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What Is the Best TV Pilot From the Past Five Years?
From 'The Night Of' to 'The People v. O.J. Simpson,' these are the shows that were the real deal from day one
By The Ringer Staff Mar 27, 2018, 11:08am EDT
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On Sunday night, HBO's Barry announced itself as one of the most outstanding new shows on TV with a premiere episode that was profound, fresh, and remarkably in touch with its characters. It was a masterfully done pilot, deservedly earning a place alongside the best TV premieres in recent years. What else is on that short list? The staff of The Ringer has some thoughts.
Andrew Gruttadaro: The premiere episode of The Night Of is an exercise in dramatic irony. Unless you've been living in the soundproof booth Steve Harvey puts Family Feud contestants in while they wait to play Fast Money, by the time you hit play on The Night Of, you have a general idea of what's going to happen. You know a young, seemingly innocent Muslim man from Queens (Riz Ahmed) is going to find himself at the scene of a murder; you know he's going to be arrested on suspicion of committing the crime; you know John Turturro will appear as the lawyer who defends him. (The feet stuff—now that was a surprise!) And so the first episode of The Night Of, understanding that you already know its outcome, forces you to wallow in every awful decision and coincidence leading up to it. You wince when Ahmed's Nasir "Naz" Khan decides to drive into Manhattan to go to a cool party, and fill with dread when he starts driving people around because he can't figure out how to turn off the "In Service" light on his father's cab. When the girl—the one you know is going to die at some point—goads Naz into doing drugs with her, you can only futilely yell "NO! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" at your TV screen. And after her death, when Naz flees the scene and takes the murder weapon with him, the episode becomes utterly excruciating as you wait for the police to find the knife in his jacket pocket.
The first episode of The Night Of isn't filled with surprises, but that ends up being its greatest strength.
Hannah Giorgis: Catastrophe, the delightfully crass rom-com written by and starring Sharon Horgan and Rob Delaney, should not work. Its pilot begins with a fairly unremarkable premise—Rob Norris (Delaney), an American man, has a six-night stand with Sharon Morris (Horgan), a woman he meets on a business trip in Britain. But soon, the titular chaos is revealed: Sharon calls a month later to inform a blubbering Rob that she's pregnant. "So what do you want to do?" he asks. In a moment of caustic wit that comes to characterize the interactions between the two, a despondent Sharon retorts, "I want to build a time machine out of your fucking carcass, go back, and make it un-happen!"
With the necessary technology for her taxidermic ambitions not yet available, Sharon instead decides to keep the baby—and build something of a life with the clueless but endearingly committed Rob. The pilot moves seamlessly from raunch to biting humor to surprising moments of tenderness. Horgan and Delaney explore the minutiae of love, friendship, marriage, and parenting with an invariably sharp, comedic eye; life may be hard, but there's beauty in its most daunting surprises.
Ben Lindbergh: The Last Man on Earth's pilot was unlike any other first episode of post-apocalyptic TV. Its apparent premise was startling: What if the world ended, and the only survivor wasn't especially smart, telegenic, heroic, or capable? Worse, what if he had nothing to do—no one to talk to except an assemblage of anthropomorphized sports equipment à la Cast Away's Wilson—and nothing to fight beyond boredom? How would that work as a sitcom?
It wouldn't, of course: By the end of that episode, Will Forte's Phil was no longer alone, and five episodes in, we learned that he wasn't even the last living man. (I was too cynical to be surprised, having already been betrayed by the discovery that there was way more than one ship on The Last Ship.) But the 20 minutes or so during which Last Man was a one-man performance piece made me think about which of Phil's activities I would try if I had a whole country to myself, with no zombies or roving marauders around: making a massive margarita in a kiddie pool; collecting (and subsequently smashing) famous art and artifacts; getting emotionally attached to a mannequin. More important, the pilot served its purpose as a proof of concept—namely, that Forte was funny enough to carry a comedy all by himself, which remained true even after Fox formed an ensemble around him.
Michael Baumann: Considering how weird it is, the most amazing thing about Mr. Robot is how quickly it got off the ground. One problem with sci-fi shows—and I guess Mr. Robot isn't strictly sci-fi, but you get the idea—is that you need to build a world and set up rules, and doing that takes time. Or at least it should when your show is a super-surrealist first-person drama seen through the eyes of a mentally ill drug addict. Also the show is literally named Mr. Robot, which is one of the most opaque, least inviting titles for a basic cable drama I can remember. There are a lot of pins to set up.
Mr. Robot heated up pretty quickly after the pilot—Episode 2 had the wonderful conference room scene set to Beethoven, Episode 3 had the "Steal My Sunshine" montage—and by the Steel Mountain heist in Episode 5 and the jailbreak in Episode 6, the show was already at its peak. But if the introduction to Elliot and his strange world hadn't been handled so perfectly, it would've been really easy to turn off before any of that happened.
Miles Surrey: All pilots need to acclimate the viewer to their world and introduce overarching themes—the best ones make that feel effortless.
Really, The Americans is as much about the complexities of marriage as it is spycraft, which the pilot makes evident. Granted, it's a pretty unusual union; two covert KGB agents that are next-level undercover, speaking perfect English, with two unknowing children in the mix (and an FBI agent for a neighbor, because it wasn't stressful enough). What sells The Americans from the onset, however, is Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys. Their chemistry is palpable and refreshingly subversive. Elizabeth Jennings is Terminator-esque, a ruthless killer with a steadfast devotion to the Mother Land's cause. Philip Jennings … pouts, low-key loves America, and considers defecting to their FBI neighbor almost immediately. Can these contrasting ideologies—and really, two humans—withstand the daily toils of marriage, the spy job, and normal, everyday life? That's for the sixth and final season to unveil, but those threads were brilliantly conveyed from day one.
Virali Dave: The Insecure pilot, aptly titled "Insecure As Fuck," opens with a montage of L.A. imagery and a scene in which Issa talks to a group of middle schoolers about We Got Y'all. Issa tells her students how she is there to help them, and one asks in response, "Why you talk like a white girl?" We know from the start that this is a show that's going to talk about race (and more) in a way that is funny and emotionally complex. As the rest of the episode unfolds, we see Issa dealing with her depressed, inattentive boyfriend and her friend Molly worrying she'll never get married. The two best friends grab dinner at Merkato before Issa prioritizes her own love life over Molly's plight, going so far as to rap in front of a crowd about Molly's "broken pussy." Toward the end of the episode, Molly calls Issa out on her shit, saying, "That's the damn problem, Issa. You don't stop to think about how the shit you do can actually affect others." "Insecure As Fuck" focuses as much on Molly and Issa's unsatisfying love lives and careers as it does on their friendship. We know to expect the same from the episodes to come on Insecure, a show that is unafraid of embracing its flawed characters, paying tribute to its city, focusing on strong female friendships, and dropping plenty of Drake references.
The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story
Kate Knibbs: I was worried when Ryan Murphy's first episode for his American Crime Story anthology opened with the Rodney King beating. I knew Murphy was good at camp, but I doubted his ability to pull off a serious drama about justice in America, especially because the main reason I was so psyched to watch The People v. O.J. Simpson was the promise of scenery-chewing from John Travolta and David Schwimmer. Yet Murphy's decision to play it solemn to ground the show worked. In "From the Ashes of Tragedy," Murphy proved he could walk an extremely fine tonal line, treating social issues seriously but finding room to wink at figures like Travolta's histrionic Robert Shapiro.
Alison Herman: Transparent has something of an unfair advantage in this competition: As an early example of Amazon's since-diminished pilot program, the first episode of Jill Soloway's groundbreaking, award-winning exploration of gender and sexuality through the lens of one neurotic Jewish family was actually available to viewers as a stand-alone product for months before the full first season debuted. Consequently, it's easier to appreciate not just what makes Transparent's pilot such a compelling entry point into the rest of the series, but what makes it a near-perfect, self-contained venture in itself. (Transparent's fellow Amazon project The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel also falls into this camp.) The Pfefferman family are a rowdy, messy bunch of helplessly selfish charmers, and in less than 30 minutes, Transparent's first episode—written and directed by Soloway—introduces them all in the auteur's now-signature naturalist style. The hazy Los Angeles setting, the chaotic family dinners that make the cast come off like an actual family when some of them aren't even Jewish, the central narrative of Maura's transition: it's all here from the start. The other nine installments of Transparent's freshman outing would eventually live up to the pilot's promise, but in the meantime, the debut felt like enough.


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education and jobs
As technology changes the future of jobs, is Asia prepared?
Countries should invest in science, technology, engineering and math education.
Crispin C Maslog
Aug 20, 2018 · 08:30 pm
Remember the switchboard operator, telegraph operator, telegram boy and linotype operator? They are just a few of the communication-related occupations that have vanished over the years as society and technology have evolved.
"Operator, please connect me," we used to say to the switchboard operators of the phone companies back in the day when they had manual switchboards. The operators, mostly women, would then plug the call. Automated switchboards came in the 1960s. By the 1980s, switchboard operators had vanished.
The electric telegraph, invented in the 1830s, became the fastest way to communicate until it was overtaken by the telephone in the 20th century. The telegraph operator used the Morse code to send messages. When the telephone came, the telegraph operator disappeared.
Together with the telegraph operator was the telegram boy who delivered the typewritten messages either on foot or by bike and later by motorcycle. When the telegraph operator disappeared in the 1970s, so did he.
Linotype machines were used by newspapers and magazines for typesetting from the late 19th century until the 1980s, when computer technology made them obsolete.
Training for non-existent jobs
And the evolution continues. "In many industries and countries, the most in-demand occupations or specialties did not exist 10 or even five years ago, and the pace of change is set to accelerate. By one popular estimate, 65% of children entering primary school today will ultimately end up working in completely new job types that don't yet exist," said the World Economic Forum.
This rapidly evolving jobs and employment landscape makes it urgent for businesses, governments, organisations and individuals to anticipate future job requirements or they will be left on the wayside to progress.
The world needs to seize the moment, according to the World Economic Forum's 2016 annual report. We are starting the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
"Developments in genetics, artificial intelligence, robotics, nanotechnology, 3D printing and biotechnology, to name just a few, are all building on and amplifying one another. This will lay the foundation for a revolution more all-encompassing than anything we have ever seen," World Economic Forum explained.
It added: "Smart systems – homes, factories, farms, grids or cities – will help tackle problems ranging from supply chain management to climate change. The rise of the sharing economy will allow people to monetise everything from their empty house to their car."
The impending change holds great promise but also poses major challenges requiring proactive adaptation. As entire industries adjust, most occupations undergo fundamental transformation. Some jobs are threatened by redundancy and will be replaced. Others will flourish, needing only a change in the required skill sets. New jobs will be developed.
Demographic, technological drivers
Major drivers of change are the evolving work environment and flexible working arrangements. New technologies are making possible working from home and teleconferencing.
I write monthly columns for SciDev.Net, newspaper articles and books from my home on a university campus in the middle of a 4,244-hectare forest reserve in a small town. My son runs an online store from his room in another part of our house. My wife's cousin is an architect who holds office in Orlando, Florida, US, but is employed by a company with its main office in New York City.
More organisations will soon have smaller pools of core employees backed by external consultants. The Asian Media Information and Communication Centre, based in Manila of which I am a board director, and the Asian Institute of Journalism and Communication, of which I am a consultant, hold teleconferences regularly to manage our organisations. I don't have to go to our Manila office to participate in meetings.
"Another major factor for change in the future world is mobile internet and cloud technology," the World Economic Forum continued in its 2016 report. Mobile internet has applications that enable more efficient delivery of services and opportunities to increase work force productivity. With cloud technology, applications can be delivered with minimal or no local software or processing power, enabling the swift spread of internet-based services.
Other technological drivers of change include advances in computing power and big data. Advanced robots with enhanced senses, dexterity and intelligence will also come into the picture.
Getting to the STEM
The question now is how businesses, governments, organisations and individuals will meet the challenge of change to avoid talent shortages, mass unemployment and growing inequality. We need to take a proactive approach. Education must become relevant.
Enter STEM education – science, technology, engineering and math education. These fields are where the jobs are, according to the US National Math and Science Initiative.
"Jobs in computer systems design and related services – a field dependent on high-level math and problem-solving skills – are projected to grow 45% between 2008 and 2018," said US National Math and Science Initiative. Professions include biomedical engineers, network systems and data communications analysts, and medical scientists," it continued.
In June, top Philippine educators met in a high-level conference to tackle the problem of educating the future manpower for Asia and the world. Next to Indonesia, the Philippines has the largest pool of manpower in the region – 26,629,845 learners.
Of this number, 921,000 are in senior high school, and only 226,688 are on the STEM track, according Lorna Dig-Dino, undersecretary at the Department of Education. Compounding the students' lack of interest in STEM is the fact that teachers are also ill-prepared to teach the relevant subjects. This conundrum can be seen repeated throughout South-East Asia.
This article first appeared on SciDev Net.
The American dream is losing its charm among graduates of IIT Bombay

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The following paper presents a study investigating adult number line estimation patterns through use of an eye tracker. Estimation patterns were examined by changing the range of the number line on which the estimations occur from the typical ranges of 0-100 and 0-1000 to a more difficult range of 0-723. There were two main conditions of the experiment; in one condition the number to estimate and the number line were presented simultaneously, and in the other condition, the number line presentation was delayed. In each of the two conditions of the experiment, eye fixations and area of interest analysis were examined to help reveal the mathematical processes behind number line estimations, specifically how these estimations are formed. It was predicted that the 723 line would have significantly more errors and take longer to complete than the 1000 line. The results provide evidence that cognitive processes are involved in estimation and that estimation is in fact a slow process.
Salas, Sarah Ann, "What do we see: number line estimation with eye tracking" (2015). UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones. 2578.


There are tons of books that talk about success. You can get tired of it. Nonetheless, Rework is a must read. Jason and David demonstrate the keys for success in a really short and sharp book. They have polished the content until reach its essence. Every word is worth it.
My advice is to forget the ebook and buy the printed version. It' a book to read over and over again, taking notes and action.


I was extremely blessed to hear a young women share last week how she started a non-profit, in which she traveled city to city putting together large meals where she fed the homeless of that city. While serving the meals she was able to share Christ with them and tell them how valuable they are to God, and how they are worth more than gold to Him.
It was so encouraging to hear someone who shares a similar vision and desire as our organization. Hearing her success and how she was so blessed by the men and women she came in contact with was uplifting. Our God is so amazing and has so many awesome plans in store for each and every one of us.
I cant help but burst with joy and excitement at what God is doing through us and what's surely to come if we stay faithful to His plan for our organization. We are so blessed as an organization to be able to do all we do in the name of Christ Jesus. It's so exciting to hear how God is working through others to feed the hungry, and share His gospel while doing it. God is working not only here in Morgan County but all over our nation. I'm so excited to see where God takes us next!
I was recently informed of a documentary called "A place at the table." It was made in 2012, highlighting the growing number of adults and children who are hungry in America. As I was watching this 90 minute film I was shocked by statistics that were being shown. All of us here at MCFR know about food insecurity and what it means, but I had no idea that a single mom with two children can't exceed $24,000 a year; if she does she can't qualify for food stamps. This makes it virtually impossible to keep her kids clothed, bills paid and child care paid and still have enough money for groceries each week, let alone anything healthy or nutritious.
The film brought up a good point saying that when we as Americans think of hunger, we picture a malnourished child in Africa. We don't think about hunger being right here in our back yard. We see children who are obese and believe they are being overfed, when in reality many times they are the ones hungry and are overweight because all that their parents can afford is chips, cookies, pop, and the like, making them lose focus in school, become developmentally delayed and obese because they aren't getting the proper nutrition.
Whether we choose to acknowledge it or not, hunger is a huge issue and one that 50 million Americans face every day. Not only can some hardly survive with food stamps, some can't even qualify, making it virtually impossible for them to keep their children and themselves fed weekly. Watching this video was heart-wrenching, and extremely eye-opening. All of this makes our job here so much more precious to us, and allows us to realize that what we are doing will help hundreds, if not thousands, weekly.
We want to see a change in these statistics! We want to see an end to hunger! We don't want families to be faced with the struggle of not knowing where they can get there next meal. This has further driven us to do all we can do, to help all those in need around us. We're so blessed here to have this opportunity daily to help those in need and to be able to it all in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. We pray that God continues to bless us with partners and places to donate this food to. Thanks for your help and concern!


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Ratio measures in...
Ratio measures in leading medical journals: structured review of accessibility of underlying absolute risks
BMJ 2006; 333 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.38985.564317.7C (Published 14 December 2006) Cite this as: BMJ 2006;333:1248
Lisa M Schwartz, associate professor of medicine1,
Steven Woloshin, associate professor of medicine1,
Evan L Dvorin, instructor of medicine2,
H Gilbert Welch, professor of medicine1
1Veteran Affairs Outcomes Group, White River Junction, VT 05009, USA
2Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, NH
Correspondence to: S Woloshin steven.woloshin{at}dartmouth.edu
Objective To examine the accessibility of absolute risk in articles reporting ratio measures in leading medical journals.
Design Structured review of abstracts presenting ratio measures.
Setting Articles published between 1 June 2003 and 1 May 2004 in Annals of Internal Medicine, BMJ, Journal of the American Medical Association, Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Lancet, and New England Journal of Medicine.
Participants 222 articles based on study designs in which absolute risks were directly calculable (61 randomised trials, 161 cohort studies).
Main outcome measure Accessibility of the absolute risks underlying the first ratio measure in the abstract.
Results 68% of articles (150/222) failed to report the underlying absolute risks for the first ratio measure in the abstract (range 55−81% across the journals). Among these articles, about half did report the underlying absolute risks elsewhere in the article (text, table, or figure) but half did not report them anywhere. Absolute risks were more likely to be reported in the abstract for randomised trials compared with cohort studies (62% v 21%; relative risk 3.0, 95% confidence interval 2.1 to 4.2) and for studies reporting crude compared with adjusted ratio measures (62% v 21%; relative risk 3.0, 2.1 to 4.3).
Conclusion Absolute risks are often not easily accessible in articles reporting ratio measures and sometimes are missing altogether—this lack of accessibility can easily exaggerate readers' perceptions of benefit or harm.
For good reasons, ratio measures, such as relative risks and odds ratios, have become a common way to compare outcomes in two groups. For observational studies they serve as the central metric of the strength of association between exposure and outcome, a key criterion for establishing causality in classic epidemiology. For both observational and experimental studies they serve as a convenient mechanism to express the magnitude of an effect on baseline risk—a relative change. Furthermore, the ratio is often believed to be transportable—that is, the relative change may be applied to different populations with different baseline risks. Finally, they have the appealing feature of summarising two numbers (the risk in one group and the risk in the other) into one, which in turn facilitates comparisons of the effect of various exposures. But this feature of ratio measures also represents their major weakness, that the underlying absolute risks are concealed.
Unless ratio measures are reported with the underlying absolute risks, readers cannot judge the clinical significance of the effect. Consider the following example. Readers may be told that the relative risk of death with drug A compared with placebo is 0.5; in other words, people who take drug A are half as likely to die as people who take placebo. But without the underlying absolute risks—the chance of death in each group—the information is incomplete.1 A relative risk of 0.5, for example, is compatible with a wide range of changes in the risk of death: from 20% to 10%, from 1% to 0.5%, and from 0.0004% to 0.0002%. Effects presented in relative terms alone have been repeatedly shown to seem more impressive than the same effects presented in absolute terms in studies of physicians,2 3 policy makers,4 and patients.5 6 Moreover, providing absolute risks has been shown to improve patients' comprehension of statements of both absolute risk reduction and relative risk reduction.7
The importance of providing absolute risks has been recognised in the requirements of groups trying to improve reporting in the medical literature. The consolidated standards of reporting trials (CONSORT), an international effort initiated in the mid-1990s to improve the reporting of randomised trials, explicitly calls on researchers to state the results using absolute numbers when feasible.8 A more recent initiative organised in 2003, strengthening the reporting of observational studies in epidemiology (STROBE), does as well.9 We systematically determined how frequently the absolute risks comprising ratio measures are reported in the medical literature.
We searched Medline using the search terms rate ratio*, relative ratio*, relative risk*, risk ratio*, or odds ratio* (the * ensures that any suffix such as "s" is included), and identified 320 articles with ratio measures in the abstract published between 1 June 2003 and 1 May 2004 in six leading medical journals: Annals of Internal Medicine, BMJ, Journal of the American Medical Association, Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Lancet, and New England Journal of Medicine. We excluded 98 articles with study designs in which absolute risks might not be directly calculable (52 case-control studies, 46 meta-analyses). Thus the final sample consisted of 222 articles with study designs where absolute risks were directly calculable: 61 randomised trials, 161 cohort studies.
Article review process
We reviewed each article using a standardised data extraction form (see fig A on bmj.com). The coder began by recording the study design, the number of ratio measures reported in the results of the abstract, and the value and name of the first ratio measure in the abstract.
To facilitate understanding of the ratio measure, the coder specified the exposure groups being compared, categorised the exposure groups as discrete (for example, drug versus placebo) or continuous (for example, years of age), and specified the outcome variable (for example, death rate).
The coder then searched for the absolute risks underlying the first ratio measure. Although some of these numbers were true rates—that is, events per person year of observation in the exposed and unexposed—most were risks—that is, proportion of the exposed and unexposed who had an event in a specified time period, whereas a few others were means (for example, mean time to falling asleep in the exposed and unexposed). For simplicity we use the phrase "absolute risks" to refer to the basic numbers comprising the numerator and denominator of the ratio.
We first determined if the absolute risks were in the abstract. For discrete exposures we simply looked for the two absolute risks underlying the ratio (for example, the absolute risk for those taking drug A and the absolute risk for those taking placebo). For continuous exposures (for example, relative risk of 1.05 for each year of age) we looked for an absolute risk grounding the outcome at any single exposure level (for example, risk of death for patients aged 65 years).
If the absolute risks were in the abstract, no further review was done (n=72). If the absolute risks were not in the abstract, we looked for them in the article, searching the entire text and all tables and figures (n=150). If the absolute risks were not reported anywhere in the article, the coder attempted to calculate them based on the data that were reported. These calculations entailed extracting data from one or more places in the article and ranged from simple division to a series of calculations (see fig B on bmj.com).
Each author coded a subset of articles. Thirty articles were double coded to establish inter-rater reliability. Agreement for all items included in this report was "substantial" or greater—that is, the kappa statistic ranged from 0.7 to1.0.10 Disagreements were resolved by consensus between the coders.
We used the χ2 test to compare differences in proportions and t tests to compare means. All analyses were done using Stata version 9.0 and α was set at 0.05.
Use of ratio measures
Of the original research articles with abstracts during the study period, 30% (320/1051) included at least one ratio measure in the abstract. After excluding articles with study designs in which absolute risks may not be directly calculable (46 meta-analyses, 52 case-control studies), 222 articles were eligible for the study. The box highlights the multiplicity of language used to name the ratio measures. About 30 terms were found, many synonymous.
Synonyms used to describe various ratio measures
Ratio of risks
Relative risk (or RR)*; post-trial relative risk, risk ratio; "times more likely"; and unadjusted risk ratio
Ratio of risks: adjusted
Adjusted relative risk*; multivariable adjusted relative risk; multivariable analysis relative risk; multivariable relative risk; multivariate relative risk; after adjustment risk ratio; and adjusted risk ratio
One minus the ratio of risks
Relative risk reduction*; reduction in relative risk*; risk reduction; proportional reduction*; and per cent reduction
Ratio of rates
Rate ratio*; incidence rate ratio; and incidence density ratio
Ratio of rates: adjusted
Adjusted rate ratio* and standardised incidence ratio
Ratio of odds
Odds ratio*; unadjusted odds ratio; and exposure odds ratio
Ratio of odds: adjusted
Adjusted odds ratio*; multivariate odds ratio; and multivariate adjusted odds ratio
*Most commonly used language
The table⇓ shows the characteristics of articles overall and by journal. On average, article abstracts included 3.3 distinct ratio measures, with a range of 1-14. Most of the articles identified were cohort studies (73% cohort studies v 27% randomised trials), and the abstracts of cohort studies included more ratio measures than the abstracts of randomised trials (mean number of ratio measures 3.6 v 2.5; P=0.002). Overall, 72% (159/222) of the ratio measures were reported as being adjusted (that is, based on a model controlling for a set of covariates) and 28% (63/222) were crude.
Description of articles with ratio measures in abstract. Values are numbers (percentages) unless stated otherwise
Accessibility of absolute risks for first ratio measure in abstract
Overall, 68% of articles (n=150) failed to report the underlying absolute risks for the first ratio measure in the abstract, ranging from 55-81% across the journals (table⇑ and fig 1⇓). Among articles failing to report the absolute risks in the abstract, about half reported them elsewhere in the article (text, table, or figure); but half did not report them anywhere. When absolute risks were not reported, the coders tried to calculate them from the data presented but were often unable to do so. As shown in figure 1⇓, the final breakdown of the 222 articles was: 32% (n=72) had underlying absolute risks that were easily accessible (in the abstract), 32% (n=72) had somewhat accessible absolute risks (reported elsewhere in the article), 22% (n=49) had absolute risks that were not easily accessible (not reported but calculable), and 13% (n=29) had inaccessible absolute risks (not reported and not calculable).
Fig 1 Proportion of articles where absolute risks for first ratio measure were not reported in the abstract
Figure 1⇑ also shows the effect of study design and adjustment. Randomised trials were more likely than cohort studies to report the absolute risks in the abstract (62% v 21%; relative risk 3.0, 95% confidence interval 2.1 to 4.2). Absolute risks were also more likely to be reported for crude as opposed to adjusted ratio measures (62% v 21%; relative risk 3.0, 2.1 to 4.3).
Finally, we compared the accessibility of absolute risks for discrete exposures (for example, taking or not taking a drug) and continuous exposures (for example, years of age). Nine per cent (21/222) of the ratio measures involved continuous exposures; all occurred in the subset of 136 articles that were cohort studies and presented adjusted ratio measures. When the analysis was restricted to this subset, absolute risks were more likely to be reported in the abstract for discrete rather than for continuous exposures (21% v 5%, relative risk 4.1, 0.6 to 28.9).
Although ratio measures are commonly reported in the medical literature, the underlying absolute risks are not. In our review of ratio measures in six major medical journals, we found that the underlying absolute risks were often difficult to access or were missing altogether. The lack of accessibility of these fundamental data may well lead journal readers (doctors, policy makers, journalists, and patients) to have exaggerated perceptions of the reported effect sizes.
Some may worry that our suggestion—reporting absolute risks—solves one problem by creating its opposite—that is, that absolute risks may lead people to minimise important effects. For example, whereas most doctors would consider the benefit of a drug that reduced all-cause mortality among relatively healthy outpatients over five years from 4% to 3% to be important, many patients might dismiss the 1% point change as trivial. But the challenge here is calibration—to provide the context that this effect is big compared with most drugs in this setting. The solution is not to revert to the language of a "25% reduction," because that fails to distinguish between a change from 4% to 3% and a change from 0.004% to 0.003%, but to calibrate people by exposing them to absolute risks (with and without the intervention) for a variety of medical therapies.
We also found that accessibility of absolute risks is more of a problem for cohort studies than for randomised trials (although it is still substantial in randomised trials, 38% failed to report absolute risks with the first ratio measure in the abstract, and in 12% of cases these numbers were not reported anywhere in the article). The more complete reporting for randomised trials may reflect the widespread acceptance of the CONSORT statement first issued over 10 years ago.8 With the advent of newer organisations such as STROBE,9 focusing on observational studies, the reporting of cohort studies may improve.
Our study has several limitations. Firstly, our analysis was limited to six major medical journals. We deliberately chose this limited sample of journals because of their reputation for quality. Thus we believe our data represent a best case scenario: we think it is unlikely that less prestigious journals with less statistical support and fewer full time editors would be doing a better job. Secondly, our search strategy did not include some study designs (for example, meta-analyses) and some ratio measures (for example, hazard ratios). This was intentional as we wanted to focus on designs where the absolute rates could be directly calculated, and on the most familiar ratio measures. Finally, we evaluated only the first ratio measure in the abstract (rather than all ratios in the abstract or article). This was also intentional to ensure consistency in coding. But there is no reason to believe that subsequent ratio measures are better reported than the first. In fact we argue that because it is first, and may receive extra prominence, the initial ratio measure should be communicated as clearly as possible.
Although authors can do better, ultimately we think it is the responsibility of journal editors to ensure that the absolute risks are easily accessible to readers. In fact journal editors have come to a consensus on this point. More than 190 medical journals in the United States and elsewhere (including our study journals)11 endorse the CONSORT statement for randomised trials, which calls for reporting absolute risks. Many have also endorsed the STROBE statement for cohort studies. Moreover, journal editors are best positioned to make sure that absolute risks are easily accessible. Just as they have (successfully) insisted that authors write a structured abstract, journal editors can insist that authors provide absolute risks adjacent to the corresponding ratio measure. If authors cannot do so, the paper should not be published.
Figure 2⇓ highlights our suggestions for ensuring that absolute risks underlying ratio measures are made easily accessible in journal abstracts. In many instances the process is straightforward. For example, when there are two groups and a crude ratio measure, editors can simply require that the risks in each group be included. Other settings are more challenging, in particular when the ratio measure is adjusted. Two possible methods are considered in figure 2⇓. Authors could provide the crude absolute risk in each group and the crude and adjusted relative risk to highlight the effect of adjustment. An alternative would be to explicitly provide both the crude and adjusted absolute risks, in addition to the crude and adjusted relative risks. Here editors would have to specify how authors should calculate adjusted absolute risks for each group (and state these rules in the instructions for authors). Three possible standards to use for adjustment are the study population as a whole (which is typically done to provide the risk for the average patient), the unexposed group, or the exposed group (having the advantage of holding one absolute risk constant to facilitate comparison).
Fig 2 Suggested approaches to improve communication of ratio measures
Editors will also need to provide guidance for how authors should report the underlying absolute risks for ratio measures on the basis of continuous exposures. We suggest that authors report the absolute risk for at least one level of exposure.
Figure 2⇑ also provides suggestions for several other issues identified in our review: the reporting of multiple ratio measures in a single abstract (four of the six journals studied had abstracts with over 10 distinct ratio measures); the multiplicity of language used to refer to ratio measures, which frequently does not provide unique information and may simply confuse readers (for example, proportional reduction versus percentage reduction versus risk reduction versus RR); and the confusion about whether a ratio measure without a modifier is crude or adjusted.
To improve the reporting of ratio measures in the medical literature we believe that journal editors need to ensure that absolute risks are routinely included in the abstract adjacent to the corresponding ratio measure. Without the absolute risks, ratio measures alone may leave readers with an exaggerated sense of what studies find. Exaggerated perceptions matter because they may lead to either unwarranted enthusiasm for new medical interventions or unwarranted concern about potentially harmful exposures.
What is already known on this topic
Ratio measures without the underlying absolute risks often exaggerate readers' perceptions of benefit or harm
What this study adds
In major medical journals, more often than not ratio measures are reported in the abstract of a medical research article without the underlying absolute risks
The inaccessibility of absolute risks is a bigger problem for cohort studies than for randomised trials, and for studies reporting adjusted compared with crude ratio measures
The data extraction form and calculations carried out by coders are on bmj.com
Contributors: LMS and SW analysed the data and wrote the first draft. They contributed equally to this project and the order of their names is arbitrary. HGW participated in the design of the analyses and made important contributions to the presentation of the work. ELD participated in design, data collection, and analyses. SW is the guarantor.
Funding: SW and LMS were supported by Veterans Affairs career development awards in health services research and development and Robert Wood Johnson generalist faculty scholar awards. This study was supported by a grant from the National Cancer Institute (R01CA104721) and from a research enhancement award from the Department of Veterans Affairs. The views expressed here do not necessarily represent the views of the Department of Veterans Affairs or the United States government.
Competing interests: None declared.
Ethical approval: Not required.
Yueh B, Feinstein AR. Abstruse comparisons: the problems of numerical contrasts of two groups. J Clin Epidemiol 1999;52:13-8.
Forrow L, Taylor WC, Arnold RM. Absolutely relative: how research results are summarized can affect treatment decisions. Am J Med 1992;92:121-4.
Naylor C, Chen E, Strauss B. Measured enthusiasm: does the method of reporting trial results alter perceptions of therapeutic effectiveness? Ann Intern Med 1992;117:916-21.
Fahey T, Griffith S, Peters T. Evidence based purchasing: understanding results of clinical trials and systematic reviews. BMJ 1995;311:1056-9.
Hux JE, Naylor CD. Communicating the benefits of chronic preventive therapy: does the format of efficacy data determine patient's acceptance of treatment? Med Decis Making 1995;15:152-7.
Malenka DJ, Baron JA, Johansen S, Wahrenberger JW, Ross JM. The framing effect of relative and absolute risk. J Gen Intern Med 1993;8:543-8.
Schwartz LM, Woloshin S, Black WC, Welch HG. The role of numeracy in understanding the benefit of screening mammography. Ann Intern Med 1997;127:966-72.
The CONSORT Group. Consort statement. www.consort-statement.org/Statement/revisedstatement.htm (accessed 18 Nov 2005).
STROBE statement: checklist of essential items. www.strobe-statement.org/PDF/STROBE-Checklist-Version3.pdf (accessed 18 Nov 2005).
Landis J, Koch G. The measurement of observer agreement for categorical data. Biometrics 1977;33:159-74.
Consort Journals. www.consort-statement.org/Endorsements/Journals/journals.html (accessed 18 Nov 2005).
glm-Generalized linear models. Stata 9 reference manual. College Station, Tx: Stata Press, 2005:392-420.
Zou G. A modified Poisson regression approach to prospective studies with binary data. Am J Epidemiol 2004;159:702-6.
Zhang J, Yu K. What's the relative risk? A method of correcting the odds ratio in cohort studies of common outcomes. JAMA 1998;280:1690-1.
Data supplement
Lisa M Schwartz, Steven Woloshin, Evan L Dvorin, H Gilbert Welch
Schwartz Lisa M, Woloshin Steven, Dvorin Evan L, Welch H Gilbert. Ratio measures in leading medical journals: structured review of accessibility of underlying absolute risks BMJ 2006; 333 :1248
Articles by Lisa M Schwartz
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Home » Art » Literary » Zinging, Leaping Shakespeare
Zinging, Leaping Shakespeare
Glowing On the Green
Posted on June 25, 2016 (March 12, 2019) by Gordon Spencer
Wonderful performing cascades before your eyes and ears. It's The Taming of the Shrew made endearing and vivacious, brimming with style and sparkling loquaciousness as guided by director Amy Lane and interpreted by a flawless 18-member ensemble for Nebraska Shakespeare.
The players own the stage and Lane has everyone on it in constant and delightful motion. By leaps and bounds, they keep the action and the story full of life. At the same time, despite all the rushing to and fro, the rich language and complex speeches never get so hurried that their sense gets trampled. Moreover, Lane has found delightful, snappy ways to bring out the bawdiness Shakespeare put there and, clearly has encouraged her actors to find fun within the lines.
You probably know that a prominent element of the story deals with male domination and female subjugation. A tricky path to follow in our day, unlike its original time when, despite the forceful rule of an English queen, women were essentially powerless. Lane, in having an all-male cast, seeks to replicate the sense of the period and, equally, to call attention to its confines. You needn't look for that, or ponder it. She's made sure that everything rolls on with its own momentum. She's created jolly, fresh perspectives without ever tampering with what's in the original conception. She imaginatively conjures up deliberately ambiguous personifications while Lindsay Pape's fantastic costumes add to those images. "Gender," Lane said is "a social construct, a performance rather than an identity." Role playing, then, underlies it all. Things do get broad, but never go beyond the boundaries. These characters seem like real people who just get carried away a lot.
Audience-friendly-wise, Lane and Artistic Director Vincent Carlson-Brown have made sure that everyone present can know the essence of the story. A synopsis is in the informative, excellently- produced program book.
Here, however, is the essence. Baptista Minola declares that his youngest daughter Bianca can be free to marry only after her older sister, rambunctious Katharina (aka Kate) is wed. Gremio, Hortensio and Lucentio seek to woo Bianca and come up with a variety of schemes, including disguises, to win her love. Petruchio vows to make Kate his bride although she does all she can to resist. After they are wed, he devises what look like loving ways to tame her, which ultimately succeed.
Among the disguise routines, FYI, Lucentio and his servant Tranio reverse roles. And later they get a merchant to impersonate Lucentio's father, Vincentio, a trick which comes undone when the real father appears. Not to worry. As with everything else in this production, the playing makes it clear.
Joe Lullo's Petruchio brims with dynamic panache, although he might have seemed broadly sweeter when trying to convince Kate of his love. As for Kate, Daniel Ian Joeck never suggests conventional femininity, a perfect choice by him and Lane to remind us that women take many shapes and forms. Thus, when Kate finally yields to her husband's rule, she does so with strength and surety, as if en route to equal partnership.
Myles Phillips and Buddy Haardt as Lucentio and Tranio deliver their speeches with such knowing skill that you'd swear they've done so before at London's Globe. Phillips also exudes true charm. Brian Linden plays Gremio, Bianca's older suitor, with edgy feistiness and clearly knows how to make his costume have a life of its own.
All of this cast merges and moves as if one dynamic company which has been together before and long. Credit them and Lane for making it seem so.
Pape's exceptional costumes become a non-stop marvel. For example, there's Hortensio's violet-ribboned outfit, delightfully flounced and fluttered by Josh Doucette. And another masterpiece almost takes the wedding cake, Kate's multi-layered bridal clothes, all in black, as if in mourning, but also a reversal of the black Petruchio had been wearing.
Carlson-Brown has marvelously staged the fights. Call some of them brawls, especially the great match on the mat when Kate and Petruchio first confront each other's urges to be on top. Plus, on the subject of movement, choreographer Patrick Roddy's finale dance may make you want to leap up and join them.
Call it a triumph.
The Taming of the Shrew runs through July 10. Elmwood Park, south of UNO's Bell Tower. 8 p.m. Free. www.nebraskashakespeare.com.
Category: Art, Literary
Tags: Theater Review
Posted in Art, Literary
Tagged Theater Review
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Q: Methods using private members or public accessors I realize this probably cannot be answered, but I'm looking for whether there is some sort of guidance about whether to use private members directly or public accessors inside class methods.
For example, consider the following code (in Java, but it would look very similar in C++):
public class Matrix {

    // Private Members
    private int[][] e;
    private int numRows;
    private int numCols;

    // Accessors
    public int rows(){ return this.numRows; }
    public int cols(){ return this.numCols; }

    // Class Methods
    // ...
    public void printDimensions()
    {
        // [A] Using private members
        System.out.format("Matrix[%d*%d]\n", this.numRows, this.numCols);

        // [B] Using accessors
        System.out.format("Matrix[%d*%d]\n", this.rows(), this.cols());
    }

The printDimensions() function illustrates two ways to get the same information, [A] using private members (this.numRows, this.numCols) or [B] via accessors (this.rows(), this.cols()).
On one hand, you may prefer using the accessors since there is no way you could inadvertently change the value of the private member variables.  On the other, you may prefer accessing the private members directly in hopes that it would remove the unnecessary function call.
I guess my question is, is either the de-facto standard or preferred?

A: It's a style call. I prefer to use accessors, because IMHO the function call overhead is small enough that in most cases it doesn't matter, and this usage preserves the data abstraction. If i later want to change the way the data is stored, i only need to change the accessors, instead of hunting for all the places where i touched the variables.
I don't feel strongly about it, though, and i would break this "rule" if i thought i had a good reason to.

A: IMHO, accessors are more a matter of structure and data management rather than accessors per se. Sometimes, you need to preprocess some data before returning it. Think about this example:
public class Foo {

    private List<Bar> bars = null;

    //Methods and stuff

    public List<Bar> getBars() {
        if(bars == null)
            bars = SomeClass.loadBars();
            // You can also use
            // setBars(SomeClass.loadBars());
        return bars;
    }

}

In this case, your getter is not only wrapping your field, but returning an initialized field whenever you invoke it. Using the accessors inside a class gives the same benefits that for outsiders, you abstract yourself from the particular details of a field and you can obtain it after processing it.
On the other hand, if your field is returned directly (say, a String) it doesn't matter if you use a get or you don't, but you might want to use a get to respect a standard in your code.
In the end, it all boils down to coding style.

A: I have other objects, including subclasses of the object, use the accessors, but have the object itself use the fields. That way there is a clear distinction between the internals and the interface with the rest of the world. Hiding the contents of the class from itself seems unnecessary and potentially confusing. If something really benefits from having its implementation hidden from other parts of the object then break it out into a separate object.

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Surprising New Names Top 2019's Popularity List
July 4, 2019 Pamela Redmond
by Sophie Kihm and Pamela Redmond
Nameberry's list of Most Popular Baby Names of 2019 features two new names at Number 1: Archie and Isla.
Midway through the year, Archie attracted 50 percent more page views than any other boys' name. Archie's popularity is thanks largely to Britain's latest royal baby. Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor. The infant son of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex (aka Harry and Meghan) will be christened this weekend
But Archie can stake a genuine claim to the top spot apart from its royal connection. Archie, a diminutive of the Teutonic Archibald which means "truly brave", was the fastest-rising boys' name in the US in 2018. Archie climbed back onto the official list of Top 1000 Baby Names for the first time in 30 years. It's been a Top 100 name in England since 2000.
Isla, a Top 5 Nameberry name of 2018, has surpassed Olivia to reach Number 1 for the first time. Popularized by actress Isla Fisher, this Scottish name meaning island ranks in the Top 10 in Canada, Australia, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and England, yet only Number 82 in the US.
Nameberry's popularity list measures not which names parents chose for the babies in the past but which names are attracting the lion's share of the nearly 30 million views of our name pages in the first half of 2019. It's most valuable as a predictive tool, with names on our Top 100 likely to become more popular on official lists over the coming years.
In the Number 2 spot for girls is Olivia, Nameberry's former reigning queen of girls' names. At Number 2 for boys was Milo, also in second place in 2018. Both are names that feature the fashionable long O sound. Other O-names in our Top 100 include Arlo, Bodhi, Elio, and Margot.
Unique names for girls are popular among Nameberry users. Top 100 baby girl names on Nameberry include several choices that don't make the US Top 1000: the first quarter's Number 1 Posie and Ottilie, along with Imogen, Cleo, and Cordelia.
Several unique names joined the Top 100 Boy Names on Nameberry, including Amias, Caius, Cassian, and Ambrose. These distinguished Latin names are having a style moment in 2019, along with the more established Silas, Atticus, Cassius, and Elias.
International names rank high on Nameberry, which attracts visitors from every country in the world. Scandinavian names such as Freya and Axel are popular. Girls' names that are favorites in the United Kingdom, notably Poppy, Elsie, and Esme, make the Nameberry Top 100. Also ranking on our list are Sanskrit and Hindi names for boys, such as Aarav, Bodhi, and Vihaan.
These are the 100 most popular names of 2019 so far, based on the number of views each name page receives.
Top 100 Girl Names
Posie
Adah
Elliana
Ottilie
Top 100 Boy Names
Aarav
Amias
Vihaan
Pamela Redmond
Pamela Redmond on Facebook Pamela Redmond on Twitter
http://pamelaredmond.com
Pamela Redmond is the cocreator and CEO of Nameberry. The coauthor of ten bestselling baby name books, Redmond is an internationally-recognized name expert, quoted and published widely in such media outlets as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, The Today Show, CNN, and the BBC. Redmond is also a New York Times bestselling novelist whose books include Younger, the basis for the hit television show of the same name.
View all of Pamela Redmond's articles
7 Responses to "Surprising New Names Top 2019's Popularity List"
enchantrasand Said on July 5th, 2019 at 5:34 am
Lyra is listed twice.
Pam Said on July 5th, 2019 at 1:17 pm
Great catch, @enchantrasand! I checked against the master list and #86 was actually Lila, so I made the change. Thank you.
Susette Said on July 6th, 2019 at 3:38 pm
I'm impressed that these names fall squarely on traditional gender lines. Only one unisex name, Harper, among the girls and thankfully it's near the bottom of the list. Word names are also extremely under-represented, with only the trendy Willow, Wren, Atlas, Axel and Bear…thankfully. Surprised that Jayden is still around. And honestly, how did Aryan get to be #15? Maybe it's popular in the Middle East, but Americans and Europeans most likely shun it.
kkilgallon Said on July 7th, 2019 at 11:12 am
7th paragraph incorrectly states that Lilith is not in the US top 1000. It was number 521 last year.
beynotce Said on July 8th, 2019 at 12:38 pm
In this comments section, I learned that Posie, Rose, Ivy, Iris, Violet, Aria, Hazel, Grace, Clementine, Poppy, Sienna, Lily, Jasper, Archer, Roman, August, and Caspian aren't words… thankfully [sic].
Amber W Said on July 8th, 2019 at 5:51 pm
Susette- Aryan always makes this list because it's a list, essentially, of names people are curious about rather than names people actually use. A lot of people would look up Aryan just because they can't believe anyone would use it.
anamingstory Said on July 9th, 2019 at 10:33 pm
Maya is also listed twice.
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