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Middle School Philosophy, Curriculum, and Instruction
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www.stfrancis.edu · College of Education · Regional Educational Academy for Leadership
EEND and MEDU-687
Section TMPL
Modified 09/06/2019
As a Catholic university rooted in the liberal arts, we are a welcoming community of learners challenged by Franciscan values and charism, engaged in a continuous pursuit of knowledge, faith, wisdom, and justice, and ever mindful of a tradition that emphasizes reverence for creation, compassion and peacemaking. We strive for academic excellence in all programs, preparing women and men to contribute to the world through service and leadership.
Focuses on the philosophy of the middle school. It examines the middle school curriculum and instructional methods for designing and teaching developmentally appropriate programs in middle school including content area reading instruction. The course is required for the State of Illinois Middle School Endorsement.
College of Education Mission
The mission of the College of Education is to prepare competent and caring educators who understand students, serve the community and develop professionally to become ethical decision-makers and leaders.
Understanding Students
Candidates will simulate the planning, organizing and instructional experiences of middle level educators. Candidates will understand and create a balanced and integrated curriculum while adhering to specific standards of learning. Candidates will analyze and evaluate a variety of educational theorists and their impact upon middle level educational settings.
Candidates will design developmentally appropriate lessons in various content areas to create appropriate learning experiences for adolescents in middle level educational settings.
Finding Our Professional Selves
Candidates will integrate specific content area information and materials through the development of effective units of instruction.
Access to standards referenced in this section can be found HERE
By the conclusion of the course, each participant will be able to do the following:
To examine the origins and development of middle school education including its philosophy, advantages, functions, and developmental tasks (AMLE Principles-B & C)
To examine the middle school teacher as a professional including personal characteristics, professional preparation, roles and functions (AMLE Principle-D).
To learn how to design an effective unit of instruction in a middle school program that includes balanced curriculum, content area reading, and program design (AMLE Principle-D).
To examine different ways to organize instruction in the middle school including team teaching, interdisciplinary teaching, flexible modular scheduling, and graded versus non-graded organization (AMLE Principle-C).
To learn how to develop creative instructional activities, materials, and learning environments for the middle school student (AMLE Principle-B).
To examine systems for assessment practices appropriate for the middle school (AMLE Principle-C).
To examine the "World Work" in relationship to the role of a teacher in a middle school. Emphasis will be placed on professional ethic, performance expectations, roles and responsibilities, and workplace relationships (AMLE Principle-D).
Brown, D. & Knowles, T. (2014). What every middle school teacher should know (3rd ed.). Westerville, OH: National Middle School Association
Content and Text Related Discussions
Specific directions for each assignment or discussion are provided within the online course.
Course Outcomes: 1,2,4,5,6,7
Standards: AMLE Principles B,C,D
Teacher and Adolescent Characteristics
After examining effective adolescent educator competency and characteristics, candidates will evaluate their personal traits and professional preparation and the positive/negative impact these qualities may have in the adolescent classroom and with adolescent learners.
Course Outcomes: 2,7
Standards: AMLE Principle D
Middle School Principles, Practices & Beliefs
Candidates will examine the origins and development of the middle school philosophy and determine the roles and responsibilities of adolescent educators in this type of educational program design.
Course Outcomes: 1,2,4,7
Middle School Teaming Assignments
Candidates will examine the personal and professional characteristics required to effectively participate in a middle level Core or Exploratory Team. Key elements of team meetings will be analyzed.
Course Outcomes: 2,3,7
Standards: AMLE Principles C,D
Advisory Unit Assignment
Candidates are required to create one week of advisory activities that meet adolescent social and emotional needs. The advisory unit includes a rationale for the topic/activities, an outline of daily objectives, procedures, materials, and thoughtful reflection.
Reading and Writing in the Content Area
Candidates will evaluate the readability levels of instructional materials and create a learning experience that effectively integrates reading and writing in the content area.
Course Outcomes 3,5,6
Standards: AMLE B,C,D
Interdisciplinary Team Project
Each candidate is assigned to an interdisciplinary CORE or Exploratory team. As a group, the candidates will simulate an effective middle school team. Each team will create school and team identity, and the structure for an interdisciplinary unit of instruction. Each member of the team will be responsible for individual and team assignments within the Interdisciplinary Team Project.
Policies for the College of Education at University of St. Francis
CLICK HERE for policies, including but not limited to:
Method of Instruction
Expectations of Candidates
Attendance Policies for Site-Based and Online Courses
Minimum Standards for Writing
Course Evaluations | IDEA Surveys
USF has elected to participate in the AQIP Program which requires a focus on continuous quality improvement as part of our Higher Learning Commission accreditation. The information learned during the IDEA Course Evaluations is an important part of maintaining quality and continuous improvement in courses, and it is the University's expectation that students will thoughtfully participate in this evaluation process.
Institutional Policies
Students should use the USF portal as the first resource for guidance and support on items such as student complaints, safety, security and transportation questions, contact information for various USF departments, student support services such as counseling and academic resources. Information on these resources can be found in the "For Students" section of the USF portal.
A complete listing of university policies and procedures can be found in the University of St. Francis Course Catalog and Student Handbook. For the most current version of the catalog, please visit http://stfrancis.edu/academics/university-catalog
Academic integrity requires that all academic work be wholly the product of an identified individual or individuals. Collaboration is only acceptable when it is explicitly acknowledged. Ethical conduct is the obligation of every member of the University community, and breaches of academic integrity constitute serious offenses. Since a lack of integrity hinders the student's academic development, it cannot be tolerated under any circumstances. Violations include but are not limited to: cheating, fabrication, facilitating academic dishonesty, plagiarism, and denying others access to information or material. See the USF Catalog for further clarification and information on grievance procedures.
Services and Accommodations for Students with Disabilities (ADA)
The University strives to be in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the ADA Amendments Act (ADAAA). A student who requires special accommodations or arrangements due to a disability should contact the Office of Disability Services. This contact preferably should occur no later than the first week of classes. Early contact before the semester starts is encouraged to allow sufficient time to provide accommodations. Extra time is needed for some types of accommodations such as sign language interpreters or special text formatting. Should a need arrive after the start of a semester; the student is encouraged to contact the Office of Disability Services as soon as possible. Note that accommodations are not retroactive. Each case will be reviewed on an individual basis to determine reasonable and appropriate accommodations.
USF is committed to ensuring the full participation of all students in its programs, regardless of the course format. If you have a documented disability and need a reasonable accommodation to participate in a course, complete course requirements, or benefit from the University's programs or services, please contact the Office of Disability Services at 815-740-3631 or [email protected] . The Office of Disability Services is in the Academic Resource Center (ARC) and is located on the second floor of the LaVerne and Dorothy Brown Library in room L214. Consultations are welcome, please contact the Office of Disability Services for an appointment.
The Department of Academic Technology (DAT) administers the learning management system Canvas. If you are experiencing any difficulty using Canvas or need technical assistance, you have several options to receive support, including:
24x7 Live Canvas Support. If you experience technical difficulties or have a question about Canvas, you can receive support 24 hours a day 7 days a week through the Canvas help menu. From the help menu, select Chat with Canvas Support for a "live" text-based click-to-chat session,
select Report a Problem to send an email support request, or speak to someone directly by using the toll-free number listed under the Canvas Support Hotline.
NOTE: Responses to Canvas' email-based Report a Problem request system will go to your USF stfrancis.edu email account, NOT your personal email.
2. Online Self-Service Help Resources. A student user guide and other resources for solving issues related to Canvas can be found at http://learnitnow.stfrancis.edu
3. Telephone Support from DAT. You can also phone the Department of Academic Technology for personal help at (815) 740-5080 or (866) 337-1497 (toll-free) between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. Central Standard Time, Monday through Friday.
For any technical support issues that are not related to Canvas, please contact the USF Technology Support Center (TSC). You can reach them via:
Phone: 1-815-768-TECH (8324)
Web: http://techsupport.stfrancis.edu
Or visit them on the first floor of Marian Hall
Notice of Copyright
This course may contain copyrighted materials that are intended to support the learning experiences of students currently enrolled in the course. No student may retain or further disseminate any copyrighted materials, in their entirety or any portion thereof, under penalty of law.
The Academic Resource Center (ARC) located in Room L214 in the Library (815-740-5060) offers various types of academic services. Online and distance learning students can contact ARC for appropriate resources. ARC serves students who need tutoring in many areas of study including writing and math. Library services include a number of online services and full text databases. Call the Library at 815-740-5041 for additional information. If you need academic-related resources or assistance, please contact the Academic Resource Center.
Course References
Atwell, N. (1995). In the Middle: Writing, reading, and learning with adolescents. Heinemann Publishers.
Callahan, J., Clark, L., Kellough, R. (1995). Teaching in the middle and secondary schools. Prentice Hall Publisher.
Edwards, C. (2005). Teaching and learning in the middle and secondary schools. Prentice Hall Publisher.
Manning, M. L., Bucher, K. (2005). Teaching in the middle school. Prentice Hall Publisher.
Marzano, R. J., (2003). What works in schools: Translating research into action. ASCD.
Payne, R. (1996). A framework for understanding poverty (3rd ed.). Aha! Processes Inc..
Senge, P. (2000). Schools that learn. Doubleday Publishers.
Wong, H. K., Wong, R. T., (2003). The first days of school. Wong Publications.
Weber, E. (2005). MI strategies in the classroom and beyond. Pearson Publications.
Zemelman, S., Daniels, H., Hyde, A., (1995). Best practice: New standards for teaching and learning in America's schools. Heinemann Publishers.
Additional Course References
Specific Digital References used in Online Course Interactions:
Niska, J. M, Thompson, S. C. (2007). Launching a successful advisory program: Professional development kit. Westerville, Ohio: National Middle School Association.
Ullock, K. (2004). The importance of teaming. Blue Sky Broadcast: National Middle School Association.
All times are America/Chicago. The time is 4:56 PM.
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Home 2022 Ukrainian Athletic Association wins President's Award
Ukrainian Athletic Association wins President's Award
The Ukrainian Athletic Association has been awarded the President's Award as part of the World Athletics Awards 2022.
World Athletics President Sebastian Coe presented Ukrainian Athletic Association President Yevhen Pronin with the award on Wednesday (30) at the World Athletics Council Meeting in Rome.
"I couldn't think of anyone worthier than this for this year's award," said Coe. "What the Ukrainian Athletics Federation President, the coaches, and the athletes have done is just worthy of everyone's respect and recognition."
Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine earlier this year, the majority of Ukraine's elite athletes were unable to continue training, let alone competing. But the country's athletes showed remarkable resilience and made the most of any support that came their way – including the Ukraine Relief Fund, which was launched in April by World Athletics, the International Athletics Foundation and the Diamond League Association.
Ukraine's elite athletes were then able to find alternative training locations in Europe and the rest of the world, and were ultimately able to compete at this year's major international events. Among their many medal successes in 2022, Yaroslava Mahuchikh took high jump gold at the World Athletics Indoor Championships Belgrade 22, while Maryna Bekh-Romanchuk won the European triple jump title.
"Our country and our federation are currently at the most difficult stage in our history," said Pronin. "However, we understand that sport should not only live, it should develop. It's difficult to develop, but we have planned at least five sports festivals in Ukraine in December. Most of our athletes are based in other parts of Europe at the moment, and we'd like to thank World Athletics and European Athletics for helping us. Things are still difficult but we know our target and we know how to achieve it.
"Earlier this year our federation had a virtual board meeting and we decided that we wouldn't take part in international competitions in 2022 because we didn't know how our athletes and coaches would be able to travel," explained Pronin. "But I then thought about it some more and after three days I felt like our athletes must represent Ukraine across the world, so I went back to our board and asked them to change our decision.
"In every championships this year, our athletes have competed for medals, we have shown our flag, and we have heard our national anthem," he added. "But just as importantly, it has given people from our country an opportunity to talk to international media to let them know what is happening back in Ukraine."
Coe said that he could think of no one more deserving of this year's award than the Ukrainian federation and its athletes.
"For the resistance and fortitude that your athletes have shown – supported by you, your federation and your coaches – that is why I felt absolutely impelled to present this year's President's Award to you and your federation," said Coe.
"It's not just the federation; it's the coaches, the administrators, and the support you had at a governmental level. Really this award is for all of you, but particularly for you, Yevhenii, for the extraordinary effort you've made to primarily keep the athletes in competition and in training. It has been one of the greatest contributions that anyone has made to our sport in a very long time."
The President's Award, first awarded in 2016, recognises and honours exceptional service to athletics. Past winners of the award include British journalist Vikki Orvice, Swiss meeting director Andreas Brugger, Jamaican sprint superstar Usain Bolt and Kenyan distance great Tegla Loroupe.
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I am not crazed. - "Landolin", Berthold Auerbach.


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Can psychedelics meet their potential for treating mental health disorders?
Drugs that offer profound shifts in consciousness still face many hurdles
In 2019, Denver residents voted to decriminalize psilocybin mushrooms, which can induce a psychedelic shift in consciousness. In 2020, Oregon legalized psilocybin-assisted therapy, recognizing its possible medicinal value. Other locales may soon follow suit.
Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images
By Laura Sanders
Kanu Caplash was lying on a futon in a medical center in Connecticut, wearing an eye mask and listening to music. But his mind was far away, tunneling down through layer upon layer of his experiences. As part of a study of MDMA, a psychedelic drug also known as molly or ecstasy, Caplash was on an inner journey to try to ease his symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.
On this particular trip, Caplash, now 22, returned to the locked bathroom door of his childhood home. As a kid, he used to lock himself in to escape the yelling adults outside. But now, he was both outside the locked door, knocking, and inside, as his younger, frightened self.
He started talking to his younger self. "I open the door, and my big version picks up my younger version of myself, and literally carries me out," he says. "I carried myself out of there and drove away."
That self-rescue brought Caplash peace. "I got out of there. I'm alive. It's all right. I'm OK." For years, Caplash had experienced flashbacks, nightmares and insomnia from childhood trauma. He thought constantly about killing himself, he says. His experiences while on MDMA changed his perspective. "I still have the memory, but that anger and pain is not there anymore."
Caplash's transcendent experiences, spurred by three therapy sessions on MDMA, happened in 2018 as part of a research project on PTSD. Along with a handful of other studies, that research suggests that when coupled with psychotherapy, mind-altering drugs bring some people immediate, powerful and durable relief.
In 2018, Kanu Caplash participated in a clinical trial of MDMA as a treatment for PTSD. The experience brought him relief, he says. Today he is a college student who works as a mental health advocate.Kasey Schempf
Those studies, and the intense media coverage they received, have helped launch psychedelic medicine into the public conversation in the United States, England and elsewhere. Academic groups devoted to studying psychedelics have sprung up at Johns Hopkins, Yale, New York University Langone Health, the University of California, San Francisco and other research institutions. Private investors have ponied up millions of dollars for research on psychedelic drugs. The state of Oregon has started the process of legalizing therapeutic psilocybin, the key chemical in hallucinogenic mushrooms; lawmakers in other states and cities are considering the same move.
New ways to help people with PTSD, depression, anxiety and other mental health disorders are desperately needed. An estimated 30 percent of people with depression, for instance, don't get relief from current treatments. Psychedelics, some researchers and clinicians believe, may help.
"The promise is incredible," says Monnica Williams, a psychologist at the University of Ottawa, who ran the clinical trial Caplash participated in at UConn Health in Farmington. "Psychedelics have the potential to really completely revolutionize mental health and change everything."
But a cloud of questions hovers over the research. It's not known how the therapy works or who it might work for. Even if these new treatments perform well in clinical trials, the drugs, and the mind-bending experiences they bring, won't appeal to everyone. What's more, the drugs may not be available, or they may cost too much.
Psychedelic drugs, including MDMA, psilocybin and the hallucinogen LSD, which is also being studied as a treatment for depression and other mental health disorders, are illegal under federal law, classified as Schedule 1 substances by the U.S. government — with high potential for abuse and no currently accepted medical use. Many people may be reluctant to take an illegal drug that lowers their defenses and makes them vulnerable, no matter how great the promise of healing.
Social and legal hurdles, barriers to access and scientific questions make it unlikely that psychedelics will replace current mental health treatments, many experts agree. More likely is that with enough research, psychedelic substances will become another tool for doctors and therapists.
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Caplash remembers what MDMA did for him right after his sessions. "I wasn't as angry as I was before. My muscles were a lot less tense. I could literally see clearer," Caplash says. "As I went through the study, I was also becoming a different person."
The benefits are still with him. Caplash no longer thinks of suicide. A biology major at the University of Connecticut, he has big dreams and advocates for more accessible mental health care for others. "I feel like I'm at peace, to an extent," he says. "I know who I am and what I want to do."
A winding path
Psychedelic drugs are not new. Scientists at the pharmaceutical company Merck made MDMA in 1912. Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann synthesized LSD in 1938, and Aldous Huxley popularized his experience on mescaline, a psychedelic compound made by certain cacti, in his 1954 book The Doors of Perception. When people talk about the psychedelic renaissance, they often begin with Hofmann and Huxley, says Sutton King, who advocates to include Indigenous voices in discussions about psychedelics and is an Afro-Indigenous member of the Menominee and Oneida Nations of Wisconsin.
But the story of psychedelics starts long before then. Indigenous communities around the world have used psilocybin and other consciousness-changing compounds for healing for thousands of years.
"The traditional Indigenous Nations … have had these connections to these medicines," says King, who is cofounder and president of the Urban Indigenous Collective, a nonprofit advocacy group in New York City.
Belinda Eriacho, a wisdom carrier of Dine' (Navajo) and A:shiwi (Zuni) descent, believes that psychedelic drugs, called sacred plant medicines by some Indigenous groups, are catalysts to help align mental, physical, spiritual and emotional health. "We were the knowledge keepers," she says. "A lot of our understanding about these medicines is through practical experiences. They are not something you can read in a book."
But around the middle of the 20th century, medical researchers, dissatisfied with existing mental health treatments, began trying to quantify these drugs' effects on mental states. A flurry of research yielded promising hints, but many of those early attempts didn't yield solid data. Some experiments were poorly designed; worse, some were deeply unethical, forcing high doses of psychedelics on people who were incarcerated or experiencing psychosis. Many of those study subjects were people of color.
In the 1960s, social and political sentiments began turning against these drugs — and the counterculture they represented — in both non-Indigenous and Indigenous communities. The U.S. government criminalized the use of psychedelics to keep them out of the public's hands. The new restrictions kept the drugs out of researchers' hands, too.
Psilocybin can change brain activity, but it's not clear if these shifts relate to mental health. In a study in healthy people, red and orange show where psilocybin boosted brain connectivity compared with a placebo. Those regions are important for handling information coming in from the senses. Blue shows where connections were weaker in people who took psilocybin than in those on a placebo.
The brain on psilocybin
K.H. Preller et al/Biological Psychiatry 2020K.H. Preller et al/Biological Psychiatry 2020
That social shift stigmatized the drugs and whatever promise they held, says neuroscientist Rachel Yehuda, who has studied PTSD for decades at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. Current drug treatments for PTSD, such as antidepressants or sleep medications, don't work well for some people, she says. These medicines may help with symptoms, but don't get at the root of the problem. Psychedelics might do more, she's come to realize.
Two years ago, when Yehuda began studying psychedelic drugs, she faced a lot of skepticism. But those dismissals have disappeared. "The general attitude in academic medicine right now is, 'Gosh, let's try it. Let's see. Maybe it will be good. Wouldn't that be nice?' "
In some ways, psychedelics can outperform approved psychiatric drugs such as Prozac and other selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs. And so far, the data suggest psychedelics work quickly, appear to be safe and have lasting effects, says Atheir Abbas, a psychiatrist and neuroscientist at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland. "That is hard to come by. I think that is extremely exciting."
In the last five years, a handful of high-quality, albeit small, studies have suggested tremendous benefits from the psychedelic psilocybin for depression, anxiety and PTSD. The studies differ in their details, but many follow a similar arc. Generally, the studies begin with talk therapy sessions, followed by several therapy sessions in which participants are under the influence of a psychedelic drug. More psychotherapy comes afterward. At certain points in the process, researchers measure the participants' symptoms.
Psilocybin-assisted therapy quickly reduced signs of depression among 24 participants with moderate or severe depression, scientists reported in 2020 in JAMA Psychiatry. Four weeks after two psilocybin sessions, 71 percent of the participants had maintained a drop of at least 50 percent in their scores on a depression rating scale called the GRID-HAMD.
Depression drop
People who received two psilocybin sessions with psychotherapy had fewer symptoms of depression one week after their second dose, at week 5, and at week 8 than people who had not yet received the treatment. Error bars show the variation among individual responses.
Effects of immediate versus delayed psilocybin therapy on depression
C. ChangC. Chang
Source: A.K. Davis et al/JAMA Psychiatry 2020
Earlier work showed psilocybin could help with depression and anxiety in patients facing life-threatening cancer; the benefits were still there about four years after the psilocybin treatment, researchers reported in the Journal of Psychopharmacology in 2020.
MDMA therapy seemed to have similar effects in an international study of 90 people with PTSD. Two-thirds of those who got MDMA no longer qualified for a PTSD diagnosis at the end of the trial, compared with about one-third of participants who received placebos. Those results appeared May 10 in Nature Medicine.
Collectively, the studies offer strong hints that psilocybin, MDMA and other psychedelic drugs can help in these research settings, says Scott Thompson, a neuroscientist at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore. "All of them are giving the same sort of signal," he says.
We're in a moment when Western research is converging with the long history of Indigenous knowledge, King says. There is a place for both approaches, "two truths," as King puts it, when it comes to helping people with psychedelic drugs.
King adds that the excitement coming from laboratories is accompanied by fear for some Indigenous people: fear of their ceremonies being appropriated, fear of worsening access to their medicines and fear of these substances being misunderstood. "It's an exciting time, but it's also a scary time for Indigenous peoples," she says.
The healing components
One big question is how the various psychedelic drugs work. "If you look at all the knobs people are turning, it's really not known what's critical and what's not," Abbas says. The talk therapy that often goes with the drugs, the psychedelic trip or other drug effects could all be important.
Some people suspect that the psychotherapy is the healing component, not the drug itself. And plenty of data show that therapy works well for some people. Many of the key trials so far have been testing the drug in tandem with intense psychotherapy. Caplash, for instance, had multiple therapy sessions before, during and after his MDMA experiences. Similarly intense therapy sessions happened for people in the trial of psilocybin for depression. The drugs might make a person open to exploring some of the painful events of their past during therapy.
Others suspect that the psychedelic trip itself, the hallucinatory experience, is a crucial part of the treatment. That's a hard question to study, but not impossible, Yehuda says. "We need the science to understand what transformation looks like, and how a drug facilitates it," she says. "We've been afraid of studying the biology of altered states, or even consciousness, because it feels so wonky and so unscientific and so subjective and woo woo. But I think we should be up for this challenge."
Other scientists are focusing on the actions of the drugs themselves, by looking inside the brain. Thompson, for instance, suspects that it's possible to get the benefits and skip the trip by restricting cells' responses to serotonin, a chemical messenger that's thought to be involved in the hallucinations. His recent study in mice hints that this just might be possible.
In the mice, Thompson and colleagues blocked a sensor thought to spark psilocybin-related hallucinations. When this serotonin-detecting receptor, called 5-HT2A, was blocked, the mice appeared to stop tripping (their heads no longer twitched). Yet, psilocybin still had antidepressive effects on the mice, restoring a lost preference for sugar water. The result raises the idea that the antidepressant effects associated with psychedelics can come without the hallucinations, the researchers reported in the April 27 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
If a similar thing could happen in people, "you could retain the benefits but block the trip," Thompson says. "The trip is the thing that makes you have to spend all day in the hospital with a facilitator there, and makes it expensive, and keeps psychedelics from being widely used," Thompson says. "Being able to block the trip would lower the barriers in many ways."
Eriacho, who has used psychedelics for her own healing, says the holistic experience is what matters. Psychedelic medicines allow a person to go within, to the pockets of the mind where traumas lurk, and begin to heal. "That is what it's done for me," she says. But the ceremony, the ritual and the wider context were all keys to her healing.
In a research setting, psychedelic drugs are paired with psychotherapy that involves cycles of introspection and supportive talking.MAPS
The trials completed so far have been small and included mostly white volunteers. Williams and colleagues tallied participants in psychedelic studies from 2008 to 2017. Of the 282 people who took part (and for whom race or ethnicity data were available), just 50 were not white, the researchers wrote in 2018 in BMC Psychiatry.
People of color have been underrepresented in these studies for many reasons, says Williams, who designed her study at UConn Health to specifically look at the effects of MDMA-assisted therapy in people of color. Caplash, who is Indian-American, was the first and only person to go through the process at UConn. Soon after his participation, the trial was stopped at that site. Other enrolled volunteers there were unenrolled, says Williams, now at the University of Ottawa.
"This is a very marginalized and vulnerable group," she says. "There were fears that if anything really bad happened [during the trial], it would reflect very badly on the university." UConn Health spokesperson Lauren Woods says that is false. The clinical trial was stopped for a "variety of reasons," she wrote in an e-mail to Science News, declining to provide specifics.
Without strong efforts to create inclusive studies that actively recruit a diverse group of people into the trials, train therapists of color and consider racial trauma, psychedelic drugs will not be accessible to everyone who might benefit from them, Williams says. "This needs to be an important part of what we do," she says. "We can't keep doing it the same way it was done in the past."
Yehuda aims to design treatments for "the populations who need it the most," she says. That includes combat veterans with PTSD. She and her colleagues are beginning to enroll 60 veterans in a clinical trial at the James J. Peters Veterans Affairs Medical Center in the Bronx, N.Y., where Yehuda directs the Mental Health Patient Care Center. "We are hoping to enroll a lot of ethnically diverse and racially diverse people, because we already serve them," Yehuda says. "We've done a lot of the trust work already."
As part of her studies, Yehuda plans to get at the question of who the drugs might work for, and why, in part by scrutinizing biological differences between people who get relief from the psychedelics and people who don't. "We're going to ask these somewhat tougher questions," she says. "There is going to be a science about who [MDMA] is particularly good for."
Meanwhile, the people making laws and policies are impatient for the science to yield answers. In 2020, Oregon voters approved Measure 109, which provides a sanctioned way to offer people psilocybin-assisted therapy. The state's Psilocybin Advisory Board, which includes doctors, scientists and even a mushroom biologist, has two years to figure out how the state will regulate that effort.
Abbas is on that advisory board. Speaking personally and not on behalf of that board, he says designing a system for psilocybin-based therapy is immensely complex. "It's not just who, but it's how you identify those folks, it's how you regulate the providers, how you regulate the psilocybin."
Though studies so far have mainly focused on the performance of psychedelic drugs from a scientific perspective, other considerations are important, too. Perspectives from Indigenous peoples will be sought out, Abbas says.
"There needs to be this meeting of the minds, and the openness that the scientific and Western way of thinking is not always the right way," Eriacho says. Clinical trials, for instance, often rely on narrowly defined clinical surveys to capture symptoms. "Those are Western concepts," she says, and from her perspective, those metrics miss a lot. "You don't have a very comprehensive way of looking at what an individual may be experiencing," she says.
What Oregon's psilocybin program will ultimately look like is still anyone's guess. The same is true for use of other psychedelics. There is no single story to be found amid all of these diverse and intersecting perspectives — Indigenous traditions, Western medicalization, social movements, eager private investors.
In the place of one story, we have many, including that of Kanu Caplash, who feels healed by an experience enabled by a psychedelic drug. His transformation was deeply personal. Yet it gives us a glimpse of something possible and powerful.
If you or someone you care about may be at risk of suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, a free, 24/7 service that offers support, information and local resources: 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
Editor's Note:
This article was updated on December 6, 2021 to note that Aldous Huxley's 1953 book The Doors of Perception chronicled his experienced with mescaline, not LSD.
J. M. Mitchell et al. MDMA-assisted therapy for severe PTSD: A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled phase 3 study. Nature Medicine. Published online May 10, 2021. doi: 10.1038/s41591-021-01336-3.
A. K. Davis et al. Effects of psilocybin-assisted therapy on major depressive disorder: A randomized clinical trial. JAMA Psychiatry. November 4, 2020. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2020.3285.
G.I. Agin-Liebes et al. Long-term follow-up of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy for psychiatric and existential distress in patients with life-threatening cancer. Journal of Psychopharmacology. Published online January 28, 2020. doi: 10.1177/0269881119897615.
T. Michaels et al. Inclusion of people of color in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy: a review of the literature. BMC Psychiatry. July 31, 2018. doi: 10.1186/s12888-018-1824-6.
N. Hesselgrave et al. Harnessing psilocybin: antidepressant-like behavioral and synaptic actions of psilocybin are independent of 5-HT2R activation in mice. PNAS, Vol. 118, issue 17. April 27, 2021. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2022489118.
J.R. George et al. The psychedelic renaissance and the limitations of a white-dominant medical framework: A call for Indigenous and ethnic minority inclusion. Journal of Psychedelic Studies. Published March 1, 2020. doi: 10.1556/2054.2019.015.
About Laura Sanders
Laura Sanders is the neuroscience writer. She holds a Ph.D. in molecular biology from the University of Southern California.
A massive crater hides beneath Greenland's ice
By Carolyn Gramling November 14, 2018
New analysis rejuvenates Himalayas
By Sid Perkins March 20, 2001
Why won't this debate about an ancient cold snap die?
By Carolyn Gramling June 26, 2018


WEEK 6 HOMEWORK - As part of our health studies - fill out the Food Diary, Am I Aware of What I Put Into My Mouth". Remember our nutrition expert is coming in to see us.
Click here to find out about homework this week.


If you are a genuinely out-going individual person who enjoys helping others, then a career in the Hospitality & Catering section could be for you! There are a variety of different roles that could be perfect to help you find that ideal job niche. Here we've listed some of the top ten jobs to help showcase the multi-faceted world of Hospitality & Catering. Whether you'd like to explore jobs in the kitchen, the bar, back of house or front of house, or as a role in management, this sector will definitely hold something you'd like.
1. Event Planner – Duties include coordinating all logistics of an event, from conception to completion. Be prepared to deal with venues of all different sizes – jobs could range from setting up a small room for a motivational speaker, to a huge detailed wedding. Event planners must create and adhere to a budget to hire whatever may be needed, specific to their event: speakers, entertainment, lighting, transport, and food and drink.
2. Restaurant Manager – These managers must maintain the business/monetary performance of their establishment, as well as maintaining high standards of health and safety. You will need to analyze sales and keep records to help promote your business and keep up a solid reputation. Will also need to train and hire staff, create weekly schedules, handle customer complaints, organize reservations, and ensure that there is clear communication between all sectors of staff to make sure everything runs smoothly.
3. Hotel Manager – Hotel Managers are required to make sure all that operations in their establishment are successful and profitable. They will plan, organize, and direct all facets of hotel operations and create reports with strategic overviews to increase profits while keeping costs low. Will need to set rates, handle customer service issues, as well as day to day management of all staff – from front of house to the back, including the kitchens to ensure quality standards that will meet with guests' expectations.
4. Executive Chef – These Head Chefs will need to oversee all kitchen staffing (bothing hiring and training) as well as paying special attention to the creation of a menu that will include unique dishes to help drive customer satisfaction. They must track the dishes' popularity and the reactions to them to help them estimate consumption. This will aid them in figuring out their food ordering, as they must deal with suppliers on a constant basis and make sure their stock is up to health standards.
5. Concierge – As the face of the front of the hotel, your most important asset here is a friendly and outgoing demeanor, as your want to make sure that your guests have the more pleasurable experiences possible. You will assist guests with making reservations, and manage all the guest records. You will also need to have a general knowledge of the area, as you will also need to recommend interesting tours and outings of notable places in the area, and then make reservations and travel plans.
6. Kitchen Assistant – Kitchen Assistants will mainly include directly helping the head chef with kitchen duties, including to make sure that the busy kitchen runs smoothly. They must help ensure that food orders arrive and go out on time and in order, basic food prep, and making sure that the kitchen adheres to the strict health and safety regulations.
7. Catering Manager – You must be able to plan all catering for different functions of varying sizes and crowds – anything such as a small business' luncheon, to a grandiose wedding. Catering managers need to plan menus to the specific crowd, and order needed supplies (such as food amounts, silverware, stemware, etc) all while maintaining and keeping to a certain budget. Duties include managing entire kitchen staff to ensure productivity and efficiency of the food standards, financial budgets, and ultimately, the customer satisfaction.
8. Maid/House Cleaning – Duties will include a variety of cleaning tasks including but not limited to: making beds, changing linens, cleaning rooms, dusting, vacuuming, taking care of trash, and restocking all supplies in bathrooms. You want to be sure that the space is clean and tidy.and in working condition to guarantee the satisfaction of the customers.
9. Sommelier – This is an interesting and quickly growing skilled profession that requires extensive knowledge of wine. You will be pairing wine with food, as well as educating customers about the depth of the tastes, as well as the region it came from and the blends of grapes it was made with. Other duties include being asked to create a wine list based on recipes, and taking care of managing a restaurant's wine cellars with ordering and making sure that the wine hasn't gone off.
10. Bar Manager – You will make sure that your establishment runs smoothly by overseeing your staff and managing stock. Duties include publishing staff schedules, hiring and training new employees, ensuring the quality of the beer and wine, as well as handling customer complaints. As a manager, you will also need to keep an up to date licensing registration and stick to a strict budget when ordering. You will want to set up an effective operation, and build relations with clients to ensure customer satisfaction.
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An MLA of Bihar's ruling Janata Dal (U) party, Neeraj Kumar Singh Bablu, wanted in a 13-year-old case of robbery and murder, has surrendered in a court Katihar district.
In 2000, a group of robbers had intercepted and looted Rs 5 lakh from the cash van of the Bareta branch of State Bank of India in Katihar district. Bank guard Dinesh Ram had been shot dead by the robbers when he tried to resist.
A case had been filed in Falka Police Station and the MLA's name came up during the investigation. Katihar superintendent of police Asgar Imam said the accused surrendered on Monday in the court of Katihar sub-divisional judicial magistrate.
An MLA from Chhatapur constituency in Supaul district of north Bihar, Bablu won assembly elections in 2005 and 2010 on JD(U) ticket despite being on the wanted list of the police.
He said is believed to be 'ardent supporter' of former MP Anand Mohan, who is currently serving life sentence in connection with December 1994 murder of the then Gopalganj district magistrate G Krishnaiah.


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(en espagnol Encore plus de vampires à La Havane) est un long métrage d'animation hispano-cubain réalisé par Juan Padrón et sorti en 2003. C'est un dessin animé fantastique et humoristique qui constitue la suite du film d'animation Vampires à La Havane sorti en 1985. Contrairement au premier film, cette suite ne bénéficie pas d'une sortie en salles en France.

Synopsis

Fiche technique
 Titre original :
 Réalisation : Juan Padrón
 Scénario : Juan Padrón, Senel Paz
 Musique originale : Robert Egües
 Image : Armando Alba
 Montage : Carlos Fernández, Guillermo S. Maldonado
 Production : Aramis Acosta, Norma Martínez, Paco Prats
 Sociétés de production : Iskra S.L., Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industrias Cinematográficos (ICAIC)
 Pays : ,
 Langue : espagnol
 Durée : 80 minutes
 Format : couleur
 Date de sortie : 2003 (Festival du film de La Havane, Cuba)

Notes et références

Liens externes

Film cubain sorti en 2006
Film espagnol sorti en 2006
Film d'animation cubain
Film d'animation espagnol
Comédie cubaine
Film musical cubain
Film musical espagnol de comédie
Film fantastique cubain
Comédie fantastique espagnole
Film musical des années 2000
Film de vampire
Film se déroulant à Cuba
Suite de film cubain
Suite de film espagnol

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


As part of continual efforts to better serve their community of PC and Mac gamers, GamersGate today increased their download speeds by as much as four times by migrating their game library to a powerful, performance-optimized Content Delivery Network (CDN) hosted by leading Internet solutions company, Internap Network Services Corporation. Effective immediately, users can now download their favorite games faster and easier than ever before.
"As an online retailer, our first priority is to constantly seek technological solutions that will help us increase our quality of service to customers," said Theo Bergquist, CEO of GamersGate. "This transition to an incredible high speed CDN will greatly decrease the amount of time players must spend waiting for their favorite games to download."
By hosting their library of thousands of downloadable PC and Mac games on this new CDN network, GamersGate multiplies, several-fold, the speed at which their customers can download their favorite video games. Increasing download speeds is only one facet of GamersGate's continued dedication to their philosophy of maintaining the absolute highest quality of service for gamers across the world.
Internap's CDN optimizes online game downloading and the overall player experience through its patented Managed Internet Route Optimizer (MIRO) technology, which analyzes network performance characteristics – such as available bandwidth, delays and packet loss – in real time and ensures that Internet traffic is routed over the best path 100% of the time.
Trickster, Pangya, Vegas, Oh My!


Health conditions such as Parkinson's, strokes, hearing loss, arthritis and dementia affect a substantial proportion of the population. A good understanding of common health conditions is essential in any care environment. Develop your knowledge of various health conditions and how to monitor them.
Many people find it helpful and empowering to seek the support of counselling at some point in their lives. Develop the correct understanding, knowledge and skills to provide others with support to improve personal well-being.
Improve your service standards by developing positive working relationships with patients, families and residents. This course will enable you to understand the specific needs of patients and improve the customer's experience in health and social care services.
Companies are legally required to follow a set of practices to ensure discrimination is eradicated and expectations of equality are met. Improve your understanding of the key principles of equality and diversity and reduce the risk of discrimination and prejudice in the workplace.
Offering clear and accurate information, advice or guidance and knowing what can be shared legally and professionally can greatly improve outcomes for a business. Improve your understanding of effective communication techniques and increase your knowledge of confidentiality, recordkeeping and signposting.
This course will enable you to understand the many factors that can impact a child or young person at different stages of their development. You will explore how development can be influenced by factors such as nutrition and improve your knowledge of safeguarding responsibilities.
Develop an understanding of the context of a lean environment and learn how to implement a productivity needs analysis. Encourage cultural change for the better in your organisation. Improves productivity and quality of service.


text:
Outside Lands 2015 Music Festival in Golden Gate Park San Francisco
For three days this August, Golden Gate Park transforms into a musical wonderland where the biggest acts from around the globe come to play live. Along with today's hottest artists playing to thousands of fans, there will be hilarious comedians, tasty food from the Bay Area's best restaurants, and plenty of local wines and microbrews to taste. This is the ultimate summer party, and it all takes place in the lush landscape of the city's most famous park.
This year's headliners include the legendary Elton John and British folk-rock heroes Mumford & Sons. But that's only the beginning of an incredible lineup that brings a huge selection of talent to the stage each day. From the soulful sounds of D'Angelo and the bluesy tunes of The Black Keys to the beautiful voice of Sam Smith and the electronic beats of Hot Chip, this concert has something for every musical taste. Other artists schedule to appear include Wilco, Kendrick Lamar, St. Vincent, Billy Idol, and Caribou among dozens more.
Music is not the only thing on the menu during the festival. You can also expect some of the country's funniest comedians to bring the laughs and an art show featuring some of the city's most creative talents. Attendees can fuel up on some of the best tastes from the Bay Area. Several food trucks and carts will be on hand from Mexican to Vietnamese fare, and many of the city's finest restaurants will be preparing special meals just for the festival. If you are going to this year's festival, book a room at our boutique hotel conveniently located near Union Square with public transportation access to Golden Gate Park.


text:
Q: Should I write my own data structures to deal with the semantic resolving or using STL directly in a compiler project I found that STL is so heavy to use, such as vector, string, etc,. As a compiler project, speed and memory are both mattered. So, if I take string as its core data structure, it hard to improve translate speed.
I wander what's your solution to handle strings in your project?
thanks !

A: Used correctly, the STL is generally zero overhead. It is as efficient as hand-rolled C code, so there's little reason to avoid it for performance reasons.
However, if you need functionality that doesn't exist in the STL, then yes, you'll probably be better off writing your own, than trying to force an STL class into doing something it wasn't meant for.

there are many name looking up in my project, such as "com.google.voice....", if I use std::string, it must be sliced again and again. First, head node "com" is sliced, if "com" object has been found, the other names "google.voice...." should be look up in this object recursively. Are there any better solution to avoid slice string repeatedly?

I would use iterators.
Say you have a string s = "com.google.voice", then simply define iterators pointing at the beginning of the string, and at the separator between each substring. Then instead of creating a completely new string to represent "com", you simply use the two iterators pointing at the start and the end of the string.
Boost.StringAlgo contains a lot of common string operations implemented to work on iterator ranges.

A: Yes, there are things to be gained when doing things yourself.
However, there are things to be considered:

*

*Do you know enough about why your solution would be better than a standard solution?

*Do you know enough about your platform to take advantage?

*Do you want to spend the time to make better solutions?

*Do you want to take the risk (debugging, no support,...)?

*How would you know what you have gained/lost?

Good luck.

A: You won't find a faster solution to an equivalent algorithm. Beyond improving your use of string items like reserve(), correctly swapping instead of copying, and such, you will not gain any significant speedup, unless you have an STL that's a decade old or something.

A: I'd recommend to look into custom allocators for STL if you run into any memory/performance issues (which is not likely to happen in the first place as DeadMG mentioned). I personally use STL with custom memory allocators that again use my own memory manager (so that i can keep track of the memory used by the stl containers/strings i use). So if memory usage/fragmentation is your concern I'd recommend to look into providing custom allocators for your stl code.
This was a great resource to get me started with custom memory allocation for STL:
http://www.codeguru.com/cpp/cpp/cpp_mfc/stl/article.php/c4079
I also remember that ogre3D has some custom allocators for the STL containers which could be a great example to get you started!

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
We are now audible on Audible
Exciting news here at Circle of Spears. As you may know if you've been following our Facebook or our Twitter A good portion of our back catalogue is now available on Audible. This is a relatively new development as previously Audible have only been able to offer third party producers like us the chance to host titles on their site if they were in the US. Not anymore! Preliminary sales have been very good and while the return on them is less than if you were to buy them on this site it's still more than worth it be able to offer it to our customers on such a convenient and well known platform.
All of our future releases including the upcoming The Sign in the Moonlight by David Tallerman will be able to made available there subject to the author's consent. All of us here at Circle of Spears have narrated books for authors on Audible before, just search for us. Here though we are taking the role of producers rather than just voice artist. Audible has a large number of self published and independent author's books on their sight due to running a sister website called ACX. ACX, or the Audiobook Creation Exchange allows authors or smaller audiobook producers to place their titles and either have people audition to narrate them or upload the already finished projects to their website. In the case of our titles of course, we do the latter. It's fantastic service and opens up the possibility of getting an audiobook made to people who otherwise might not be able to afford to have it made, something which is very much in keeping with our company philosophy.
This does not mean we aren't still going to be producing physical audio CDs and selling them here and at the sales events we go to. There are what you might term some website exclusive titles which you will only get here or perhaps if you are lucky enough to meet us in person at an event somewhere. Details for those events will be posted here and all across our social media platforms.
Just on a personal note I'd like to say a big thank you to all those people who responded to my last blog entry about being a dyslexic who reads audiobooks. Keep your eyes open for more updates soon and sign up to our newsletter there will be a new one out soon you won't want to miss.
I read books for a living...and I'm Dyslexic
Seems a bit weird doesn't it? But it's true. I am a dyslexic person. (Also dyspraxic but that only comes into play when I'm on stage or screen trying not to bump into the furniture while remembering my lines.) John Hurt famously once said "If you want to utterly ruin a young actor tell him he has a good voice", He'd know I guess. It does seem to be the case though that I have a voice a fair few people enjoy listening to and as such I've gravitated towards voice overs and narration as part of my acting career.
It is something of an irony perhaps that someone with the difficulties Dyslexia brings would be trying to compete in a job that requires impeccable reading and characterisation skills. So much of acting in any form is affected by the ability to pick something up cold and make it live in some way.
Dyslexia can manifest itself in many different ways both subtle and gross. For some people the words seem to jump around on the page, for others non-phonetic spelling is difficult, yet others have problems with sequences of words or letters. I'm not an expert on anything except my own experience and for me the difficulty mainly comes with large blocks of text. I find it hard to keep my place on the page, sometimes my brain will read what it thinks is there rather than what is actually there. Tracey will be able to testify to the number of times I've transposed "a" and "the" in a sentence, or accidentally left out a word, or added one in which isn't there. For me it's like looking at one of those trick drawings that look to some people like a duck and some people like a rabbit. Sometimes I can't see the duck for the rabbit even though it is only ever one or the other. I sometimes have trouble distinguishing spaces and punctuation between the words which is like trying to read a very long hashtag with no capitalisation.
itwasthebestoftimesitwastheworstoftimesitwastheageofwisdomitwastheageoffoolishnessitwastheepochof beliefitwastheepochofincredulityitwastheseasonoflightitwastheseasonofdarknessitwasthespringofhopeit wasthewinterofdespairwehadeverythingbeforeuswehadnothingbeforeuswewereallgoingdirecttoheavenwe wereallgoingdirecttheotherwayinshorttheperiodwassofarlikethepresentperiodthatsomeofitsnoisiest authoritiesinsistedonitsbeingreceivedforgoodorforevilinthesuperlativedegreeofcomparisononly
That was the opening lines of A Tale of Two Cities as my brain may perceive it on a bad day. No capital letters, no punctuation, no way of knowing where one word ends and the next begins.
So how do I deal with it? Well there is no easy solution. Practising reading aloud regularly helps. When recording I often highlight a single line or sentence to make it stand out from the rest of the page. Editing is 80% of an audio performance, if I do my job right the listener should never be able to tell that I didn't read everything in the book through perfectly on the first time. The truth is that even the best world class audiobook narrators stumble, stutter and miss things occasionally and every audiobook you've ever heard is a Frankenstein's monster of different takes, cuts, half sentences, inserted pauses, all sorts. Mine are no different and that brings me neatly to the fantastic team/support group I have around me in Circle of Spears.
When I record a chapter of an audiobook. I "First pass" edit it, taking out all the mistakes, pauses, clicks, pops or other extraneous stuff that doesn't need to be there. It is then QCed (Quality Controlled), by Tracey usually, who then sends me back the corrections in a spreadsheet. These often include the lines I have read incorrectly, any times I've missed the meaning of a sentence or put the emphasis on the wrong part of the sentence from what the punctuation would dictate and any other errors. In an ideal situation at this point I would then rerecord all the mistakes and that would be an end to it but often this can take more than one pass in order to get all of them corrected, especially if I am working in isolation as I often am. I have attempted to return the favour for my fellow members of Circle of Spears in the past but after multiple failed attempts it was agreed to focus my efforts elsewhere.
It is disheartening sometimes to feel like the way your brain works renders you inadequate for certain jobs. But difficult though it is not to sometimes, that's the wrong way to think about it. Everyone is different, we all learn in different ways and we all excel at different things. I am in a very fortunate position to be working with a team who understand fully what the difficulties I face are and with whom I have devised a system to overcome them for the most part. If you are reading this then it is quite likely that either Mark or Tracey have proofread it for me before I've hit the post button (it was me - Mark!). It's similar with a lot of the emails or official correspondence I send.
I can absolutely understand why someone with these sorts for difficulties would think twice before exposing themselves to an environment where they would have to compete with other people who don't have them but there are in fact plenty of dyslexic actors out there, damn talented ones too. Google them. One of the reasons I wanted to get into audiobooks was that I am a voracious consumer of them myself. Storytelling in one form or another is sort of our business as actors and while I may never rise to the heights of Stephen Fry or Simon Callow, Scott Brick, Roy Dotrice, Jonathan Davis or so many others I am glad I had the courage and the support enough to do it.
Are you dyslexic, or do you know someone who is? (I bet you do) Leave a comment. I'd be really interested to know if there are others in a similar situation to me.
Unboxing a new project
Yesterday, dodging twix showers and personal schedules we managed to shoot some promo images for our new play Outside of the Box, shortly to be going into rehearsal.
The play is another original piece. (Saves all that faffing about with rights and royalties) This time though it's a contemporary comedy. Outside of the Box follows Xandra, Yates and Zebb, three characters who think they have the measure of each other but over the course of the play have their preconceptions challenged and in some cases shattered. Hopefully to hilarious effect. It's a madcap comedy which flirts with farce and pokes fun at sensationalism, stereotyping and cynicism.
That's all I can really say at this moment without venturing into spoiler country but stay tuned here and perhaps sign up to our newsletter to keep up to date with how the play is coming along.
Return to Devon Libraries
We are delighted to be returning to Devon Libraries once again in 2018 to put live theatrical events among the books. Today we have confirmed two bookings for Totnes Library later in the year. So what will we be doing this time around? Read on for details....
In the Summer we will be supporting the Summer Reading Challenge for children by once again staging our fantasy themed escape room puzzle activity, which we have already performed in Crediton and Tiverton Libraries in 2017. Aamena the Library Elf (pictured) is trapped by the mischievous wizard Aldous Powder and only the ingenuity of the children can find the spell to free her.
We will also be developing a new live multimedia literature evening which will be performed in November. More details to follow on this, but it will be a mix of poetry reading, dramatic story renderings and full theatrical scenes set to music or with other effects. A multimedia celebration of literature.
We hope to be able to secure more events in other Libraries during the year. Subscribe to the blog for more details, or click here to follow our Facebook page, or here for Twitter.
Our new title in production: THE DARK WELL OF GLASTONBURY
Currently "on mic" in our studio is the audiobook version of The Dark Well of Glastonbury by Phillipa Bowers, which is being narrated by Tracey. The first six chapters have been recorded for editing this past week. Tracey says, "beautifully written and observed, the book is a joy to narrate."
Look out for more information to come on this title over the coming weeks in our newsletter. To sign up to receive these for free, please click here
Author of the book, Phillipa Bowers, has this to say about the title on her website:
The Dark Well tells the story of Louisa an impoverished young widow who hopes to survive in Edwardian England as a companion to gentlewomen. She goes to Glastonbury in 1903 to care for her aunt and while there she experiences the stories of the keepers of a sacred well that has been unrecognised for many centuries.
This well was once one of three sacred wells on the sacred island of Avalon and while the others, the red and the white, are known to this day, this black one, used for scrying or seeing into the future, has lain unrecognised for centuries.
Each chapter tells the tale of a guardian, or keeper of the well, dating from long ago in the late Neolithic time, through early Bronze Age, the Roman occupation, the Romans departure, the time of the Druids and the arrival of the Christian church, the building of the great abbey church, the Black Death, dissolution of the monasteries and the contamination of the well.
Interweaving through the tales is the story of Louisa, who has known great tragedy and assumes there will be no more love or happiness in her life, but eventually realises this will be possible.
We look forward to bringing you this title soon. ~ Mark
New Year, new blog
HAPPY NEW YEAR! While everyone else is trying to shed the crimbo pounds and stick to their new year's resolutions we here at Circle of Spears have decided to revive our somewhat fallow News/Blog section. As you might have noticed we went through the entirety of 2017 without any new posts. 2017 was not without many great releases and milestones for Circle of Spears however. We celebrated our 2nd year trading; We took WITCH on tour, including performances at Credfest in Crediton and Fringe Theatrefest in Barnstaple, reaching our 50th performance back in September whilst performing at the Alma Theatre in Bristol; went to Credfest in Crediton and Fringe Theatrefest in Barnstaple; we premiered a new show Ghost Stories, featuring Dr Emerson Kennedy and Miss Eliza King (deceased); performed our murder mystery evening Body in the Library at Totnes Library; attended numerous sales events around the southwest; released 8 new audio titles and had enough on our to do pile that we had to close our books for submissions in early March; Were featured on Tiverton Community Radio, Phonic FM, Coast FM and BBC Radio Bristol; Designed and road tested an escape/puzzle solving room for kids and began collaborating on various animated projects with Yellow Mouse Studios with whom we hopefully have a few more surprises in store for 2018.
Phew...I'm knackered just writing out that list. Hopefully though it goes some way to explaining just why we were scant on posts for 2017. 2018 however will be different. Each of us will be keeping you up to date with all that's new at Circle of Spears, some behind the scenes exclusives and sneak peeks of things to come.
We hope you'll join us in making 2018 our best year yet.
The quality control process continues apace as we move ever closer to the release of our next fiction title on September 1st - Richard Dee's cracking steampunk adventure "The Rocks of Aserol". More about Aserol later in the week.
Circle of Spears takes particular pride in the high quality of our audio products. We have a stringent 3-tier quality control process, beginning with a 'first pass' edit to eliminate obvious mistakes. This is usually done by the reader, then passed to a colleague, who listens to the recording whilst following the book, noting any further errors.
Finally, the master disks are produced and listened to by another colleague to ensure that the disks themselves have recorded correctly. All of this is done in-house, keeping our overall production costs down.
Witch performances start
The first two performances of "Witch" took place on Wednesday 27th July in the Library of the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic in Boscastle, Cornwall, kicking off our summer season with the play. Initial audience responses have been fantastic with feedback including "intense", "very powerful" and "I would give it five stars".
Some tickets are pre-booked into August already, and with this being an intimate piece with just 20 audience members in each show these people are wise to secure their seats now. If you are intending to come, please do the same by contacting the Museum directly. The contact details are on the Witch poster on the previous blog post.
These performances also saw the official launch of the "Witch" audio CD - the full show as an audio play with added sound effects. This CD is available exclusively to show audiences for the duration of the run at the Museum, but will be made available for pre-order on the web store in October in time for a general November release. The cover art is shown in this image.
We look forward to bringing you more news from Witch over the summer.
Witch: Press Release - July 2016
With bases in Devon and Dorset, Circle of Spears Productions is a vibrant new production house and theatre company which has just enjoyed its first year of trading. Boasting the talents and experience of a team of professional actors and film-makers, the company offers a variety of services, including audiobook production and live theatrical entertainment. Circle of Spears already has an impressive catalogue of audio products and is about to embark on its first summer season in Boscastle, Cornwall with an original, site-specific theatre piece written by company member Tracey Norman.
"I graduated from The Open University last year with an Honours degree in History," Tracey explained. "I wanted to be able to combine my knowledge of history with my love of theatre and came up with the idea of dramatising actual transcripts from English witch trials in order to explore the social issues which contributed to accusations of witchcraft. I also wanted to find a performance space that was both intimate and evocative.
Where better to perform a play about witch trials than in the library at the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic?". The museum's managers were extremely enthusiastic about the proposed project, providing a number of original transcripts for the basis of Tracey's research, as well as advice on the draft script.
"The museum's input has been invaluable," Tracey said. "I selected details from a number of sources, drawing heavily on the transcripts they shared with me, then wove the information into the story of a suspected witch, her accuser and the magistrate interrogating them. This allowed me to include a lot of Tudor/Elizabethan social history whilst still focussing on the human aspects of such emotive cases."
The company gave a test performance to the museum staff and an invited audience, which was very well received. Staff member Joyce Froome described it as having "remarkable immediacy and impact…with characters who have real depth and complexity." Author Alex Langstone said, "I was very lucky to be invited to a preview performance of this play…and I can thoroughly recommend it."
"Witch" is due to be performed in the library at the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic, Boscastle, Cornwall, throughout the remainder of the season on Wednesdays and Sundays at 5pm and 8pm. The first performances are on 27th July. Tickets cost £10 and are available from the Museum. For further information, including performance dates, please contact the Museum on 01840 250111.
More information about Circle of Spears Productions can be found at www.circleofspears.com and you can follow them on Facebook (Circle of Spears Productions) and Twitter (@circleofspears).
A Body at the Library
Crediton Library saw an influx of amateur sleuths as Circle of Spears helped the Friends of Crediton Library to raise funds for the library. Over the course of the evening clues were dropped, someone was murdered and the perpetrator, or perpetrators, were aprehended.
If you have a venue and want to host a murder mystery please get in touch via the contact page, on Facebook or Twitter.
Periodic updates from Sam, Mark and Tracey


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PML-N activists in PK-23 asked to start poll campaign
The Newspaper's CorrespondentAugust 26, 2018
SHANGLA: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz provincial president Amir Muqam has asked the workers to start campaign for victory of party candidate in re-polling in PK-23 Shangla, which would be held on Sept 10.
He was addressing a party meeting here at Alpuri on Saturday. Newly-elected MNA Ibadullah, candidate for PK-23 Mohammad Rashad and other party leaders also spoke at the meeting attended by party workers.
Mr Muqam alleged that the July 25 elections were rigged and claimed that Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf would not be able to run the government in the centre for more than six months.
He urged his party workers to start door-to-door campaign for success of Mr Rashad in the upcoming re-election.
He said that he was making efforts for electoral alliance with opposition parties in PK-23, adding that some of opposition parties had given him a green signal in this regard.
Mr Ibadullah claimed on the occasion that he would work for development of Shangla. Mr Rashad said that July 25 election in PK-23 was declared null and void over low turnout of women.
ROADS BLOCKED:Heavy rain lashed most parts of Shangla while some roads were blocked due flooding of streams and landslides.
The rain started late on Friday night and continued for about four hours, triggering flood in the streams. Boulders and mud blocked the local roads for hours due to which motorists faced hardship. Power supply was also suspended in Bisham city due to heavy rain.
Published in Dawn, August 26th, 2018
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MS Study Links Narrow Veins to Disease
— More than half of the multiple sclerosis patients in a closely watched study had narrowing of some of the neck veins leading from the brain, researchers said.
by Michael Smith, North American Correspondent, MedPage Today February 11, 2010
More than half of the multiple sclerosis patients in a closely watched study had narrowing of some neck veins leading from the brain, researchers said.
On the other hand, so did 22.4% of healthy controls in the first large study to test a new theory about the disease: that it's caused by such abnormally narrow veins, a condition dubbed "chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency."
Nevertheless, Robert Zivadinov, MD, PhD, of the University of Buffalo, said in a university news release that he is "cautiously optimistic and excited" about the results, which were originally scheduled to be presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology in April.
"The data encourage us to continue on the same course," he said in the statement. "They show that narrowing of the extracranial veins, at the very least, is an important association in multiple sclerosis."
Zivadinov was traveling and not immediately available for further comment.
The study drew intense interest when it began enrolling patients last year, because the theory that abnormal veins play a role in multiple sclerosis -- as yet unproved -- is the first major shift in thinking about the disease in decades. (See Radical MS Theory Stirs Interest)
But experts cautioned that the press release doesn't contain enough details to allow scientists to judge the validity of the results, which in any case are partial and preliminary.
"From the press release, it's very difficult to analyze this in any way," said John Richert, MD, executive vice president for research and clinical programs at the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.
"It makes you want to see more," he told MedPage Today.
The release, which has not been subject to the usual scientific peer review, contained data on 441 volunteers, including 280 with multiple sclerosis, most of them adults.
However, that's a small fraction of the more than 1,700 volunteers, including 1,000 adults and 50 children with the disease, who are expected to be enrolled.
It also was limited to data on ultrasound scans of the volunteers. The results of magnetic resonance imaging, to test other aspects of the theory, were not given.
Blocked veins in the volunteers were studied according to five criteria, other experts noted, but what they were wasn't reported, so that it was impossible to tell if they differed from earlier studies.
The release also said the researchers saw a correlation between venous insufficiency and the progression of the disease, "but even that statement is difficult to interpret exactly," Richert said.
The Buffalo study is a follow-up to research conducted by Paolo Zamboni, MD, of the University of Ferrara in Italy, which showed chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency to be strongly associated with multiple sclerosis.
Zamboni also conducted a small surgical intervention trial that appeared to show a benefit to patients from opening up the veins.
Not all experts were skeptical of the reports.
The Buffalo report was a surprise mainly because its results were "less impressive" than Zamboni's findings, according to Salvatore Sclafani, MD, of SUNY Downstate College of Medicine in Brooklyn.
Sclafani said in an e-mail that the difference may be a function of a "steep learning curve" in reading and interpreting the results of the ultrasound scans of volunteers' veins. "My own personal experience with the ultrasound examinations is that they are quite difficult to perform," he said
"I have now studied many patients with MS and all have had abnormalities of the veins," said Sclafani, who has recently begun studying the issue.
The Buffalo results vary slightly, depending on how some "borderline" volunteers are counted, the release said.
If the 10.2% of volunteers whose results were classed as borderline were included in the normal category, the incidence of venous insufficiency was 56.4% in the multiple sclerosis patients and 22.4% in the controls.
On the other hand, if the borderline results were excluded, the proportion of affected patients rose to 62.5%, compared with 25.9% percent of healthy controls.
But the finding that a proportion of healthy controls had venous insufficiency needs further investigation, Zivadinov said in the release.
This article was developed in collaboration with ABC News.


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Ashes 2019: Ricky Ponting Surprised at England's Tactics on the Fourth Day
Ashes, Australia, Cricket, England
by Shruti Banerjee
Serena Williams on US Open 2019 Finals – "I Don't Think Serena Showed Up"
Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting was extremely surprised at England's tactics on the fourth day of the fourth Test at Emirates Old Trafford, Manchester. England have displayed a great performance and registered a nail-biting one-wicket win, while chasing 359 despite being 286-9 at one time. It was the heroics of Ben Stokes who seal the deal for England by scoring a blistering 135*.
As far as the fourth Test is concerned, at the end of the fourth day, England were 18-2 where both Rory Burns and Joe Root got dismissed by Pat Cummins. The team now need 365 runs more to win the Test match and Australia have a chance to end the Test match as the winning side.
"It's a completely different set of circumstances. Headingley, that wicket actually got better and better. It finished middle of day four, didn't even get into the fifth day. This pitch has got worse and worse as the days have gone on," Ricky Ponting said to cricket.com.au.
"Australia don't need to be spooked about anything there; one for the fact they should have won, but two it's not going to be easy for anyone starting on that pitch against Australia's attack. Nathan Lyon didn't get any wickets in the first innings, but he will in the second innings. There is going to be so much on offer for him out there it's not funny. Even some of the balls we saw today, the spin and bounce is going to be a nightmare for anyone starting against him," Ponting added.
Jofra Archer (Image source: Reuters)
Ponting also believed that Joe Root should have started their session with either Jofra Archer or Stuart Broad.
"I was extremely surprised at England's tactics after tea. To not start with one of Archer or Broad for me was staggering," added the former captain.
However, England started their session with Craig Overton and Jack Leach instead of Archer and Broad, that helped Steve Smith to settle down and score big.
"I think the most important phase of play for England was the first hour after tea and they decided to go with Overton and Leach, and I know Overton only bowled three overs but it just seemed to quieten the whole crowd down and it gave Smith a chance to get in and get settled and start again," Ponting told.
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On the other hand, Ricky Ponting shared that England might have thought to use Archer and Broad later in the innings so that they could slow down the game.
"They'll have their reasons, but it seemed as though they wanted Archer and Broad to bowl late in the session and slow the game down. I think they bowled six overs in 40 minutes. You'd have to say it's unacceptable to bowl seven-minute overs," added the batting great.
However, it will be interesting to see who will have the last laugh.
Australia England Jofra Archer pat cummins Ricky Ponting steve smith Stuart Broad
Shruti Banerjee September 8, 2019
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