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12 things to know about human rights due diligence
posted by Will Green
in Ethics, Law, Supplier relations
Collective industry action, high level buy-in and use of technology are all important to the implementation of human rights due diligence (HRDD), according to a report.
In the report law firm Norton Rose Fulbright and the British Institute for International and Comparative Law examined the impact of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights by reviewing policy and interviewing senior business executives and decision-makers.
The guiding principles "seek to provide an authoritative global standard for preventing and addressing the risk of adverse human rights impacts linked to business activity", according to the UN.
Here are 12 recommendations from the report:
1. HRDD has to be a "robust, substantive and ongoing process" which should take account of "all human rights which the company may possibly impact" and not just those covered by reporting requirements.
2. Firms should use a "unified and cross-functional internal approach".
3. HRDD requires governance commitments from the most senior levels, including the board and CEO.
4. HRDD should be understood as a "key component of the company's commercial goals" which include "ensuring a quality, stable and sustainable supply chain".
5. HRDD should include transportation and distribution suppliers, which have "received limited attention from companies to date".
6. People carrying out auditing processes should have appropriate human rights-related experience.
7. Firms should "proactively involve local stakeholders" in information gathering and decision-making.
8. Companies should take part in collective action in the form of industry and other multi-stakeholder initiatives, in part to "assist suppliers in managing the resource demands of participating in customer HRDD exercises".
9. Technology should be explored to reinforce traceability, identification of human rights impacts, stakeholder engagements, grievance mechanisms and certification.
10. Firms should explore ways of ensuring effective HRDD beyond the first tier, including industry collective action, partnerships with NGOs and "open and honest dialogue with first tier suppliers to increase supply chain transparency".
11. Companies should take part in consultative processes for regulatory reforms to help ensure new laws are "realistic and effective".
12. HRDD is a "new and developing area" but firms with less-advanced processes should not be daunted when dealing with leading companies because it is important to "start somewhere".
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Q: value is not coming $POST array in php I am building a simple sign up form using ajax when I creating a data object and pass to PHP file.It shows variables and doesn't show values of that PHP variable.
The code of HTML of form is
<form id="myForm" name="myForm" action="" method="POST" class="register">

        Name *
        <input name="name" type="text" class="long"/>

        Institute Name *
        <input name="iname" type="text" maxlength="10"/>

        <button id="button" class="button" name="register">Register »</button>

</form>

The code of js is

The code of PHP is
(mainlogic.php)
    if(isset($_POST)) {
         print_r($_POST);//////varaibles having null values if it is set
         $name=trim($_POST['name']);
         echo $name;
    }

A: You are serializing your form on document load. At this stage, the form isn't filled yet. You should serialize your form inside your button click event handler instead.
$(document).ready(function(){

    $("#button").click(function(){
        var form=$("#myForm").serialize();
        $.ajax({
            type:"POST",
            url: "mainlogic.php",
            data:form,
            success: function(result){
                alert(result);
            }
        });
    });
})

A: In this code you serialize blank form, just after document is ready:

Valid click function should begins like:
$("#button").click(function(){
    var form=$("#myForm").serialize();
    $.ajax({...

It means - serialize form right after button clicked.

A: Alpadev got the right answer, but here are a few leads that can help you in the future:
ajax
You should add the below error coding in your Ajax call, to display information if the request got a problem:
$.ajax({
    […]
    error: function(jqXHR, textStatus, errorThrown){
        // Error handling
        console.log(form); // where "form" is your variable
        console.log(jqXHR);
        console.log(textStatus);
        console.log(errorThrown);
    }
});

$_POST
$_POST refers to all the variables that are passed by the page to the server.
You need to use a variable name to access it in your php.
See there for details about $_POST:
http://php.net/manual/en/reserved.variables.post.php
print_r($_POST); should output the array of all the posted variables on your page.
Make sure that:
⋅ The Ajax request ended correctly,
⋅ The print_r instruction is not conditioned by something else that evaluates to false,
⋅ The array is displayed in the page, not hidden by other elements. (You could take a look at the html source code instead of the output page to be sure about it.)

A:
var form = $("#myForm").serialize();

That is the line that collects the data from the form.
You have it immediately after $(document).ready(function() { so you will collect the data as soon as the DOM is ready. This won't work because it is before the user has had a chance to fill in the form.
You need to collect the data from the form when the button is clicked. Move that line inside the click event handler function.

A: The problem is that you calculate the form values at the beginning when loading the page when they have no value yet. You have to move the variable form calculation inside the button binding.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Kenneth J. Parsigian
kenneth.parsigian@lw.com
"Sharp on his feet and a brilliant mind."
Chambers USA 2022
"Ken is the full package; he presents arguments exceedingly well, he's an extraordinarily brilliant strategist and he knows our company inside out."
"An incredibly experienced attorney."
"He is a superb lawyer who couples an extremely good work ethic with subject matter expertise and sound judgment."
"He is a uniquely talented lawyer whose work ethic is unparalleled."
Hall of Fame – Dispute Resolution: Product Liability, Mass Tort and Class Action: Defense: Consumer Products (including tobacco)
The Legal 500 US 2022
Ken Parsigian, a partner in the firm's Litigation & Trial Department and Chair of the Boston Litigation & Trial Department, represents clients in both civil and criminal matters, with a primary focus on complex mass tort and RICO litigation. He advises clients on compliance with state, federal, and international laws and regulations concerning product safety, import-export procedures, and anti-money laundering programs.
Mr. Parsigian recently successfully tried two novel class actions and has argued appeals in the First, Second, Third, Sixth, and Eleventh Circuits, as well as in state appellate courts in Massachusetts, Florida, Tennessee, Delaware, and Michigan. His representative mass tort client base has included Philip Morris USA, Philip Morris International, Eli Lilly, Estee Lauder, Playtex, Curtice Burns, CBS, Zoll Medical, CR Bard, and Boston Scientific.
Prior to Latham, Mr. Parsigian was associate independent counsel in the Iran Contra investigation conducted by independent counsel Lawrence Walsh, where he headed the investigation of former US Attorney General Edwin Meese. After graduating law school, he clerked for Judge Stephen G. Breyer on the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.
From 2017-2020, Mr. Parsigian has been recognized in The Legal 500 US Hall of Fame. In 2016, Law360 named Mr. Parsigian a 2016 MVP for his notable legal work in the Product Liability category. Mr. Parsigian has also been awarded with the Commitment to Justice Award by the Youth Advocacy Foundation and the American Bar Association's John Minor Wisdom Award for Professionalism and Public Service. He is regularly recognized as a leading lawyer in Chambers USA, The Legal 500, The Best Lawyers in America, The Lawdragon 500, The World's Leading Litigation Lawyers, Benchmark Litigation, and The World's Leading Product Liability Lawyers.
Mr. Parsigian is a member of the Product Liability Advisory Council (PLAC) and has spoken and authored articles on mass tort issues for the Manhattan Institute, ATRA, Defense Research Institute, and Washington Legal Foundation, and taught Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education courses in civil litigation and professional responsibility classes at Boston University School of Law. He also serves on the Board of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights.
Mr. Parsigian's relevant experience includes:
Winning a jury verdict in the first class action for medical monitoring for lung cancer screening
Defeating a US$2.1 billion damages claim in a consumer class action trial, where plaintiffs won only a statutory award of US$25 per person
Winning a jury verdict in a four-month trial by 57 hospitals seeking more than US$7 billion from the tobacco industry
Serving as Lead Counsel for Philip Morris USA and Philip Morris International, and National and International Coordinating Counsel for the tobacco industry in more than 60 mass tort and RICO suits across the country and internationally, involving claims for more than US$100 billion in damages, including nationwide class actions and other aggregated suits by government, union health and welfare funds, and insurers seeking to recover medical costs for injuries suffered by hundreds of thousands of individual members and patients
Winning dismissals and appeals for Philip Morris in multi-billion dollar suits by foreign governments seeking to recover the costs of providing medical treatment to millions of their citizens who smoke, nationwide consumer class actions based on claims of deceptive marketing, and government suits seeking to recover lost tax revenues based on claims of smuggling and money laundering*
Serving as national counsel for Deloro Stellite Company Inc. in more than 90 products liability suits, including individual cases and class actions in Texas, Mississippi, Georgia, Louisiana, and Illinois*
*Matter handled prior to joining Latham
JD, Boston University School of Law, 1987
BA, University of Michigan, 1983
Complex Commercial Litigation /
Litigation & Trial
August 9, 2021Recognition
Latham Named 2021 Massachusetts Regional Powerhouse
Major deals, high-profile cases, and local know-how earn recognition from Law360.
January 26, 2017Recognition
Trials Group of the Year: Latham & Watkins
Adding to its long history of success in high-stakes trials, Latham locked down some unexpected and come-from-behind victories over the past year for Emirates Bank, chipmaker NVIDIA and Philip Morris.
January 5, 2017Recognition
Ten Partners Honored as 2016 MVPs
Market-leading advice in key litigation, regulatory and transactional areas recognized.
August 9, 2021 In The News
Massachusetts Powerhouse: Latham & Watkins

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


This is the Season Kick off Beer night. I will have Jersey designs to show you all for the new 2014 Kit for those that are interested!
Woohoo, I know it's only Monday, but I need a beer already!
Paul and I won't be there - it's Paul's spring concert that night. Have fun!
No can do. Got a concert that night.
After riding in to work this morning we still seem to be more in the hot chocolate season - I hope to make it.
It's been a very long time since Brimley hill climbs and Thursday night hockey have NOT conflicted in my schedule. Seeing as hockey will end March 27 and cycling won't start until the snow melts and the pot holes are fixed (July??) I feel that a beer or two may indeed be required. I may even ride a bike there.
Change of plans. Now going to the Leafs game. Raincheck. I do want to see the new garb though.
I'd love to join, but need to keep my mind focused for a couple of more weeks. See you all next time.
RSVP for 2014 Season Opener Beer Night...Thursday April 3rd 2014 - 8:00 PM to add comments!


The increasing polarization of our political discourse continues to drag those that supposedly cover these issues into the muck. The latest embarrassment came from Yahoo's News Bureau Chief David Chalian. While on a live mic at the Republican National Convention he said that the nominee was, 'happy to have a party while black people are dying.' He was referring to then Hurricane Issac's affect on the Gulf region.
Yahoo rightly quickly canned him. This incident serves as a clarion call to those looking to label the media as liberal. You know what, they are right! When you are tuned into MSNBC you are treated to Lib-fest. If this is not your thing hang a right on the dial and tune to FOX News, the home of conservative bias, Con-fest. The problem with all of this is we have become a journalistic Hack-fest. The public has come to believe that journalism is being conducted at their Hack-fest of choice. It is not.
What is happening is the cultivation of people who entered journalism and have been seduced by the bright lights of television. The best way to be called to sit in front of the camera or microphone is to say something controversial. Be opinionated. It is all about what you think. A journalist relies upon what he knows and can verify before putting anything out to the public. A journalist gives consideration and opportunity for comment from both sides of an issue. None of which happens in the Hack-fest environment.
This problem has increasingly seeped into our main line news institutions. NBC created MSNBC, which is a drag on the NBC News brand. In fact, NBC News is now creating an online presence separate from MSNBC. As things stand now, we can consider Brian Williams a journalist. Chris Matthews not a journalist. Scott Pelley is a journalist, Bill O'Reilly, not a journalist. Wolf Blitzer is a journalist, Rush Limbaugh is not.
This confusion has created a situation where people, both in and outside of the media, increasingly are having a difficult time separating fact from opinion and/or fiction. We are well on our way to being an opinion based society, seemingly the facts don't matter. It has all become noise. We can no longer agree what the facts are! Opinion based entertainment has its place in the media, but it is past time to strengthen the levee between journalistic pursuits and opinionated hot air. Failure to do so will mean an age of dis-enlightenment.
Posted on August 30, 2012, in Broadcasting, entertainment, Life, media, New Media, news, Politics, Radio, Talk, Television and tagged Brian Williams, cbs, CBS News, Chalian, Chris Matthews, CNN, fox, journalism, media, msnbc, nbc, news, politics, public, radio, Rush Limbaugh, Scott Pelley, television, tv, Wolf Blitzer, yahoo. Bookmark the permalink.	Leave a comment.


'Tis the season to review lists that we made either at the beginning of the year or at the beginning of the holiday season (and maybe even check them twice if you are like Santa). Lists are a great tool for many things. They give us a goal. They keep us focused. They give us feedback. Financial planners like goals, focus, and feedback. Financial planners love lists!
Perhaps a list's biggest benefit is the reference point it provides when your plan is under "attack". We all can relate to walking into the store (or clicking for those internet shoppers) and quickly realizing our list is being targeted by the store's marketing team. The stores want "their list" to become "our list". Enter without a list and you might end up with theirs very fast. Is that what you wanted?


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Ford, GM Threaten Car Dealerships That are Jacking Up Prices
A feud has broken out between some of America's biggest carmakers and the dealers that sell their cars, although the hardest punches have landed on a group of innocent bystanders: consumers. New data reveals US car dealerships are jacking up…
Jennifer February 13, 2022
Image Credit: iStock, Sundy -Photography
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A feud has broken out between some of America's biggest carmakers and the dealers that sell their cars, although the hardest punches have landed on a group of innocent bystanders: consumers.
New data reveals US car dealerships are jacking up prices on new cars at unheard of rates, with the share of sales of marked-up vehicles jumping 26 times in a year. To their credit, Ford and General Motors (GM) are so angry about it they've threatened to cut dealers off if they won't stick to auto manufacturers' suggested prices.
Hungry Like the Lone Wolf Salesperson
When auto manufacturers slowed, or in some cases paused, their production lines in 2020 to offset the drop in demand at the beginning of the pandemic, car prices fell. If you were lucky enough to buy a car then, congratulations. If you were not so lucky, as you know markets soared last year and economies began to reopen, which sent consumers looking for the open road, spiking demand.
Supply chains also got snarled– especially because of the global microchip shortage– and only about 15 million vehicles were sold in the US last year, according to Cox Automotive. That's a slim uptick from the 14.6 million sold in 2020. But the surge in demand and the limits on production have allowed car dealerships to jack up prices at unbelievable extremes:
Over 80% of car buyers in the US paid above the manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP) in January, according to research firm Edmunds — last January, that was the case for 2.8% of buyers and a mere 0.3% in 2020.
On average, Americans who bought a car last month paid $728 more than the MSRP, and markups on popular sedans and compacts were even more extreme: Hyundai and Honda got it the worst with their cars selling $1,863 and $1,523 above the MSRP.
Ford and General Motors have threatened to withhold vehicles from dealerships, which can ultimately set their own prices for vehicles, if they don't stop charging a premium, a practice GM called "unethical."
Electric Escape: Traditional auto manufacturers are often required by state law to sell through dealerships, which aren't doing themselves any favors by making the direct-sales model of electric vehicle (EV) manufacturers Tesla, Rivian, and Lucid look more appealing. Last year, Vermont passed a law allowing manufacturers to open their own dealerships to sell EVs, and other states are considering similar bills. That could be a huge deal as traditional manufacturers electrify their fleets.
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The fantastically wealthy have always splashed out on lavish commodities – limited edition sports cars, bottles of wine that belonged to various founding fathers, maybe the occasional Rothko. But one particular investment, 66 million years in the making, has seen…
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Don't blame us for high energy prices, say infrastructure owners
Angela Macdonald-SmithSenior Resources Writer
Oct 10, 2017 — 10.00pm
Leaders of the energy transportation sector have put the case for further investment in electricity transmission lines and gas pipelines as a way to help distribute power and gas more evenly between states and ultimately help bring down energy prices.
Paul Italiano, chief executive of NSW electricity distributor Transgrid, said that only a "relatively modest" investment to increase capacity to take electricity from Queensland would alleviate the risk of blackouts in NSW. New investment would also help with the integration of increased renewable energy supply.
Queensland has 3600 megawatts of surplus coal-fired generation capacity over and above the state's peak demand, while NSW is facing blackout risks, he said at The Australian Financial Review's National Energy Summit.
Transgrid CEO Paul Italiano says transportation companies are being wrongly blamed for high energy prices. Christopher Pearce
"We have the surplus capacity, and we have the demand. We have a relatively modest increase in transmission investment which would access that," Mr Italiano said.
He pointed out that Australia had some of the highest levels of dispatchable energy in the OECD but electricity "nodes" were not well connected, meaning that at any point in time when one region is suffering a shortage, three others could be seeing a surplus.
"The limitations of our existing network are a major impediment to freeing up existing capacity and contributed to the erosion of reliability of supply," Mr Italiano said, noting that infrastructure also helps the lowest-cost generation access the market.
Mr Italiano joined APA Group chief executive Mick McCormack in arguing that energy infrastructure companies have been unfairly blamed for pushing up power and gas prices. Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chief Rod Sims recently pointed to their contribution to current elevated prices for households and business.
Mr McCormack, who runs the country's biggest gas pipeline owner, pointed the finger instead at environmental activists, noting that pipeline tariffs have been flat and only account for a small part of the final bill.
He said the causes of high prices are also the move to link the domestic gas price to export prices and a squeeze in domestic gas, which is a long-term issue.
"The good old days of cheap $3 gas are behind us," said McCormack, who suggested a price of about $10 a gigajoule is now about the norm.
He also launched a fresh attack on "un-Australian" environmentalists such as Lock the Gate, which is successfully blocking coal seam and unconventional gas in NSW and Victoria.
"These environmentalists are not the ones losing their jobs due to Australian manufacturing businesses crumbling under the weight of mammoth energy costs," he said.
Ben Wilson, chief executive of Australian Gas Infrastructure Group, which includes the local gas pipeline interests of Hong Kong's CKI Group, said the contribution of the gas grid is underappreciated and pointed to the "massive built-in storage" it provides.
"The storage existing today built and paid for by the gas networks is equivalent to six billion domestic electric batteries," Mr Wilson said.
He made the case for investment in the system to "future-proof" it, including investment in hydrogen supply to contribute to an eventual net-zero emissions transportation system.
Snowy Hydro chief executive Paul Broad also highlighted the role of storage, saying that the Snowy 2.0 project proposed by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull made sense as a way of filling in the gaps left by intermittent energy.
"Seven years from now we're going to need a pumped hydro scheme of scale," Mr Broad said. "We sit between two big markets – right in the middle. Snowy 2.0 will change and enable transition to a decarbonised economy."
Mr Broad said the energy industry should be aiming to meet all demand, and that "demand response" measures were little better than cutting customers off that would prefer to be using power.
"You know what demand management really is? Blackouts. That's what happens – you turn it off," Mr Broad said.
APA Group
Angela Macdonald-Smith writes on the resources industry with a focus on energy, including gas, oil, electricity and renewables. Connect with Angela on Twitter. Email Angela at amacdonald-smith@afr.com
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Women's Writing Circle
A place to share our stories ...
Books, Events and Services
Circle Read Arounds
So You Want To Write A Memoir
A PORTRAIT OF LOVE AND HONOR
Preview — Again In a Heartbeat
Reviews — Morning at Wellington Square
The Life Unexpected: An Anthology of Stories and Poems
Talks on Memoir
From Readers of Again In a Heartbeat
Guidelines For Guest Bloggers
Women's Writing Circle and Looking Toward A New Year
We're all struggling and we do our best to manage. As Bob Dylan said, we're looking for that "shelter from the storm."
Writing, along with a place to support other women, is that shelter.
All of us are truckin' on. The Circle plays a rewarding role in that challenge and journey and I intend to do all I can to keep our space thriving and meaningful. While women are often harder on other women than they are on men, friendship among women is fierce and vibrant. It is ongoing throughout our lives. We are bound together by a shared experience that a man can never truly appreciate.
Our final read around for 2015 was inspiring and energizing. Our voices and stories rang with humor, joy, sadness and the amazing and adventurous journey of the feminine.
Together we empower and offer each other a bit of sustenance necessary in this life to keep on living . . . one day at a time, one foot in front of another.
In May we left our "home" of five years, Wellington Square Bookshop. (We had outgrown the space there). We moved to the privacy of the reading room at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church.
We kept reading, writing and sharing. We worked toward healing, finding our voice, making the reader what poet Mary Oliver calls "the experiencer."
Writing is a lifeline, an escape from the boredom, the tedium of every day living and a respite from those we must endure.
Two years ago I wrote a blog post Every Writer Needs a Bit of 'Paris'. It became one of the most popular blog posts on this site. For me, Arizona is a place to renew and restore. I'm leaving in January, but will be back in March to continue with our Circle.
A January 9 read around will be held at the beautiful West Chester home of long-time Women's Writing Circle contributor Diane Yannick. We will not meet in February.
In the coming weeks, I'll be announcing changes to the Women's Writing Circle. Passing around the envelope has made me feel a bit like a money collector and I prefer not to do that anymore. Finding the best location that meets the needs of our writers and is affordable continues to be a challenge.
Changes in 2016 will include a new location and annual membership dues to participate in Women's Writing Circle read arounds, critiques and workshops. Stay tuned through our newsletter.
Mary Oliver also said that writers often give up what is "most strange and wonderful about their writing - soften their roughest edges to accommodate themselves toward the group response . . ." The Circle remains a safe haven where, hopefully, we don't ever have to do that.
So to all the wonderful writers who make the Circle that necessary life raft and shelter from the storm, a very Happy New Year from Lily and me.
Your thoughts, comments and reflections are most welcomed
Posted by Susan G. Weidener at 8:46 AM
Labels: friendship, Mary Oliver, reading, women and writing, writing
SUSAN G. WEIDENER
An experienced book editor, journalist and author, Susan received her BA in Literature from American University and her MS in Education from the University of Pennsylvania. Her memoirs, Again in a Heartbeat, and its sequel, Morning at Wellington Square, have received critical acclaim. Her novel, A Portrait of Love and Honor, is based on a true story. A former staff writer with The Philadelphia Inquirer, Susan started the Women's Writing Circle in suburban Philadelphia to empower women to write and find voice through memoir, fiction and poetry. The group offers critiques, read arounds, networking and book authorship opportunities. Susan also offers writing workshops and teaches memoir and fiction. She lives in Chester Springs, PA. She can be reached at sgweidener@comcast.net
2017 BLOGGING AWARD
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Membership and Session Fees
Full Membership $145.00 USD Half Membership $100.00 USD Writing Workshop $40.00 USD Critique $30.00 USD Single Read Around $25.00 USD Book purchase $15.00 USD
AUTHOR SUSAN G. WEIDENER
Videotape: Interview With Susan About Memoir
Breaking the Rules of Writing
A Marriage of Fact and Fiction
Interview on How Memoir Changes Relationships
Interview - A Portrait of Love and Honor
Interview on Slants of Light
KIRKUS REVIEW - SLANTS OF LIGHT
Memoir Writer's Journey Interview With Susan
Memoir and Fiction - Choices
NAMW Guest Blog - Writing About My Mother
Susan's "Gutsy Story"
Susan's Interview On Honesty in Memoir
Susan's Radio Interview on the Avid Reader
Videotape: Slants of Light Author Panel
On Writing Book Discussion Questions
Should discussion questions be included in your new book? Do book discussion guides encourage book clubs to select a book? And, just a...
Crafting Memorable Scenes and Writing With Intent
Writing is no easy task, although sometimes it can flow, especially when a woman's voice and her life experience are encouraged in a s...
A Child of Divorce Writes About "The Absent Father"
Everyone has a story to tell about those unforeseen twists and turns that render lessons, realizations and redemption. That theme ...
Leila Summers, author of "It Rains In February" - What Inspired My Memoir
This is the second in a series of occasional guest posts by authors and writers from around the world. I asked Leila Summers if she woul...
The Joy of the Read-Around
Aspiring writers - whether you are published or not - know that the greatest joy often comes with sharing your work with other writers. The...
About the Authors - Kimberly
"When we start at the center of ourselves, we discover something worthwhile extending toward the periphery of the circle." An...
How many times have we heard ourselves or other women say, "I just can't do this anymore! It is too hard. It is too soul-searchi...
Turning Points - A Writing Prompt
When we write our stories, we are inevitably compelled to write about turning points in our lives. Those "Aha!" moments lead...
Writing A Way Back To Innocence
"Keep your face always toward the sunshine - and shadows will fall behind you." ~ Walt Whitman Our About the Authors series continues wit...
The "Sanctuary" That Is Writing
"H old fast to dreams For if dreams die Life is a broken-winged bird That cannot fly. Hold fast to dreams For when dreams g...
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A 'Gutsy' Indie Author's Adventure
This is the third in an occasional series featuring authors from around the world. I met Sonia Marsh through an independent author'...
Slants of Light — A Collaboration
 "None of us is as smart as all of us." Japanese proverb Harriet, Susan and Edda A year to the date ...
Writing and Wellness - A Guest Post By Randy Rolfe
This past month I met Randy Rolfe through Women's Business Connection , an empowering organization for women entrepreneurs in Cheste...
Every Writer Needs A Bit of "Paris"
For the past three and a half years my days have gone something like this: writing and publishing two memoirs, collaborating on an antholog...
Telling Stories For Our Daughters
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Just looking to connect with some people into RDWC ,to follow and help each other out along the way. So if your new into it, or a master of it. i'd love to follow like minded people and chat along the way.
I love to chat and sometimes talk to much but feel free to pm me etc or follow.
all in for the learning.
Great topic. I'm new. First grow. Started with a bubbler and after watching a few videos I built a RDWC. I'd love to learn whatever I can from you guys. Mine is odd but it works for my situation.
One thing i have learned is that you don't need 20 different products, now this can be hugely debatable for some people.
- maxibloom tends to lower ph for most people so use a silica supplement (something at least 7-8% silica) to raise the ph instead of just a ph up so you are getting 2 in one benefit. silica is not required but read up on the benefits if you dont know what it does imo its worth it. especially since your saving everywhere else. Also let the ph run through the acceptable range for RDWC so that you allow all the nutrients to be used by the plant as each mineral nutrient etc will be used more at different ranges of ph.
Also another cost saver is the fact that maxibloom has magnesium (3.5%) and calcium (5%) added to it so chances of needing those supplements are much lower depending on water and plant strain etc . Also alot of these are powdered supplements so they require good mixing, do it in a separate bucket and add it to the res. use a wine mixing wand and a drill to mix it in a bit warmer water but not to warm.
Once you get this down start looking at other things to add since you saved, if you like but its not required you will get good crops with this method there are lots of grow journals and reviews on it. spend the money on the grow environment it plays a huge impact on the grow, nothing will grow good if its not in the right environment.
Hope this helps and saves someone cash, dont get robbed by your local hydro store !!
I'm in as I am as stupid as a rock when it comes to RWDC. Here to learn.
At the moment i've nothing growing in rdwc, but i will keep track of how you're doing.. i do have a couple of finished rdwc threads.
Here is a ph range chart i found on 420 magazine, this scale shows to me there reason you should allow you ph to run through the acceptable range for either soil or hydro grows. on the scale you can see when the different nutrients become available to the plant more then other ranges. having it at the 5.8 ph sweet spot its at the high end of Calcium intake availability and the low end of magnesium. same with manganese it hovering at the high end of availability.
imo running it between a 6ph to 5.6 lets it spend enough time at each range without depriving it long enough to get a deficiency.
I'm trying to hold off on getting a chiller. I'll only grow in the winter, promise. I just got some Hydroguard. My temps have gotten up to 75. 20 + gallons to cool. Temps average is 70. Can I tough it out or do I need to think of something else to get the temps down.
there is allot of people who u will see dont use one and they are perfectly fine and have no issues. running hydroguard definitely will help, also silica will help it boots the plants immune system and also strengthens it to handle more stress, if u can avoid adding stress do it. once u reach 21'c dissolved oxygen becomes much less for your plant and more likely for root rot to become a problem. putting your res outside the grow area if possible might help, ensuring there is no light leaking into the water in the buckets too. covering the buckets with a thermal reflector material can help, throwing frozen water bottles into the res can do bring down the temp, just be aware of the displacement to the water levels.
you might be fine letting the temp rise but you also might not be, there is no perfect answer. also if you are fine you might have had better outcome if you did keep them in the good range.
My water temps in my DWC buckets can run up to 78f at times. I have been using z7 water treatment for years without issues.
Have today bought 8 pot root rapid rdwc. Soon as my current crop is down. I am in for the adventure. Grew in nft for about 10 years , no fancy training around or dwc back then either. Came back to it 3 years back and screwed whole crop of nft due to 2 day power outage and swore i was done with it now. Been in coco for last 3 grows and loved it but been eyeing up dwc amd water farms for a while now. Bit the bullet and going for it wirt a Multi strain of Barneys Farm cup winners. To use a famous quote " I'm so excited , and i just cant hide it......."
My first RDWC in hanging.
I had zero help along the way, but learned a great deal. My crop is very disappointing, but the reasons are clear and avoidable in the future.
I'll read along and soak up what I can.
Fighting Glaucoma since 1972. No sign of it yet, but I am taking no chances.
wassup Monk, i've been doing a dwc perpetual grow for 3yrs....i built my rdwc system into my 5x5 flowering tent, i still run individual buckets in my veg tent but i am currently building an rdwc system for that too.
sometimes my water temps get into the mid 70's....i don't have a water chiller (yet) but i put my air pumps in front of my air con unit so they pump cold air into the res. i have been using hydroguard from day 1 and won't do dwc without it. i also use hygrozyme (an enzyme, not beneficial bacteria) as well, but i have never had a problem with root rot when just using the hydroguard alone.
i've done a lot of research into running bennies vs sterile - if you want to share some info then hit me up. happy growing!
Hey Islandgrow, great looking grow. I had the same idea of the res being outside your tent. Did you cut a hole in your tent? I elevated everything to the level of the port hole and went out there to an outside res tank. I just couldn't cut my tent. The pic shows the crates my entire system sits on making it level with the port.
I am far less disappointed with my harvest than I thought. I have just under five pounds of buds, and they are just fine.
We had issues that nearly did the girls in, but all is well now. It is amazing how stupid a person can be sometimes, but I guess you have to learn somehow. My son pulled a couple of underperforming plants, and left the roots in the baskets. I never thought about it. Naturally root rot ensued, and it was made worse by some of the tubes being partially blocked by hydroton.
So, since it's 110 degrees outside right now, we have a few weeks to work on re engineering the system. I think 2 inch lines will help a bunch.
I'm glad to have you experienced folks willing to help.
I have many basic questions, especially when it comes to feeding frequency and duration. I muddled through this first trip, but would like to have more guidance next time.
Airing them out during cure.


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Home Education NKU names Darryl Peal as Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer; he comes from NCAA
NKU names Darryl Peal as Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer; he comes from NCAA
Northern Kentucky University has named Darryl A. Peal its Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer (CDO) and Title IX Coordinator. He assumes the position today and joins NKU from the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).
While at the NCAA, Peal served as the managing director for External Engagement and Strategic Partnerships. He was responsible for driving the Inclusion and Human Resources' vision and strategic initiatives through engagements and partnerships with the membership, sponsors and external stakeholders.
Darryl Peal
"We are so pleased to welcome Darryl as our inaugural Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer," said President Ashish Vaidya. "The depth and breadth of his experience complement the core pillars of our Success by Design Strategic Framework—access, completion and career and community engagement. His most recent role with the NCAA focused on creating bridges with the community and strengthening its civic-minded presence, which aligns with NKU's vision of becoming a premier, student-ready, regional engaged institution."
Last fall, President Vaidya created the CDO position to foster an inclusive and engaging campus climate and oversee NKU's diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. The position was reimagined from the special advisor to the President for Inclusive Excellence and also will coordinate Title IX investigations and compliance.
"I was very impressed with NKU and its commitment to developing a C-suite position that focuses on diversity, equity, and inclusion," said Peal. "I'm excited to take on the Chief Diversity Officer position and looking forward to enhancing the welcoming feeling of the campus."
Prior to the NCAA, Peal was the executive director of the University of Minnesota's Office for Business Community and Economic Development and the Technology Empowerment Center, focusing on community collaborations between the university and nonprofit, corporate and public sector partners. Peal has a long history in higher education, spending the first 11 years of his career at universities throughout Ohio. He has served as the dean of Students, director of Minority Student Affairs, assistant dean of Students/coordinator of Ethnic Diversity, director of Counseling Services, the assistant director of Health Education and Wellness, the director of Residence Hall Complex, the director of Residential Life/Chief Student Conduct Officer and taught Organizational Management and Behavior as an adjunct faculty member.
Peal also served as the president and CEO of the Ohio Minority Supplier Development Council, as the deputy director of the State of Ohio Equal Opportunity Division and as assistant vice president/director of Diversity & Race Relations for the United Way of Central Ohio in Columbus. He earned his Master of Social Sciences from Ohio University and his Bachelor of Arts in Print and Broadcast Journalism from Ohio Wesleyan University.
600 Northern Kentucky University volunteers give a day of service on Martin Luther King Day
Northern Kentucky University welcomes students back with campus-wide Winterfest activities
Ohmer pours in 22 points to lead unbeaten Georgetown (Ky.) to 74-61 win at Thomas More
01/9/2020 · 0 Comment


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California Supreme Court Brings Flawed Station Identification Procedure Back from Brink of Deserved Oblivion
On May 13, 2001, Geraldine Myers disappeared from her home in Riverside, California. Her car was found in Las Vegas, Nevada, but her body has never been found. Myers was 82 years old. In the early hours of June 22, 2001, Myrna Mason, an 84-year-old woman living in the same neighborhood, was raped in her home. Bailey Lamar Jackson was arrested the day after the rape, and evidence implicating Jackson in Myers' earlier disappearance was developed during the investigation of the rape of Mason. California v. Jackson, 1 Cal.5th 269 (2016).
There were many strands of evidence regarding the murder of Geraldine Myers and the rape of Myrna Mason, and the connection between the two crimes—the evidence that there was a single perpetrator—was only partially made by the use of trailing dogs. That aspect of the case, however, will be the sole focus of this analysis. Whether a conviction would have occurred had the trailing evidence been excluded, as the authors believe much of it should have been, is doubtful. The Supreme Court of California, unlike some lower California courts, did not state anything to the effect that, even if the evidence would properly have been excluded, its admission was harmless error. The judicial mantra of harmless error has been repeatedly invoked by courts not wishing to face the fact that scent identification evidence, particularly in the U.S., is often highly flawed, as it was in Jackson. (See, e.g., People v. Mitchell, 110 Cal.App.4th 772, 2 Cal.Rptr.3d 49 (2003); People v. Schoppe-Rico, 140 Cal.App.4th 1370 (2006).)
The case is notable for the number of canine procedures used, with the California Supreme Court describing seven procedures involving at least six dogs.
The Riverside Sheriff's Department Canine Team
Riverside Deputy Sheriff Coby Webb began training as a bloodhound handler in 1998 and obtained Maggie, her second police dog, in 1999. Maggie completed 20 hours of training at a Southern California Bloodhound Handler Coalition Seminar in July 1999 when she was four months old. She also attended the Colorado Canine Training Academy in September 2000, where she was certified to trail human scent. In April 2001, Webb and Maggie completed 40 hours of training through the Law Enforcement Bloodhound Association. They were also certified by the National Police Bloodhound Association.
Maggie testified that she continued to train Maggie for 10 to 15 hours a week, following trails laid by other officers or volunteers. Since many departments limit paid training time to four hours a week, either the Riverside Sheriff's Department has a very liberal canine training policy or Maggie was training outside of normal hours. This should have been a matter of inquiry for defense counsel to make sure that it does not include grooming and other non-training-related activities. Maggie was given "negative trails" in which the dog was scented to an object by someone who had not been in the training area. In such cases, Maggie was rewarded for not trailing. Maggie was also trained with double-blind trails, where neither Webb nor the evaluator knew the correct path (and where, presumably, anyone who did know the trail was not visible to the dog while it worked).
The Trail from Mason's House
Deputy Sheriff Webb brought Maggie Mae to Mason's house the morning of June 22, the day of the rape. She also brought a scent transfer unit and gathered scent from a shoe print in freshly raked dirt outside Mason's home. She presented the scent pad produced by this process to Maggie, who trailed across the street where a garbage can was found to contain Mason's purse. It is not specifically stated in the opinion that the purse was found in the garbage can by the dog handler or someone with her, though the fact that the dog was brought back to this point after it became confused may indicate this was the last point that Webb was sure the dog was trailing the scent obtained from the shoe print. Subsequent to reaching the garbage can, Maggie led Webb to the porch of Richard Shrader, a neighbor with whom the defendant, Jackson, lifted weights, then to the back yard of Billie Harris, another woman living in the neighborhood. Harris's daughter, Angelina Fortson, was living in the house with Jackson, who was her boyfriend. In the back yard, Maggie "seemed confused and appeared to have lost the trail."
During testimony, Webb said that the dog's confusion in Harris's back yard may have been the result of "pooling," which she described as occurring "when many trails of the target scent overlap at a single location," which "can occur at the residence of the person who left the scent the dog is trailing." Because of the dog's confusion, Webb brought the dog back to the garbage can to start over. The choice of the garbage can is somewhat troubling because the standard practice, when a dog loses a track, is to go back only as far as the closest point at which the dog was known to be trailing or tracking. With the handler standing firm at this point, the dog is allowed to search at full lead length while attempting to re-acquire the track. Alternatively, a sweeping motion can be used to guide the dog into an oblique angle (300-450) intercept in the direction of travel of the last known track point. Both of these methods are sometimes referred to as "casting." Defense counsel should have inquired as to why this was not done, say at Schrader's porch or just prior to entering the back yard of Billie Harris.
This time, Maggie "trailed down the street past the Harris residence and then appeared to have lost the scent." No explanation was provided in the Supreme Court's opinion as to why the dog followed a new and apparently unproductive trail from the garbage can where the purse was found. The issue should have been of particular concern to defense counsel.
Station Identification
Later the same day Webb and Maggie went to the Spruce Street police station, where Jackson was being detained as a result of other evidence concerning the rape. Webb was asked whether Maggie could eliminate a suspect who had been in the lobby and was now somewhere else inside the station, but Webb was not told where the suspect was or what path he had taken. "In the lobby, Webb presented Maggie with the scent pad collected from the shoe print outside Mason's house." Maggie first trailed to one interview room that Jackson was not in, and then to the interview room where he was being held. It was not stated whether Jackson had been in the first interview room or not. In the second interview room, Maggie stopped in front of Jackson but, according to the court's summary of Webb's testimony, "did not 'commit herself to jump up on' Jackson…." Webb testified that when Maggie "gets confused, she will just stop, which tells me she did not know which subject was the possible suspect."
Webb apparently vacillated on the significance of Maggie not jumping on Jackson. According to the California Supreme Court:
Webb testified that during training Maggie had been taught to indicate that she had found the person she was trailing by jumping up on them. Webb later testified that it was not necessary for Maggie to jump up on someone to indicate that she had finished trailing. Instead, when Maggie would stop trailing and stand still in front of someone, it was enough for Webb to question that individual to see if "that's the person we are looking for."
Webb also testified that the air conditioning system in the Spruce Street station may have been confusing the dog because a target "scent is going all through the air-conditioning vents." Webb "had to pull Maggie out of the room, which further suggested to Webb that Maggie had located the person she was trailing." Since the dog did not jump up on the suspect, there was no trained final response and the authors believe the evidence of the dog's interest in either the first or the second interview room was insufficient to justify its admission as evidence of Jackson's identity as the perpetrator, and was sufficiently speculative and prejudicial as to be inadmissible.
Jackson's Description of Throwing a Woman from a Car
During an interview regarding the rape, Jackson described a memory of having thrown a woman from his car. Police began to suspect that Jackson, who stated that he took Haldol, an antipsychotic medication, and Cogentin, which is used to reduce the side effects of certain antipsychotic drugs such as Haldol, was mixing up memories of the events of Myers' disappearance with those of Mason's rape. Jackson thought he could find the place where he had thrown a woman from his car, but a search of the area with a trained dog did not result in any body being found. It is not clear if this was a cadaver dog or a tracking or suspect apprehension dog scented to one of the scent pads produced by the scent transfer unit. In any case, no body or evidence of a body was found and as already indicated, Myers' body has not yet been found.
Second Station Identification
A second station identification was conducted on June 25, 2001, three days after the first, at a different location, the Orange Street station. This procedure is described as follows:
To lay the trail, Jackson was led through the station by Barnes and Johnson from the entrance, around at least two corners, and into a men's locker room. The detectives sat Jackson on a bench, closed the door, and stayed in the room with him. They were dressed in casual clothing, while Jackson was wearing an orange jail jumpsuit.
Defense counsel should have explored whether Barnes and Johnson could have themselves have been laying scent from the crime scenes, having sat beside Jackson in a cruiser (as they likely were on June 22), or having been in contact with objects that Jackson himself may have come in contact with. The continued presence of the officers in the room meant the procedure was not double-blind.Jackson was also the only black man in the locker room and wore handcuffs in addition to the orange jumpsuit.
As to Webb's preparation for the procedure, the Court states the following:
Webb testified that she asked the detectives: "'Can I please have three turns to make sure Maggie is committed to trailing, and I need to have it where there's no air conditioner on and I don't know where the subject is.'" Although she did not know the path that Jackson took through the basement, she did need to know "where the subject had walked into the building.... to match the trail with the scent item or not match, I needed to point [Maggie] on a trail. So I just needed to know where the person first walked into the building."
It is not clear why Webb could not have scented the dog outside the building, walked her to each entrance, and seen where the scent was picked up by the dog, which would have verified the dog's willingness to trail outdoors. In any case, on the sidewalk outside the station Webb presented Maggie with a crumpled manila envelope that had been found on Myers' bed, inside of which a sterile gauze pad had been placed. The first trailing on June 22 had involved scenting Maggie to odor taken from a footprint with a scent transfer unit. It was not explained if the footprint had been deemed made by someone other than a perpetrator, perhaps because of the lack of clear identification during the first station procedure. The fact that a second station identification was conducted after a first was unsuccessful may also indicate that, at this stage of the investigation, the sheriff's office was concerned that not enough non-canine evidence might be found to convict Jackson or force a plea deal.
It is not clear why the gauze pad was placed inside the envelope since crinkling up an envelope as trash will leave substantially more odor of the person doing the crinkling on the outside of the envelope than the inside. It should have also been investigated whether Barnes, Johnson, or others had touched the envelope. The envelope had been sprayed with ninhydrin to test for fingerprints before it had been placed in a Ziploc bag with the gauze pad.This would not have been a problem with the footprint scent, and resulted in efforts to discount the effects of ninhydrin on the dog's ability to take a scent from the envelope, as will be described further below.
It took Maggie 10 to 15 minutes to trail from the starting point [at one entrance], around both corners that Jackson had turned, to the locker room. When Webb opened the locker room door, Maggie walked past the detectives, walked down the row where Jackson was seated, and put her paws on the bench and her head next to his chest. Webb testified that this indicated that Jackson's scent was on the manila envelope.
At a later point in the opinion, the Court's description of these events differs somewhat, saying that "Webb lost sight of Maggie when the dog turned the corner to walk down Jackson's row." Also, instead of saying that Maggie's paws were on the bench and her head next to Jackson's chest, the court in its second description says that when Webb reached the row where Jackson was seated, "she saw Maggie jump into Jackson's lap." The inconsistency of these descriptions was not explained.
The defense objected that "the presence of the two detectives in the locker room transformed the Orange Street trailing into a hybrid of a trailing and a scent lineup," using the terminology employed by Professor Andrew Taslitz in his famous Hastings Law Review Article, "Does the Cold Nose Know? The Unscientific Myth of the Dog Scent Lineup." The California Supreme Court rejected the argument:
Although Barnes testified that there were communications personnel in another room in the basement while Maggie was trailing, Jackson does not argue that their presence transformed the trail into a scent lineup, nor does he argue that as a general matter dog trailing can only be reliably conducted in areas where other people are not present. Crucially, at no point was Maggie presented with a line of multiple people or objects and asked to distinguish among them; instead, the detectives and Jackson were waiting in different parts of the locker room. Webb testified that she could not see Jackson when she followed Maggie past the detectives and did not see him until she turned the corner to watch Maggie jump into his lap.
This defective logic misses the fact that there is an entire history of distinguishing between tracking or trailing and interacting with individuals who might be found at the end of the trail, a logic that has infused the scientific development of scent lineups and which more astute courts have seen as meaning that a dog's interaction with an individual at the end of a trail can be influenced by factors other than an identity of scent between the individual at that point and the odor with which the trailing procedure began. Dogs, for instance, can distinguish emotional expressions of human faces, and it is likely that someone like Jackson would have a different type of expression on his face than would officers near him. See Muller et al. (2015). Dogs Can Discriminate Emotional Expressions of Human Faces. Current Biology, 25(5), 601-605; Cuaya et al. (2016). OurFaces in the Dog's Brain: Functional Imaging Reveals Temporal Cortex Activation during Perception in Human Faces. PLoS/One, 11(3), e0149431.
While one cannot control many variables in a real-world trailing or tracking situation, it was the realization that variables could be defined in scent identifications, and thus controlled, that led to the scientific tradition of scent identification procedures, specifically lineups, that have been refined by Adee Schoon, Tadeusz Jezierski, and recently by Barbara Ferry. (See Tadeusz Jezierski, Scent Lineups: Variables in Procedures and Statistical Verification, chapter 19 in Canine Olfaction Science and Law.)
The Court was apparently not apprised of research, some of which has been discussed here previously, indicating that dogs that follow trails with high statistical success have lower success rates at the end of these trails when they are presented with a choice between several individuals and are expected to identify the individual who left the trail that they had correctly followed. That one individual in a room is wearing a jumpsuit and is in handcuffs is an obvious invitation to cueing by the handler, which does not need to be a conscious manipulation of the leash. (See Ensminger and Papet, Cueing and Probable Cause, article online at Michigan State University College of Law's Animal Legal & Historical Center, as well as Police and Military Dogs, Chapter 6 at 96.)
Webb was asked—whether on direct or cross examination is not stated—whether the first trailing at the Spruce Street station may have influenced the result at the Orange Street station. The Court quotes her reply as follows:
"No. We run numerous trails. An example, like this month I believe I'm up to 14 callouts. So I change scents, I mean, almost on a daily basis. And she—I've never seen her able to remember something—a trail of somebody else. I've never, ever seen that."
The defense expert, Dr. Lisa Harvey, whose testimony will be discussed in more detail below, also testified that dogs trained to trail human scent will not follow a scent simply because they have been asked to follow the scent on past trails. Trainers of tracking and trailing dogs, however, when using a prior scent for testing a dog's ability to avoid cross-tracks of other scents often use prior odors as a proof. Many dogs, particularly newer dogs, will follow a previously encountered scent rather than maintaining focus on the correct trail.
The fact that the envelope used to scent the dog at the Orange Street station procedure had been sprayed with ninhydrin raised the possibility that a dog might not be able to reliably follow a trail upon being scented on an item that had been so treated. This possibility was subjected to field experiments by two experts for the prosecution, Maryland State Trooper Douglas Lowry and Dr. Lisa Harvey. Lowry used one dog for his experiment, while Harvey used three. Dr. Harvey has conducted some of the most important trailing research in the last twenty years. Both experts concluded that the presence of ninhydrin on an envelope would not significantly alter a dog's ability to detect a human's scent on the envelope and follow a trail of an individual who had put the scent on the envelope.
Apparently no research was cited regarding the effect of ninhydrin as a masking agent for odor detectible by dogs, so the need was felt to conduct field experiments to provide at least tentative (though unrefereed) evidence that ninhydrin would not interfere with a dog's ability to trail. The results are not surprising. Waggoner et al. (1998 SPIE Proceedings) notes that "although the detection performance of dogs is susceptible to being perturbed by the presence of an extraneous odor, it takes a large or even very large amount of this odor in relation to the amount of target odor for this effect to be realized. The extent of this effect depends on the nature of the substances."
Pre-Trial Motion for Kelly Hearing on Canine Evidence
Before trial, the defense moved for a hearing on the admissibility of the canine evidence under California v. Kelly, 17 Cal.3d 24, 549 P.2d 1240 (1976), which defines California's Frye requirement with regard to scientific evidence. Kelly requires that (1) the scientific technique involved be "generally accepted as reliable in the relevant scientific community," (2) the witness testifying concerning the technique and its application must be "a properly qualified expert on the subject," and (3) "the person performing the test in the particular case used correct scientific procedures." However, California case law provides that "Kelly/Frye only applies to the limited class of expert testimony which is based, in whole or in part, on a technique, process, or theory which is new to science and, even more so, the law." (Quoting California v. Stoll, 49 Cal.3d 1136, 783 P.2d 698 (1989).) Relying particularly on California v. Craig, 86 Cal.App.3d 905, 150 Cal.Rptr. 676 (Ct.App. 1978), the Supreme Court of California concluded in the present case:
Scent trailing evidence is not so foreign to everyday experience that it would be unusually difficult for jurors to evaluate. Jurors are capable of understanding and evaluating testimony about a particular dog's sensory perceptions, its training, its reliability, the experience and technique of its handler, and its performance in scent trailing, such as performed in this case.
The Court also argued that it was "unlikely that a juror would believe that dogs are scientifically infallible…." This presumption that juries are largely neutral to canine evidence and participation in trials should, in the opinion of the authors, be subjected to sociological research. (See discussion of jury influence in "Cases and Statutes on the Uses of Dogs by Witnesses While Testifying in Criminal Proceedings" on the website of the Animal Legal & Historical Center.) The effect of dogs is known to advertisers. See Lancendorfer, K. M., Atkin, J. L., & Reece, B. B. (2008). Animals in Advertising: Love Dogs? Love the Ad! Journal of Business Research, 61(5), 384-391.
On the issue of trained canine fallibility, the Court referred to the testimony of State Trooper Douglas Lowry, an expert witness for the prosecution.
On cross-examination, Lowry testified that in practice, he observed dogs change their trail from an older scent to a newer scent, and that he observed this more often with newer dogs. He also testified that dogs, like people, have good days and bad days, as well as days when they simply do not want to work.
The fact that dogs can change what they are trailing is one of the reasons for a frequently mentioned trailing requirement that a dog be put on the trail during the period of its reliability. Since there were samples that preserved the scent of the crime scene, the issue becomes whether the scent remained in sufficient strength to be used for a trailing activity. This issue is particularly relevant to the station identifications performed by Harvey four years after the crimes.
Harvey's Station Identification Procedures in February 2005
After the defendant was found guilty, but before his sentence was imposed, there was a penalty phase that had to be repeated because the jury deadlocked in the first penalty trial. During this penalty-phase retrial, Dr. Harvey testified concerning two additional station identifications she performed in February 2005. These procedures were performed in the San Bernardino police station, where Jackson had never been before. The purpose of the procedures was, according to the Supreme Court, "to determine whether Jackson's scent was on a gauze pad that had been stored with the envelope recovered at Myers's house." It was not stated, and perhaps not explored yet again, whether Jackson may have been brought to the station and taken to a location by officers who themselves could have been bearing the suspect's scent.
A video of the procedures was shown to the jury and is summarized by the Court as follows:
First, Dr. Harvey scented her dog, Shelby, off the gauze pad that Traughber had placed inside the envelope found on Myers's bed in June 2001. Shelby trailed through the sally port, smelled three doors, and indicated that she wanted to go through one of them. On the other side of the door, she trailed down a corridor and indicated she wanted to go through one of two doors. Shelby arrived in another corridor containing eight locked jail cells. Shelby smelled all eight and then stood still in between the seventh and eighth cells. The door of the eighth cell was opened; Shelby went inside, smelled the detainees, and walked out again. The seventh cell, containing Jackson, was opened; Shelby went inside, smelled Jackson, and walked back out. Dr. Harvey testified that this was not an identification "to her satisfaction." Dr. Harvey further testified that she "felt that Shelby had a good trail" but was being "rather lazy." Because Shelby "was not trying to trail out of that area" and "was going around and around in circles," Dr. Harvey opined that "that smell that she was looking for was in that area, but for some reason she just refused to make an identification."
So the dog, given a choice of eight cells, could not choose between two of them and the choice was made for her. Then, because the dog did not leave the vicinity, it was concluded that a match for the scent she had been given was somewhere near. Harvey then repeated the procedure with a second dog:
Dr. Harvey conducted the same task with her other dog, Dakota. Dakota walked through the sally port and the same series of doors as Shelby had until she arrived on Jackson's corridor. Dr. Harvey opened Jackson's cell door, Dakota entered, sniffed around, and walked out again. Dr. Harvey gave Dakota the verbal command "show me," but Dakota just stood there and whimpered. Dr. Harvey testified that Dakota's behavior constituted an identification….
When asked what the dog's behavior indicated, Harvey testified:
A. That indicates to me that she was still doing her job; however, she chose to do her job the way she wanted to do it, which was in direct conflict to how I would like her to do it, which is a jump-up.... [E]ach dog, I guess you could say, chooses their own identification, and the handler has to learn that identification from the dog....
Q. What does Dakota usually do?
A. Dakota does one of two things. She will either do what you saw her do, or she will do a jump-up identification.
As with Webb's dog, a trained final response—assuming the jump-up was trained—was not performed, yet the handler claimed that the dog had made an identification apparently based on an undefined level of interest. The Supreme Court, to its credit, realized that this had not happened:
Notably, neither Shelby nor Dakota positively identified Jackson. Even though Shelby began to trail immediately, indicating that she had found a match between the scent item and the scent trail, she did not unambiguously alert on Jackson. Instead, she went into and out of two locked rooms, smelling everyone in both rooms, including Jackson. Yet, as Dr. Harvey testified, Shelby did not "choose to make an identification" in her usual way. Likewise, according to Dr. Harvey, Dakota began to trail immediately following the same route, perhaps even a little faster than Shelby. She also sniffed several people behind the two locked doors, including Jackson. Yet she did not unambiguously identify Jackson. Dr. Harvey testified that she "wasn't happy with [Dakota's] identification," stating that she would "prefer [Dakota] actually jump on them, so I can see a good identification." Even after being directed to identify, Dakota refused and began to cry and whine. Dr. Harvey testified that she believed Dakota had made an identification, but she had "picked" her own way of making the identification, contrary to her training.
Harvey acknowledged that dogs, including her own, do make mistakes. According to the Court:
Dr. Harvey, on both direct and cross-examination, testified that the accuracy of dogs was correlated with their age, with "veteran dogs" having a success rate of 95 percent, while novice dogs had a success rate of 60 percent. Dr. Harvey also admitted that even well-trained dogs have good days and bad days. When asked if she thought Maggie made mistakes, Dr. Harvey responded, "Oh, yes, I'm sure." Testifying about her own dog, Shelby, she stated that she could tell "for sure" that Shelby had made mistakes in practices, even if she was not sure of mistakes made out in the field.
Despite acknowledging the possibility of mistakes, Dr. Harvey believed an identification had been made. This belief was apparently based on the dog's training:
"[W]e give consistent training to the dog. Then, when we take them to an unknown area trying to trail someone, as long as the dog is working in the same manner that they worked during training, we are able to say that this is consistent; therefore, we say it is reliable."
This comes close to the frequently made argument that even if a dog alerted when it should not have, the dog was not wrong because there must have been residual odor present. This becomes a means by which the scientific evidence for odor recognition becomes irrelevant because every alert has an explanation that is not the dog's fault. In the narcotics and explosives detection world, this makes dogs into "walking search warrants." Here, if broadly accepted, it could make them into walking identification witnesses.
Another defect of poorly conducted scent lineups and station identifications occurs when dogs may follow each other because the earlier presence of a dog at the same location has not been antiseptically removed (See Jezierski, above). The Court noted that the failure to make an unambiguous, positive identification "arguably worked to [Jackson's] advantage." Nevertheless, the prejudicial effect of allowing an expert to state that the dog had made an identification should have resulted in the evidence being declared inadmissible.
Testimony of Dr. Lawrence Myers
The defense called Dr. Lawrence Myers, who has been an expert witness in a number of scent identification cases. Myers testified as to the complexity of human scent and how not knowing what chemicals dogs rely on in trailing humans made it, in the Court's words, "hard to determine the reliability of an identification based on an older scent in which certain organic compounds may have degraded or otherwise changed." He also testified that the extent to which "various contaminations" might affect a dog's abilities was unclear.
Dr. Myers testified that a dog can be cued visually to alert by the fact that only one person in an array is wearing a bright jumpsuit and handcuffs. He also described how a handler can cue a dog by walking at a different speed, tugging or letting up on the leash, or changing her tone of voice. He said he would be "very concerned" if the target or decoys in a scent identification task were known to the dog, although he could not say that it would "definitely" affect the outcome.
This testimony raises questions about Lowry's use of a decoy that was known to the dog in his ninhydrin experiment.
Myers also indicated that a scent lineup where only one of the individuals in the lineup was in a jumpsuit and handcuffs was "not a very good lineup" because the situation involved "a cue that's hard to ignore." In rebuttal, the prosecution asked Webb if dogs are "colorblind," to which Webb said they were. This is not entirely true, though dogs have fewer color-sensitive cone photoreceptors than humans do. See Miller, Wyman (2001). Vision in Animals-What Do Dogs and Cats See? PP. 27-8 in the 25th Annual Waltham/OSU Symposium: Small Animal Ophthalmology. In any case, a dog would not need to distinguish ethnicity by sight, since there are odor markers, volatile organic compounds, that likely allow them to distinguish members of different races. See Prokop-Prigge et al. (2015). Ethnic/racial and Genetic Influences on Cerumen Odorant Profiles. Journal of Chemical Ecology, 41, 67-74; Prokop-Prigge et al. (2016). The Effect of Ethnicity on Human Axillary Odorant Production. Journal of Chemical Ecology, 42, 33-39.
Thus, there does not seem to have been any real exploration of what Myers was saying, that the circumstances may point to an individual in a group for a dog just as they may point to that individual for a person looking at the group.
Canine procedures occurred at least seven times in this case:
Trailings of Webb and Maggie May at Mason's house the morning of June 22, 2001. Result: first trailing went to backyard of residence where suspect was living; second went elsewhere.
The station identification of Webb and Maggie later the same day at the Spruce Street police station. Result: no alert, dog stopped trailing at suspect but may have been confused by air conditioning.
A canine search of the area where Jackson thought he may have thrown a woman from his car. Result: no body or other evidence found.
The station identification of Webb and Maggie on June 25, 2001, at the Orange Street police station. Result: Court provided two descriptions of the dog interacting with Jackson, one of which indicated an alert. Since dog was scented to envelope that had been sprayed with ninhydrin, subsequent verification of effects of ninhydrin were undertaken.
Trooper Lowry's ninhydrin-related trailing test using a dog (pre-trial but otherwise undated). Result: ninhydrin found not to interfere with dog's abilities.
Dr. Harvey's test with three ninhydrin-related trailing tests (also pre-trial), using three dogs. Result: same as 5.
Dr. Harvey's station identification of Harvey and two dogs in February 2005 (post-trial, between two sentencing trials). Result: handler claimed identification occurred by Court's description only indicated interest.
In sum, there were three identification procedures, two near the time of the crime and one (involving two dogs) four years after the crime. Only one of the earlier identifications may have resulted in an alert. In none of these procedures were there adequate scientific protocols and in only one station identification was there even arguably a trained final alert. Only in the first procedure, trailing from Mason's house, was valid evidence produced that should have been admissible, and that evidence was of the route that the perpetrator may have followed upon leaving Mason's house, and where the perpetrator left the purse taken from Mason. Even in that case, a repeat of the trailing from the garbage can did not confirm the first result so arguably even these events should have been excluded as prejudicial.
Other non-canine evidence was far more damning than anything the dogs did, including items of both victims found in Jackson's possession, blood evidence that could be connected with Jackson, his confused memories of having thrown someone from his car, and testimony of other parties placing Jackson near the crime scenes. The cumulative evidence, without any of the station identifications, might well have been enough to convict Jackson. Inconclusive results from questionable canine procedures should not have been allowed to muddy the evidentiary waters in this case.
Although the California Supreme Court seems certain that jurors are not overly influenced by canine testimony and will naturally understand that dogs can make mistakes, the Court itself uncritically accepts some claims that should have been subjected to rigorous cross-examination.
[Webb] also described challenging tasks that Maggie had performed. In one instance, Maggie followed the scent of someone who wrote a letter that was mailed to Webb and kept in the freezer for four weeks. In another instance, Maggie identified the person who had handled an explosive device by following the scent that remained after the device was detonated. Maggie performed successfully on this task four times out of six and did not falsely alert on the remaining two trials.
Although a frozen letter may still have scent that can be detected and used to scent a dog, the circumstances of the trailing were not described (at least in the Court's opinion), including whether this was a double-blind test. Following the trail of a person who had handled an IED sounds remarkably like a 2010 study published in Forensic Science International and the subject of a prior blog on this site. That study did find that dogs could be very accurate in following the trail of someone who placed an IED, but were less accurate in identifying these individuals from others in a room where the "perpetrators" had gone after leaving the devices.
Andrew Taslitz, whose brilliant skewering of the scent lineup procedure as employed by American law enforcement remains the most trenchant analysis of the weakness of canine identification evidence, contacted me after reading an unpublished article I wrote with Tadeusz Jezierski and Michael McCulloch, on which we still receive occasional suggestions for new studies to incorporate. Professor Taslitz, sadly no longer with us, then wrote an article that appeared in Criminal Justice in 2013 (vol. 28, p. 4), "The Cold Nose Might Actually Know? Science and Scent Lineups." The article acknowledged that scientific procedures being developed primarily in Europe might be getting closer to an acceptable level of reliability to be admissible in U.S. criminal prosecutions. The problem is, and I acknowledged this to the professor and have done so on several occasions, scent identification procedures as implemented in the U.S., including station identifications, are not up to those standards.
A station identification is an artificial trailing situation in which a dog's ability to follow a scent taken from a crime scene is verified in an environment that has nothing to do with that crime. Unlike the more sophisticated European scent lineups, the dog is not given a choice between scents of numerous individuals of similar economic and ethnic backgrounds, may in fact be following a trail of someone whose scent is closer to that obtained from the crime scene than other scents in the area of the station, may only have one choice of individual to choose from at the end of the trail, and may be allowed to interact with the suspect from a distance away, thereby possibly eliciting a response that can be taken as, or mistaken for, an alert. The procedure makes no more sense than would replacing scent lineups with a procedure by which a human witness would be asked to walk through a police station and identify an individual as the perpetrator from among all the people in the station at the time, with the possibility that the suspect is behind bars and in an orange suit.
Station identifications also encourage cueing, particularly when the target individual is easily distinguishable from others in the vicinity, such as by being handcuffed or in prison attire or both as in this case. It is not double-blind to third parties since the suspect is under arrest and individuals holding him may have to be advised that the station identification being conducted, and even if they are not told about it in advance, they are likely to understand what is happening and that it is intended as an identification. Scent identifications are also seriously flawed because they do not involve antiseptic protocols as are required in more rigorous European procedures. The station identification procedure has never been subjected to rigorous scientific analysis precisely because it is itself not capable of rigor, and no doubt because it is largely confined to a few trainers in one state.
Nevertheless, the California Supreme Court saw no problem with letting such evidence in and has just given life to a bogus procedure that, fortunately, at this point in judicial history, seems largely to confined to several police departments in Southern California. Hopefully the Court's poor reasoning will not infect other judges.
This blog was written by John Ensminger and L.E. Papet.
California Supreme Court Brings Flawed Station Ide...


Returning of surcharges for the third quarter will affect 17.689 disabled and retired patients. Health insurance companies according to protective limit on payments for drugs should return € 311.129. Policyholders will get pay automatically, it is not necessary to apply for them. General Health Insurance Company (Všeobecná zdravotná poisťovňa) will pay to 13.432 policyholders amount of € 237.588. Health Insurance Company Dôvera sent back supplements in the amount of € 58.777 to 3.407 policyholders. Union Health Insurance Company reimbursed to 850 policyholders € 14.764. The information was provided by health insurance companies.
For surgery are waiting at the end of the year more patients of General Health Insurance Company than in September. And despite of a public promise that gave the director of insurance company Marcel Forai in September that insurance company will reimburse to hospitals all costs of medical care to ensure that on waiting list will be any patient by the end of this year. In September 2012, there were 6.706 policyholders on waiting list; today it is around seven thousand.
General Health Insurance Company (Všeobecná zdravotná poisťovňa) will end this year with a profit of about € 25 million. Compared to 2011, is it almost of 20 million more. This year's expected savings was influenced by new way of allocating premiums as well as its rigorous exaction by executors. State insurance company, which policyholders are the most ill, thanks to a new redistribution of premiums collect monthly nearly four million euros more than in past. Profits at the end of the year except also private health insurance companies Union and Dôvera. They did not tell their estimates.
Analysis of Institute for Financial Policy (IFP) on the effectiveness of Slovak healthcare, according to Association of Health Insurance Companies, confirmed that a unitary system of public health insurance will not save the system Association of Health Insurance Companies appreciated that state brought to debate technical arguments. President of Association Katarína Kafková said that until now it was only about political statements and enjoy that Ministry of Finance admits that the announced expropriation will not solve the problems of Slovak health care. As she noted, the analysis could not clearly identify the reasons why the increasing of resources in health care did not manifest in better health. She also pointed out that the analysis also proved greater efficiency of private health insurance companies.
Willem van Duin, chief of Achmea, thinks that for Slovakia would be most reasonable to pay for lose Arbitrage as soon as possible, because every month of delay must pay a penalty of 50-thousand euros. Slovakia, according to W. van Duin, could challenge only serious procedural violation, however, it has already tried to and did not succeed. Arbitral tribunal itself was chosen strictly by international rules Uncitral: one arbitrator was chosen by Slovakia, the second by Achmea and both of them chose the president of the court. As said van Duin, the decision was unanimous and he cannot imagine that Slovakia, as the rule of law and a member of EU, refused to pay.
The problem of Slovak health care is not about whether there is one or are more insurance companies, but its effectiveness and in defining of legal rights of policyholders on what they have covered by public health insurance. It is a politically sensitive issue, said in a discussion former Minister of Health Rudolf Zajac. According to Zajac, we can expect the nationalization or creating a state monopoly of distribution companies and also the state monopoly on pharmacies because the drug policy creates far more profits than health insurance companies. As he also noted, we can also be witness of the nationalization of private doctors and private hospitals, because of they are making profit.
According to the statement of Minister of Health Zuzana Zvolenska, government will not get healthcare into debt by creating a single health insurance company. To purchase or expropriate private health insurance companies will not use money intended for providers and patients. She has responded to the former Minister of Health Ivan Uhliarik (KDH), who said that any government has no right to debt the healthcare for decades. Zvolenská advocates creation of a unitary health system by argument that new system will provide greater satisfaction with healthcare. Plurality system, according to her, brought only chaos. Zvolenska also stated that in case of creating a one health insurance company is not worried of arbitration.
The second attempt to get a report on Arbitration by the opposition party SDKÚ failed. SDKÚ required submission of report on a lost arbitration with shareholders of Union health insurance company to Parliament. For proposal of SDKÚ party leader Pavol Frešo voted only 59 of 142 attending members. The first request for a report did not pass the on Tuesday. For the second attempt Frešo has decided in the light of new information that Slovakia may lose in arbitration up to € 750 million. According to Chairman of SDKU Frešo, Government have to inform the public through the members of Parliament about the real state of Arbitration.
Institute for Financial Policy (IFP) at Ministry of Finance of the Slovak Republic has published an analysis of the effectiveness of health care called "A little health for a lot of money." The results of the analysis described our health care as ineffective and also point out that degradation of health continues. According to the analysis, due to the low efficiency of system, the life expectancy is on average about a year shorter than the average of the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. The analysis further indicates that state insurance company has the highest cost per patient, while payments for hospitals are often at minimum level. In the context of a unitary system, IFP analyses did not found a strong general argument for a system of one or more insurance companies for all OECD countries. However, analysis also did not say that in the Slovak conditions it would not help.


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Checking in with Jeremy: Week 4
Body break with Evolution Fitness
By Jeremy Willard Feb 11, 2014, 2:16 PM EST
caption goes here*********** Credit: Jason Webster
If you were to ask one of my friends to describe how I spend the majority of my evenings, the description you'd get would probably be that of a befuddled fop sipping tea in the tub, re-reading Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, muttering phrases like the following in a faux British accent: "Oh, dear me, Sebastian has fled to Morocco! I dearly hope he doesn't ruin himself with drink!"
In other words, I'm not usually considered a very intense person. As I finish the fourth week of my exercise campaign with Evolution Fitness, I find myself thinking more and more about something my trainer Sam said: "All of these exercises are good, but if you don't have intensity when you come work out, your results won't be that great."
My friends are right to a degree — I do enjoy a good bath, and I've read all the better works of Evelyn Waugh — but I can be intense. It's intensity that got me through school and allows me to churn out so many articles and helped me quit drinking three years ago. When I set my mind on something, I become very intense. At those times, it hardly matters that Sebastian has fled to Morocco — I need to get to the gym, goddammit! It's paying off, too, because I've lost 10 pounds. That's a little more than two pounds each week.
Evolution Fitness is a small gym, but unlike some larger gyms where folks mill around cluelessly, people seem to go to Evolution when they're serious about getting into shape. Everyone's on some kind of intense, tailored, trainer-monitored program.
Sam seems satisfied with my progress, but it irks him that I rarely call exercises by their proper names. To me, every exercise is a "thingy." It's silly of me, given that most of the exercises have names that pretty much write themselves. For example, a squat-curl-press is simply that: you squat, then curl, then press. I'm considering inventing an exercise called the "T-rex" just to piss Sam off.
For more information about Evolution Fitness and its team of experts, visit personaltrainerstoronto.com.
This story is filed under News & Ideas, Women's Health, Toronto, News
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The incredible cover for the book 'Soul Music' by Terry Pratchett
painted by the late grandmaster of fantasy art Josh Kirby.
First off let's take a closer look at that sky (point number one on the image)! This is an oil painting but you'd be forgiven for thinking this was a watercolour sky with the subtle pink and yellow mixed but Josh used a lot of thinners with the oil paints to get this effect. At point 2 look at the incredible perspective he gets as DEATH literally zooms up out of the landscape. This is very much a trademark of Josh Kirby's Discworld work. He was never content to stick to a formula. He was always searching for new ways to bring an added dmension to the painting with unusual perspectives or interplay of ideas utlising many different aspects of the storyline (as the consumate professional he always read the manuscript thoroughly and made notes before starting his rough sketches that started the path towards the finished painting). Point 3 - look at all the detail and all the extra little characters and items included to broaden the illustrative effect of the painting. No wonder he became so closely associated with the books he provided covers for - his paintings had the ability to convey the feel of the whole story in a single image! To buy a copy of the Limited Edition print of SOUL MUSIC or view the full range of items available click here.
To return to the start of the catalogue click here or to go to Josh Kirby's section click here.
To return to the Featured Artwork section click here