text:
What is Data Warehousing? Understand the Importance of Data Structures and Architecture
Alan Simon
Author, consultant, and Udemy instructor
Long ago, whether you were grabbing candy at a five and dime or shopping at a clothing retailer, the store owners were keeping track of what you were purchasing. In fact, they were tracking what everyone was purchasing and making informed decisions on what to restock based on which items were selling out faster than others. This data maintenance was done in a logbook with a pen and some mental math and then stored in a filing cabinet.
Today, with online shopping, social media networks, and even digital payment options in-store, the insights into customer habits have grown far beyond what was once manageable for in-store shopping. With an estimated 224 million online shoppers in the US alone, storing and making sense of all the data is no small task. Not only does a company need to store the data, but it also needs to extract relevant information from it. Fortunately, we have techniques like data warehousing to help tackle the challenge.
In this article, I'll give you an overview of what data warehousing is, how it works, and key techniques behind it. This is all information I draw on from my 30+ years of experience in data warehousing and my course, Data Warehouse Fundamentals for Beginners, where I cover the best practices for the architecture, dimensional design, and data interchange needed to implement data warehousing in your organization.
Let's get started with the basics of data warehousing.
Data Warehouse Fundamentals for Beginners
Last Updated March 2020
Best Practices and Concepts for Architecture and Dimensional Design | By Alan Simon
What is data warehousing?
Data warehousing is the aggregation of data into one storage place — at least, logically, and often, physically. We can derive numerous valuable insights about our businesses when we integrate data from multiple source applications and operational systems, mostly from within our enterprises but also from external data providers.
Information from relational databases that contain the records of a company's daily transactions is the type of data typically stored in a warehouse. The data within this central repository is then reorganized to support reporting, business intelligence (BI), and analytics — all tools necessary for data-driven decision-making to keep your company competitive.
Data warehousing was born in the very late 1980s and early 1990s based on several different analytical data management theories that came together. IBM researchers Barry Devlin and Paul Murphy are thought to be the first people to create a "business data warehouse" in the late 1980s. Then, as early efforts in distributed database management systems fizzled, Bill Inmon defined the rules for data warehousing that took hold throughout the 1990s into the 2000s. At the same time, Ralph Kimball also made major contributions to the discipline, particularly in data warehouse design via dimensional modeling. The concept of the data warehouse has since developed into what we see today — a complex system that has grown with the evolution of the computer.
Data warehousing vs. databases
Let's clear up a common point of confusion: a data warehouse is not the same as a database. To put it simply, a database records data, while a data warehouse is best thought of as an environment that analyzes the historical data and the commutative data it has collected.
A data warehouse is usually built on top of a database. The database is the platform, while the data warehouse is the usage. The more data sources present, the more complex your data warehouse will become.
Some of the most popular data warehouse vendors today include Amazon Redshift, Google BigQuery, Snowflake, Oracle, and IBM Db2 Warehouse among others.
What are the benefits of data warehousing?
Data warehousing offers insights into what a company's data might mean and enables data-driven decision-making. For a broad example, executives and managers look at information from their data warehouse to understand how their business is doing and what, if any, trends are emerging. They then interpret the data in a way that will lead to strategic changes. Those changes can provide a competitive advantage and increase a business's longevity.
In a more narrow sense, these data-driven insights and the resultant decision-making span the breadth of our enterprises, from sales to marketing to finance, and from manufacturing to supply chains to human resources and personnel. Further, these data-driven insights can coalesce in a geographical manner — findings for all of a company's North American operations, for example, or all its operations in Europe. Those insights can be produced at an enterprise level, or down to an organizational level. Essentially, data warehousing is responsible for gathering and organizing the data, while its sibling discipline of business intelligence is responsible for the delivery of the insights.
Data warehousing uses BI tools to make sense of analytics and to strategize effective ways to improve a business's future based on its past and current state.
Data lake vs. data warehouse
A term heard often with data warehousing is data lake. These are two different types of data storage uses, but the lines between each are becoming increasingly blurred.
Data warehousing is largely built on top of relational database management systems (DBMSs) such as Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, or IBM DB2. Data warehousing typically includes only structured data such as numbers, character strings, dates, etc.
A data lake brings any type of data — whether structured, unstructured, or semi-structured — together from many different sources and applications to support analytics. Essentially, the data lake helps break through application and platform barriers and provides one-stop shopping for data. Data lakes are used to manage extremely large volumes of data, rapid intake and updates of data, and — as noted above — "data variety" by handling structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data. They're built on top of big data environments such as Hadoop or AWS (Amazon Web Services) data platforms such as S3, Redshift, Aurora, and other AWS data platforms.
In some ways, a data lake could be thought of as a successor to a data warehouse. Most organizations still have the foundation of their data analysis coming from a data warehouse, but they use it alongside artificial intelligence, machine learning, and other advanced analytics driven by a data lake.
Ideally, organizations should have a well-architected integration between their data warehousing and data lake environments to avoid unnecessary fragmentation between the two.
What are some data warehousing techniques?
Data warehousing can be thought of as a collection of sub-disciplines, each of which is a set of specialized techniques, including:
ETL – Extract, Transform, Load
When data moves from its source into the warehouse, a group of processes occurs called Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL). These three processes work together to format and normalize incoming data so that it can be properly loaded into the warehouse.
The extraction process imports data from its original source and feeds that data into the data warehousing environment as quickly as possible. Minimal changes are made to the incoming data; the idea is to be able to ingest potentially large amounts of data in a finite time window.
Next up is the transformation phase. This is the stage that reorganizes and transforms data into a unified schema by making values and structure consistent. Data quality assurance and validation occur as part of transformation by fixing known errors or otherwise trying to prevent erroneous data from making its way into what users can access.
Once the data is formatted uniformly, the load phase can begin. This consists of taking the data that was temporarily held in the extraction phase and placing it permanently into the target database.
The load phase is the final phase, although the whole ETL process is repeated — and is repeated often — to keep the data warehouse up-to-date. One important aspect of data retrieval for data warehouses is dimensional modeling, which makes it easier and faster to retrieve data.
The technique of dimensional modeling closely aligns with data warehousing's sibling discipline of BI and helps us structure data as facts (basically, measurements) and dimensions (basically, how we slice, dice, and filter those facts).
Dimensional modeling of data is, in itself, a complex sub-discipline of data warehousing. In order to return accurate insights, a data warehouse must be kept up-to-date through the regular addition of new and updated content from source systems. Some of the additional or modified content is in the form of new facts such as new sales, or returns and refunds. Or in other domains, facts might be end-of-semester grades at a university. Other additional or modified content is for the dimensions: a brand-new product, a newly hired faculty member, or the demographic information about a customer who placed their first order.
Even within dimensional modeling, we can structure our database tables into different schemas depending on the architectural approaches of your data team. Either way, database rules govern how we build database tables within a data warehouse and how we relate those tables to one another.
Star and snowflake schemas
Schemas are a part of the data warehouse architecture and they play a role in the organization and analysis of the data. Data warehouses frequently use two types of schemas, star schemas and snowflake schemas.
The star schema has a center table called the fact table, and from that table of data, other dimension tables stem that have associated data. The dimension tables are not joined to each other — only to the fact table — thus giving it a star shape. It's the most simple form of schema in a data warehouse and it is used to query large data sets.
The snowflake schema, as its name suggests, is shaped in a snowflake pattern. Like the star schema, a snowflake schema still has a main fact table, but it has dimension tables that stem from other dimension tables.
Business intelligence tools typically provide guidance to data warehouse designers whether star or snowflake schema models should be used. Some BI tools work better with star schemas, while others are optimized for snowflake schemas. Regardless of which model is implemented, both star and snowflake schemas are designed to support dimensional analysis of our data.
Why use data warehouses?
Data engineers and people in similar positions who deal with massive amounts of data often find data warehouses a useful tool. Organizations that want a more simplified approach to accessing large amounts of data might also prefer to work with data warehouses rather than data lakes.
There are many ways professionals may work with data warehouses. Some data warehousing specialists concentrate solely on the data warehouse itself such as the dimensional modeling or ETL development of the warehouse. Others work solely with classic, relational-based data warehouses, while others work with the decision science (BI, data visualization, and other analytics forms) side of how the data warehouse is used.
The ability to inform data-driven business decisions requires a team to have demonstrable skills in data warehousing. Professionals with these skills see consistently high demand for their knowledge as organizations understand the importance of data skills both for new development as well as the ongoing maintenance and enhancement of existing data warehouses.
How data warehousing enables better decision-making
Overall, what is data warehousing going to do for your company? It'll make your business more efficient and competitive by streamlining once time-consuming processes, bringing data-backed awareness to business performance, and empowering employees to better articulate insights using data.
With company data consolidated, it becomes more accessible, consistent, and high quality, all of which are imperative to operating a business that thrives on strong decision-making. The less time you spend having to repeatedly gather, consolidate, cleanse, and organize data from different sources, the more time you can spend troubleshooting ways to move your company forward and improving what you do.
Master the techniques needed to plan, build, and design data warehouses with my course Data Warehouse Fundamentals for Beginners — you'll transform how your organization organizes data and it'll serve as an important step in building reliable data insights.
Page Last Updated: June 2020
Alan Simon's Udemy Profile
Alan Simon is a long-time authority on aligning transformational business process improvement initiatives with emerging data and analytics technology. He is the Managing Principal of Thinking Helmet, Inc., a boutique consultancy. In the past, Alan has led global and national consulting practices specializing in business intelligence and data warehousing.
Recent Articles by Alan Simon
What is Data Modeling? Common Tools, Techniques, and Model Types


text:
Q: install RPM packages using perl I'm trying to install RPM package using 'yum' through perl. But, the package is prompting to enter 'Y/N' during the install. How can i do a silent install?

A: Yum has a -y option:
   -y, --assumeyes
          Assume yes; assume that the answer

See yum(8) man page for details.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Q: Create new array from found values in array (JSON+Groovy) I have an array:
R = [ [ Period:[ Price:[x:1, Date:2011, NewPrice:1.000],
                 PriceX:[PriceY:2, Date:2012, NewPrice:1.000] ] ] ]

for example. I need to create new array with values of elements Date:
 dates = [2011, 2012]

(Date can exist anywhere from this array). I can create by path in cycle:
import groovy.json.JsonSlurper

def R = newJsonSlurper().parseText(String.valueOf(messageExchange.getResponseContent()));

M = R.Period
size = M.size()
def dates = []

for ( i in 0.. (size-1))
{
    def y = M[i].Date
    dates.add(y)
}

But maybe I can create array by methods findAll() or another?
response:
{
  "F":{
    "Stan":{
      "Form":{
        "Fin":{
          "Period":[
            {
              "PeriodEnd":"2013-12-31",
              "PeriodF":{
                "PeriodF":[
                  {
                    "PeriodEndDate":"2013-10-10",
                    "PeriodFiling":{
                      "C":{
                        "X":"B",
                        "RepTo":"1.0",
                        "Reported":"B"
                      },
                      "Final":"1",
                      "Or":"2014-01:47:00",
                      "Units":{
                        "X":"M",
                        "Reported":"M"
                      }
                    },
                    "Period":"A",
                    "SDate":"2013-12-31",
                    "Stat":{
                      "Stat":[
                        {
                          "Fi":{
                            "FV":[
                              {
                                "CO":"R",
                                "VALUE":"1"
                              }
                            ]
                          },
                          "PeriodEnd":"2013-12-31",
                          "Period":"An",
                          "De":"2013-12-31",
                          "S":{
                            "Complete":"1",
                            "C":{
                              "X":"B",
                              "CRte":"1",
                              "X":"B"
                            }
                          }
                        }
                      ]
                    }
                  }
                ]
              }
            },
            {
              "PeriodEnd":"2011-12-31",
              "Period":{
                "Period":[
                  {
                    "PeriodEndDate":"2012-10-10",
                    "Period":{
                      "Cur":{
                        "X":"BL",
                        "Rep":"1.00",
                        "R":"BL"
                      },
                      "Final":"1",
                      "Original":"2014-01:47",
                      "Units":{
                        "X":"M",
                        "R":"M"
                      }
                    },
                    "Period":"A",
                    "StatDate":"2013-12-31",
                    "Stat":{
                      "Stat":[
                        {
                          "Fin":{
                            "FV":[
                              {
                                "C":"R",
                                "V":"1.000000"
                              }
                            ]
                          },
                          "PeriodEnd":"2013-12-31",
                          "Period":"A",
                          "D":"2013-12-31",
                          "Statement":{
                            "Complete":"1",
                            "Currencies":{
                              "X":"B",
                              "C":"1",
                              "X":"B"
                            }
                          }
                        }
                      ]
                    }
                  }
                ]
              }
            }
          ]
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

A: Given:
def arr = [ [ Period:[ Price :[x:1, Date:2011, NewPrice:1.000],
                       PriceX:[PriceY:2, Date:2012, NewPrice:1.000] ] ] ]

You can do:
def dates = arr.Period.collectMany { it.collect { k, v -> v.Date } }
assert dates == [ 2011, 2012 ]

Or
def dates = arr.Period*.values().Date.flatten()

Edit after JSON was posted:
So lets say you want PeriodEnd, you can do:
new JsonSlurper().parseText( response )
                 .F
                 .Stan
                 .Formation
                 .Fin
                 .Period
                 .PeriodEnd

Or if you wanted all values of StatDate then you could do:
new JsonSlurper().parseText( response )
                 .F
                 .Stan
                 .Formation
                 .Fin
                 .Period
                 .PeriodFilings
                 .PeriodFiling
                 .StatDate.flatten()

Edit #2
Or you could implement a search:
List findKeys( map, key ) {
    map.findResults { k, v ->
        if( k == key ) v
        else if( v instanceof Map ) findKeys( v, key )
        else if( v instanceof Collection ) v.collectMany { findKeys( it, key ) }
        else null
    }.flatten()
}

assert findKeys( data, 'PeriodEndDate' ) == ['2013-10-10', '2012-10-10']


text:
The Spread of Covid-19 Inside the Gaza Strip; Balloon Terrorism Continues (Updated to August 27, 2020)
On August 24, 2020, four active Covid-19 cases were detected in one family the al-Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip. It was the first instance of coronavirus infection inside Gaza since the first case was detected on March 21, 2020. A short time later more cases were detected in various locations, and as of August 27, 2020, 40 active cases of Covid-19 had been detected inside the Gaza Strip. Read more...
News of Terrorism and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (August 19 – 25, 2020)
This past week Hamas-initiated tension and the deterioration of the security situation in the Gaza Strip continued. The events focused on the launching of IED and incendiary balloons which daily cause dozens of fires near Israeli communities. On August 24, 2020 four active cases of Covid-19 were detected in the al-Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip; all four were members of the same family. They were the first Covid-19 cases detected inside the Gaza Strip which were not brought in through the crossings. Will the worsening of the Covid-19 crisis in Gaza relax the current tension or increase Hamas pressure on Israel to the point of escalation? So far there is no answer. Read more...
The Spread of COVID-19 in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip (updated to August 24, 2020)
This week, there has been a certain increase in the number of cases identified In the Palestinian Authority (PA). However, the trend towards flattening the COVID-19 curve has continued (see graph). This past week, 2,653 new cases were identified (compared to 2,324 last week). According to the PA Health Ministry, there are currently 7,177 active COVID-19 cases (as at August 24, 2020); 3,489 in the Hebron district, about 49% of the total number. Of the active cases, 28 patients are in ICUs and five are on ventilators. There have been 147 deaths, up from 113 last week. In the Gaza Strip, 25 new cases were identified. Read more...
Continuing deterioration of the security situation along the Gaza Strip border (updated to August 24, 2020)
This past week the deterioration of security along the Gaza border continued, initiated by Hamas: the launching of IED and incendiary balloons continued (causing dozens of fires daily), the IDF responded to balloon terrorism with aerial attacks and tank fire at Hamas facilities and posts, and Hamas and the other terrorist organizations responded to the IDF attacks with sporadic rocket fire (24 rockets have been fired since the beginning of August). Read more...
The violence near the Gaza Strip border initiated by Hamas continues. Dozens of IED and incendiary balloons were launched daily and riots were held near the border fence at night. In response, the IDF attacked targets in the Gaza Strip, most of them belonging to Hamas. There was stabbing attack in the Old City of Jerusalem. A Palestinian from a nearby town stabbed and wounded a Border Police fighter. The agreement to normalize Israel-UAE relations has led to a wave of strong protest from the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Palestinian terrorist organizations. Read more...
This week, there has been a certain increase in the number of cases detected In the Palestinian Authority (PA) territories. However, the trend towards flattening the COVID-19 curve has continued (see graph). Read more...
<<< 1 … 5 6 7 … 140 >>>

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


After spending several days in Mae La Oop, I needed to do some laundry. I had noticed clothes hanging on lines in front of houses all over the village, but I wasn't sure if there were washing machines. I wonder/worried that I might have to hand wash all of our dirty clothes. I asked one of the students if she had figured out what the laundry situation was and she said there was a washing machine at her homestay. I peeked around the back of the family's raised hut and found that, yes, they also had a washing machine.
The next morning I gathered our dirty clothes and took them around back to the washing machine.
Hum, it didn't look exactly like the kind of washing machine I was used to. There were 2 basins. One large and one small. I determined that the large one was for washing and the small one was for spinning the water out of the clean clothes.
But how to turn it on? The labels were all in Thai. I turned the knobs first one way, then the other. Nothing.
Suddenly Grandma appeared from around the corner. Apparently, she had seen me struggling. First, she stooped over the blue water pipes running along the edge of the yard by the rice field. Then she unhooked one piece of piping and attached it to the another. This caused water to come out of a pipe near the washer. The end of this pipe was covered in a black sock. Grandma picked up this pipe and began wringing the dirt out of the sock as the water flowed through it.
Five minutes later the tub stopped moving. Grandma turned a different knob and the water began to drain from the tub. Once the water was gone, she filled the tub again with sock filtered water, added fabric softener, and set the tub to agitate for 10 minutes more.
Once this was done, Grandma began draining the tub again. The water just ran out of the machine into the yard. She then gestured for me to put the clothes into the spin basket, showing me with her hands that I should shake the water off the clothes a bit when transferring them. Surprisingly, the whole load fit in the tiny basket. A white circular plastic piece was then pressed on top of the clothes and the lid was closed. The spinner was set for 2 minutes. The clothes came out with much of the water wrung out of them.
The girls and I then hung the laundry near the family's clothes under a wooden carport-like structure. Because of the cool, damp climate it took a while for the clothes to totally dry. Later when the sun came out, I noticed that our clothes had been move out from under the carport to dry in the sun. I thanked our homestay mom for moving our clothes. A few hours later it began to rain. After it had been raining for about 10 minutes I remembered the laundry and ran over to move it, but it had already been moved under the carport again.
I had no idea when I insisted on doing my own laundry that it would be such an adventure! I am grateful that our homestay family was gracious and willing to help a clueless American who couldn't figure out how to do laundry in their village.
Funny. I think that's why they use a lot of fabric softener here, to cover up the fact that the washers don't get the clothes all that clean.


text:
ReviewsBook ReviewsSubscribers only 05/20
Jazz Transatlantic: The African Undercurrent In Twentieth-Century Jazz Culture
By Andy Hamilton
"Kubik argues that by the mid-19th century there existed several strands of African-American music ... He claims that 'jazz has been a transatlantic phenomenon from its start", and aims to undermine the ethnocentrism that still operates in jazz studies'"
Gerhard Kubik is a doyen of ethnomusicological research into jazz and African music. His masterwork comprises two simultaneously published volumes, the product of nearly 60 years' fieldwork. Vol. 1 focuses on African influences on ragtime, blues, and jazz from the late 19th century. The second volume (review forthcoming) explores the influence jazz, and other music from the Americas had on its return trip to Africa, especially after WW2 and decolonisation.
The Austrian-born author got interested in jazz in his teens, and went on to become an eminent ethnomusicologist and cultural anthropologist. He recorded African musicians as early as 1959, respecting them as individuals, not as representatives of a static culture, and here argues that "we no longer think of individuals having a lifelong 'cultural identity' conferred upon them by the communities in which they grow up".
Kubik argues that by the mid-19th century there existed several strands of African-American music, that eventually led to ragtime and jazz: minstrelsy, fife and drum groups, march music, European music high and low, and connections to African traditions. He claims that "jazz has been a transatlantic phenomenon from its start", and aims to undermine the ethnocentrism that still operates in jazz studies.
This ethnocentrism includes what he calls "a tenacious belief that music in Africa is primarily a community expression, rigidly attached to social events and ultimately a product of an 'ethnic' creative spirit with few individual composers to be traced, e.g. 'the mbira of the Shona people of Zimbabwe'". Such assumptions "ignore the tremendous investment of individual self-training … necessary for acquiring instrumental skills, constructing vocal polyphonies, and organizing performance"; they also ignore the importance of individual noise-making devices such as snail shells or bottle-tops attached to gourd resonators.
In the 1920s, a first reaction to jazz, by musicians in the Western classical tradition, treated it as "a fascinating aberration from normal musical practice [of] playing from written scores". Blue notes and syncopation were regarded as expressive deviations, when in fact "blue notes are not meant by blues singers to be deviations from anything; they are the hidden legacy of another, non-Western tonal system". In Parker's solo in Parker's Mood, "there is no such thing as syncopation; Parker evolves his discourse over two simultaneous referential pulse-lines, one dividing the beat by three, the other by four". I will return to this central issue later.
Individual chapters function relatively independently. Chapter 1 explores the origin of the term "jazz". The earliest known printed reference was in 1913, on the West Coast – to baseball, and meaning "pep" and "enthusiasm". Kubik believes it could have originated as a secret slang term in New Orleans; he also argues, plausibly, that the term could have multiple, conflicting origins. Around 1915, the music called ragtime had somewhat changed, and was renamed jazz; in the 30s, it became swing, but in 1945 "jazz" was reinstated. Chapters 2 and 3 look at the histories of Congo Square in New Orleans, and the somewhat tangential issue of voodoo.
In the chapter on "Retention, Resilience and Reinvention of African Instrumental Technique in the United States", Kubik argues that jazz is a mainly instrumental music. He says it differs from most African music, where vocal parts are essential. It uses "instrumental resources inherited from European music … expanded by nineteenth-century musical novelties such as the saxophone", and by 20th century developments. However, "Trumpets, clarinets, saxophones, double bass and piano became representations of lost African musical instruments". Kubik provides material for an aesthetics of imperfection, when he reports the following story:
"Bill Johnson [from Freddie Keppard's Original Creole Band] was one of the earliest string bass players. One time, when playing in Shreveport, his bow broke; so he had to pluck the strings the rest of the night. The effect was so novel and added so much more swing and flexibility to his playing, that he took to slapping his bass entirely". (At the end of the 19th century, in dance-band ragtime, the bass was still bowed.)
It is common in jazz history to attribute stylistic innovations to an "accident" and the reaction to it – Louis Armstrong dropping his music and scatting is another famous example. Kubik comments that "the slap technique is … somewhat different to the [African] ground-bow technique, but it is closer to it than it is to [classical] pizzicato". It differs from the latter in its kinetic structure – and the latter "is usually considered to be a special effect, not a dominant technique".
The chapter on "Ragtime" explains that the name became well-known around 1896, and referred to how the metre was "torn up by the pianist's right-hand phrasings, and thereby the melodies were in bits, like pieces of rags". Scott Joplin, Tom Turpin and others "elevated" ragtime to a written tradition, creating "classical ragtime". Kubik returns to one of his most important themes when he denies that ragtime involves syncopation: "A syncope in Western music … refers to a note that anticipates the beat and is then held on … it cannot be applied to rhythmic structures based on an African understanding of timing … [where there is] no concept of 'strong' and 'weak' parts of the meter".
The chapter "Jazz Legends, Facts and Fiction" argues that "jazz was not … a new kind of music but a new expressive form of rendering a variety of musical genres".
Anyone who wants to understand "swing" must read Kubik's chapter on it – it's the most taxing, technically. Again he diagnoses the mistaken application of a classical concept of syncopation, rooted in a centralised, pre-accepted meter. That is wrong, he argues, because "the ground beat in jazz is not the ultimate reference level for a jazz performer". Rather, there is a deeper level, an infinite grid of smallest time units, that Kubik has elsewhere called "elementary pulsation": "Those faster [unaccented] units operate as an autonomous silent reference line in performers". Swing, he explains, is "an audio-psychological phenomenon to be studied within the psychology of perception". Kubik identifies a "swing belt" cutting across several African language groups, from where many slaves were transported between 1750-1850. The final chapter explores harmony and tone.
This is a towering contribution to the jazz literature, and also – for such a scholarly work – mostly highly readable. I spotted very few errors. (The most bizarre was the claim that Lee Konitz and Clifford Brown played West Coast jazz.) Anyone with a thoughtful interest in the history of jazz, and the music's African origins, needs to read it.
Jazz Transatlantic Volume 1: The African Undercurrent In Twentieth-Century Jazz Culture. Gerhard Kubik, University of Mississippi Press, pb, 433pp. ISBN 978-1628462302
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CJ, in his early 20's, thought joining the military was the right thing to do. His father was in United States Air Force, so he deemed it right to continue the families history of military service. He enlisted in the United States Army and with some medical school under his built the Army pushed him to become a medic. Not wanting to join the front lines in the Middle East, he jumped on the opportunity to help with NATO Forces in Western Europe. In Jan. 2017 he was posted in the Joint Multinational Readiness Center in Hohenfels, Germany. After Marshall Law was declared in parts of Chernarus, CJ was re-assigned and moved to Turkey for military leaders wanted to assist the country they were pushing to join NATO. After Russian involvement and news of the outbreaks hit, CJ was put into the front lines when NATO intervention began to assist the CDF. As a medic he was put boots on the ground to assist. Mostly helping put down soliders who came back with bite wounds rather than bullets or shrapnel. Contact with the base back in Turkey was soon lost and with continuing bombs dropping it was hard to tell which direction was safe for troops to move. After the massive storm, the camp he was posted in was destroyed and people dispersed all over in the middle of the night. Since then, CJ has been trapped in Chernarus. No way to communicate to the breaking down world around him and stuck in very unfamiliar place, CJ has nothing to rely on but his military training and common sense to survive.


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Q: open ssrs report in an iframe I have developed a website which runs at SSL (https). I want to open some SSRS reports at the website in an iframe. But it is not opened since browsers say that "Blocked loading mixed active content" in the browser's console.If I hit report's URL in another tab or another browsers window then it opens.Also if I run my website at http only then browser opens the report in the iframe perfectly at the website.I think this problem is arises since website runs on https and report url is http only.
What can I do to resolve this issue without change in any of the URL.
Thanks in advance.

A: What version of SSRS are you using?  It is possible to install multiple instances of SSRS on the same machine.  They may not have access to the same sets of reports, but I'm not sure if that would even be an issue for you.  The configuration you are attempting seems a bit messy.  Personally I would try to get all of the sites on SSL to be consistent, but that sounds like you may not be able to achieve that, politically.
Anyway, here's a link to get you started with the multiple SSRS instance approach, if you'd like to try it.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms403426(v=sql.90).aspx


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The dinosaurs were big too
2005.May.08 2010.Mar.24 Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar	0 Comments
Anti-globalisers and socialists demand special curbs on multinational corporations, saying these are far bigger than entire countries and so have too much power. Well, General Motors has long been the biggest MNC in the world in terms of sheer assets ( $ 479 billion). It has been so equated with American prosperity that a popular slogan in the 1950s went "what's good for General Motors is good for you."
So, the ordinary reader may be surprised to hear that mighty General Motors lost a whopping $ 1.1 billion in the last quarter, and looks like losing more. In consequence, its bonds have been downgraded to junk status by rating agencies. Worse, the rating agency says the future outlook is negative. Translation: the company may lurch into bankruptcy unless it does something drastic.
General Motors is not alone. Its old rival Ford has also been demoted to junk status. Both companies have steadily lost market share to nimbler, smaller companies. All this has happened without any special measures to curb these giant corporations. Global competition alone has done it. So much for the myth that the size of MNCs makes them dangerous superpowers.
Even as General Motors and Ford have sagged, Tata Motors has zoomed. There lies a lesson. The global system is not rigged in favour of giant MNCs and against newcomers.
The same lesson flows from auto ancillaries. The biggest auto ancillary company in the world, Delphi, had sales in 2004 of $ 28.7 billion, yet lost $ 36 million. Its main competitor, Visteon lost a mammoth $ 1,499 million. Even as American auto ancillary giants struggle, Bharat Forge has enjoyed revenues and profits rising at 30% annually, has taken over a German company CPD, and become the second biggest forging company in the world. Even a medium sized Indian company, Amtek, has taken over GWK (UK), New Smith Jones (US), and may take over Sigma (UK).
Size made the dinosaurs look pretty powerful for a time. But, as they saying in boxing, the bigger they come, the harder they fall. The dinosaurs became extinct because they could not adapt to a changing environment. The cockroach could, and so flourished while the dinosaurs disappeared. The lesson should be clear for both MNCs and anti-globalisers.
Size has both advantages and disadvantages. For a long time size enabled General Motors to borrow at the lowest interest rates, buy out competitors, and bargain for the lowest prices with suppliers. It gave the company the status of a national champion and huge lobbying power.
But size had disadvantages too. When something went wrong, it did so on a massive scale. In recent years, General Motors and Ford left the standard car market to Japanese rivals, and focused on giant SUVs, crosses between jeeps and cars. SUVs yielded bumper margins for a time. But they guzzle petrol. The rising price of oil has hit sales of SUVs, and thus hit the core profitability of GM and Ford.
Something similar happened in the 1980s. American companies initially dismissed Japanese cars as small, cheap, and of low-quality. But Japanese companies relentless improved quality while keeping costs low, and caught the American giants napping. By the early 1990s the American giants were in crisis. In 1993 General Motors escaped bankruptcy only by shutting over a dozen factories and sacking 73,000 workers.
General Motors proved more adaptable than the dinosaurs. But it learned that size was irrelevant in a competitive marketplace, that sometimes downsizing alone ensured survival.
It currently has other problems of size. In its dominant decades, it signed contracts providing generous health and pension benefits to retirees and employees. Big size and profits translated into big entitlements. Alas, these became a millstone as the company shrank its workforce. General Motors now spends more money on health benefits to workers and retirees than on buying steel! Retiree benefits cannot be fixed by sacking workers.
Some experts fear that General Motors will have to opt for Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. This chapter provides companies the temporary right to default on debt and labour obligations pending attempts to arrange survival by shedding part of its debt and union obligations.
Junk status expresses the market's belief that General Motors is on the Chapter 11 path. Trends in the credit default swap show the market believes that there is a 29% chance of default.
General Motors may yet downsize again and survive, as it did in 1993. But this carries the key lesson that size should not be mistaken for financial power, and MNCs are not financial superpowers. The global market system is not rigged by them. On the contrary, the global market provides plenty of opportunities for good, small companies to beat the biggest giants. That is why what is good for Bharat Forge is good for India.
← One lakh Holes-in-the-Wall
Consumers can crush the Fortune 500 →


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Tributes paid to 'kind and humble' doctor
By Karen Darley @KarenGazette
Dr Owen Wetherell
TRIBUTES have been paid to a 'kind and humble' doctor who was dedicated to his work.
Dr Owen Wetherell passed away peacefully at the Rivermead Nursing Home, Norton on December 28 aged 83.
Born in Selby, Dr Wetherell went to St Peter's School in York before studying at Cambridge University and then St Mary's Hospital in London, qualifying as a doctor in 1961. He married Hilary in 1958 and the couple, who went on to have three children, Simon, James and Nicola, moving to Malton in 1964 where he worked as a doctor until his retirement in 1998.
Dr Wetherell's son Simon, who is also a doctor, said:"My father was always very interested in people and looking after them. He had a very broad spectrum of work looking after his patients from birth to the end of their lives."
"He never judged people and was happy to treat everyone from the richest to the poorest of poor and had a close links to the Romany community."
Simon said his father had been very involved with fighting to save Malton Hospital.
"He was very supportive of small general hospitals and wanted the services to continue there as much as possible. My father liked being part of the community and was always dedicated to his work, often going out to see his own patients, even when he wasn't on call."
Following his retirement as a GP, Dr Wetherell worked on benefit agency tribunals and the Rowntree Trust until he was 75.
Simon said: "He lived at his beloved Eden House for over 30 years, restoring it to its former glory working alongside Terry Brockless. After taking full retirement dad enjoyed fishing, tennis, gardening and skiing. He also spent more time with his grandchildren, who he was ver y close to and of whom three are also now doctors."
Simon said that even after his retirement a trip to the supermarket often took much longer as former patients stopped to talk to him.
"Dad was a kind and humble man with a great sense of humour and no airs or graces. He was a true old fashioned and much respected GP.


This looks wonderful. I loved creating my own recipes for my little man and it's great to know what you are feeding your child.
Thank you Angel! Plus it gives you a chance to incorporate ingredients you know they will love (and tastes better too).
I never made my own baby food back in the day, but now that I know what I know – I wish that I had.
We never did attempt making our own baby food, but it does look easy. Wish we had at least tried it once.
Oh I absolutely love this recipe! I love how it includes healthy "grain" and protein plus the fruit and veggies. And in a great texture that doesn't taste horrible like traditional baby food! I mean really…who puts chicken, tomatoes and strawberries and apples together? uhm..not me. But this recipe is brilliantly balanced and I bet my babies would have loved it!
This baby food recipe looks like it is packed with some delicious flavors. It's important for babies to try out different tastes as well.
I wish I would have tried making homemade baby food when my babies were babies! I love the bright purple color and I bet babies do too!
I miss the days of making my son's food. I know he would have enjoyed this. Passing to a friend who is lucky enough to still be at that stage in life!
I used to love making homemade baby food. Cost efficient and I knew exactly what went into it! Great recipes!
I will have to share this recipe with my friend. She makes her own baby food and is always looking for new recipes.
This looks awesome – puree healthy foods are always the best one for babies.
Aisha Kristine Chong recently posted…Go Glow!
I wish I had known how to do this when son was little. He loved eating solid food.
I would have loved to have pouches like that when I was making my sons food. I have a friend that is going to love this (the recipe and the pouches). I will send this to her.
Jennifer Williams recently posted…Ever Wonder Where the Trail Ends?
This is wonderful! I love that make your babies foods and serve him organic wholesome foods.
I don't have babies anymore but that looks appetizing for sure even for adults to eat, 😉 I do have a brand new nephew and his mother would love reading about this.
I wish I would've taken the time to make my son's food when he was younger. I would've saved so much money and it would've been a lot healthier too.
What an awesome idea! I wish they had these when my son was little. This would have saved me so much and talk about organic and really fresh!
My daughter-in-law makes her little one's baby food at home. I'm so happy to share this with her!
Rosey recently posted…To Beard, or Not to Beard? That is the Question!
I don't know but never tried to make baby food for my kids. Must be too lazy! 🙁 Anyway, thanks for sharing the ingredients and the directions. My sister-in-law can use this.
Healy Harpster recently posted…The Top 3 Women Eyeglasses That I Want From Glasses USA!
Sounds great! And I had no idea there were re-usable pouches! How environmentally friendly!
Kristen from The Road to Domestication recently posted…Rodan & Fields Review…and GIVEAWAY!
Oh yum! I love how great it looks like, and I bet it tastes better than it looks!
I have the same issue with my 10 month old. He likes to feed himself. They grow up so fast!
With my first 2 children I didn't take the time to make baby food, but will be doing so with the next one. I'm so excited! I'll try this one out!
That actually looks yummy LOL. I know it says for babies but you could freeze it and have it as popsicles in the summer.
I need to invest these reusable pouches. I spend alot of money on these!! Thanks for sharing at the Weekned Retreat, hope to see you back on Thursday!
My toddler, who currently won't eat vegetables, loves this recipe! I freeze it in ice cube trays and then pop the cubes into reuseable pouches. Thanks for a great recipe!


text:
Lindsay Bachman Director of Strategic Trade Alliances
The past year has been filled with unexpected tragedy and hardship for all of us. Yet despite it all, there is still much to be thankful for. As we reflected on what the past year has brought for Pearl and the industries and professionals we serve, we're reminded of the many struggles—but also the many triumphs—we've experienced. In this post, we'll share some of those highlights and wins, both for the company as a whole and each of our departments serving our primary audiences and customers in the housing industry. 2020 became the little year that could.
In spite of Covid's impact on the contracting industry (equipment shortages, crews quarantined), a new light was shone on energy use and air quality as more people stayed at home full time. Because our company was already so nimble, we were able to pivot quickly to offer support and education to our customers—many of whom, as boots on the ground companies, were new to a virtual landscape. As a result, Pearl has continued to add value to our customers' businesses throughout 2020, and we continue to engage with our partners as they adjust to a changing sales landscape.
We also negotiated several important partnerships with major manufacturers this year, and we look forward to launching and implementing them in 2021. By providing us with new exposure and new ways to engage with many of the best contractors in the U.S., we anticipate these relationships will have a tremendous impact on revenue and sales in 2021.
After several years of focusing on product development and sales, Pearl stepped up efforts to engage in policy this year. We engaged with a number of legislators who are working on energy efficiency issues, and joined the National Association of State Energy Offices as an affiliate member. We also worked to ensure that Pearl is positioned to support and take part in any major energy efficiency initiatives that may be launched by the new administration in Washington during 2021.
Pearl CEO Cynthia Adams was honored to receive the Charlottesville Business Innovation Council (CBIC) 2020 Entrepreneur of the Year award. This award was especially meaningful since Pearl was born in Charlottesville, and the community's support of entrepreneurship is incredibly impactful.
Additionally, Pearl hired nine new team members — including a Senior VP of Operations, VP of Marketing and a VP of Revenue — to help us scale our business.
For more details on the company's accomplishments, we've provided highlights from each of our department leaders below.
Ari Greenberg Vice President of Revenue See full profile
Ari Greenberg
Vice President of Revenue Contact
Ari brings over 15 years experience in building and transforming commercial organizations. Prior to joining Pearl, Ari led commercial teams selling DaaS (Data as a Service) solutions to the Energy complex. Managing high growth commercial organizations is an area of expertise that Ari brings to the table. Ari has helped grow and lead two firms to a successful exit. As a data driven leader, Ari leverages commercial data to coach and support the commercial staff while also leveraging this data to continuously help improve services. Ari brings a strong passion for building a commercial culture that is based on trust and transparency.
"Home is where we spend the most precious moments with our family and loved ones. I am excited to be part of a company that is helping to ensure that the homes we live in have healthy air and minimal negative impact on the environment. Pearl is a company that can truly improve the lives of millions of families across the country."
Contractor Sales
A major shift this year was establishing a CaaS (Certification as a Service) pricing model for Pearl. This allows us to set the stage for a more reliable revenue stream. We also implemented a sales cadence and pipeline-management standard, allowing us to more accurately predict revenue. And last but far from least, our team has been focused on raising the level of conversation we have with our prospects, so we are better able to address their needs. This helps us convey what Pearl is really all about — providing value (versus pushing products) to our customers.
Amy Beley Vice President, Public-Private Partnerships Division See full profile
Amy Beley
Vice President, Public-Private Partnerships Division View LinkedIn Contact
Amy has over 15 years working in residential energy. Amy's passion is helping good quality companies make money doing the right thing. Her expertise spans multiple aspects of the residential energy efficiency industry, with a strong emphasis on how to enhance the contractor experience. She's provided training to 100's of contractors, including many in the Pearl Network. Ms. Beley has presented at multiple conferences and events across the country and consulted with programs designing contractor account services. She has a BA in Environmental Studies and Economics from University of California at Santa Cruz and an MS in Environmental Sciences and Policy from Johns Hopkins University. She serves on the board of the Building Performance Association.
"Working with great companies like those in the Pearl Network is personally and professionally rewarding. I get to see great companies rise above the noise, help homeowners find these companies to get the work done right, and make that work visible. We impact climate change, and fix more homes!"
Contractor Success
The Contractor Success team captured lessons from three years of onboarding and engagement to re-envision our approach. We revised our onboarding of new customers to better suit their needs and timelines, and worked with our existing customers to share new messaging and tactics to enhance the success of Pearl in their businesses. The early results indicate this revised process, coupled with a revised sales approach, is providing our contractor partners with better tools at the right time to see more impact with Pearl — and they're excited about it. We also launched our Pearl Advisory Council, a select group of contractor partners who will provide guidance and insight to Pearl's staff, so we can continue to enhance our value and support the growth of the elite Pearl Network
Casey Murphy Senior Vice President of Business Incubation See full profile
Senior Vice President of Business Incubation View LinkedIn Contact
Casey is Pearl's Senior Vice President of Business Incubation. He supports Pearl's Public Private Partnerships Division, as well as growth into new market segments, such as new construction and insurance.
Prior to joining Pearl, Casey worked at ICF as a Senior Technical Manager, primarily supporting U.S. EPA's voluntary programs, such as Home Performance with ENERGY STAR (HPwES), ENERGY STAR Certified Homes (ESCH), ENERGY STAR Verified HVAC Installation (ESVI), and Indoor airPLUS (IAP).
Casey began his career in construction as a small business owner and building scientist (BPI Building Analyst. BPI Envelope Professional, and HERS Rater). He served for four years on BPI's Standards and Technical Committees and was also a Board Member of Efficiency First.
Casey has an M.B.A. from the University of Maryland University College and a B.S. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania.
When he's not on the sidelines watching his sons' soccer games or walking his dogs, you can find Casey working on indoor and outdoor home improvement projects.
"Improving homes impacts all of us – on a global scale all the way down to the family level. Twenty percent of all energy in the U.S. is used in our homes, and much of that is wasted energy. More often than we might think, homes make people sick, adding significantly to our nation's health care costs. Every home is different, and every resident is different. But we don't have to 'settle' on poor and average performing homes. We can do better."
Customer Service, Solutions and Quality Systems
Pearl established a customer service team to handle incoming inquiries from homeowners and other stakeholders. A case management infrastructure was built to promptly answer and resolve customer issues, as well as tracking and dashboarding resources so the team has increased visibility into case volume and performance. During the significant uptick in refinances in 2020, the team provided direct, one-on-one support to homeowners and developed new procedures to provide excellent customer service to the growing numbers of homeowners engaging with our new Green Door app.
The Customer Solutions Department continued to support Pearl's existing core customers (contractors) and leveraged existing solutions in order to enter new customer segments. We established a streamlined certification process that provides more value to builders and issues certifications at record speed. The team also updated the certification framework to better address indoor air quality and smart home features, positioning Pearl to expand its value to existing customers and new markets in 2021 and beyond.
The Quality Systems Department implemented new quality assurance and control systems to handle a doubling of certification volume without requiring additional staff. The department also established a new dashboard to document and reference our Pearl partners' information during the certification process, allowing us to better understand and meet the needs of our contractor partners while also maintaining and improving the quality and efficiency of our certification process.
Cindy Gonzales Vice President of Marketing See full profile
Cindy Gonzales
Vice President of Marketing Contact
Cindy Gonzales is an innovative marketing expert with the rare ability to both creatively design communication strategies and successfully execute them. She employs both creative and analytical approaches to any marketing endeavor, often driving multimillion-dollar revenue growth in the process.
Most importantly, she understands well that success is never the destination of a single marketing path, rather a goal best attained by multiple routes ideally suited to the unique needs of a project. Simply put, Gonzales effectively finds the pathways to success that often evade other marketing leaders.
Gonzales has been a successful marketing leader in fields as varied as the real estate and hospitality sectors, as well as the airline industry. She even achieved early success in her marketing career during the most devastating business environment of recent memory -- the U.S. housing market collapse a decade ago.
This was a year focused on building the Pearl Marketing & Communications foundation. There is now a full(er) department with three full-time staff to support the growing marketing and communications needs at Pearl.
In 2020, our team developed new messaging and further defined Pearl's brand. Early in the year we began the process of shifting to a new robust marketing automation software that integrates with our sales software (Pardot/Salesforce). This has allowed us to launch several new email marketing campaigns and engagement programs, giving us better insight into and connection with our customers, prospects, and other key audiences.
Another huge win this year was the launch of our new and improved website, which features clear, enhanced audience paths, allowing visitors more quickly and easily find the specific and unique content they're looking for on our site. Finally, we provided support for several strategic partnerships and created up-to-date customer toolkits for each vertical (contractor sales, success, and real estate). Pearl's Marketing-Communications team is well poised and firmed-up to begin 2021 with strategic focus and continued excellence!
Brian Wilson Senior Vice President of Operations See full profile
Senior Vice President of Operations Contact
Brian Wilson has over 25 years of experience as an operations management executive and business consultant. He has gained experience in virtually every aspect of business from operations and accounting to human resource management and business development. This gives him a broad array of experiences and tools to draw from to strengthen Pearl's business operations – marrying processes and systems to deliver a world class customer experience. Prior to joining Pearl, Brian was a Principal at the management and technology consulting firm, Credera, where he helped a variety of clients define and implement business and technology strategies. Before this consulting stint, Brian spent 16 years as an operations leader helping struggling organizations improve customer service and retention and operating margins. He specializes in leading large-scale process and systems transformations, merger integration, and building cohesive customer-oriented service delivery organizations. He brings the expertise to help Pearl scale itself.
Brian obtained his B.A. in Human Biology with a concentration in Organizational Behavior and Japanese Business Philosophy from Stanford University.
"A business is only as good as the people and processes that run it. I am inspired every day to make a difference for those in my company as well as the clients we serve."
The focus for 2020 Operations was to get the primary building blocks for scaling in place. This included designing and documenting core processes for our Sales, Success, and Customer Service teams and ensuring they are properly integrated and supported by our business systems and tools. We worked across departments to learn the business, determined where we have operational gaps and risks, and implemented measures to close those gaps. During the year, we implemented KPI Dashboards to give us improved, real-time visibility into the performance of our company. We also designed and implemented a new fixed, monthly pricing model to normalize our revenue and cash flow. This program was successfully rolled out to new customers and is being adopted by our existing customer base — all with positive results and in the midst of the pandemic.
Lindsay Bachman Director of Strategic Trade Alliances See full profile
Lindsay Bachman
Director of Strategic Trade Alliances, Contractor Division Contact
Lindsay develops and implements communications strategies supporting Pearl's national contractor trade partnerships. She plans and forecasts partner impact, and determines which conferences, trade shows, and events will best support sales in alignment with Pearl's mission and brand. Earlier in her tenure at Pearl, Lindsay was the Communications Director overseeing the public relations, media, messaging, and communications for all divisions.
Previously, Lindsay was the Director of Marketing and Communications for the Building Performance Association, an energy efficiency nonprofit focused on advocacy and education in the weatherization and home performance industry. Prior to her work at BPA, Lindsay was an independent consultant and built a wide variety of clientele ranging everywhere, and in between, builders, banks and bars.
Ms. Bachman graduated summa cum laude from Georgetown University with a Master's degree in Public Relations and Corporate Communications, complemented with an undergraduate degree in Human Resources Management. In addition to her love of travel, food, and friends, Lindsay is a mom, a step-mom, and a fur-baby mom. She is passionate about helping other mothers find "their village" and is a co-founder and admin of the largest moms group in western Pennsylvania.
"Growing up the daughter of an ENERGY STAR® builder-father and a realtor-mother, I've seen first hand the missional design, build, and sale of an energy efficient home. I've witnessed contracts gained and lost because of that commitment. I believe Pearl is changing the way America buys and sells homes by way of making those high-performing features visible and valued at the time of sale. I'm excited to be part of a team committed to bending the ear of American homeowners and transforming the market toward healthy and sustainable living."
Partner Engagement
Pearl proudly launched several partnerships in 2020 — including with the Air Conditioning Contractors of America (ACCA), California Solar and Storage Association (CALSA), Elevate Energy, National Association of REALTORS® Green Designees, North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners® (NABCEP), and SunPower. We developed communication plans for ongoing engagement in order to serve homeowners and the contractor and real estate professionals who serve them. We likewise deepened our relationship with legacy partners and are actively engaging with new manufacturing partners, with several exciting new programs ready for launch in the new year.
Rachel Davis Vice President See full profile
Vice President, Homeowner Division View LinkedIn Contact
Rachel brings her experience blending strategic implementation with tactical execution to deliver innovative technology products. Prior to joining Pearl Certification, Rachel worked in software delivery and product management for housing finance where her team of analysts and developers worked to deliver new solutions to support the secondary mortgage market. Rachel has an MBA from the University of Maryland and a B.S. from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
"I am passionate about finding technology solutions for challenging business problems. Pearl is bringing new, innovative solutions for promoting energy efficiency in homes and providing additional value to homeowners. It is exciting to work every day to deliver solutions that improve the lives of homeowners."
Product Tech
Our team accomplished a lot in 2020! We released Green Door, our first homeowner facing web app, giving Pearl the opportunity to engage with homeowners more directly and impactfully. Designed to inform and simplify the homeowner journey, Green Door provides homeowners easy access to Pearl Professionals, a tracking system for improvement records and detailed information about their Pearl Certification. We also continued to improve the certification app for Pearl Contractors, helping to reduce the burden of providing data to Pearl. We also implemented a ServiceTitan integration and multiple API integrations with our contractors.
Joseph Gentile Vice President of Real Estate See full profile
Joseph Gentile
Vice President of Real Estate Contact
Having spent the last two decades leading efforts in the Real Estate services industry, Joseph is fluent in all aspects of franchising, sales, operations and management.
Joe empowers homeowners to realize and recoup the value of their high-performing investments at the time of sale or refinancing. He helps Real Estate Agents identify green homes and provides the proper tools to better market their listings at a premium.
Prior to joining Pearl Certification, Joe worked for Realogy, one of the largest Real Estate franchises in the U.S., which owns the rights to some of the country's most iconic Real Estate brands like Century 21, Coldwell Banker, ERA, Sotheby's and Better Homes and Garden Real Estate. Over his 10 years at Realogy, he guided every step of the franchise business lifecycle. This included recruiting franchisees, and onboarding, consulting with the owners to improve their operational efficiencies, and ultimately ensuring ongoing renewals.
"For the last thirteen years, I've worked in sales related to brokers, branding, and franchising. I have a deep understanding of the challenges and opportunities that brokers and agents face. With that, I think I can make a difference in people's lives and businesses by helping agents get the proper value for their sellers and by helping buyers find the right homes. I'm excited to bring to brokers a new way to get optimal value for listings based on the homes' energy efficient and high-performing features."
2020 was a successful year for Pearl in Real Estate. We set up processes for Real Estate agents to virtually certify their listings with Pearl during these trying times, and even developed a new (virtual) solar certification program as well. Pearl also partnered with the National Association of REALTORS® Green REsource Council to enhance their "Green Designation" for its 3500 members through a program that includes education and special pricing.
As you can see, it was a very busy and productive year for Pearl — and we look forward to another successful and impactful year in 2021. To stay actively engaged with Pearl, sign up for email updates and engage with us on social media.
🥂 Happy New Year from all of us at Pearl! 🎊


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Home/Science/Role of Thrombolysis for STEMI in the Covid-19 Period
Role of Thrombolysis for STEMI in the Covid-19 Period
9 September, 2021 Science, Science updates Leave a comment 27 views
ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI), usually resulting from thrombotic occlusion of a coronary artery, is a fatal cardiovascular emergency requiring early diagnosis and rapid reperfusion therapy. The COVID-19 outbreak reduced the number of STEMI cases reported. Consistent the percentage of patients undergoing primary percutaneous coronary intervention declined while the percentage of patients undergoing thrombolysis increased. (1)
Cardiac catheterization laboratories in the USA confirmed an estimated reduction of 38% in STEMI presentation (mean activation per month before vs. after COVID-19 period, 23.6 vs. 15.3 respectively, 95% CI 26, 49, p < 0.001) in the context of sudden COVID-19 outbreak. (2) A similar drop of 40% in STEMI admissions was observed by Rodriguez-Leor et al. in Spain. (3)
The superiority of PCI over thrombolysis in STEMI cases is well established. (4) In ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PPCI) is to date the recommended therapy if the estimated time is ≤120 min from the diagnosis, otherwise fibrinolytic therapy must be preferred. (5)
Considering the dramatic impact of COVID-19 on emergency services, experts from China, UK and US suggested to reconsider thrombolysis as the best treatment in term of balance between time consumption and operators safety for STEMI patients respect to PPCI. (6)
In 2013, the Strategic Reperfusion Early after Myocardial Infarction (STREAM) study demonstrated that the use of fibrinolytic strategy in patients with STEMI who presented within 3 h after symptoms onset and were not capable for a primary PCI within 1 h, was at least as effective as in those undergoing primary PCI regarding to the composite of death, shock, congestive heart failure or reinfarction up to 30 days. (7)
A recently published algorithm for the management of STEMI during SARS-CoV-2 outbreak from "The COVID-19 and Acute Myocardial Infarction (AMI) committee of Peking Union Medical College Hospital" suggested a more leading role of fibrinolytic treatment in STEMI patients with confirmed or suspected COVID-19, in order to achieve the principle of "time is muscle". (8)
On the other hand, an important issue to consider is that using fibrinolytic strategy may not be suitable for all patients, not only due to numerical contraindications, but also because a proportion of them may still need a PCI; something that may have an impact on health resources. Another promising idea is the use of robotic-assisted PCI in STEMI patients during SARS-CoV-2 outbreak, as the exposure risk of the catheterization laboratory staff may be reduced. (7)
Cardiovascular disease is associated with increased severity of COVID-19.
The number of people with STEMI has decreased during the pandemic and delays in the time looking for medical care have been reported.
Changes in reperfusion strategies in the covid era.
Fibrinolytic therapy or robotic-assisted PCI in early presenting STEMI patients may have an alternative role during this period if prevention measures cannot be taken.
Martinez Benitez Piter. MD, Duong Thanh Binh. MD
1. Dingcheng Xiang, MD. Xin Xiang, PHD. Wei Zhang, PHD. Shaodong Yi, MD. Jinxia Zhang, MD. Xiaolong Gu, MD. Management and Outcomes of Patients With STEMI During the COVID-19 Pandemic in China. J A C C Vol. 76, No. 11, 2020. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
2. Garcia S, Albaghdadi MS, Meraj PM, Schmidt C, Garberich R, Jaffer FA, et.al. Reduction in ST-segment elevation cardiac catheterization laboratory activations in the United States during COVID-19 pandemic. J Am Coll Cardiol. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jacc.2020.04.011
3. Rodriguez-Leor O. Impacto de la pandemia de COVID-19 sobre la actividad asistencial en cardiología ntervencionista en España. REC Interv Cardiol 2:82–89.
4. Andersen HR, Nielsen TT, Rasmussen K, Thuesen L, Kelbaek H, Thayssen P, Abildgaard U, Pedersen F, Madsen JK, Grande P, Villadsen AB, Krusell LR, Haghfelt T, Lomholt P, Husted SE, Vigholt E, Kjaergard HK, Mortensen LS, Investigators D A comparison of coronary angioplasty with fibrinolytic therapy in acute myocardial infarction. N Engl J Med. 2003;349(8):733–742.
5. Ibáñez, B. James, S. Agewall, S. ESC Scientific Document Group, 2017 ESC Guidelines for the management of acute myocardial infarction in patients presenting with ST-segment elevation: The Task Force for the management of acute myocardial infarction in patients presenting with ST-segment elevation of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), Eur. Heart J. 39(2) (2018) 119–177.
6. Tumminello, G. Barbieri, L. Lucreziotti, S. Gentile, D. Conconi, B. Centola, M.et.al. Impact of COVID-19 on STEMI: ¿Second youth for fibrinolysis or time to centralized approach? IJC Heart & Vasculature 30 (2020). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/
7. Vlachakis, P.K., Tentolouris, A. & Kanakakis, I. Concerns for management of STEMI patients in the COVID-19 era: a paradox phenomenon. J Thromb Thrombolysis 50, 809–813 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11239-020-02236-y
8. Jing ZC, Zhu HD, Yan XW, Chai WZ, Zhang S. Recommendations from the Peking Union Medical College Hospital for the management of acute myocardial infarction during the COVID-19 outbreak. Eur Heart J. 2020. https://doi.org/10.1093/eurheartj/ehaa258Photo: Internet
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