity in providing health services is an aspirational goal of the World Health Organization [2] and the Australian people [3, 4].
In Australia, 31% (n = 6,879,573) of the population live in rural and remote regions [5]. The population in these areas have a higher fertility rate and a higher perinatal mortality rate [6, 7]. Their life expectancy is up to 4 years lower than those in cities and prevalence of diabetes, high cholesterol, cancer or ischaemic heart disease also increases as remoteness increases [8]. An Australian review of health services in rural areas reported poor access to services, inferior quality of services compared to metropolitan services and fewer services in rural areas. It also reported that those scarcer services were unevenly distributed [9]. Australian research has highlighted the role of factors such as isolation, Indigeneity, and socioeconomic status (SES) in determining the location and service level of health facilities [10]. The most important influence on health in Australia is Indigeneity and this is true for all measures of health when compared to non-Indigenous Australians [11]. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples make up 2.3% of the population, but they have 4.5% of all births. This rises to 11.6% of births in rural and remote Australia [12] and 24% in remote or very remote locations [13].
Many factors influence the maternity service level [14] provided in rural and remote health facilities and there is debate about the appropriate level of service offered in some areas [15–17]. A consortium of the leading maternity care and rural organizations in Australia released a National Consensus Framework for Rural Maternity Services in 2010 that is built on principles which include "to ensure that rural maternity services are equitable in terms of distribution and access" [18]. However, this in not reflected in outcomes [19].
The Australian government funds health services via agreements with its eight jurisdictions. A nation-wide plan, the Australian National Maternity Services Plan was also introduced in 2010 [20]. This plan acknowledged the poorer health outcomes for people living in rural and remote Australia, in particular Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, and proposed action to address specific issues including to: "examine tools … and develop a rigorous methodology to assist in future planning for maternity care, including in rural and remote communities" [19].
A review of indices of rural health care found that access to services is influenced by such factors as the geographical placement of the facility, the isolation of the community and the socioeconomic vulnerability of the catchment population [10, 21, 22]. The Rural Birthing Index (RBI) is one such tool examining maternity services [23]. It was developed in British Columbia, Canada using data from focus groups and interviews to identify population derived indicators of maternity service need. Three were identified: the number of births to women living in the area; the vulnerability of the community measured by SES; and the isolation of the service as measured by the time taken to travel to the nearest facility that can perform a C-section at any time [24]. The current study is part of a larger project to assess the applicability of the RBI to the Australian context, and to systematically assess a measure of catchment need across rural and remote Australia.
This paper systematically estimates measures of the need of the population within the catchment for a facility across rural and remote Australia. Equitable distribution of services should include adjustments in the provision and level of services in response to population characteristics. The authors propose that increasing levels of service will be associated with increasing numbers of births (need); and other dimensions of need which were increasing disadvantage (SES) (vulnerability); increasing proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in the population (vulnerability), and decreasing proximity to another facility capable of undertaking an emergency operative birth (C-section) (isolation). To do this, the association between existing birthing services and the characteristics of its populations will be modelled using geographically defined service catchments. This is an ecological study which aims to examine the association between population-based characteristics of need including vulnerability and isolation and the provision of maternity services across rural and remote Australia.
To undertake this study, a geographical catchment was constructed around each health facility in Australia, and then population characteristics were assigned to that catchment to estimate population based indicators of maternity service need. This enabled two stages of modelling to be undertaken.
Catchments and travel times
A health facility catchment is the surrounding geographical area bounded by a one-hour, road-based travel time using a vector-based network analysis approach within a Geographic Information System (GIS) environment similar to Schuuman [24] and provides the basis for determining population level characteristics. Australian road network maps from Geoscience Australia GEODATA TOPO 250 K Series 3 (packaged in ARCMAP format) [25] were used to assign road speeds as a function of road type and surface [26] as defined in the Australian Cardiac Aria Study. The Northern Territory (NT) has higher speed limits than other Australian jurisdictions, for example, Australian highways have a road speed of 100 km except in the NT where it is 135 km/h. Hence all the NT road speeds were increased by 25% to better reflect actual speeds. Defining catchments based on road travel produced irregularly shaped areas. To avoid double counting, catchment populations in adjacent health facilities that abut, catchments were split to create an equal travel time between the adjacent health facilities. Any non-birthing facilities within one-hour road travel time of an adjacent birthing facility was excluded to avoid inappropriately reducing the size of the catchment population for existing birthing facilities. All spatial data processing was conducted using ESRI ArcGIS 10.0 and 10.1 (ESRI ArcGIS 10.0) [27].
Data overlays of population characteristics
The 2006 Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) census provides a range of socio-demographic data at nested spatial units including Statistical Local Areas (SLAs; n = 1,426), Census Collector Districts (CCDs, n = 38,704, about 220 households in cities which decreases with increasing rurality) [28] and MeshBlocks (MB = 347,000, around 30 to 60 households) [28]. SLA is the most common spatial unit used for routinely reporting detailed population data and birth registration data for all years, while more limited population and socio-demographic data is routinely available at the CCD or MB level for Census years (every five years).
To determine the number of people living in the catchment area, and the number of babies born to mothers in the area, routinely available data were accessed for birth registrations and for Estimated Residential Populations (ERP). Five year averages were used for 2005 to 2010 for each SLA throughout Australia [12]. Usual Residential Population (URP) for the 2006 census was available at MB level [29]. URP is considered a less precise estimate of residential population than ERP but is routinely available on a smaller spatial scale. MB data also includes information on non-residential land use within SLAs [12]. We weighted the SLA level birth numbers and ERP by mesh block URP in order to better estimate irregularly shaped catchment ERP and birth numbers while adjusting for non-residential land use [12]. The number and proportion of women of childbearing age (15 to 44 years) was estimated from URP data, and weighted by the proportion (area) of each CCD contained in the catchment area.
Socioeconomic status (SES) was measured by the ABS 2006 Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas Index of Relative Socio Economic Disadvantage (IRSD) [30]. The IRSD is based on 14 Census questions including household income, housing, Aboriginality and education, and is constructed using the CCD [28]. Low scores (decile 1) indicate the most disadvantage relative to the all Australia, and the highest score indicates least disadvantage (decile 10). To assign a SES score for each catchment the IRSD score (mean = 1,000, standard deviation = 100) was aggregated to each catchment and then converted to deciles.
The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population was also estimated using URP data, weighted by the population proportion of each CCD in the catchment area. For the modelling, data was categorised into multiples of the national rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander persons (2.5%).
Degree of isolation of a facility was defined using road travel time in minutes to the next nearest facility that had the capability and staff to perform emergency caesarean section (C-section facility) [23] For modelling, it was categorised into intervals of 1 h (Stage 1) and half hour (Stage 2).
Rurality was defined using the ABS Remoteness Area Structure (RA) [28]. In this study, we refer to RA 1 as Major Cities; RA 2 (inner regional) and 3 (outer regional) as 'rural'; and RA 4 (remote) and 5 (very remote) as 'remote'.
Health facility locations and maternity service levels
A health facility may or may not provide birthing services, influenced by a range of factors such as proximity to other birthing services, demand, or staff resource issues. Health facilities in rural and remote Australia provide a range of maternity services with some rural populations having local access to only hospital or community based antenatal and postnatal care. The location of health facilities in Australia was established using their geocoded location [latitude and longitude] sourced from the 'My Hospitals' web site [31] or the airport for seven very remote facilities. After catchments were defined for all facilities, exclusions were made if in RA 1 'major cities', or in large regional centres (catchment population of more than 25,000) or the sparsely populated catchments of less than 1,000. Facilities offering birthing services were identified using jurisdictional lists of hospitals and perinatal reports for 2005-2010, and confirmed using the My Hospitals' website [31, 32]. The level of maternity service for each health facility was provided or confirmed by representatives from the Maternity Services Inter-Jurisdictional Committee and are defined using the Australian National Maternity Service Capability Framework [14]. For this study, a health facility that does not provide birthing but may provide antenatal and/or post-natal care is a 'non-birthing facility' (Level 1, Table 1) [14]. A summary of the six levels of maternity service is provided in Table 1. The next level provides a birthing service, which requires dedicated equipment and staff to care for the mother and newborn (Level 2, a 'birthing facility'). Birthing facilities were further divided by their capacity to perform an emergency caesarean section (C-section), an operative birth in specialist theatre that occurs after labour has commenced (Levels 3-6). Facilities that cannot provide this service are defined here as 'non-C-section birthing' (Level 2). Women with a high-risk pregnancy due to say, medical illnesses, need specialist care (Level 5, 6).
National maternity service capability framework level of maternity service descriptors and definitions for modelling in both Stage 1 and 2 models [14]
Level of maternity service
Stage 1 model birthing vs non-birthing
Stage 2 model non C-section birthing vs C-section
No level or 1
No local birthing services, May have antenatal and postnatal care
non-birthing
Local birthing services without C-section, Low risk births beyond 38 weeks' gestation
Non C-section birthing
Local birthing services with C-section, Moderate risk births beyond 36 weeks'
Local birthing services with C-section, Birthing beyond 34 weeks, Special Care Nursery
Levels 5 and 6
Local birthing services with C-section, High-risk births, specialist services for mother and baby
The six states of Australia, New South Wales (NSW), Victoria (Vic), Queensland (Qld), South Australia (SA), Western Australia (WA) and Tasmania (TAS) plus the NT are included as covariates in this study. The Australian Capital Territory was excluded as it is classified as metropolitan (RA 1). The catchment population range of 1,000 to 25,000 excluded all C-section facilities in TAS and left just two in the NT. When small numbers of facilities precluded analysis, the data for TAS and NT was combined with WA, which had a similar (50%) rate of birthing and non-birthing facilities - referred to as WAplus.
A two stage binary logistic regression modelling approach was used to assess catchment level socio-demographic and service delivery factors associated with maternity service level for health facilities in Australia. Stage 1 investigated factors related to whether a health facility has a birthing service or not (see Table 1, non-birthing vs birthing). Stage 2 assessed the subset of facilities with a birthing service (Table 1, no C-section birthing vs C-section). Potential explanatory factors were categorised to ensure reasonable distributions for statistical modelling, which could result in different categorisations for each stage. The number of births were used both as a continuous measure (births divided by 10) for ease of interpretation, and in categories based on 50 birth increments. Model fit was assessed using odds ratios (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) to measure effect size; the chi squared test (chisq) for the overall model fit and the Wald statistic for significance of each parameter; the model Nagelkerke pseudo R2 (denoted as RNag 2) reflected model improvement. Model discrimination was also assessed by percentage agreement, Area under the Curve (AUC), and the number of discordant facilities for each Stage. The importance of the covariates in each logistic model and the various parameterisation of the covariates were assessed based on the improvement to model fit, discrimination and the interpretability of the covariates. Results are reported as adjusted OR (aOR) and their corresponding 95% CI.
There were 259 health facilities identified in communities with one-hour catchment populations of 1,000 to 25,000 in rural and remote Australia. No health facility providing birthing services had a catchment of less than 1,000 people. The upper population limit of 25,000 excluded 58 rurally located, referral hospitals providing specialised services (levels 4-6). Birthing services were provided by 108 (42%) health facilities, and 73 (68%) of these had the capability to perform a C-section. Figure 1 presents the geographical distribution of the health facilities included in this study.
Health facilities in rural and remote Australia by level of maternity service
The histograms in Fig. 2 summarise the annual births (averaged for five years) in health facility catchments categorised by birthing or non-birthing. The range of births was from one to 350, but nearly half of the catchments had fewer than 50 women giving birth per year. There was a substantial overlap in the number of births in the catchments of non-birthing facilities and birthing facilities. In fact, eight percent of non-birthing facilities have more than 100 births per year and 10% of birthing facilities have less than 50 births per year. However, increasing birth numbers do have a significant association with the presence of birthing facilities (chisq = 132, df = 4, p < 0.001).
Annual birth numbers (5 year average) in catchments for non-birthing and birthing facilities
Increasing catchment birth numbers (in categories of 50 births), have a significant association with a higher proportion of facilities offering C-section (chisq = 17.7, df = 4, p = 0.003). Non C-section birthing facilities exhibit a bimodal pattern with similar proportions below and above facilities with 100 births, whereas only 23% of C-section facilities have 100 births or less (Fig. 3).
Annual birth numbers (5 year average) in catchments for no C-section birthing and for C-section facilities
The overall low SES in rural and remote Australia was represented in our study by the catchment IRSD decile scores. The health facilities in our study ranged from 1 (lowest or most disadvantaged), to just 7 (highest or least disadvantaged), (Fig. 4). Non-birthing facilities are evenly distributed over all deciles, but C-section birthing facilities were concentrated in the low-mid range (2-5; chisq = 27.3, df = 12, p = 0.007), (Fig. 4).
Numbers of facilities for No birthing, no C-section birthing and for C-section birthing by SES decile
Over half (55%) of non-birthing facilities were 1 to 2 h from a C-section facility. Of the birthing facilities, 44% were within one-hour of a C-section and 80% were within 2 h of a C-section service. Almost all non C-section birthing facilities (97%) were within 2 h of a C-section facility as illustrated in Fig. 5.
Numbers of facilities for No birthing, no C-section birthing and for C-section birthing by time to nearest C-section service
There were 47 (18%) health facility catchments where more than 10% of the people were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander. Sixteen provided birthing services (15% of all birthing services), mostly (94%) providing a C-section. However, catchments with more than 10% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations were more likely to (21%) be in non-birthing catchments, Table 2 and Fig. 6.
Characteristics of facilities with catchment populations of 1,000 to 25,000, by service delivery level, 2005 to 2010
Catchment characteristics
All birthing
C-section birthing
n = 151
Births (per year)
< 50
> 200
SES (IRSD deciles)
1 most disadvantaged
6, 7 least disadvantaged
≤ 1 h
1-2 h
> 4 h
Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander
< 2.5% national rate
2.5-5%
> 25% (10 x rate)
Remoteness
Rural RA 2
Remote RA 4
Women aged 15-44
Numbers of facilities for no birthing, no C-section birthing and for C-section birthing by percentage of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the catchment
Stage 1 Modelling - birthing facilities vs non-birthing facilities
For Stage 1, descriptive statistics and the tests of association are presented in Additional file 1: Table S1. The results of the univariable logistic models are presented in Additional file 2: Table S2. Results are presented as OR and their 95% CI and model fit and predictive accuracy parameters for the explanatory variables.
After assessing a range of models with increasing numbers of predictor variables, the "best" multivariable model for Stage 1, is presented in Table 3. The explanatory parameters are listed in order of the strength of their contribution to the model. Birth numbers (divided by 10) as a continuous input provided a better fit than categories based on 50 births. This model had 92% agreement between predicted birthing and non-birthing facility, a large AUC (0.97) and a high RNeg 2 (0.79) with only 23 (out of possible 259) discordant sites. SES was retained based on an a priori decision to include this potentially important risk factor.
Multivariable logistic Stage 1 model for catchments of birthing versus non-birthing facilities
Adjusted OR
aOR 95% CIa
Birth numbers (divided by 10)
[1.33-1.69]
Travel time to C-section
< 1 h (ref)
[5.59-148]
[0.22-21.7]
2-4 (ref)
6-7 less disadvantaged
NSW (ref)
< 2.5% (ref)
[2.67-74. 9]
> 25%
Overall Model fit Chisq = 231.0 df = 18 p < 0.001
aaOR 95% CI = Adjusted Odds Ratio 95% Confidence Interval
Bold indicates significant effects or significant aOR (p < 0.05)
The number of births to women living in the catchment was the strongest predictor for a facility having a birthing service, with the likelihood of a facility offering birthing increasing by 50% for every 10 births. Travel time to C-section was also associated with having a birthing facility. The large OR for between 1 to 2 h is an artefact of our exclusion of all non-birthing facilities within the one-hour catchment of a birthing facility.
Stage 2: facilities offering birthing with or without C-section
For the stage 2 model the outcome measure was for all birthing facilities dichotomised as C-section facilities capability (levels 3-4; n = 73), compared to no C-section birthing facilities (level 2; n = 35). Descriptive characteristics of the facilities as well as results of tests of association and trend for Stage 2 are presented in Additional file 3: Table S3. Additional file 4: Table S4 provides the summarised results of univariable logistic regression and results are presented as OR and their 95% CI and model fit and predictive accuracy parameters for the explanatory variables.
Jurisdiction was significantly associated with a facility providing C-section compared not in the univariable analysis. Using NSW as the reference, Vic (OR = 0.31, 95% CI 0.10-0.98) was less likely to have C-section facilities whereas the likelihood of C-section facilities in QLD, SA and WAplus was not different to NSW, so a combination of jurisdictions were used in the multivariable logistic modelling process. SES was not significantly associated with the likelihood of a C-section facility. However, the proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander persons was significant in both the continuous and categorical forms with a 15% increase in the likelihood of a C-section facility with every 1% increase in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population in the catchment.
The multivariate logistic model which maximized RNeg 2 (0.59), AUC (0.91), and percentage agreement (79.6%) and minimised discordant sites (n = 22) is presented in Table 4. Various categorisation of the covariates were assessed and those shown in Table 4 provided a balance between the best model fit and interpretability of the covariates. All categories of birth numbers were 18 to 90 times more likely to have a C-section facility compared to a catchment of less than 50 births. Time to nearest C-section facility also retained significance. Where facilities with C-section were more than one to 1.5 h away from an alternative C-section, they were 4-5 times more likely to offer C-section compared to closer facilities. This increased to 15 to 80 times more likely to be C-section facilities for longer travel time. Jurisdictions in 'NSW, QLD, SA' were 11 times more likely to have a C-section facility in rural and remote areas compared to 'VIC, WAplus'. Although not significant in the final model, SES was retained based on an a priori decision to include this influential proxy measure for vulnerability, and did marginally improve the RNeg 2, AUC and the number of discordant facilities.
Multivariable logistic Stage 2 model for catchments of no C-section birthing facilities and C-section facilities
Wald p
Catchment births per annum
[5.06-1569]
Time to nearest C-section facility
< 0.5 h
0.5-1 h
1-1.5 h
[1.00-18]
6, 7 Less disadvantaged
1, 2 Most disadvantaged
Jurisdiction categories
VIC WAplus
NSW QLD SA
This paper has described the association between birthing services in rural and remote Australia and characteristics of the catchment populations representing need: birth numbers, vulnerability and isolation so as to identify possible disparities in maternity service distribution.
The Australian National Maternity Services Plan acknowledged the considerable health inequalities and social disadvantage of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and rural and remote communities which is compounded by the limited provision of quality maternity care and the restricted birthing choices [20]. The purpose of this paper is to describe the association between birthing services in rural and remote Australia and the characteristics of the catchment populations in relation to equity of access.
This study defined catchments using one-hour travel time for Australian health facilities in rural and remote areas and then ascertained their level of maternity service provision. There is some evidence to suggest that distance is associated with maternal and neonatal outcomes, with Canadian studies indicating that women who have to travel more than one-hour to access birthing services have worse outcomes [33–35]. This study found that the number of births in a catchment was the strongest predictor for distinguishing between facilities that offered birthing and those that did not, and between those that offered C-section and those that only offered birthing. Our study demonstrated that increasing numbers of births significantly increased the likelihood of a higher level of service. However, as illustrated in Figs. 1 and 2 (and Additional file 5: Figure S1) there was an overlap in numbers of births in birthing and non-birthing facilities, and those with and without C-section.
In Australia there are well known poorer outcomes for those who are financially disadvantaged, who live in the non-metropolitan areas and who are from minority groups. Of the factors explored in this paper, only increasing birth numbers were consistently associated with higher levels of service. Other aspects of population-based need were not consistently associated with the distribution of services. For example, our proxy measure for isolation, the time it takes to travel by road to the nearest C-section facility revealed an unexpectedly mixed picture. Very remote communities are less likely to have any type of birthing service compared to less remote communities. Rural health facilities 1 to 2 h away from a C-section service are more likely to have birthing compared to those closer to C-section facilities. This means that being one hour or less from a C-section facility (i.e., within its catchment area) lessens your likelihood of being a C-section facility. This suggests that, controlling for other factors, once a birthing facility in rural and remote Australia is more than an hour from a C-section facility, health planners are less likely to retain birthing facilities that are not C-section capable. This is despite data showing that birthing without a C-section service produces better outcomes than no services at all [33].
Every health facility in our study was in the lowest 70% of the standardised SES index (the IRSD) in Australia, and more than 73% were in the lowest 40%. However, SES as a measure of vulnerability did not predict the level of service, after controlling for other catchment characteristics. Australian and international studies have demonstrated that maternal SES is a powerful determinant of adverse health outcomes for mothers [36] and newborns [37–39]. Similarly, Indigeneity is a significant determinant of perinatal morbidity in Australia [37]. However, the proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in a catchment, again a measure of vulnerability, was not associated with the level of birthing service, suggesting that the current provision of birthing services in Australia does not accommodate the increased vulnerability and risk associated with higher proportions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.
The provision of health services in Australia is undertaken by its eight jurisdictions. These data show that for populations living in rural or remote areas, the jurisdiction of residence has a strong influence on the level of maternity service provided. Geography, population distribution, government policy and service delineations contribute to this phenomenon. The Australian National Maternity Services Plan [14, 20] attempted to address this problem in providing an evidence-base to assist with more consistent decisions.
There are a number of limitations to this study. The sustainability of health care facilities is dependent on many factors in rural and remote areas. The existing maternity service levels were identified by our team in 2010 and any limitations associated with this are discussed in Longman et al. [31, 32]. Since that time, some birthing facilities have closed, opened or changed their service level either permanently or temporarily. Several of these facilities have been identified as 'discordant sites' in the regression analyses, perhaps reflecting their changes in service levels since 2010.
Interpretation of the results of Stage 1 models (birthing/no birthing) is complicated by the definition of catchment. The decision to give priority to the catchments for facilities that currently undertook birthing over non-birthing facilities was to increase the precision of the catchments. However, a number of non-birthing services were excluded that may have played a role in birthing service provision.
The results of these analyses indicate that the equitable planning and maintenance of rural and remote Australian maternity services assessed at a population level is sub-optimal. This finding is supported by numerous reports and research demonstrating that birthing outcomes consistently show that rural and remote Australians have worse outcomes compared to urban families [40, 41]. The Australian National Maternity Services Plan highlighted the potential benefits of rural maternity service planning tools for rural communities to "develop a rigorous methodology to assist in future planning for maternity care, including in rural and remote communities" [20]. This research reinforces the justification of such a methodology. This study found that the provision of maternity services in rural and remote Australia is not based solely on the numbers of births, and provides minimal adjustment for needs of vulnerable and isolated rural and remote populations. In addition, services are influenced by jurisdictions.
95% CI:
ABS:
AUC:
Area under the Curve
CCD:
Census Collection Districts
chisq:
Chi square statistic
C-section:
Caesarean section
df:
Estimated Resident Population
GIS:
IRSD:
Socio-economic indexes for areas index of relative socio economic disadvantage
LRT:
Likelihood Ratio Test
Mesh block
NT:
Qld:
RA:
Australian Bureau of Statistics Remoteness Area Structure
RBI:
Rural birthing index
Reference category
RNag 2 :
Nagelkerke pseudo R2
SES:
SLA:
TAS:
URP:
Usual Resident Population
WAPlus:
WA, TAS, NT combined
The authors of this paper would like to thank the other members of the Australian Rural Birth Index [ARBI) Team for their contribution to the project as a whole and to Dr Arul Earnest for his advice on statistical methods. The ARBI Expert Advisory Group and the Extended Expert Advisory Group generously contributed both guidance and insight, and the Maternity Services Inter-Jurisdictional Committee provided expert counsel and financial support.
The National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia funded this project as a Special Interest Project grant no 1024868.
Although much of the data used in this study was available from publicly available sources, the maternity service levels from which the binary outcomes were generated were provided by jurisdictional health departments with strict confidentiality requirements. Due to these confidentiality restrictions, the data is not publicly available.
MR collated, analysed and interpreted the data, and wrote the initial manuscript. DD contributed to the study design, data collation and interpretation, and revised the manuscript. SG, SKi, GM contributed to the study design, data interpretation, and revising the manuscript. LB, SKr, JK contributed to the study design and revised the manuscript. JP, JL collated data and revised the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Approval for this study was obtained from the Human Ethics Committees of the Qld Health Office of Health and Medical Research [EC00334); NSW Hunter New England Human Research [EC00403); NT Department of Health and Menzies School of Health [EC00153); Central Australian [HREC-12-96); and WA Country Health Service Board [2013:30).
Additional file 1: Table S1. Descriptive statistics and the tests of association for Stage 1 Modelling - birthing facilities versus non-birthing facilities. (DOCX 33 kb)
Additional file 2: Table S2. Results of the univariable logistic models for Stage 1 Modelling - birthing facilities versus non-birthing facilities. (DOCX 37 kb)
Additional file 3: Table S3. Descriptive characteristics of the facilities as well as results of tests of association and trend for Stage 2: facilities offering birthing with or without C-section. (DOCX 35 kb)
Additional file 4: Table S4. Summarised results of univariable logistic regression for Stage 2: facilities offering birthing with or without C-section. (DOCX 36 kb)
Additional file 5: Figure S1. Annual birth numbers (5 year average) of catchments for no birthing, no C-Section and C-Section birthing facilities. (DOCX 41 kb)
University Centre of Rural Health, University of Sydney, PO Box 3074, Lismore, NSW, 2480, Australia
Mater Research Institute, Women's Health and Newborn Services, Mater Health Service, The University of Queensland (UQ), School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work, UQ, Brisbane, QLD, 4101, Australia
Institute for Urban Indigenous Health, School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work, UQ, Bowen Hills, QLD, 4006, Australia
Centre for Rural Health Research, Department of Family Practice, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
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text:
The moment The Beatles became a part of "the establishment" according to Jimi Hendrix
Home > From The Vault > The moment The Beatles became a part of "the establishment" according to Jimi Hendrix
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Post author:peter
Post last modified:25/05/2021
(Credit: Bent Rej/ Alamy)
Jack Whatley
The Beatles are rightly considered one of the most progressive rock bands of all time. Okay, so it is easy to look back at their salad days and point out John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr as the early sixties version of a boy band. After all, the group were well-marketed and hit the top of the charts with startling consistency. But, within a few years, they were already changing the game.
After their album Rubber Sul, the group confirmed themselves as the rock icons they are now revered as. Not only did they begin expanding their counterculture vocabulary, with many fans calling the album their "pot album", but the band's change of songwriting also set them apart. Previously, the Fab Four had stuck to creating pop songs that involved rock 'n' roll tropes such as chasing women, driving fast cars and partying the night away. On Rubber Soul, they made pop music personal and put their own lives into their music.
One man who took heed from the band was Jimi Hendrix. The guitarist blew away the competition when he arrived in the swinging sixties and proved to everyone in London that there was a new sheriff in town. He made that point even clearer when, just a few short days after the album's release, Hendrix provided a searing cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band for the Beatles in the audience at the Bag O' Nails club. It's clear that Hendrix was a fan. But, the following LP would leave Hendrix feeling cold.
The album was noted by Lennon as The Beatles "returning to rock," and Hendrix agreed. But whereas Lennon deemed the album to be a reaction to the "philosorock" sound of the previous albums, Hendrix felt the LP was a regurgitation, "like an inventory of the past ten years, rock music, you know. There's a lot of people waiting for something else to happen now, anyway." It was clear that Hendrix felt there was more innovation needed in music, citing 'Happiness Is A Warm Gun' as his least favourite song on the record.
It was also a political song that, for Jimi Hendrix, showed The Beatles were now far removed from their audience. "The Beatles are part of the establishment," he said in The Times. "They're starting to melt that way too." He continued to make allusions to the band, comparing how people go through different walks of life to the group becoming somewhat middle class in their thinking: "That's not saying anything bad about a person at all, it's just the scenes some people go through."
For Hendrix, with The White Album, The Beatles confirmed they were now becoming a part of the industry and establishment they had once rallied against, galvanising a generation in the process. "It's like a person who starts out with something really on fire. Now they're still good […], but they seemed a little closer to the public beforehand."
Whether or not you like The Beatles albums that followed Sgt. Pepper, it's hard to argue that the band hadn't smoothed out their sound. For Hendrix, this, coupled with writing political songs, confirmed that the Fab Four had lost touch.
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Changes at Willis Library to give students more resources
Steven James / Staff Writer
In its efforts to give students more study resources on campus, Willis Library is moving the collections out of the second floor and installing study equipment.
The project began in January and is funded by UNT Libraries and government grants. In the spring, library employees moved the book collections out of the second floor of Willis, and relocated those books to either the third floor or to the Eagle Commons Library, located at the main entrance of Sycamore Hall.
The shifting phase of the collections is complete, but the project still has a few steps left.
Beginning Oct. 4, the re-carpeting will start. Once this begins, students will not be able to use the second floor until the carpeting is complete in about a month, said Associate dean of UNT Libraries Cathy Hartman.
However, after the re-carpeting, a new study space will be put in place for students, which will include 3-D printers and new computers.
"Libraries are taking advantage of this opportunity opened up by the carpet project to seek feedback from students about how they would like the Willis second floor to look," director of library facilities and systems Scott Jackson said.
He said one way in which students can give suggestions on the project is by using a clickable Visio floor plan, in the Willis computers, to virtually drag furniture around the second floor and submit their projects to UNT Libraries. Another way in which students can give feedback is filling out an online survey. There are also large white boards on the second floor where students can write down their suggestions.
Students can also email the Libraries at Willis.2Project@unt.edu.
"Students need more study space," dean of libraries Martin Halbert said. "This lets us focus on the collection there in a coherent way so that we can talk about the collection over at the Eagle Commons Library."
Hartman said that even though the Eagle Commons Library is one of the oldest libraries on campus, it lacked book resources for students and faculty for a while. The two most useful resources people used were the commons area and the classrooms that can be reserved for study groups. She said she wants to better accommodate the larger number of students who are coming to UNT and using the libraries around campus.
"The students have come here in droves in the past few years," Hartman said.
Featured Image: Students study during the construction on the second floor of Willis Library on Sunday. All books from the second floor have been moved to the third and fourth. Photo by Devin Dakota – Staff Photographer
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Proposal means narrower bike lanes on new roads


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The Truth, The Whole Truth, Nothing But The Truth
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Contributed by Bob Joyce on Sep 21, 2007 (message contributor)
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Scripture: 2 Samuel 18:28-33
Summary: The tragedy of the church today is that we have only proclaimed a partial message. The proclamation of salvation without repentance is a tragedy because it is a mockery to the cross. But the proclamation of salvation without the Holy Spirit is the greates
King David was one of the most perplexing paradoxes of biblical history.
• He has been called the highest star in the Old Testament.
• He has provided our most beautiful scriptures in the Psalms.
• He was the greatest King of Israel.
• His life was such a paragon of all the virtues of leadership that he became a prototype of the Messiah in Jewish
understanding. Yet, it was this same David who yielded to the passions of the flesh, who committed adultery and who amassed deceit upon deceit to try to cover up his treachery.
We have many pictures of David in Scripture. This pathetic picture painted of David in our text for tonight comes long after his double sin of adultery and murder, although it was directly tied to it. With the stories of David's sin and deceit no doubt part of the common court gossip when he grew up, Absalom overheard the whispered tales of his father's guile from an early age. Thus, it is not difficult to understand why the growing disrespect Absalom had for his father exploded into rebellion and eventually motivated him to attempt to put his father out of power and gain the throne himself.
Absalom almost succeeded. The times had been difficult for David, but now the tide began to turn. A growing number of the people began to align themselves once more with David, and led by his talented general Joab, the forces of David had almost succeeded in recovering the kingdom of Israel.
The climatic battle was still to be fought. David's troops, led by Joab, were to meet those of Absalom in the woods of Ephraim. David remained in the city, on the promise of his advisors that they would send him immediate word when the battle was over. David's forces proved supreme that day, and despite his repeated warnings, Absalom, his rebellious son, was killed. The battle was over. The victory had been won. Absalom was dead.
Now word had to be sent to the king. The Bible says in 2 Samuel 18:19, that Ahimaaz asked Joab if he could take the message to the king. Verse 21 tells us that Cushi was sent instead. Ahimaaz persisted in his request in verse 22, however, and a few moments later, in verse 23, he was sent with the message as well.
I can imagine Ahimaaz as he stretched out his long legs and swiftly swept across the plains to the city. I can see him as he gave everything he had so he could reach the city first. He passed Cushi and came to the city first where King David was sitting out between two gates. Ahimaaz came and knelt before David and cried in an exalted voice in verse 28, "The victory has been won and you are king once more."
But David, wanting to know about his prodigal son, asked in verse 29, "What about Absalom? Is he safe?" Ahimaaz said that he had seen a crowd but he did not know anything about Absalom. Remember, he had been there when Absalom had been killed. He had been there even after Cushi, but because he was afraid of the reaction of the king, he was afraid to deliver the full message.
As soon as Ahimaaz rose, Cushi came panting into the king's presence. He, too, knelt at the feet of David. He, too, proclaimed the note of victory. Again, David asked about his son. Cushi, in verse 32, knowing of David's love for his son and yet feeling an overwhelming urge to deliver the whole message said, "The king's son is dead."
Ahimaaz had run with all his might. He had come in first because of his zeal, but when he arrived in the city he did not deliver the full message. He delivered the message of victory, but he did not deliver the message of judgment. He told David his armies had won the battle, but he did not tell him the price that had to be paid for that victory ... the death of his precious son. Ahimaaz refused to deliver the whole truth.
That is happening in our churches today. This failure to deliver the full message to the world today is what one writer has recently called "the evangelical dilemma." Many of our churches are growing, and people are being saved. The problem is that the conversions do not stick. The fruit does not remain. Six months later there is nothing to be seen for all the aggressive evangelism, and the children baptized in yesteryear are not actively involved in the life of the church today.
Many different reasons may be suggested for this curious phenomenon, but I believe that at the heart of the problem is a failure on the part of the Christian church to proclaim to the world the full message—in other words, The Truth, The Whole Truth, and Nothing But the Truth. We proclaim the message of victory but often fail to explain the price which must be paid for that victory. We present the challenge but do not mention the power that is available to meet that challenge.
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Scriptures: 2 Samuel, 2 Samuel 18:28-33, John 3:16, Mark 1:15
Sermon Topics: Evangelism Fear Of
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The tragedy of the church today is that we have only proclaimed a partial message. The proclamation of salvation without repentance is a tragedy because it is a mockery to the cross. But the proclamation of salvation without the Holy Spirit is the greates
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As more usability practitioners start conducting remote usability testing, there seems to be a demand for some tips and guidelines around this technique. New screen-sharing tools like [Breeze], [Co-Pilot], and [GoToMeeting], and remote usability tools like [Ethnio] and [UserVue], make it easier to conduct moderated remote usability testing. Dealing with video and audio recordings keeps getting simpler as well. But observing people remotely presents a unique set of obstacles, so this is a guide to what we've learned from conducting 149 remote studies with 1,213 participants over the last seven years. We can't get that time back, but hopefully some of what we've picked up will be helpful.
Basically, there are two kinds of remote usability – moderated and automated.
- __Moderated__ is one person watching another person use a computer, viewing their screen movements with a screen-sharing tool, and talking with them over the phone. The moderator watches and listens to where the participant runs into difficulty while interacting with the application or site, and records both the conversation and the participant's screen. It's pretty much the same as in-person testing, but minus the user's facial expressions. Also known as __facilitated__ remote research.
- __Automated__ means hundreds or thousands of participants report their own behavior through a browser window or frame that has an open text field and survey questions. As the user navigates through a web site, they enter their feedback and answer page-specific questions in the browser frame. It's more than a survey, because it's still behavioral, but there is nobody watching and talking with the users. Some people call this unattended remote usability. The data is usually automatically distilled into a report with aggregate verbatim answers, click data, or exercise results. Some of the best new automated remote tools are [MindCanvas], [UserZoom], [ClickTale], [RelevantView], and [KDA Revelations].
You can and should mix these methods, but this article is going to stick to moderated. If you're just getting started with remote usability, there are articles [here], [here], [here], and [here], that can give you more background.
- __Traditional__ includes all the ways you would recruit for an in-person study - email campaigns, customer lists, recruiting agencies, craigslist ads, bus stop flyers, whatever.
- __Online scheduled__ is where you use an online survey or recruiting screener of some kind to schedule participants for sessions in advance.
- __Live Recruiting__ means you use an online screener to intercept people in the middle of their real-life tasks, and watch them live as they complete those tasks, in their native task environment. No scheduling in advance. This method is so effective that I'm going to dedicate the entire next section to it. Here we go.
The ability to intercept someone live as they begin a task, have them quickly share their screen and comments over the phone, and then watch them continue to use their computer the way they were about to anyway, is by far the greatest benefit remote testing offers. The criteria by which participants make click decisions are totally different when they have a temporal, emotional, and logistical attachment to completing a task. Throw in their native physical and computing environments, and you are looking at the most accurate form of behavioral usability research possible. Well, that might be a stretch, but you see what I'm getting at. In order to catch people in their native task environment, you'll have to do some form of live online recruiting.
- __Got webernet?__ You'll need that editorial access to a web site or web application related to the tool you are testing. Why do you need this? Because that's where you're going to place the invite to your live recruiting form. You can recruit live for software by asking people from your organizations web site if they are going to be using, say, QuickBooks, for anything that day. Then ask them to describe the task they will be performing. You'll get real insight just from that alone, but then you can call them before they've opened up QuickBooks for the day.
- __We all hate pop-ups__ but this is the best way to do live recruiting. We use a DHTML layer that cannot be blocked by a pop-up blocker inside Ethnio, but you can also insert a link or a feature box onto a single page.
- __Call Them__. Use your phone to make first contact with participants instead of email. You may lose the ability to get people to pre-setup for screen-sharing, but they have to be able to start right away if you want to get the true live behavior.
- __Six live recruits per hour__ is the minimum response rate to do live recruiting (that we suggest). This means you need to have at least six people to choose from, in our experience, in order to not have to schedule anybody in advance for your study, ever again. If the site or web app you're testing doesn't have that kind of traffic, you could sit around and wait forever, but that generally isn't much fun. With six per hour, you can conduct one session per hour and get 5-6 sessions per day in easily. Samurai moderators can do 8-10 per day. Grab a second moderator and you can do 20 users in a day.
- __Use any old survey tool__ to put your recruiting screener questions into. Just be prepared to do a whole lot of exporting to excel to get the verbatim responses. You could also build your own live recruiting tool in Ruby on Rails. That would be mad Web 2.0. There is a certain [live recruiting product] out there as well.
- __It's Tricky to Call Fast__. Calling Live Recruiting Respondents within a few seconds can be tricky. It involves a lot of monitoring of your live responses coming in, but when you get someone within a few seconds, it yields awesome data.
- __Extremely Narrow Recruiting Quotas__ don't really work with live recruiting. This means that as you narrow down your potential target audience you won't be able to easily get live users. If you need to recruit a married database administrator from the east coast who enjoys marmoset photography and live folk music, you're going to need to schedule them in advance.
- __But I want new users__. A common misconception is that you cannot recruit brand new users with an online invite of some kind from an existing web site. We've found that using the live recruiting method to call within 10 seconds of them arriving at the site and filling out the screener will give you nearly the same results as getting users from an agency or craigslist ad that swear they have never used your web site before. Just add a question in your screener that asks: "How many times have you visited the site before?" You can also do a mix of "new user" email recruits and live recruits and see for yourself.
- __Lady Luck__. In reality, live recruiting takes a lot of luck to get people before they have started actually using your site. But even calling within a few minutes can yield good results, and you can absolutely mix and match recruiting methods A common setup for us is 8 users live, and 8 users recruited by an agency.
- __Practice Muting__. Come up with a phrase you can use frequently to put the participant on hold. Practice saying, "Please hang on a sec while I adjust something on my end." You can say this to your participant for ANY reason, so that you can put them on mute. If a fire breaks out at your desk (it happens), "Can you hang on while I adjust something on my end?" works great. If an observer starts laughing hysterically and calling your participant a moron, just go "Can you hold on again one more time while I adjust something again?", press mute, then slap the observer with a reverse open palm.
- __Success Rate__. Only 80-85% of the people you call will be able to participate (and sometimes less). Some will have insane firewalls that don't even work with the workhorse WebEx. Some will have kids that trip over Ethernet cables. Many will be whispering to you from their cubicle so quietly you can't hear a d*mn thing they're saying. Just plan for this in the same way you recruit extra lab users to accommodate for flakes.
- __Scary Willingness__. Almost everyone you call will be willing to install any crazy screen-sharing tool you ask them too. This is scary, and I don't know why people are so willing. If someone doesn't want to, thank them and move on. Users recruited live are plentiful.
- No loud laughing or giggling.
- Speak at whisper level.
- No yelling out what they think the participant should click on.
- __Study Design is Up to You__. You can use the live recruiting method but have participants do all pre-determined tasks, or even measure time-on-task. You can mix online scheduled with live recruiting, or divert some users to a prototype, just as you could in person.
- __Camtasia + Phone Patch__. You can use a screen recording tool, like Camtasia, combined with this [phone tap from JK audio] to record to AVI. You just plug this tap in between the handset and your PBX or Analogue phone, and then the microphone input on the computer you're using to test. The JK tap is inexpensive and the best quality phone audio tap on the market. We've tried the ones from RadioShack, HelloDirect, and WebEx, and they all pick up interference or send low quality signals.
- __Teleconferencing__. Another method is to use a teleconferencing service that records the phone call for you – Breeze alledgedly does this although we've never got it to work. You still have to use a screen recording tool such as Camtasia.
- __Speakerphone Rigged__. Yet another method is to position a microphone next to the speaker on your phone, or speakerphone. This is officially jury-rigged. It can work, but it's susceptible to all sorts of problems. Mic getting knocked over. Noises in the room. Plus, nobody wants to listen to you over a speakerphone because you just don't sound like yourself.
- __Reverse GoToMeeting + Morae__ is a tricky but popular method. You have to give the participant control of a computer (through GoToMeeting or WebEx, etc.) on your end that has Morae installed. Then you use Morae to record all the participants behavior and somehow get the audio in. The main problem is that the participant is surfing super slow, because they are remote controlling the Morae computer. This will be unnecessary with the Astoria Project release, I'm sure.
- Plan for about __double__ the time that a domestic remote usability session would take.
- Use a native language moderator if you can, or [AT&T language line service] to get a native language operator on the phone doing real-time translation between you and your user. Be prepared to put subtitles in your highlight video using a video editing program for the coolest sounding highlight clips ever.
- You can also recruit English speaking participants in any country, as long as they verify they have been a resident for more than, say, 10 years..
- Realize that your cultural biases may have a huge, and difficult to predict, impact on the results of your international remote research. Just like in-person, but easier to forget about since remote testing is just so much easier than flying to Beirut all the time.
If you'd like to get started with remote testing, you have three easy steps. First, choose a recruiting method, then decide on a screen-sharing tool, and third, figure out if audio and video recording is important to you and decide on a method for that. Then you just have to give it a whirl, ideally with a trial study, or you can just use it for an actual project. If you're already doing some remote usability, don't forget to experiment with different study designs and new tools. In 1999, we did 5% of our studies remotely at Bolt | Peters using Timbuktu or PcAnywhere. By 2005, almost 95% of our studies were conducted remotely. Now we hardly ever leave the computer screen, which is everyone's goal, right?
Thanks for the interesting overview. I have to wonder, though, whether there might be privacy legislation implications for the approach. Here in Australia we have to make sure the participant is informed about what is happening with their "data" (i.e. what they are saying and doing), who will have access to it etc, which means coming clean about observers. This would apply regardless of whether it is remote or not. And more than just legislative requirements, I wonder if the ethics of this approach should be considered also.
Great point. I think usability can certainly stifle innovation sometimes. Like if you test a design concept too early, it gets trashed, and is discarded forever, where it could have been the bomb if it were more flushed out. But certainly not all the time.
Awesome summary….best I've seen so far.
I'm a user of RelevantView and recommend it highly….that's how I came across this blog post, by searching for that name.
Usability testing should not be seen as "stifling innovation". It serves to infom design, not dictate it. As a designer we all need to realize the user is not the designer. Usability testing activities serve as a great tool for allowing us to understand how well (or not) our target audience will readily embrace and adopt our designs. As designers it's our job to interpret that data we gather and create the proper solution for our clients. In my experience, and especially dealing with complex business applications, I've discovered and designed more innovative solutions through user testing and analysis then if my designers and I had only worked in a vaccume .
BTW…I'm happy to report that I've been seeing Remote User Testing becoming much more accepted as a valid form of gathering both qualitative and quantitative user data. Both our clients, our test participants and my team have been very happy with our experiences performing user testing in this fashion. Great Article Nate!
We are using Morae of the Techsmith product that's very useful and powerful.
hey steven, you have to use something in conjuction with Morae to conduct remote testing, like TechSmith's UserVue, or some other screen-sharing and audio recording tool.
I use WebEx (corporate contract)with Morae. To ameliorate the latency issues, I've started having the participant log onto the site directly. It seems to be much better than having the application open and passing control to them via WebEx.
We would love to do remote testing of our web applications but would prefer to host it on our server because we manage confidential data. Any ideas for "observing" software that we can host ourselves, or a service that allows us to store the data? Do the services all encrypt the transmission?
here's another one you should add to your list for completeness, www.Loop11.com.
Recently launched in private beta.
Bit of a shameless plug but we're currently building an remote usability testing app - http://testled.com. zero install and can test on any site.
Currently in beta but looking to launch soon.


After having spent most of July in Oregon and Hawaii, I have to admit I've been a bit uninspired to head out into the desert. Last week we had a beautiful day that started out with clouds and rain, and I made a relatively unplanned tour through the desert. One of my stops was at Pahranagat National Wildlife Refuge along the Great Basin Highway. I probably would have seen more wildlife if this hadn't been towards the middle of the afternoon, but tall shade-providing trees, roads lined with sunflowers and small lakes were enough to soothe the senses. The breezes would occasionally find a lull, and the clouds were just enough to provide a little contrast for my photo here.
You can see this photo on Leanne Cole's Monochrome Madness this week. To see what other photographers have contributed, or instructions to join in, please visit her website.
In the desert east of Phoenix, Arizona lies the Salt River. Along the Salt, there are four man-made lakes: Saguaro, Canyon, Apache, and Roosevelt. Saguaro Lake is the only one that requires a different road to gain access, and the other three are along the famed Apache Trail route. The oldest and largest, Roosevelt, is in a more open setting, and can also be reached by a longer, yet entirely paved highway. The mountains surrounding the lake contain some very rugged wilderness, yet their distance away from the water suggests they might be on the tame side.
Reflections on a spring day at Roosevelt Lake, Arizona. Photo by Steve Bruno.
Grasshopper clinging to an agave plant, my entry for Ed's Challenge.
Like many others on WordPress, I find inspiration in nature. It's the reason I venture out for hikes and the chance to take photographs. But whether I'm in the city or the great outdoors, it's the light that inspires me to press the shutter. Light is the key element to make or break a photograph. Take this photo, for example. Had I been there 15 minutes earlier or later, would I have seen similar lighting? If there was no fog to enhance the sunlight streaming through the trees, would I have stopped? I look for lighting, as well the subject, often nature, to inspire me to take photographs.