text:
\section{INTRODUCTION}

The search for new magnetic off-center impurities, which can simultaneously result in the
appearance of ferroelectric and magnetic ordering and the magnetoelectric interaction in
crystals~\cite{PhysRevLett.101.165704}, is currently a topical problem. The materials
characterized by these properties are classified as multiferroics---multifunctional materials,
which open new opportunities for modern electronics and spintronics.

It is obvious that to obtain multiferroic properties, a material must have a magnetic moment,
e.g., as a result of its doping with magnetic impurities. The position of an impurity atom
in a crystal and its local environment may have an appreciable effect on its magnetic moment.
In addition, atoms of $3d$ transition elements can exist in several oxidation states, which
depend on the position of an atom in a lattice, its local environment (isolated atom, complexes
with different defects), and the presence of other donors and acceptors in samples.

The oxidation and spin states can be changed by varying the synthesis conditions. Thus, in the
case of the Mn impurity in SrTiO$_3$, it was shown that the oxidation state and the ratio between
the concentrations of atoms at different lattice sites can be changed by varying the annealing
temperature and the stoichiometry of samples (see \cite{JETPLett.89.457,BullRASPhys.74.1235}
and the references therein). Our studies of nickel-doped strontium titanate showed that the
magnetic state of nickel depends on what kind of impurity complexes are formed in the doping
process. The magnetic moment of nickel in the Ni$^{2+}$--$V_{\rm O}$ complex depends on the
impurity--vacancy distance (the nearest or distant vacancy)~\cite{JAdvDielectrics.3.1350031,PhysSolidState.56.449}.

Recent experiments have shown that SrTiO$_3$ doped with cobalt with a concentration of 14--40\%
is a ferromagnet at 300~K and, at the same time, a dielectric~\cite{NewJPhys.12.043044,PhysRevB.87.144422},
which is a rather rare combination. This was one of the reasons for the present study. The preliminary
study of this material suggested a possible incorporation of the Co impurity into different
sites of the perovskite structure~\cite{FundamPhysFerr.2016.211}.

Cobalt-doped strontium titanate has been studied for a rather long time. The similarity of the
crystal structures of SrTiO$_3$ and SrCoO$_{3-x}$ (oxygen-deficient perovskite) suggests the
existence of a continuous series of solid solutions in this system. According to
Ref.~\cite{JPowerSources.210.339}, the solubility of cobalt at the $B$~site of SrTiO$_3$ is
at least 40\%, whereas the authors~\cite{InorgChem.43.8169} reported the preparation of
polycrystalline samples containing up to 90\% of Co using the solid-phase synthesis.
The X-ray studies performed in~\cite{InorgChem.43.8169} revealed the appearance of additional
peaks in X-ray diffraction patterns at $x > 0.5$; these peaks were associated with the
oxygen vacancies ordering. In all earlier published papers, it was presumed that the cobalt
atom substitutes the titanium one. No information about the incorporation of cobalt into the
$A$~site has been reported.

The oxidation state of cobalt in SrTiO$_3$(Co) was determined by electron paramagnetic resonance
(EPR), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), optical absorption, and X-ray absorption near-edge
structure (XANES) spectroscopy. According to the EPR data~\cite{JPhysC.16.5491}, a signal from
Co$^{4+}$ ions in a low-spin state ($S = 1/2$) was observed in single crystals doped with 0.2\%
Co, and the signal intensity strongly increased after preliminary illumination. It seems that
the cobalt impurity in this sample is diamagnetic in the initial state and is in the +3
oxidation state. Indeed, the studies of the optical absorption spectra of single
crystals~\cite{JPhysC.16.5491,CrystReports.49.469} have revealed the absorption lines typical
of the Co$^{3+}$ ion in an octahedral environment. The XPS studies of thin films grown by
molecular-beam epitaxy (MBE) at 550$^\circ$C with a cobalt concentration from 10 to
50\%~\cite{PhysRevB.87.144422} brought to a conclusion that the cobalt oxidation state is 2+.
The conclusion about the same oxidation state was also made from XPS studies of SrTiO$_3$(Co)
nanofibers, which had a cobalt concentration up to 20\% and were prepared by electrospinning
and annealed at 650$^\circ$C~\cite{JMaterSci.47.8216}, and of the samples with 30\% Co grown
by pulsed laser deposition (PLD)~\cite{NewJPhys.12.043044}. The analysis of XPS data enabled
the authors~\cite{NewJPhys.12.043044} to suppose that the impurity Co atoms replace Ti ions
with the formation of oxygen vacancies, and the oxidation state of cobalt in films is lower than
in bulk samples, as the films were grown at a low partial pressure of oxygen. (Since the oxidation
state of cobalt at the $B$~site differs from the titanium ion charge, this implies the
existence of compensating defects in the samples, in particular, oxygen vacancies.)

It should be noted that as the spread of photoelectron peak energies for the Co atom exceeds
their chemical shift upon a change in the oxidation state~\cite{NIST-XPS-DB}, the
conclusion~\cite{NewJPhys.12.043044,PhysRevB.87.144422} about its 2+ oxidation state in
SrTiO$_3$ was made from the appearance of a strong high-energy satellite peak. However, the
same peak with a slightly lower intensity is also present in the samples with trivalent
cobalt~\cite{PhysRevB.46.9976}, so the reliability of this oxidation state determination
method is questionable. An indirect argument for the appearance of Co$^{2+}$ in films
synthesized by PLD may be an increase in the out-of-plane lattice constant with increasing
cobalt concentration~\cite{NewJPhys.12.043044}. This effect obviously differs from the decrease
in the lattice constant observed when doping the bulk crystals~\cite{InorgChem.43.8169,JMagnMagnMater.305.6}.
Unfortunately, no conclusions about the oxidation state of cobalt have been drawn from the XANES
spectra recorded on SrTiO$_3$(Co) films~\cite{NewJPhys.12.043044}.

To explain the origin of the room-temperature ferromagnetism, a number of theoretical
studies~\cite{PhysRevB.87.144422,ApplPhysLett.100.252904,PhysRevB.90.125130}, in which the
nature of this phenomenon was discussed assuming the presence of divalent cobalt in the
samples, have been performed. These studies have demonstrated an essential role of oxygen
vacancies, which form Co$^{2+}$ ion--nearest vacancy complexes with a nonzero magnetic moment.

The studies of the magnetic properties of cobalt-doped SrTiO$_3$ samples have shown that
the bulk synthesis methods do not usually result in the appearance of ferromagnetism at
room temperature~\cite{InorgChem.43.8169,JMagnMagnMater.305.6}. Instead, a quite different
paramagnetic--antiferromagnetic phase transition was observed in single-phase SrTi$_{1-x}$Co$_x$O$_3$ samples with $x = {}$0.35--0.50 at
15--26 K~\cite{JMagnMagnMater.305.6}. The X-ray diffraction studies of these
samples reduced in a 10\% H$_2$--Ar atmosphere revealed
the presence of metallic Co in them. In contrast, thin
cobalt-doped SrTiO$_3$ films grown by the PLD or MBE
methods with dielectric or semiconducting properties
exhibit ferromagnetism at 300~K at a high impurity
concentration ($>$14\%)~\cite{NewJPhys.12.043044,PhysRevB.87.144422,ApplPhysLett.89.012501}.
Cobalt-doped thin
(La,Sr)TiO$_3$ films, which were annealed in a reducing
atmosphere and had metallic conductivity, demonstrate ferromagnetism at 300~K at a much lower cobalt
content ($\sim$2\%)~\cite{ApplPhysLett.83.2199,PhysRevLett.96.027207}.

It should be noted that the properties of samples strongly depend on the method of their
preparation. The samples prepared at high temperatures are characterized by the presence
of trivalent cobalt and the absence of ferromagnetism. On the contrary, divalent cobalt
and ferromagnetism at 300~K appear under conditions, which can be considered as far from
equilibrium (hydrothermal synthesis, PLD, nanofibers). This makes the problem of determining
the real structure of impurity defects formed by cobalt very topical.

In this work, the structural position and oxidation state of magnetic Co impurity in SrTiO$_3$
samples prepared by solid-phase synthesis with different deviations from
stoichiometry are studied by XAFS spectroscopy. It is shown that, depending on the preparation
conditions, the cobalt atoms can predominantly enter either the $B$~sites of the perovskite
structure in the trivalent state, or the $A$~sites in the divalent state. In the latter
case, the impurity is off-center and is in the high-spin state. The obtained results are
compared with the results of the first-principles calculations of the defect structure.

\section{SAMPLES, EXPERIMENTAL AND CALCULATION TECHNIQUES}

Cobalt-doped SrTiO$_3$ samples with an impurity concentration of 2--3\% and different
deviations from stoichiometry were prepared by solid-phase synthesis.
The initial components were SrCO$_3$, nanocrystalline TiO$_2$ synthesized by the hydrolysis
of tetrapropylorthotitanate and dried at 500$^\circ$C, and Co(NO$_3$)$_2$$\cdot$6H$_2$O.
The components were weighed in required proportions, ground in acetone, and annealed in air
in alumina crucibles at 1100$^\circ$C for 4~h. The resulting powders were ground again
and repeatedly annealed under the same conditions for 4~h. Some samples were additionally
annealed in air at 1500 or 1600$^\circ$C for 2~h. To incorporate cobalt into the $A$ or
$B$~site of the perovskite structure, the composition of the samples was deliberately
deviated from stoichiometry towards excess titanium or strontium. All the prepared samples
were dark brown in color.

Extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) and X-ray absorption near-edge structure
(XANES) spectra were recorded in fluorescence mode at the Co $K$-edge (7.709~keV) and 300~K
on the KMC-2 station of the BESSY synchrotron radiation source (Germany). Radiation
was monochromatized with a double-crystal Si$_{1-x}$Ge$_x$ (111)-oriented monochromator.
The intensity of radiation incident on a sample was measured with an ionization chamber,
whereas the intensity of the fluorescence radiation was measured with a R{\"O}NTEC
energy-dispersive silicon drift detector.

The EXAFS spectra were analyzed with a widely used IFEFFIT software package~\cite{IFEFFIT}.
The EXAFS function $\chi(k)$ (here, $k = \sqrt{2m(E - E_0)}/\hbar$ is the wave vector of
a photoelectron and $E_0$ is the absorption edge energy) was extracted from the experimental
spectra using the \texttt{ATHENA} software and fitted with the \texttt{ARTEMIS} software
to the theoretical curve calculated for a chosen structural model
    \begin{equation}
    \begin{split}
    \chi(k) &= - \frac{1}{k} \sum_j \frac{N_j S_0^2}{R_j^2} |f_j(k)| \\
    &\times \exp[-2 \sigma_j^2 k^2 - 2R_j/\lambda(k)] \sin [2kR_j + \phi_j(k)], \\
    \end{split}
    \end{equation}
where the sum runs over several nearest shells $j$ about the central Co atom, $N_j$ is the
number of atoms in the $j$th coordination shell, $R_j$ is its radius, $f_j$ is the scattering
amplitude, $\lambda$ is an effective mean free path, $\sigma_j^2$ is the Debye--Waller
factor characterizing the mean-squared deviation between the distance to atoms of the
$j$th sort from its mean value, and $S_0^2$ is the multiplier taking into account
the reduction in the oscillation amplitude resulting from many-body effects. The scattering
amplitude $f_j(k)$, the phase shifts $\phi_j(k)$, and the mean free path $\lambda(k)$ for
all single- and multiple-scattering paths were calculated using the FEFF6 software.
For each sample, 3--4 spectra were recorded and further independently processed, and the
obtained curves $\chi(k)$ were averaged. The details of the data analysis are given
in~\cite{PhysRevB.55.14770}.

The first-principles calculations of the geometry and magnetic and electronic structures of
impurity centers were performed using the \texttt{ABINIT} software within the LDA+$U$ approach
on 80-atom cubic supercells, in which one of the Ti$^{4+}$ ions at the $B$~site or one of
the Sr$^{2+}$ ions at the $A$~site of the perovskite structure was
substituted by the cobalt ion. The atoms with partially filled $d$ shell were described using
the projector-augmented wave (PAW) pseudopotentials. The parameters describing the Coulomb
and exchange interactions inside the $d$ shell were $U = 5$ and $J = 0.9$~eV.

\section{EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS}
\label{sec3}

\begin{figure}
\includegraphics{fig1}
\caption{\label{fig1} X-ray diffraction patterns for the samples (1)
Sr$_{0.98}$Co$_{0.02}$TiO$_3$ annealed at 1600$^\circ$C, (2) Sr$_{0.98}$Co$_{0.02}$TiO$_3$
annealed at 1500$^\circ$C, (3) SrTi$_{0.97}$Co$_{0.03}$O$_3$ annealed at
1500$^\circ$C.}
\end{figure}

The X-ray diffraction analysis of prepared samples showed that all studied SrTiO$_3$(Co)
samples were single-phase and had a cubic perovskite structure at 300~K. Typical X-ray
diffraction patterns of three samples are shown in Fig.~\ref{fig1}, and their unit cell
parameters together with the unit cell parameter of undoped SrTiO$_3$ are given in
Table~\ref{table1}. A decrease in the unit cell parameter of all doped specimens in
comparison with undoped SrTiO$_3$ agrees with the earlier published
data~\cite{InorgChem.43.8169,JMagnMagnMater.305.6} and indicates the formation of a solid
solution.

The oxidation state of the Co impurity in doped SrTiO$_3$ samples was determined by comparing
the absorption edge position in the XANES spectra of the samples with the edges positions
in the reference samples LaCoO$_3$ (cobalt valence +3) and Co(NO$_3$)$_2$$\cdot$6H$_2$O
(cobalt valence +2). The XANES spectra of all samples and reference compounds are shown in
Fig.~\ref{fig2}.

The comparison of the XANES spectra of all SrTiO$_3$(Co) samples annealed at a temperature
of 1100$^\circ$C and the sample annealed at 1500$^\circ$C with deviation from stoichiometry
towards excess strontium showed that the absorption edges in these samples are close to
each other and almost coincide with the absorption edge of the LaCoO$_3$ reference compound.
This suggests that the Co impurity in these samples is predominantly in the +3 oxidation
state.

\begin{table*}
\caption{\label{table1} Unit cell parameters for three SrTiO$_3$(Co) samples and undoped SrTiO$_3$}
\begin{tabular}{ccccc}
\hline
                               & Sr$_{0.98}$Co$_{0.02}$TiO$_3$ & Sr$_{0.98}$Co$_{0.02}$TiO$_3$ & SrTi$_{0.97}$Co$_{0.03}$O$_3$ & \\
\smash{\raisebox{7pt}{Sample}} & annealed at 1600$^\circ$C     & annealed at 1500$^\circ$C     & annealed at 1500$^\circ$C     & \smash{\raisebox{7pt}{SrTiO$_3$}} \\
\hline
Unit cell parameter $a$~({\AA}) & 3.8977$\pm$0.0005 & 3.8994$\pm$0.0002 & 3.8931$\pm$0.0006 & 3.905 \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{table*}

\begin{figure}
\includegraphics{fig2}
\caption{\label{fig2} XANES spectra for SrTiO$_3$(Co) samples and reference cobalt compounds:
(1) Sr$_{0.98}$Co$_{0.02}$TiO$_3$ annealed at 1600$^\circ$C, (2) Sr$_{0.98}$Co$_{0.02}$TiO$_3$
annealed at 1500$^\circ$C, (3) Sr$_{0.98}$Co$_{0.02}$TiO$_3$ annealed at 1100$^\circ$C, (4)
SrTi$_{0.97}$Co$_{0.03}$O$_3$ annealed at 1500$^\circ$C, (5) SrTi$_{0.97}$Co$_{0.03}$O$_3$
annealed at 1100$^\circ$C, (6) Co(NO$_3$)$_2$$\cdot$6H$_2$O, (7) LaCoO$_3$.}
\end{figure}

The absorption edges of SrTiO$_3$(Co) samples annealed at 1500 and 1600$^\circ$C with deviation
from stoichiometry towards excess Ti coincide with each other and are close to the absorption
edge of the Co(NO$_3$)$_2$$\cdot$6H$_2$O reference compound. This indicates that these samples
contain cobalt predominantly in the +2 oxidation state.

It should be noted that the chemical shift in the XANES spectra is much larger than that in the
photoelectron spectra~\cite{NIST-XPS-DB}, thus providing the possibility to make a more reliable
conclusion about the oxidation state of cobalt.

To determine the structural position of the Co impurity in SrTiO$_3$, the EXAFS spectra were
analyzed. The data analysis and the choice of a structural model were performed taking into
account the results of X-ray diffraction and XANES studies, namely, the unit cell parameter
and the ability of Co atoms to enter different ($A$ and $B$) sites of the perovskite structure,
probably simultaneously and in different oxidation states.

The comparison of EXAFS spectra for two groups of samples, in which Co ions are in different
oxidation states, reveals a qualitative distinction between them.

For all samples in which Co is in the Co$^{3+}$ oxidation state, a reasonable agreement between
the experimental spectra and the theoretically calculated curves $\chi(k)$ was obtained for
the model, in which the Co$^{3+}$ ion substitutes the Ti$^{4+}$~ion with the formation of a distant
oxygen vacancy. In this model, the Co--O distance in the first shell was $1.909 \pm 0.012$~{\AA},
the Co--Sr distance was $3.342 \pm 0.016$~{\AA}, and the Co--Ti distance was $3.892 \pm 0.012$~{\AA}.

The analysis of EXAFS spectra for the Sr$_{0.98}$Co$_{0.02}$TiO$_3$ samples annealed at 1600
and 1500$^\circ$C, in which the impurity Co atom is in the +2 oxidation state, has shown that
none of the models, in which the Co$^{2+}$~ion substitutes either Ti$^{4+}$ at the $B$~site
or Sr$^{2+}$ at the $A$~site, agree satisfactorily with the experiment. Qualitative agreement
between the experimental spectrum and the theoretically calculated EXAFS curve for these samples
was obtained for the model, in which the Co$^{2+}$ ion replaces the Sr$^{2+}$ ion at the $A$~site
and is displaced from this site in the [100] direction by $\sim$1.0~{\AA}. This displacement seems
to be reasonable taking into account a large difference between the Co$^{2+}$ and Sr$^{2+}$
ionic radii. In this case, the distance from the cobalt atom to the nearest oxygen atoms is
$1.993 \pm 0.042$~{\AA}.

Unfortunately, the agreement between the experimental and theoretically calculated EXAFS curves
was not sufficiently good for all studied samples (the criterion of agreement between the
calculated and experimental spectra was a low $R$-factor, the correspondence of obtained
coordination numbers to the theoretical model, and the agreement between the Fourier transforms
of spectra in the $R$-representation). For this reason, it was decided to consider the microscopic
models of different impurity centers with the Co atom at the $A$ and $B$~sites.

\section{RESULTS OF FIRST-PRINCIPLES CALCULATIONS}
\label{sec4}

The construction of theoretical models was performed taking into account the data on the oxidation
state of impurity atoms and the interatomic distances obtained from the analysis of EXAFS spectra.
We note that the earlier first-principles calculations~\cite{PhysRevB.87.144422,ApplPhysLett.100.252904,PhysRevB.90.125130}
were performed mainly for the divalent cobalt at the $B$~site, while our results indicate other
oxidation states and lattice sites.

The modeling of the geometry of impurity centers was started from the Co$^{2+}$ ion at the
$A$~site. This impurity center is one of the simplest ones, as the substitution of strontium
by cobalt does not require any charge compensation. The calculations, which took into account
the full relaxation of the local environment, showed that the on-center position of the
Co$^{2+}$ ion at the $A$~site in SrTiO$_3$ is energetically unstable, and the impurity atom
displaces to an off-center position. The comparison of the energies of structures with atoms
displaced along the [100], [110], and [111] directions showed that the structure with the
displacement along the [110] axis has the lowest energy, and the energy of the structures
with the displacements along the [100] and [111] axes are, respectively, by 264 and 985~meV
(per Co atom) higher. The displacements along the [100], [110], and [111] axes are 1.03,
1.00, and 0.79~{\AA}, respectively, and the ion magnetic moment is $S = 3/2$ in all
configurations. The calculated distances to the nearest atoms in the cobalt environment for
these configurations are given in Table~\ref{table2}. It is seen that the calculated distances
to the nearest oxygen atoms appreciably exceed the Co--O distances for cobalt at the $B$~site,
and the interatomic distances for the displacements along the [100] and [111] axes are closest
to the experimentally obtained value of $1.993 \pm 0.042$~{\AA}.

\begin{table*}
\caption{\label{table2} Local environment of Co ions in different theoretical models. The distances are in~{\AA}.}
\begin{tabular}{cccccccc}
\hline
 &  & \multicolumn{6}{c}{Shell} \\
\cline{3-8}
\smash{\raisebox{7pt}{Model}}    & \smash{\raisebox{7pt}{$S$}} & 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & 5 & 6 \\
\hline
Off-center atom at the $A$ site, & 3/2 & 2.014 & 2.948 & 3.056 & 3.168 & 3.630 & 3.814 \\
displacement [100]               &     & (4O)  & (4Ti) & (1Sr) & (4O)  & (4O)  & (4O) \\

Off-center atom at the $A$ site, & 3/2 & 2.051 & 2.069 & 2.706 & 3.265 & 3.318 & 3.474 \\
displacement [110]               &     & (1O)  & (4O)  & (2Ti) & (2O)  & (2Sr) & (4Ti) \\

Off-center atom at the $A$ site, & 3/2 & 1.996 & 2.707 & 2.946 & 3.216 & 3.523 & 3.564 \\
displacement [111]               &     & (3O)  & (1Ti) & (6O)  & (3Ti) & (3Sr) & (3O) \\

Isolated Co$^{3+}$ ion at the $B$ site & 0 & 1.905 & 3.352 & 3.801 & 4.355 & 5.509  & \\
                                       &   & (6O)  & (8Sr) & (6Ti) & (24O) & (12Ti) & \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{table*}

The modeling of impurity centers with trivalent cobalt at the $B$~site implies the existence
of defects compensating the difference between the ionic charges. The calculations for an
isolated Co$^{3+}$~ion at the $B$~site, for which an additional electron was provided by a
distant F donor atom located at the oxygen site (Table~\ref{table2}), have shown that the
low-spin state ($S = 0$) has the lowest energy. The comparison of the distances obtained
in the model, in which the Co$^{3+}$ ion enters the $B$~site, with the experimentally
determined distance of $1.909 \pm 0.012$~{\AA} shows their good agreement.

The electronic structure of the Co$^{2+}$ impurity center at the $A$~site is shown in Fig.~\ref{fig3}(a). It is seen that the
cobalt impurity creates three acceptor levels associated
with the occupied $d_{x^2-y^2}$ (spin up) and $d_{z^2}$ and $d_{xy}$ (spin
down) orbitals in the forbidden gap of SrTiO$_3$. The
Fermi level $F$ is located in the forbidden gap. The $d_{z^2}$
state is strongly hybridized with the oxygen $p$ states, so
the optical transitions allowed by the selection rules
from this level to the bottom $E_c$ of the conduction band
(which is formed by cobalt and titanium $d$ states) may
be the cause of intense color of the samples.

For an isolated Co$^{3+}$ impurity center at the $B$~site, the cobalt $d$ levels of
$T_{2g}$ symmetry merge together with the valence band edge, whereas the levels of $E_g$
symmetry form resonant levels in the conduction band (Fig.~\ref{fig3}(b)). That is why there
are no reasons to expect appreciable change in the color of samples in this case.

\begin{figure}
\includegraphics{fig3}
\caption{\label{fig3} Partial contributions of cobalt, titanium, and oxygen to the density of
states for (a) Co$_A^{2+}$ and (b) Co$_B^{3+}$ impurity centers. Partial contribution of cobalt
was decreased by 5~times.}
\end{figure}

\section{REFINEMENT OF THE STRUCTURAL MODELS AND DISCUSSION OF RESULTS}

Insufficiently good agreement obtained between the experimental and calculated EXAFS spectra
in Sec.~\ref{sec3} has stimulated us to consider more complicated models. First, we considered
the model, in which cobalt at the $B$~site forms a complex with the nearest oxygen vacancy.
The distances obtained in this model for the SrTi$_{0.97}$Co$_{0.03}$O$_3$ sample annealed at
1100$^\circ$C are only slightly different from the values given above, but the parameter
$S_0^2$ was closer to its value for the reference compounds.

Using the geometry of the local environment of the off-center cobalt atom at the $A$~site
calculated for three directions of displacement, the spectrum of the Sr$_{0.98}$Co$_{0.02}$TiO$_3$
sample annealed at 1600$^\circ$C was processed. It turned out that the lowest $R$ factor is
obtained by fitting curves for configurations with the [100] and [111] displacements. The
calculated Fourier transform of the EXAFS spectrum for the model with the [110] displacement
had a strong peak from Ti atoms in the third shell, but this peak was entirely absent in the
experimental spectrum. For this reason, the [110] displacement may be completely excluded
from further consideration. Taking into account an appreciable difference in energy between
the configurations with the [100] and [111] displacements, we believe that the displacement
of atoms occurs in the [100] direction and shall consider only this model in what follows.

Further, we have supposed that cobalt atoms in actual samples may substitute atoms at
the $A$ and $B$~sites simultaneously. The structural parameters for two EXAFS spectrum
components, which will be called states $A$ and $B$ and in which the impurity atoms substitute
the corresponding lattice sites, were determined as follows. As a starting point, it was assumed
that the spectrum of the SrTi$_{0.97}$Co$_{0.03}$O$_3$ sample annealed at 1100$^\circ$C
represents the spectrum of ``pure'' state~$B$. The local environment of cobalt at the $B$~site
was modeled taking into account the nearest oxygen vacancy. For this model, a set of structural
parameters (distances and Debye--Waller factors for three nearest shells) was calculated.
The spectrum of the Sr$_{0.98}$Co$_{0.02}$TiO$_3$ sample annealed at 1600$^\circ$C was then
presented as a sum of states $A$ and $B$ with unknown relative fractions. Fixing the parameters
determined for state $B$ at the previous step and taking the interatomic distances predicted
by first-principles calculations for state $A$ (see Sec.~\ref{sec4}) as another starting point,
we estimated the structural parameters for state $A$ and the relative fractions of states
$A$ and $B$. Further, assuming that the SrTi$_{0.97}$Co$_{0.03}$O$_3$ sample annealed at
1100$^\circ$C may contain a small fraction of state $A$, we performed a new analysis of the
EXAFS spectrum of this sample. At this step, the data obtained for state $A$ at the previous
step were fixed. This gave the refined parameters for state $B$ and the relative fractions of
states $A$ and $B$ in this sample. The multiple repetition of the described iterative
procedure provided the structural parameters for states $A$ and $B$ and their relative fractions
in the analyzed spectra.

A typical experimental EXAFS spectrum and its best theoretical fit within the described
approach are shown in Fig.~\ref{fig4}, and the interatomic distances to the nearest shells
for samples annealed at 1100 and 1600$^\circ$C are given in Table~\ref{table3}. The
interatomic distances obtained from experiment agree with their calculated values (compare
Tables~\ref{table2} and \ref{table3}). According to the iterative procedure results, the
Sr$_{0.98}$Co$_{0.02}$TiO$_3$ sample annealed at 1600$^\circ$C contains 76\% of the
incorporated cobalt at the $A$~site, whereas the SrTi$_{0.97}$Co$_{0.03}$O$_3$ sample
annealed at 1100$^\circ$C contains nearly 18\% of impurity atoms at the $A$~site.

\begin{table*}
\caption{\label{table3} Structural parameters determined from the EXAFS spectra analysis of two
studied samples}
\begin{tabular}{ccccccc}
\hline
Sample & Model & $R$-factor & $S_0^2$ & Shell & $R_i$~({\AA}) & $\sigma_i^2$~({\AA}$^2$) \\
\hline
Sr$_{0.98}$Co$_{0.02}$TiO$_3$  & Site $A$ & 0.00297 & 0.705 & $R_{\rm Co-O}$  & 2.040(6)  & 0.0049(18) \\
annealed at 1600$^\circ$C      &          &         &       & $R_{\rm Co-Ti}$ & 3.094(15) & 0.0146(27) \\
                               &          &         &       & $R_{\rm Co-Sr}$ & 2.816(20) & 0.0114(40) \\
                               & Site $B$ &         & 0.282 & $R_{\rm Co-O}$  & 1.906(11) & 0.0037(18) \\
                               &          &         &       & $R_{\rm Co-Sr}$ & 3.354(19) & 0.0087(12) \\
                               &          &         &       & $R_{\rm Co-Ti}$ & 3.907(17) & 0.0064(13) \\
SrTi$_{0.97}$Co$_{0.03}$O$_3$  & Site $A$ & 0.00255 & 0.153 & $R_{\rm Co-O}$  & 2.040(6)  & 0.0049(18) \\
annealed at 1100$^\circ$C      &          &         &       & $R_{\rm Co-Ti}$ & 3.094(15) & 0.0146(27) \\
                               &          &         &       & $R_{\rm Co-Sr}$ & 2.816(20) & 0.0114(40) \\
                               & Site $B$ &         & 0.731 & $R_{\rm Co-O}$  & 1.906(11) & 0.0037(18) \\
                               &          &         &       & $R_{\rm Co-Sr}$ & 3.354(19) & 0.0087(12) \\
                               &          &         &       & $R_{\rm Co-Ti}$ & 3.907(17) & 0.0064(13) \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{table*}

\begin{figure}
\includegraphics{fig4}
\caption{\label{fig4} Comparison of Fourier transform amplitudes for a typical EXAFS spectrum
of the Sr$_{0.98}$Co$_{0.02}$TiO$_3$ sample annealed at 1600$^\circ$C (solid line) with
the calculated curve (dotted line) corresponding to the best fit.}
\end{figure}

\mbox{ }

\section{CONCLUSIONS}

In this paper, the results of XAFS spectroscopy study of the local structure and oxidation state
of the cobalt impurity in SrTiO$_3$ have been considered. It was revealed that under certain
synthesis conditions cobalt may be incorporated into the $A$~site of the perovskite structure.
By varying the synthesis conditions, it is possible to appreciably change the ratio of
concentrations of cobalt atoms incorporated into the $A$ and $B$~sites. Thus, 76\% of Co atoms
enter the $A$~site at an annealing temperature of 1600$^\circ$C and only 18\% of them enter
this site at 1100$^\circ$C.

The study of XANES spectra showed that the oxidation state of cobalt is +2 at the $A$~site and
+3 at the $B$~site. It was established that the absorption edge shift in the XANES spectra is
much more sensitive to the change in the oxidation state of cobalt in comparison with XPS.
EXAFS studies revealed that Co atoms at the $A$~site are off-center, and their displacement
is $\sim$1.0~{\AA}. According to first-principles calculations, the magnetic moment of the
Co$^{2+}_A$ ion is $S = 3/2$. Thus, Co$^{2+}_A$ ions in SrTiO$_3$ are another representative
of the group of magnetic off-center impurities, with which interesting multiferroic properties
may be associated.

\begin{acknowledgments}
This work was supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (grant no. 17-02-01068).
\end{acknowledgments}

\providecommand{\BIBYu}{Yu}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv


Faculty, Father Judge High School, Salesianum School, St. Mary's College, Oblate College; Dean/Vice President, De Sales University; Provincial; President, De Sales University.
The "Introduction to the Devout Life." It has been and remains the foundation of my spiritual life.
In the silence of the morning in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament.
Enabling people that all they have and all they are comes from God.
Seeing the impact Salesian spirituality has on me, on the people I minister to, and the people I live with.


text:
International Consensus Statement for the Screening, Diagnosis, and Treatment of Adolescents with Concurrent Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and Substance Use Disorder
Özgen, Heval; Spijkerman, Renske; Noack, Moritz; Holtmann, Martin; Schellekens, Arnt S.A.; van de Glind, Geurt; Banaschewski, Tobias; Barta, Csaba; Begeman, Alex; Casas, Miguel; Crunelle, Cleo L.; Daigre Blanco, Constanza; Dalsgaard, Søren; Demetrovics, Zsolt; den Boer, Jacomine; Dom, Geert; Eapen, Valsamma; Faraone, Stephen V.; Franck, Johan; González, Rafael A.; ... (2020). International Consensus Statement for the Screening, Diagnosis, and Treatment of Adolescents with Concurrent Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and Substance Use Disorder. European addiction research, 26(4-5), pp. 223-232. Karger 10.1159/000508385
Özgen et al. 2020 EAR Consensus paper adolescents published.pdf - Published Version
frequently co-occur in treatment-seeking adolescents, which complicates diagnosis and treatment and is associated with poor treatment outcomes. Research on the effect of treatment of childhood ADHD on the prevention of adolescent SUD is inconclusive, and studies on the diagnosis and treatment of adolescents with ADHD and SUD are scarce. Thus, the available evidence is generally not sufficient to justify robust treatment recommendations.
Objective: The aim of the study was to obtain a consensus statement based on a combination of scientific data and clinical experience.
Method: A modified Delphi study to reach consensus based upon the combination of scientific data and clinical experience with a multidisciplinary group of 55 experts from 17 countries. The experts were asked to rate a set of statements on the effect of treatment of childhood ADHD on adolescent SUD and on the screening, diagnosis, and treatment of adolescents with comorbid ADHD and SUD.
Results: After 3 iterative rounds of rating and adapting 37 statements, consensus was reached on 36 of these statements representing 6 domains: general (n = 4), risk of developing SUD (n = 3), screening and diagnosis (n = 7), psychosocial treatment (n = 5), pharmacological treatment (n = 11), and complementary treatments (n = 7). Routine screening is recommended for ADHD in adolescent patients in substance abuse treatment and for SUD in adolescent patients with ADHD in mental healthcare settings. Long-acting stimulants are recommended as the first-line treatment of ADHD in adolescents with concurrent ADHD and SUD, and pharmacotherapy should preferably be embedded in psychosocial treatment. The only remaining no-consensus statement concerned the requirement of abstinence before starting pharmacological treatment in adolescents with ADHD and concurrent SUD. In contrast to the majority, some experts required full abstinence before starting any pharmacological treatment, some were against the use of stimulants in the treatment of these patients (independent of abstinence), while some were against the alternative use of bupropion.
Conclusion: This international consensus statement can be used by clinicians and patients together in a shared decision-making process to select the best interventions and to reach optimal outcomes in adolescent patients with concurrent ADHD and SUD.
Journal Article (Review Article)
04 Faculty of Medicine > University Psychiatric Services > University Hospital of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy > Translational Research Center
04 Faculty of Medicine > University Psychiatric Services > University Hospital of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy
07 Faculty of Human Sciences > Institute of Psychology > Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy
Kaess, Michael and Moggi, Franz
Karger
Franz Moggi
Adolescents; Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder; Consensus statement; Substance use disorder

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Topical Wound Oxygen (TWO2) Versus Conventional Compression Dressings (CCD) in the Management of Refractory Non-Healing Venous Ulcers( RVU); A Parallel Observational Pivotal Study in CEAP sixcategorypatients.
Cannes, France, June 2007. MEET congress Multi-disciplinary European Endovascular Therapy.
The down slope of endovenous laser therapy for primary varicose veins. Technology is still lacking.
Baltimore, Maryland, USA, June 2007. Society for Vascular Surgery. Annual Vascular Meeting.
5. Initial Experience Using A Sequential Compression Biomechanical Device (SCBD) In Critical Limb Ischaemia (CLI): Non-Operative Active Limb Salvage.
6. The Patient Trial: A Prospective Consecutive Observatinal Study Of Open (OR), Endovascular Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Repair (EVAR) And Best Medical Treatment Alone (BMT) In High-Risk Patients Suitable For EVAR.
Galway, Ireland, May 2007. 5th Annual WVI Symposium.
Topical Wound Oxygen (TWO2) Versus Conventional Compression Dressings in the Management of Refractory Non-Healing Venous Ulcers; A Parallel Observational Pivotal Study.
Initial experience using a Sequential Compression Biomechanical Device (SCBD) in Critical Limb Ischaemia (CLI): Non-operative active limb salvage.
Scalenus Anterior Resection assessment by disability of arm, should and hand (DASH) scoring in the management of Thoracic Outlet Syndrome.
Cuffed Synthetic Grafts in Management of Supragenicular Femoro-Popliteal Arterial Occlusion: An Observational Parallel Group Prospective Comparative Study in Critical Lower Limb Ischaemia (CLI).
Prevalence and Correlation of Hyper-homocysteinemia to Major Adverse Event's (MAE), Amputation Free Survival (AFS) and Mortality in Patients Managed by Endovascular Intervention or Bypass Surgery for Critical Lower Limb Ischemia.
Carotid artery intervention in High-Risk Patients; A Prospective parallel group observational Study of Carotid artery Stenting (CAST) under neuro-protection and Carotid Endarterectomy (CEA).
The Influence of Deliberate Practice Volume (DPV) in minimising the slope of learning curve and improve vascular training. The mutually beneficial solution for patients and the vascular surgeon.
Derivation and validation of a customized risk scoring index for Predicting Mortality rate after EVAR or open repair in abdominal aortic aneurysm intervention.
A parallel group observational study of Supra-Renal Aortic aneurysm Repair (SRAR), Juxtarenal Aneurysm Repair (JRAR) and Infrarenal Aortic Aneurysm Repair (IRAR). Does Single Suprarenal Artery clamping alter technical and clinical outcome in Para-Renal Aortic Repair?
20. Efficacy of Prostaglandin E2 ( PGE2) Infusion in the Immediate Peri-operative Period in Open Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Repair.
21. Non-Operative Active Management of Critical Limb Ischaemia (CLI): Initial Experience Using a Sequential Compression Biomechanical Device (SCBD) for Limb Salvage.
22. Longitudinal Comparative Study of Transverse Versus Vertical Groin Incision for Femoral Artery Exposure in Arterial Reconstructive Surgery.
23. A parallel group observational study of Supra-Renal Aortic aneurysm Repair (SRAR), Juxtarenal Aneurysm Repair (JRAR) and Infrarenal Aortic Aneurysm Repair (IRAR). Does Single Suprarenal Artery clamping alter technical and clinical outcome in Para-Renal Aortic Repair.
24. Derivation and Validation of Predictive Index of Morbidity and Mortality in Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm (AAA) Repair; A Customized Risk Scoring Index For Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Patients.
Saarbrücken, Germany, May 2007. 6th Conference of the World Congress on Hyperhomocysteinemia.
Prevalence and Correlation of Hyperhomocysteinemia to Major Adverse Events after Intervention for Critical Lower limb Ischaemia.
1. Scalenus Anterior Resection assessment by disability of arm, should and hand (DASH) scoring in the management of Thoracic Outlet Syndrome.
2. Management of Critical Lower Limb Ischaemia in the 21st century. Randomization of Patients with TASC D lesions to Subintimal Angioplasty or Bypass surgery depending on plaque echoloucency in the occluded femoro-popliteal segment. The 5-year Irish Trial.
3. Technical and clinical outcome in Para-Renal Aortic Repair with Single Suprarenal Artery clamping in a tertiary referral university centre.
4. Quality-Time spent Without Symptoms or Toxicity (Q-TWiST) and cost-effectiveness of Endovenous Laser therapy (EVLT) Vs conventional level II sapheno-femoral junction ligation (SFJ) and LSV Stripping (OLS) for primary Varicose Veins (VVs). A prospective Pivotal Study; Technology is still lacking.
5. Topical Wound Oxygen (TWO2) Versus Conventional Compression Dressings (CCD) in the Management of Refractory Non-Healing Venous Ulcers (RVU); A Parallel Observational Pivotal Study.
6. Derivation and Validation of a Customized Risk Scoring Index for Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Patients.
7. Laser-assisted Angioplasty for Patients with Critical Limb Ischemia.
8. Management of Median Arcuate Ligament Syndrome (MALS) with Decompression and Coeliac Axis Sympathectomy (CAS): Five Year Experience.
9. Derivation and Validation of a Customized Risk Scoring Index for Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Patients.
10. Technical and clinical outcome in Para-Renal Aortic Repair with Single Suprarenal Artery clamping in a tertiary referral university centre.


text:
https://www.sfgate.com/health/article/Stanford-UCSF-to-test-ultrasound-for-cancer-pain-2345836.php
Stanford, UCSF to test ultrasound for cancer pain
MEDICINE Stanford, UCSF seek patients for trials
By Erin Allday
Published 4:00 am PST, Monday, December 5, 2011
Scientists at Stanford and UCSF are recruiting patients for two clinical trials to test the use of ultrasound waves, as an alternative to traditional radiation therapy, to ease pain in people whose cancer has spread to their bones.
Earlier studies of the ultrasound treatment have been promising, and a study recently completed at Stanford and 16 other U.S. research sites found that most patients saw substantial improvement in pain control after radiation therapy had failed to work.
The treatment is still considered experimental and is not available outside of clinical trials. It is being studied only as a treatment for the pain associated with metastatic bone cancer, and not for treating the cancer itself.
"Radiation is very effective for most patients. But there is still a significant percentage that it doesn't work for," said Dr. Pejman Ghanouni, a Stanford radiologist who is leading ultrasound clinical trials there. "I don't view ultrasound as something that would replace radiation. It's another tool in the toolbox."
Doctors have had such success in treating cancer that people are now living years longer after a diagnosis than they did decades ago, Ghanouni said. But as survival rates have increased, so have rates of metastatic disease, which occurs when the cancer has spread beyond the initial site, commonly into the bones.
Bone cancer is often extremely painful. Many patients find relief with radiation therapy, which kills off the small tumors in the bones that cause the brunt of the pain. But radiation isn't successful, or isn't an option, for up to 30 percent of patients, often because there are limits to the amount of radiation a person can receive before the dosage becomes toxic.
Narcotics obsolete?
For those patients, narcotics become their primary means of handling pain. Researchers hope ultrasound therapy will offer an additional tool for pain relief, and even allow patients to forgo narcotics altogether.
"In the longer term there is the hope that this could become first-line treatment for some patients," said Dr. Fergus Coakley, a professor of radiology and biomedical imaging at UCSF who is running an ultrasound trial that is being funded by the National Institutes of Health.
The treatment being studied uses high-intensity, focused ultrasound waves to heat and kill the nerves on the surface of the bone that are believed to be aggravated by tumors. While the ultrasound is being applied, patients undergo magnetic resonance imaging so that doctors can make sure they're targeting the right spot, and also determine when an area has been appropriately heated.
Most people are familiar with ultrasound waves being used to get an image of a fetus in the uterus. But when used to treat cancer, the ultrasound waves are narrowly focused and much more intense, or hotter. Ultrasound therapy has been used to kill uterine fibroids for about 10 years.
Researchers said side effects of high-intensity ultrasound therapy include skin burns and pain that may be associated with nerves sensitized by the heat.
Patients in the Stanford and UCSF studies will undergo short, 10- to 30-second bursts of ultrasound waves, focused on an area the size of a grain of sand. The entire process can take several hours, depending on the size and number of tumors causing the pain.
Waiting for approval
The most recent study at Stanford used a device, called ExAblate 2000, that has been sent to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for approval. The study involved about 150 patients nationwide.
Both Stanford and UCSF also are studying two other devices to apply the ultrasound waves.
Results from the Stanford study, which have not yet been published, showed that three patients who received ultrasound therapy had noticeable improvements in pain, said Ghanouni.
When patients rated their pain on a scale of 1 to 10, the average maximum score was 7.7 before they started treatment; three days later, their average maximum was 3.3, and after three months, their average maximum was 2.
"Our first patient that we treated was in his 70s, and he had a (cancerous) lesion in his right pelvis. He couldn't sit on his right side," Ghanouni said. "A week later he could ride his horse again."
Stanford and UCSF are recruiting patients for clinical trials looking at high-intensity ultrasound waves to treat the pain of metastatic bone cancer. For more information about the UCSF trial, go to links.sfgate.com/ZLEY; for the Stanford trial, go to links.sfgate.com/ZLEZ.
E-mail Erin Allday at eallday@sfchronicle.com.


The Nokia Lumia 1520 is the first Windows Phone 8 phablet (alongside the mid-range Lumia 1320) and the take advantage of the newly extended hardware support of the WP devices. We are of course talking about the upped resolution cap and the extended choice of chipsets.
The Nokia Lumia 1520 is on par with the best Android-land has to offer – a 1080p screen and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 chipset with 2GB of RAM.
But we'll leave the hardware specs talk for the upcoming preview, the more important part is the user experience. Nokia's phablet is relatively thin (8.7mm), it's made of nice polycarbonate (matte or glossy, depending on the color) and it's not huge – it's marginally smaller than an HTC One Max, despite having a slightly bigger screen.
That's not to say the Lumia 1520 is a small device, it isn't. But Nokia managed to cram a lot of cool tech in it – wireless charging is built-in and there's optical image stabilization, things that are usually found only on thicker devices.
Besides OIS, the camera brings a proper PureView experience – the 1/2.5″ sensor is relatively big (bigger than 1/3″ sensors in most phones, smaller than the 1/2.3″ sensor in the Sony Xperia Z1) and its 20MP resolution allows it to do lossless digital zoom like we've seen on the Nokia 808 PureView and Lumia 1020 before. Quality ZEISS lens and dual-LED flash (although no xenon) are also a plus.
Camera aside, the Nokia Lumia 1520 runs the latest incarnation of Windows Phone 8 – it has the GDR3 update and the proprietary Nokia Black update. Unfortunately, the OS is still behind in usability compared to Android and iOS – there are no notification areas with quick toggles, no way to organize your apps other than the plain alphabetic list, nothing over current WP8 devices other than more Live Tiles per row and an X to close apps.
Has WP8 been stretched too far on a 6″ screen? Or is Windows Phone finally ready to take on Android flagships (Microsoft's platform is strong mostly in the low-end right now)? We'll have an initial answer for that in our preview.


text:
Uriah Heep may refer to:

Uriah Heep (character), a character in the Charles Dickens novel David Copperfield
Uriah Heep (band), a British rock band active since 1969
Uriah Heep Live, a 1973 double live album

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Where In The World Was I?
What Is Magellanitis?
CIBT Visas
Global Entry Program
LuggageForward
Travelex Currency Exchange
TSA Pre✓®
Tours By Locals
I was invited to stay at John's cottage on Drakes Island in Wells, Maine, in May, 2015.
Always a fun time, it's been, more or less, a quasi-annual pilgrimage since the 70s. I've been going up there since my sophomore or junior year of college.
I usually fly up to Boston or Portland from Tampa. Even driven it once or twice. But I'd always wanted to try taking Amtrak. Never did a long-distance train trek. So…why not?
So, I hopped the northbound Amtrak train to Penn Station out of Orlando. Simple plan: John would meet me at the station, we'd walk the few blocks to the Port Authority, grab a C&J bus to Portsmouth, NH. Rent a car. And, if all worked out right, we'd be at the cottage in time for a late dinner.
The train ended up being three and a half hours late arriving in Manhattan. Our bus was halfway to New Hampshire before I was even able to retrieve my checked bag. It was only later that I got a call from My Attorney and was told that the train right behind mine had derailed in Philadelphia, with scores of people killed and injured.
Coulda been me.
Missing the bus, in retrospect? Not a big deal.
We eventually got to the cottage in Maine. Had fun. Ate well. Drank plenty. And took some cool photos, at least from my perspective.


It's only fitting for our flagship varnish f-style mandolin to receive a spectacular set of maple. In the wood category, this mandolin will not disappoint. In fact, we'd be hard pressed to find a more beautiful piece of birdseye maple! Not only is the birdseye pattern very tight and densely populated, it also has deep quilting that further enhances the three dimensional effect of the figure.
This custom example has earned the "Deluxe" model designation for a few reasons. It features an elaborate floral peghead inlay that is carefully etched by hand, as well as a hand-engraved custom tailpiece. The mandolin also has more black/white purflings than any other model in our line-up, adjoining both the top and side edges of the bindings.
For the stain, we went with our Honey Amber finish, which doesn't hide any of the wood's glory. We also chose to use tortoise bindings instead of the standard grained ivoroid to better accentuate the elegant Florentine shape of the instrument. Ebony-button Waverly tuners tie the overall aesthetic together.
Tonally, this instrument is everything you would expect from our highest end mandolin. The deep woody chop, lively attack, and full dynamic range remind us why we like varnish finishes as much as we do.
For more information, visit www.collingsguitars.com.


Christmas is upon us and it is the season to be merry! You certainly won't need any help from us trying to find a place in Hong Kong to be merry, but if the darker and cooler December days have convinced you that place is with friends and family, on your couch with a winter warmer, then check out this Wine Brothers tried and tested traditional mulled wine recipe from festive guru Jamie Oliver.
1. Peel large sections of peel from the clementines, lemon and lime.
2. Put the sugar in a large saucepan over a medium heat, add the pieces of peel and squeeze in the clementine juice.
3. Add the cloves and cinnamon stick, along with about 10 to 12 gratings of nutmeg. Halve the vanilla pod lengthways and add to the pan, then stir in just enough red wine to cover the sugar.
4. Let this simmer until the sugar has completely dissolved into the red wine then bring to the boil. Keep on a rolling boil for about 4 to 5 minutes, or until you've got a thick syrup. This creates a good flavour base, and really lets the sugar and spices infuse the wine. You need to make the syrup base first because it needs to be quite hot, and if you use both bottles of wine too early, it will burn off the alcohol.
5. When your syrup is ready, turn the heat down to low and add the star anise, along with the rest of the wine. Gently heat the wine for around 5 minutes, and then ladle into heatproof glasses to serve.
Be sure to adjust your measurements to accommodate for quantity and have fun tasting as you go, sometimes a splash of wine is not enough!


We've all experienced it at some point. We're in front of a crowd, or we're chasing a deadline we know we can't meet. And it just happens. Suddenly, we find it hard to breathe, or it feels as if everything's going to consume us. We can't move and we're paralyzed. Before we know it, we're having a panic attack.
If you've experienced a panic attack, you may have somehow developed your own "steps" to identify it and sometimes even calm yourself down. However, in order to fully understand your panic attacks and find better ways of treating them, it's important to understand the way these attacks affect the mind.
– possibly more. These generally happen when we anticipate for something we know we cannot control.
However, before we go into the deeper parts of panic attacks, we have to be clear on what it means. Mayo Clinic defines a panic attack as something that the mind associates with fear even if we don't have real danger happening to us.
This makes panic attacks scary, as we tend to feel like losing control over something that isn't going to harm us. Unfortunately, the body thinks these things will do us harm, so it fires up our nervous system when there's no real reason to.
According to Scientific American, panic attacks often have similar "signs." These include the feeling of choking, or the feeling of about to blackout. These are similar indicators of stress, and affect what we call the sympathetic nervous system, then followed by action by the parasympathetic nervous system.
The sympathetic nervous system is the part of the body that becomes "active" by releasing energy.
This "activity" from the sympathetic nervous system helps the body ready itself for action.
It's the parasympathetic nervous system's job to stabilize the body into a much calmer phase.
If the parasympathetic nervous system is unable to do this, then the body remains "fired up." This is what people generally associate with panic attacks.
In recent research, scientists have found out that there are also certain regions in the brain that become tad a bit too active during panic attacks. The amygdala is a part of these regions. This is the part of the brain that focuses on fear. In turn, some parts of the midbrain also become affected, such as those that handle our pain experience.
Specifically, the part of the midbrain that is called the periaqueductal gray is affected. When we experience panic, it forces our body to adopt a defensive response. These include running and freezing. By studying these regions, scientists can help understand how we're exactly affected by disorders associated with anxiety.
You can try to engage in physical activity, such as a hobby or exercise.
Always try to get sufficient rest, so your body and mind is in top condition.
You can try methods of relaxation such as yoga and meditation.
Talking also helps! Feel free to speak with a friend with similar issues as well.
If you feel like your anxiety issues are starting to take a toll on your general outlook in life, it may be time to consult with a therapist. They know a great deal about how to deal with these issues, and they may help you develop a personal "plan" of sorts that can help you cope up with your issues without interfering with your daily life.
Now that you've read about the way panic attacks occur in the mind, you now have a better understanding of how panic attacks work. It may also help if you consult a psychiatrist or your therapist in order to get a more personal assessment of how this new knowledge can help you overcome your panic attacks.
If you have any questions and inquiries, feel free to comment and share your thoughts below!


You might have already followed the steps in Optimize Windows for better performance: Part 1 and Part 2. In this part of PC optimization tutorial, you will see what other things you can do beside the ones that are already discussed in Part 1 and part 2. They include performance troubleshooter, uninstalling programs, limiting startup programs, defragging and cleaning up hard disk, and avoiding too many programs running at the same time. In this blog, we will see how visual effects, adding memory, running antivirus, and checking computer's speed will work for windows optimization.
Typically, Windows 7 can run with 1GB RAM. But to have better performance and optimal results, go for more than 1GB. The more is the better. One of the reasons for your computer slowing down is inadequate RAM.
Another way to boost up computer speed is to use Windows ReadyBoost.
If you computer has been as slow as being almost dead, one of the reasons might be malware infection. You must always be scanning your system with a powerful antivirus software regularly and keep it up to date. You can read about and fix various types of viruses, malware, spyware, worms, and Trojans in Antivirus category.
If your computer is slow even after following all the steps described in Windows optimization tutorial, you are left to choose hardware upgrade or buying a new PC. But you can also check your computer's speed through Windows Experience Index.
Hope this tutorial helped you for windows optimization.
10 Responses to "Windows Optimization for better performance: Part 3"
Why is this program that is flagged all over the internet in the msn main feed as a real story, msn has some answering to do, leave the repairs to real techs instead of this bogus repair app which is just a bait and swtich for long term service contract.
We do not do bait and switch. Our phone support partners do offer an extra service – a remote repair, but it is targeted to customers who have other existing issues beyond what SpeedFixTool can fix. This, however, is only optional and never obligatory. I wouldn't call our app bogus because our paying customers can totally attest to its effectiveness.
All the best on your career!
for real like this wont be posted. lol ppl everywhere need to get a grip and loose the entire windows bs and switch to linux. linux is at least 2x faster in all respects compared to windows and is free. look it up.
I totally respect your take on the Windows vs. Linux battle so I hope you can also do the same for people who opted to just have Windows instead of the latter. I have used both platforms and each has its own set of pros and cons. Not everyone though has the capacity to testbed each.
Unfortunately I purchased this and everything started to go wrong with my laptop and I had to uninstall it and restore to an earlier time. I also checked for compatibility and it was said that it was not compatible.
I'm sorry to hear that you encountered a compatibility issue with the software. I would like to help. I am pretty certain that there's something in your system configuration that is causing this conflict.
Please send us an email at [email protected] so that I can assist you in resolving this one.
I agree with the earlier – your ad says "diagnose and FIX your computer!" – but you just get a report, no fixing.
The 3-part article was a laughable waste of time – I had heard all of those tips and have been applying them since the early '90s, about when Windows 3.1was state of the Art and your office PC was outfitted 4 whole Megabytes of RAM and an 80 MB hard drive!
Our free version only scans your computer to show you what needs to be fixed. If you want to try the Premium version, you can do so for a minimal cost. We do have a 30-day money-back guarantee if you're not satisfied at all. I can honestly tell you that we've helped a lot of people already, who happen to be not as technically sound as you… just with the use of our tool. Most of them are pretty happy with how their computers are performing now.
I think we already did our part with regard to your first post. Need we say anything about your claims regarding moderation and our competitors? No matter how you look at it, it will always be subjective.
Still hope the best for your choices.


The Body Shape Diet – Pituitary Type Formula supports healthy metabolism and energy by providing much needed nutrients to the pituitary, along with the thyroid and adrenals.
Based on Dr. Cass Ingram's book The Body Shape Diet, this powerful formula is ideal for nourishing the pituitary gland. The Body Shape Diet Pituitary Type Formula supports healthy metabolism and energy by providing much needed nutrients to the pituitary, along with the thyroid and adrenals. Combining wild herbs/spices, wild chaga, organic berries, wild greens, and BSE-free glandulars from grass-fed Argentinean cattle, this is potent. Plus, it is free of all chemicals and additives.


text:
In One Turkana Village, A Solar-Powered 'Electro-hut'
– February 3, 2013Posted in: Highlights, Technology
Simon Ekaale and his wife lounge in the shade of their mud hut, which stands apart from the traditional palm-frond homes found throughout the region. (Nicole Bansen)
By Michael Ruiz
TURKANA, Kenya – In the monotonous desertscape of this arid land of palm-frond huts and acacia trees, one home differed from all others. Unlike its neighbors, this one boasted vibrant red walls made of packed mud, a square — not round — floor plan, and an unexpected flourish from the 21st century.
This mud hut had a solar panel on its roof.
The owner of this innovative dwelling, Simon Ekaale, was as odd a sight as his hut. Unlike his fellow tribesmen who were mostly swathed in colorful toga-like robes, Ekaale wore crisp, pinstriped slacks and a breezy button-down shirt.
"Change is good," Ekaale said, beaming. "Before, we didn't even have windows and doors."
For hundreds of years the Turkana, the pastoral people of this land, have led a nomadic lifestyle. They built simple huts from sticks and palm fronds, which they could fold up to migrate between pastures, but the introduction of western aid to the region has led many of them to put down roots in more permanent mud manyattas, or homesteads, near sources of subsidy. Ekaale took that one step further: he built the neighborhood's first "electro-hut".
Where does a desert dweller get the cash for such a high-tech pad? Ekaale was among the few villagers hired by the Turkana Basin Institute — an interdisciplinary scientific research outpost co-founded by famed anthropologist Richard Leakey and Stony Brook University — when it launched here in 2008.
Encouraged by his success at the institute, and desirous of a more Western lifestyle, Ekaale then launched a small business selling sundry goods, including beer, peanuts and toothbrushes, to supplement his income. He even built makeshift monkey bars for the children out of local timber.
"I want to leave tradition behind," said Ekaale.
And, in some regards, he has. Unlike most of his neighbors, he prefers beer to busa, the local brew; he has a pet dog — a rarity in the bush — a rooster and a hen. Ekaale also adopted a more proactive approach to dental hygiene: now, unlike many locals whose teeth are stained tobacco-brown, Ekaale, his wife and two daughters model spotlessly white, full-toothed smiles. And Ekaale is one of the few Turkana tribesmen who aspire to send all of their children to school.
The solar panel sits atop the thatched roof of Simon Ekaale's mud hut, January 17, 2013. The panel provides power for an electric hair trimmer, lamp and a radio, and provides a battery-charging source. (Nicole Bansen)
Then there is that solar panel. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, less than one percent of Americans use solar power. If established infrastructures and special interests have hindered the widespread use of renewable energy sources in the United States, by contrast this Turkana tribesman, who lives in the raw and undeveloped wilderness, boasts an amazingly 21st century green lifestyle that some New Yorkers may envy.
"The sunshine is so powerful here," said Dr. Devinder Mahajan, an expert on renewable energy from Stony Brook University and Brookhaven National Laboratory who visited the Turkana Basin Institute. "And basically without any cost."
The panel itself didn't cost much either — by western standards. Ekaale bought it for 7,000 Kenyan shillings (approximately $85), which is about half of his monthly salary. The rest of his hut cost 30,000 shillings ($342) to build. While many men here measure their wealth in goats (approximately 4,000 shillings for a healthy, big one) and camels (approximately 6,000 shillings for a medium-sized one), Ekaale's capital includes a radio, an electric hair trimmer, a lamp and a motorcycle.
In another part of Africa, Ekaale might have used his "electro-hut" to make money off of people in need of a cell-phone charge. But with the Turkana Basin Institute lending electricity for free in his backyard, his hut is just a symbol of his success. In fact, it helped establish him as a man of financial prowess: the villagers chose Ekaale to be the chief of their "sacco," the traditional community banking system used to manage funds for education and health care.
Ekaale believes the Turkana will all soon embrace the ways of the 21st century. "I think we'll see a full transition to the modern world by 2050," he said hopefully, surveying the dusty homesteads around his hut. Goats bleeped in the background and toga'd village men sat lounging in the shade of thorny acacia trees. Given the evidence at hand, it seemed a faraway, if not improbable, idea.
Then again, who would have ever thought a solar panel would top a mud hut?
John Edung
That great. Thanks to journalists without walls. There is also a boy by the name Simon Etabo 13, in a village Kangagetei opposite TBI across the river, he earns a living by repairing all the faulty radios in the area. He is generally gifted in fixing electrical appliances. Recently he amazed us by powering led bulbs using chloride acid.


text:
Leapfrogging
» frog's blog
What makes a data visualization memorable?
Computer Scientists at Harvard and Cognitive Scientists at MIT team up to settle a debate over "Chart Junk"
"It's easy to spot a "bad" data visualization—one packed with too much text, excessive ornamentation, gaudy colors, and clip art. Design guru Edward Tufte derided such decorations as redundant at best, useless at worst, labeling them "chart junk." Yet a debate still rages among visualization experts: Can these reviled extra elements serve a purpose? Taking a scientific approach to design, researchers from Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology are offering a new take on that debate. The same design elements that attract so much criticism, they report, can also make a visualization more memorable."
"A visualization will be instantly and overwhelmingly more memorable if it incorporates an image of a human-recognizable object—if it includes a photograph, people, cartoons, logos—any component that is not just an abstract data visualization," says Pfister. "We learned that any time you have a graphic with one of those components, that's the most dominant thing that affects the memorability."
"Visualizations that were visually dense proved memorable, as did those that used many colors. Other results were more surprising."
"You'd think the types of charts you'd remember best are the ones you learned in school—the bar charts, pie charts, scatter plots, and so on," Borkin says. "But it was the opposite."
Unusual types of charts, like tree diagrams, network diagrams, and grid matrices, were actually more memorable."
"If you think about those types of diagrams—for example, tree diagrams that show relationships between species, or diagrams that explain a molecular chemical process—every one of them is going to be a little different, but the branching structures feel very natural to us," explains Borkin. "That combination of the familiar and the unique seems to influence the memorability."
"A graph can be simple or complex, and they both can be memorable," explains Oliva. "You can make something familiar either by keeping it simple or by having a little story around it. It's not really that you should choose to use one color or many, or to include additional ornaments or not. If you need to keep it simple because it's the style your boss likes or the style of your publication, you can still find a way to make it memorable."
"A memorable visualization is not necessarily a good visualization," Borkin cautions. "As a community we need to keep asking these types of questions: What makes a visualization engaging? What makes it comprehensible?"
As for the chart junk, she says diplomatically, "I think it's going to be an ongoing debate."
Source: seas.harvard.edu
2013 IEEE INFOVIS Papers
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Did you get a chance to visit At Home with Ali yesterday? Her LITTLE office tower was so, so cute! I love how many preschool skills her girls were working on while creating the office tower. If you haven't seen it, go there first…. I'll wait.
M and M have been making hideouts and fortresses and whatever they can call the little space that holds their goodies. The most recent Little M space is her office. She spends quite a bit of time organizing it, adding to it and sitting at it. When I suggested we add a few fun details, she was very excited.
I rounded up some office type supplies.
~old cell phone… are there still corded phones in offices?
Our homemade computer turned out so cool… and I can take no credit. I started to make one by covering a piece of cardboard with black construction paper. Since the "big kids" need to be picked up from school I left my niece T and Little M home with Hubs. Two little laptops were created while I was gone. They did a much better job then I would have done!
I'm not sure how long Little M will leave my additions before reorganizing her space, but for now she's enjoying it.
What office supplies will you add for you office space?
Love the handmade computer! Thanks for the tip about the cell phone. Pinning this fun pretend play idea.
That's such a good idea! My little ones have a fascination with copying me. especially with electronic devices so I think I'll be making some "computers for them.


text:
Fred Brand, właśc. Charles Fredrick Brand (ur. 3 lutego 1925 w Spalding, zm. 2 grudnia 2016) – brytyjski żużlowiec.

Największy sukces w karierze odniósł w 1954, awansując do finału indywidualnych mistrzostw świata na żużlu, w którym zajął VIII miejsce.

W lidze brytyjskiej startował w barwach klubu Norwich Stars (1953–1955).

Przypisy

Bibliografia
 Defunct Tracks | Fred Brand
 SPEEDWAY HISTORY INFO - HISTORIA ŻUŻLA | Fred Brand

Angielscy żużlowcy
Urodzeni w 1925
Zmarli w 2016


Whatever the avenue — and there are hundreds of small and large non-governmental organizations (NGOs) doing great work across all faiths and topics — it is clear that Americans care about helping people in parts of the globe where they may never set foot.
We still have a long way to go and challenges stemming from humanitarian crises are rising, but given the progress we have made, it has been disheartening to see the current administration's continued attacks on foreign aid expenditures.
Fortunately, Congress seems to understand this. Despite the administration's repeated efforts to gut foreign aid, Congress has proven to be a bulwark against those dangerous proposals, restoring funding.
As the branch of government constitutionally charged with the power of the purse, it is more important than ever that Congress recognizes and asserts its role as a guardian of America's economic and security interests, including those associated with our foreign assistance investments.
Our point is straightforward: We need sustained funding for these investments. They work. They are a major part of America's leadership on the world stage. They align with our values and further American economic and security interests.
Congress knows that our leadership around the world carries real weight. But overall, these investments also appeal to individual members of Congress. For many, the issues we collectively work in partnership to address through this funding are ones that speak to elected leaders' faith and values, like human rights, equality and dignity.
They understand that we have a moral role to play in tackling global poverty and crises. They see America's interest in advancing democracy and access to potable water in some of the most oppressed and impoverished parts of the world. And they get that pushing for civil society to be able to operate in a given country helps people shape their own destiny.


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text:
a safe space for nitwits and lloronas
Since a one-night work trip to Fresno didn't cure my blues, oddly enough, it was time to enact Operation: Get Outta Town Part Dos. I.e. a two-night, non-work trip to San Luis Obispo. I'm working up to Italy, okay?
Over the years San Luis has become AK's and my place—although she went to college there, so I guess it was her place and I just glommed on. It has small town charm—but not so much that you start to wonder if people actually live there (like Cambria, which we visited Sunday)—windswept bluffs and good food, but mostly it is not L.A., and even though AK's radiator blew last time we were there, it feels like a place where nothing can go wrong.
We spent the first night at the home of the Millers, who rescued us after last year's radiator incident and this time fed us olala berries and baked French toast, which is like the love child of French toast and a cinnamon roll. In exchange, we read picture books to four-year-old Hattie and watched two-year-old Tilly dance around the living room. It was a pretty good deal.
The next day we drove out to Cambria, best known as the home of the Hearst Castle (which we didn't visit) and not so well known for being the home of Nit Wit Ridge (which we did). In 1928 a local eccentric and garbage man named Arthur Beal started building a home out of found materials and didn't stop until he was forced into a nursing home. It's only slightly more sane than the Winchester Mystery House: There are toilet seat picture frames imbedded into walls and fences made of beer cans. It's sort of a scrubby Watts Towers, a mosaic tucked into the side of a cliff with all sorts of nooks and crannies to explore.
Our guide, a long-haired hippie dude in overalls, showed us remnants of a regular house on the property and told us that Arthur had once lived there with a woman named Gloria, who left him and allegedly took all his money with her. That's when he started building, with a compulsive his-and-hers motif: a bedroom stuccoed in pink, two toilets in the outhouse, pink and blue porcelain booties cemented into a wall.
There was a time when stories of people going crazy after some traumatic life event struck me as salacious urban legends. Now I believe them. There have been days when I thought I would become La Llorona herself. Arthur had building and beer. I have San Luis Obispo and Zoloft.*
Back in San Luis, I ate the best vegetarian pozole ever at Big Sky and lamented the world's vegetarian pozole deficiency. Then we saw Bad Teacher, which is much funnier than the trailers would make it seem and refreshingly non-redemptive.
We did our traditional run at Morro Bay Monday morning and drove home playing our favorite car game: "Which of our friends can you picture [working as a prostitute, getting convicted of a white collar crime, turning out to be gay, turning out to be straight, etc.]."**
As I type this, I can hear my cat puking in the other room, so it goes without saying that I could have used another week there.
*Yeah, giving that a try. I think my prideful days of never taking anything but Tylenol came to a screeching halt when I shot myself up with egg-making hormones.
**Yes, it's you.
Labels: carbs, movies, travel
The org I work for co-sponsors writing workshops at places like community centers and senior homes, and we spend a lot of time talking about how literature enables self-expression, healing, etc. When you say something enough, it becomes an abstraction. But lately, while crashing a couple of workshops in the name of evaluation purposes, I've been floored by the power of writing-as-therapy, to the point of getting choked up by my own tragic profundity (an embarrassing, little-discussed side effect of being a writer). Yesterday at the Burbank Senior Artists Colony—where I totally want to while away my golden years sculpting and writing plays—the teaching writer passed out fortune cookies and asked us to write poems based on our fortunes. Mine was "YOU DESIRE TO DISCOVER NEW FRONTIERS":
You begin like all pioneers,
your ears full of stories:
streets of gold
milky rivers
open-armed natives in need
of restaurants and apothecaries.
You think it's only a matter of packing
the right iron skillet
handfuls of healing herbs
as light as your young heart.
What they do not tell you
--because there is no they,
because this is not a journey
from which people return—
is that you will abandon
that good pan
at the first river crossing,
that the river is not milk but disease,
that the disease would only be visible
of a machine not yet invented.
At the second river crossing
you will leave your small dog,
but her whimpers will follow you
across mountains,
for there are mountains
too, and snow, and all the things
you thought you left behind,
and new things:
war whoops in the night
new kinds of lizards
different shades of sky.
All of it fascinating,
worth recording,
if you hadn't burned
your paper for warmth.
There is no third river crossing,
just strange spiky plants
and a longing at the back of your throat
and a feeling that you have no right
to complain: You chose this
passage. You left
your dog, and if you hadn't,
you would have eaten her by now.
There is another side,
you suppose, a world
with the ocean on the wrong side,
but ocean nonetheless.
Another unexplored land
that is not land,
that will drown you. Some nights
when you lay beneath
the wagon watching trees
turn to monsters,
you dream
of that land,
that ocean, transformed
but still salty on your tongue
or maybe that's just the first sign
of dehydration.
defense of marriage (and other things that mess with your sanity)
Speaking of NPH, last night I saw the big screen version of the New York Philharmonic version of Company. NPH is Bobby, a guy living the swingin' single life in the 1970s and contemplating the pros and cons of marriage as played out in the relationships of his many coupled friends. I thought I'd seen it before because I'd listened to the soundtrack a zillion times and had memories of seeing songs from it performed live.* But suddenly there was all this dialogue that was completely unfamiliar to me. It turns out that what I'd actually seen were various Sondheim revues. And Company is a great little musical that is both a snapshot of a time when divorce, pot and sexual freedom were just entering the mainstream and a totally timeless meditation on what it means to be a human who interacts with other humans.
It was a weird day. I left my purse at home and had to borrow cash at work to cover the movie, which I saw by myself because AK is in Chicago and Stephanie had acting class. So there I was wandering the city in a sort of solo, rudderless, unprepared way reminiscent of my early 20s, seeing a movie that took me back to my early 20s. I remembered how much I related, as a single girl, to Bobby's feelings in "Marry Me a Little"—that deep and utter fear of intimacy** coupled with certainty that coupled bliss would be the answer to all my problems:
Marry me a little,
love me just enough.
Cry, but not too often,
play, but not too rough.
Keep a tender distance
so we'll both be free.
That's the way it ought to be.
Sondheim (and in this case playwright George Furth too) is a master of the anti-happily ever after. The first time I saw Into the Woods, I thought it was over after the first act because the princes had gotten their damsels and Little Red had slain the wolf. But after intermission, the damsels grew restless and a giant started stomping around squashing people. As the couples in Company sing of marriage:
Everything's different.
Nothing's changed.
Only maybe slightly rearranged….
what you always were,
which has nothing to do with,
all to do with her
Next Thursday, AK and I will have been married a year. I can safely say that I am what I always was, and, too, that I've been utterly transformed in the five years we've been together. Being in love doesn't save you from yourself, but it does save you from not being in love.
I've known that for a little while. But I'm realizing that this Sondheim-ian reality check can apply to other relationships like, say, parent-and-child.
I look at moms, especially new moms, the way I looked at couples when I was single.*** I believe they have all this secret knowledge. I believe they are happier, always. I believe they are the parental equivalent of a little bit married: Their lives are full of love and playfulness but without any of the ugly stuff.
This whole miscarriage-and-subsequent-doldrums/mild psychosis business has taught me that there is no parental equivalent of a little bit married, though. The bummer is that I've acquired just one piece of that secret knowledge, which is that kids—even if they never quite manage to be born—will fucking rip your heart out. But for some reason, which is a blend of spirituality and masochism, it's what we all pray for, and what Bobby wishes for in "Being Alive":
Somebody, need me too much.
Somebody, know me too well.
Somebody, pull me up short
and put me through hell
and give me support
for being alive.
Make me alive.
Thanks, AK, for making me alive, and for sticking with me when my sketchy ovaries and anxious soul put the "worse" in "for better or worse." Here's to some better in year two.
*I am slowly turning into my dad, who is sort of a goldfish when it comes to culture, in that every time he circles back to a movie or a book he's seen before, he's like, "Look! A castle!...Look! A castle!"
**Probably not unrelated to the fact that, at the time, I was trying to date guys and didn't really want to be intimate with anyone quite so hairy.
***This seems as good a place as any to mention that the main single girl in Company was played wonderfully by Christina Hendricks. I haven't seen much Mad Men, so my knowledge of her was limited to fashion magazine articles about her curves. And it's true that, in a scene where she's wearing a slip, I marveled at how the wardrobe department managed to make it look like she wasn't wearing a bra, because I think she'd be able to go braless about as well as I would. And I wished for my very own wardrobe department. But it is also true that she's an amazing comedic actress who brought all the right is-he-into-me subtlety to "Barcelona" and made the character of April the flight attendant more quirky than ditzy.
Labels: movies, theater, waxin' philosophical
but not *not* for gays either
Apparently, Broadway is not just for gays anymore. Maybe that's why I'm out of the loop. I recognize The Book of Mormon, but I have no idea where all those nuns and sailors came from. All I know is that I love me some NPH, even (especially?) when he's wearing a sparkly purple suit and a little neckerchief.
Labels: theater, TV
the sweet myth of simplicity
I've always been a fan of fresh starts (or as my friend Devoya said, "Oprah is the angel on one of my shoulders. But I don't know what is on the other"). Over the past two months, I've named dozens of Points At Which I'll Feel Better: adoption info session, last doctor visit for a while, Easter, Memorial Day, whatever. Oddly enough, I have not been resurrected. The feeling of wanting to run screaming from my own body has hovered like my own personal raincloud.
Deep down knew it wouldn't go away until I got out of town. If this were Eat, Pray, Love, I'd be rejuvenating over focaccia and cappuccinos in Italy. Instead, I had lunch at El Torito in Fresno. But the effect is wonderfully similar. As soon as I hit the 5 this morning, I could feel a weight lift from my shoulders. I'm pretty sure it will settle back in as soon as I get over the Grapevine on my way home, but if I've learned anything in the past months, it's to take the good moments where I can get 'em.
Watching the flowers on the 99's meridian roll by in a pink blur, listening to the comedy station on my rental car's XM radio, walking the wide empty streets, checking my email poolside at La Quinta Inn—it was all so simple and wonderful and easy to lose myself in.
As per usual, I gobbled up my hotel's cable offerings and sneaked in a quick 19 Kids and Counting before my meeting. Today the Duggar girls were volunteering at the fire house, so they sewed their paramedic uniform pants into skirts. The oldest son's wife talked about being ready to be blessed with a second baby. Everyone made gentle little jokes at no one's expense. I thought about how genuinely nice it must be to have all the rules laid out for you: This is what Jesus wants you to wear. This is who Jesus wants you to marry. This is what your job will be.
I read somewhere that Michelle Duggar became a baby-making machine after having a miscarriage early in her marriage. She believed God was punishing her for using birth control.
All the things that would be expected of me if I were a fundamentalist Christian would make me miserable. In Michelle's world, God would make me loveless and childless. Even the alleged simplicities of Fresno would reveal themselves to be stifling and/or plenty complex if I stood on Tulare Avenue long enough. No one is spared in real life. Nevertheless, I sort of get Michelle's radical move. When life sends you a lightning bolt of a reminder that you're not in control, a part of you wants to say, "Okay, fine, you drive."
Labels: project baby, TV
feminism for a lazy friday
I was going to post something about how V.S. Naipaul is the latest practitioner of the where-are-you-in-relation-to-where-I-am school of criticism, but I think Jezebel said it just fine. And Amy Poehler said it (as quoted by Tina Fey in Bossypants)—"I don't care if you like it"—although I think she said it to Jimmy Fallon, technically. The point is 1. women write as well as men, which all non-idiots know. And 2. women aren't always writing for men, which a surprising number of people don't know.
It's also probably true that when men write really good domestic novels they win prizes (like Michael Cunningham before he started writing about aliens; I love that guy), and when women do so, they get a pat on the head and a seat on the midlist.*
It's Friday, and I'm just as interested in the pizza I plan to make tonight as in literary gender equality. But I am just sort of generally angsty this week, so I will mention some other things that bug me:
1. Christy Turlington, whose face is everywhere. Why must we party like it's 1994, America?
2. My own head, which I can also not get away from.
3. The book I'm reading, which has a great title but unfortunately isn't doing much to prove V.S. Naipaul wrong. But I can't just put it down because that's how I am. See #2.
4. The parking ticket I got for staying eight minutes after the meter ran out, but which was listed as a street sweeping violation ($10 more—which is a pair of shoes or two movies at the Highland Park 3 in my world).
Here are some things I like:
1. The balsa wood plane AK made me at Craft Night.
2. Trader Joe's Fair Trade Swiss Dark Chocolate. I am not a chocolate snob. I'll lick the thin coating off a Cocoa Puff if I have to. But this is the best chocolate out there.
3. Writing dates.
4. Photos of wiener dogs.
5. Poems in video form.
Since my likes outnumber my dislikes, maybe it will be a good weekend.
*I say this as someone who dreams of being a midlist writer. But I keep hearing about how publishing houses are only promoting their J.K. Rowlings, and the midlisters are going to small presses. So I guess this is like dreaming being a brontosaurus, which I also do.
Labels: books, waxin' philosophical
the world is never quite safe, or what i read in may
Pinko by Jen Benka: The poems in this collection are sometimes tough to figure out (not that that's the goal, of course, but it's an unavoidable impulse for a narrative addict like me). But they're not coy in the way of so many poems. They're more like bits of text that almost spread out into epic novels, then thought better of it. Only intriguing, intimate, unflinching traces remain. In the opening essay-ish piece, the narrator recounts coming across a snippet of window-frost graffiti. She expects it to indict the cops in some uncouth way, but instead it's a declaration of queer teen love. That pretty much sums up the world view of this book: Where you're expecting terror, you'll find tenderness. And the reverse can also be true, which is why the world, however beautiful, is never quite safe.
Unfamiliar Fishes by Sarah Vowell: Sarah Vowell is a geeky amateur historian who loves to plumb the depths of centuries past and pull out quirky facts. She holds them up and says, "Can you believe how hilarious this is? How outrageous?" And because she's on NPR, we say, "Wow, yeah." That's probably a little too harsh—-I'm a history geek with no credentials myself, and I love it when someone does the grunt work of reading original sources and writes it up in a fun, comprehendible way. I appreciated Vowell's unapologetically contemporary worldview—-of course we're going to giggle and think it's kind of awesome that traditional Hawaiians had a special hula praising their rulers' genitals. I also appreciated her guarded fondness for the stuffy but sincere missionaries who sailed to Hawaii in the 1820s. Her sympathies are ultimately with the oppressed, but she knows oppressors are people too (especially when they endure mastectomies without anesthesia in one painfully memorable scene).
But for all its potential, this book lacks a real thesis and reads as a cobbled together history with a few anecdotes about her nephew thrown in. Colin Dickey's Cranioklepty, which examines Europe's transition from saint-hunting religiosity to science and pseudo-science through the strange history of skull stealing, is a better example of what the historical creative nonfiction genre can do. If you're a fellow almost-fan of Unfamiliar Fishes, I encourage you to check it out.
Children of Open Adoption and Their Families by Kathleen Silber and Patricia Martinez Dorner: Back in the day, most adoptions were shrouded in secrecy. Like other social realities, it has benefited from a coming-out process. This text is a helpful primer on why: Adopted kids who've known their birthparents from the start are less likely to feel rejected and lost. Birthparents have tangible evidence of their children's well-being. And as a potential adoptive parent, I have to take the authors' (mostly convincing) word that having an extra parent or two in my kid's life will actually make me feel more empowered. That's why I read the book, but the parts I enjoyed most were the historical background on adoption (it used to take five to ten freakin' years to adopt in the U.S.!) and a beautiful, heartbreaking exchange between an American mother and her daughter's Korean birthmother tacked on to a brief section about foreign adoption at the end.
Secret Thoughts of an Adoptive Mother by Jana Wolff: In a culture that idealizes pregnancy, it's hard to be an adoptive mom. In a culture that increasingly idealizes adoption (see: Angelina--whom we love doubly because she's altruistic AND fertile), Jana Wolff's candor is refreshing. Although I didn't relate to her feeling that adoption was inherently a second choice for any parent (even as a kid, I wanted to adopt a kid), I imagine that someday I'll relate to her envy and resentment of her baby's birthmom; her slow-to-bloom love for this stranger's baby; her feelings of isolation from "real" moms; and her grappling with racial issues she thought she'd already grappled with. As this book illustrates, the miracle of love and family is that they can take root in even the toughest, most random of circumstances.
The Position by Meg Wolitzer: As well-written, multiple-POV family sagas go, I place this one well ahead of Julia Glass' Three Junes and a little short of Michael Cunningham's Flesh and Blood. The novel is bookended by the issue and decades-later reissue of a sex manual by the parents, but mostly it's a collection of snapshots--though it's more carefully crafted than it seems at times. As we see how an early knowledge about sex affects each of the four Mellow children, we see in a more universal sense the effect of any sort of knowing. It destroys innocence, sets expectations that will also be destroyed, and then you move on. The book closes with the grown children choosing to protect their parents from a particular piece of information, which I found touching and sad. This family knows better than most that innocence is never sustainable, but knowledge is only partial power.
defense of marriage (and other things that mess wi...


text:
ADP: Addressing the Racial Pay Gap
Written by Featured Partner on February 15, 2019
More in Featured Partners:
Sanofi Commits to Act4Nature International's Carbon Neutrality Pledge January 18, 2022
Originally Published by ADP.
By Ann C. Logue
In the long run, eliminating the wage gap pays off.
The pay gap is real, and it cuts along more lines than gender. As the U.S. Department of Labor reports, black women earn 17 percent less than their white female counterparts and they bring in just 63 cents for every $1 a man makes. Over time, gender pay disparities have improved, but racial disparities have gotten worse. International tennis star Serena Williams has addressed the pay gap, writing in Fortune, "Changing the status quo will take dedicated action, legislation, employer recognition, and courage for employees to demand more."
Serena Williams is a champion, full stop. However, if she had not taken up tennis and shown such a gift for the sport, she could be another black woman earning less than white women or white men doing the same work. Pay may be equal for some superstars but that doesn't help the strong core performers who keep the business running.
Finance Leaders Can Help Close the Gap
Finance leaders have a key role to play in narrowing the pay gap across races as well as across genders. First, they may have access to data that describes the situation across the entire organization. They understand the importance of strong data in defining a problem, valuing the long-term costs and benefits, and measuring progress toward a goal. Without this information, managers rely on anecdote and emotion- and fail to solve the problem.
The finance leaders also understand financial risks, and there are a few to consider when addressing racial and gender pay disparities. One is the risk of documenting a problem in a way that makes it discoverable in a legal proceeding. The work of quantifying a pay gap should be done with the assistance of corporate counsel to ensure that it is protected by the work-product rule. And, it should be used to help managers at all levels of the organization take action to eliminate pay disparities.
Assessing Costs and Benefits
The money for equalizing pay will have to come from somewhere else in the budget, causing some short-term disruption in the organization's budget. Financial leaders can provide guidance on how to manage spending in order to keep the business on track and meet profitability targets.
In the long run, though, eliminating the wage gap pays off. Underpaying some workers may save money in the short run, but it also creates tension in the workplace that interferes with productivity and may be discriminatory. It leaves the organization open to public relations headaches, compliance costs and litigation. And, it causes good workers to seek opportunities elsewhere.
The benefits of paying workers appropriately can be shown through financial analysis. That's ultimately the key to making changes.
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