text:
The World's Toughest Job
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Happy Mother's Day.
Tags family, mother
No Comments on Time Travel
Leave it to the Lutherans.
100 years ago, on April 22, 1913, the Ladies Aid Society and the First Lutheran Church in Oklahoma City sealed a time capsule which has been sitting under a grill set into the floor of the church. Last month, the Century Chest as it was called, was opened. The contents were in pristine condition and included newspapers & periodicals, a brand new telephone, a straw hat, clothing and correspondence, all in mint condition.
Several letters and objects were addressed to future descendants of local families. Imagine handing your youngest daughter or son the package above and telling them it was from their ancestors and addressed specifically for them.
Background on the Century Chest on NewsOK
Photos of contents of the Century Chest on the Downtown OKC Facebook page.
Documentary about the Century Chest including footage of the opening.
Tags family, history
When Mom Left for America
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While in Japan I did the usual, clean out you parent's hard drive and apply 50 updates that should have been and the other usual computer tune up tasks. I ran across a bunch of scans that I think my sister did last time she was there. I grabbed them and within found one of my favorite old photos of my mom.
My father loves Japan. He moved there in the early 60s when not too many Americans would venture to the Far East as they used to call it back then. The story goes is that he was in Amsterdam, working for a Dutch Trading Firm and when word went out that they were opening a branch office in Tokyo, he jumped at the opportunity. His job was to find interesting things for his company to import from Japan.
When he was there, the Yen was something like 330 JPY to the dollar (it's now 78 JPY). He had a flat in Denenchofu, took taxis everywhere, had a maid, basically, he lived like a king. He met my mom during this time and they hit it off and began dating. My Japanese grandmother and grandfather were suspicious. They were used to GIs wooing away the young daughters of the village and then flying off to the US where they never saw them again.
My dad was different. He was not with the Army, he had a deep respect for the culture, took kendo, studied kanji, planned to live in Japan for the rest of his life. It took my father a long time, I think a year or two, to convince my grandparents that he was not going to be one of those to steal away.
If you know my dad, you know he has eclectic tastes. Apparently his nominations for lucrative exports (colorful koinobori flags for one) were not cutting it with the home office and after a time, they decided to shut down their Japanese operation. At that point it was impossible for a foreigner to get a job in Japan unless you were with the military. The English teacher route wasn't an option, no one could afford one. My father had no choice but to return to the United States, New York City, where he knew friends in the publishing industry that could get him a job.
The photo above is one of my favorite of my mom. Here she is, all dressed up to fly to New York. This is when people flew Pan Am or BAOC, they got dressed up to fly. And look in the background, at my grandmother, dressed up as well in a kimono, to see her eldest daughter off to somewhere very, very far away. She's scowling! I can imagine what's going through her mind, "I knew this would happen, I knew this would happen!"
Flash-forward to several months later to the photo below. Dad now has a job in Manhattan and the two of them are living in an old brownstone in Brooklyn. Life's pretty good but my Mom's trying to figure things out. My dad suggests a local Welcome Wagon event for recent immigrants – maybe she'll meet someone there.
And here is my 2nd favorite photo of my mom. She's there trying her best to fit in. They've got some weird activity where you're supposed to cut up some paper cups into stars and that's the supposed to be this crafty thing. I guess this is folk art for a country that's only 150 years old. You can see she's trying her best to put on a smile for the camera but you can see that she's thinking, "What the heck have I gotten myself into?"
Anyway, thanks for indulging me in this bit of family history. These two photos have been haunting me and I've told this story numerous times to friends and have referred to these photos and now I have a URL that I can sling their way so they can see for themselves.
Tags family, Japan
7 Comments on Cancer Sucks
I'm in Japan this week to visit my father. He has colon cancer and just checked in for surgery.
This is not a total shock. He is getting old after all and I've come to accept a time when something like this would happen. He's taking it well. He has openly embraced his body slowly falling apart like the owner of an old MG learns to deal with a tricky carburetor.
He could have gone in for check-ups and caught the cancer earlier and addressed it. Maybe he could have put some time between now and where we are today but that's not Rick Kennedy's style. He is not really a doctor kind of guy. He proudly tells the story of how, when diagnosed with a kidney stone he, "somehow managed to piss it right out." I'm told that is extremely painful, most opt to dissolve it with drugs or other treatments. He has a high tolerance for pain and the cancer grew in him as an annoyance until it became something he couldn't ignore. Let's hope it's not too late.
My father influenced me in many ways. As I am raising a son myself, I have an appreciation for how he was able to plant seeds of interest that lead me to take the path that I've chosen in life.
My early interest in cycling gave me love for the sport that I experience everyday as I ride to work. He was there in the late-70s with a fixie back before anyone heard of such a thing, an original hipster. I fondly remember watching grainy video tapes with him of European coverage of Paris-Roubaix and other European classic bike races as we learned about the sport together. Part of our weekly grime clean routine was to disassemble our chains, wash them off with an old toothbrush and kerosine, then dip them into a coffee can full of oil warmed up on the kitchen stove. My mom hated that. We were bike nerds.
My dad had a nose for the eccentric that would drive my mom nuts. For two years he somehow convinced my mom that we should live in a commune. It was fun for me and my sister because there were always lots of kids to play with but the shared chore list made my mom crazy because most people slacked off and she ended up having to do a lot of it. We moved out shortly after a lady named, Tomorrow nearly burned the house down after one particularly memorable party.
Dad was a writer. (Good Tokyo Restaurants, Little Adventures in Tokyo) Originally an editor at Random House, we moved to Japan when he convinced Sony they needed someone to help make their user manuals less laughable. He took great care to chose the right words and was quick to criticize sloppy use of the English language. To him, bad writing shows a carelessness that offends him.
We have an on-going debate about the craft of writing, often about the merits of print vs. online. He will never understand hashtags or data-journalism. "I'm just a print guy," is his refrain. On his way into today's operation, he insisted on carrying a copy of The Spectator and New Yorker to read just in case he got bored. The nurse had to remind him that he'll be under while they operate on him. His books were his security blanket. He loves to read and has a hundreds of books he's collected over the years at great expense. When I asked if I could bring him anything new from the US he declined, "Some people save up money for retirement, I've been saving books." He has a stack of 15 books on the table next to his hospital bed and I've been asked to bring with me several more. AJ Liebling, Anthony Powell, Cyril Connolly.
Dad was incurably optimistic. To a fault perhaps. I remember seeing the book, "A lazy man's guide to enlightenment" on his shelf. That was very much his philosophy. The secret to happiness is being at peace with what you have, not pushing for more that you might not get. He doesn't like anyone to fuss over him but I think he is secretly enjoying his time in a Japanese hospital. The nurses are angels and are so gentle and kind. Japanese society is coddling to begin with so you can only imagine what this place is like.
I have no idea what to expect of Dad's operation. As can be expected, he is brushing this off as an annoyance but also says things like, "It'll be good to know you're here," which sounds ominous. My mom tends to suppress bad news by ignoring it and she hasn't really been asking many questions. Keep your fingers crossed. We're all hoping for the best.
Thanks to everyone who has already sent along their wishes. Thank you to all those at GigaOM who are filling in for me while I'm away. I am thankful to my managers who, when they learned of the news, told me to absolutely, without question, take as much time as I needed. Stand up folks at GigaOM they are, I feel your support and it means a lot.
I'll update this post when I hear more. He should be getting out in a few hours.
UPDATE: All good! After five hours doctors where able to cut out about 20 cms of his colon and a big, ugly looking lump of evil. He's resting in the ICU now and doctors say he'll be wobbling about on his feet tomorrow. He'll stay there for a week or more depending on how he heals. Luckily they were able to do the whole thing through a few tiny incisions so at least the outside will heal quickly.
The first thing he said? He wants a few more Anthony Powell books!
Tags cancer, family, Japan
Julia on Violin
2 Comments on Julia on Violin
She's been wanting to play for years.
and now she's now learning to pluck the strings.
Yesterday, Julia received certification from the Royal College of Music.
Tags family, kids
Update from Tokyo
1 Comment on Update from Tokyo
Following up on last week's letter, here's an update from my father who lives in Tokyo.
–The New York Times says just short of half a million people are now in "shelters," which in most cases means living on a blanket spread out on the floor of a high-school gymnasium. Most of these rural people have lost everything, even their money, which they did not keep in the local bank but in the top drawer of their bureau, which has been swept away.
–Most recent addition to the shelters are a young boy and an 80-year-old woman rescued after eight days under rubble.
–Shibuya crossing in front of Shibuya Station is known for its people jams, in which 600 people can step off the curb when the light changes. These days, however, it's more like fifty people.
–One fashionably dressed lady in the train this morning was wearing a highly polished helmet.
–In the stations, escalators going up are operating, but people are expected to descend to the platform on their own. Elevators are kept operating, though, for people who genuinely have difficulty climbing stairs.
–Although many stores in Tokyo are closed or at least partially shut down, the cosmetics counters on the first floor of department stores, where some of Tokyo's most attractive ladies man the stands, are open for business. A morale booster, clearly.
–Gasoline is being rationed, which everyone understands. By lining up early in the morning at the stand at the bottom of the hill, we were able to get 12 liters–maybe four gallons. But in Tokyo the trains take us wherever we want. In the rural disaster area, people can't get anywhere without a car. They may have to drive 30 kilometers for gasoline.
–We have heard of a family living uncomfortably close to the endangered power plants evacuating to Yokohama. A family of eight in a car driving 150 miles.
–We learned a few days ago that radiation has been detected in shipments of spinach. In its determination to provide everyone with as much information as possible, NHK shows a map of the ten prefectures in question, with the precise level of radiation one could expect in the spinach from each prefecture.
–"Foreigners" seeing videos of residents of Tokyo wearing white face masks might think they are protection against radiation. No, it's protection against hay-fever pollen.
–There are far fewer ads in the trains and stations than usual, although beer ads celebrating the coming of spring (tra la) are plentiful.
My mother adds that she had to give up on getting milk at the local grocery store because the line was too long. Milk supplies are down because radiation contamination has impacted the supply. The local department store was only open from 4pm until 7pm as they were trying to save on electricity and she recently had to line up at 6am to get gasoline for the family car which is being rationed out to just 10 liters/car.
Meanwhile, I read in local press that the Finns have moved the seven staff in their Tokyo office down south with the Danes in their Hiroshima offices. This move was prompted, in a historic twist of irony, to avoid potential nuclear fallout from the reactors in Fukushima.
Tags earthquake, family, Japan, jishin, Tokyo
Letter from Tokyo
4 Comments on Letter from Tokyo
My father just sent an email yesterday to my sister and I describing the situation in Tokyo. Knowing how everything runs like clockwork in that city, it's even more striking how the country adapts when they have to improvise.
Tokyo Tower bent following earthquake
Four days after the quake we are still feeling aftershocks. We've received over sixy aftershocks so far and clearly there are more to come. We have learned another is on the way when the hanging drawer-pulls of the bureau begin to tinkle. But you know, after a while it all begins to lapse into a routine, especially as no one here ever gets excited and the Japanese instinct to rally round is inbred.
Mikie and I are a couple hundred kilometers south of the scenes of devastation you've seen on TV and we're on a hill, so we're pretty safe, I guess. We are told, though, that we should expect another follow-up quake and the ensuing tsunami.
There has been little damage in Tokyo, although the radio aerial at the tip of Tokyo Tower was bent. A number of multi-story stores in downtown Tokyo have closed to make sure their structure has not been damaged, although their (disposable?) clerks behind the information counter on the first floor remain on duty to apologize to customers for the inconvenience.
Because the nuclear power complex in the stricken area has been closed down, electricity is being rationed and this has brought home to everyone just how dependent a city like Tokyo is on electric power. No electricity means no trains, no traffic lights, no doors opening automatically on your approach, no pumping of gas, no automatic bottom-washing in toilets.
The trains, usually punctual to the minute, are no longer posting any schedule at all. To conserve electricity, lights in stations have been dimmed and escalators and elevators have been shut down. There is a palpable commeraderie among people now forced to ascend a long stairway to the street or to descend to the platform. We used to be able to go through station turnstiles by swiping our wallet across a reader, but now we have to endure the inconvenience of actually showing our pass to the station attendant, who shrugs his shoulders and rolls his eyes.
The evening the quake hit, all trains were immediately stopped because it wasn't certain that the tracks had not been bent, so thousands of office workers couldn't get home. A sense of commeraderie flowered then, too, as people found refuge in the back room of their favorite little drinking spot, or in one of the temples that opened for the occasion, or on a park bench, or just on the street.
With the trains running now, although to an irregular schedule, we seem to be inching back to a regular routine, but coming home on the train last night, the train stopped because Train Control had warned the driver that an aftershock was expected (better notice that the drawer-pulls of our bureau) and in fact after a minute the train rolled gently from side to side. The conductor apologized.
It may be worth noting that the Financial Times reported that when the quake struck, ten minutes before the Tokyo Stock Exchange closed, the trading floor was shaken, which brought about a feverish selling of the yen and of Japanese stock generally–a testament to the brutal efficiency of Capitalism.
Laura Miller Kennedy 1925-2010
2 Comments on Laura Miller Kennedy 1925-2010
My Grandmother passed away earlier this month and although I could not make it to her memorial service in upstate New York, I did send along the following anecdote to share with those attending. I will miss her but she lived a very full life and lives on in her stories.
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Laura Kennedy, my Grandmother was a great storyteller. She told her stories in such a way that you knew they were perfected over time, improved with each telling. They were so good that when you knew she was about to launch into one, you took it in and let it wash over you, knowing that you would hear something new and were guaranteed to be entertained. Here is one of my favorites.
I'm not sure when this story takes place. I do know she was in Europe and on her way to Japan so maybe it was when she set out to meet my mother's parents for the first time before Dad married Mom. This would put us in the early 60's.
Of course traveling from Europe to Japan by airplane was way too efficient. My Grandmother lived in a different age. An age of steam and fur coats. Efficient modernity caused her nothing but trouble. I remember my uncle gifted her a new refrigerator once her old hulk gave out. This new fridge was gleaming and featured amenities such as water dispensed chilled from the doorway and an automatic ice machine that kept the bin in the freezer topped up. When Uncle Peter called a few days later to check in on his Mother to see how she liked the new gadget, she asked him exhaustively to get rid of the "infernal device" as she couldn't get a wink of sleep. Probed further, she explained that she had to come downstairs at least every three hours to empty the ice bucket because she feared the freezer would overflow and jam up and the "thing just wouldn't stop!"
No, a stratocruiser from Paris to Tokyo would not do. She preferred to travel under steam on the Trans-Siberian Railway out of Paris to Vladivostok and connect with a cruise ship to taker her around Honshu over to Yokohama. It was two weeks but she had time and probably secretly was looking forward to some time alone to indulge herself in some reading. In preparation, she brought along a box of books. Two Weeks! She was going to improve her mind during the trip and I could imagine that she shoved in several weighty tomes, maybe she even had that entire series of Arabian Nights books that she had in the Blue Room. There was probably an Olivetti in a trunk somewhere as well just in case an inspiration struck her while rolling across the steppes. You know, no less than fifteen pieces of luggage, steamer trunks, probably several hat boxes. That's how Grandma rolled. All steam and romance.
Of course, with the kind of convoy required to move such material, unless you were a logistical genius, you would be delayed getting from Point A to Point B. Grandmother was most definitely *not* a logistical genius. We're talking about the lady that kept her manuscripts in the oven because, if there was ever a fire, "that would be the *one* place something wouldn't burn. Creative, yes. But not very practical.
So of course she was late getting to the station in Paris and almost missed her train. She got there just in time all flustered, found her carriage and eventually her compartment and began to arrange here things.
She was about to settle into her seat when she popped back up and thought about pulling down her first book, like starting a delicious feast, where to begin? As she was about to sit back down, the train lurched and she dropped her glasses, which she had been holding in her hand, on the bench in front of her. As she fell forward, she spun around and landed with a plop into her seat, her legs thrown out from under her. She then heard a multi-faceted *crack* and *crinkle* and instantly knew what happened. She had sat on her glasses!
As she rose slowly to survey the damage and it was evident that the lenses were beyond repair. They were utterly destroyed, not just cracked but actually ground down, tiny shards of plastic, powder, and bent wire was all that remained. There was nothing that could be done. The train was now gaining speed and headed towards the outskirts of Paris, two weeks, fourteen days, 336 hours of rolling boredom lay before her.
The days dragged on. The green countryside of France gave way to the grey potato fields of Poland. In the evening it grew cold and she discovered there was a small crack up by the window that let the air in. Laura found that by chewing the rough Russian bread, she could soften it into a rough ball and use it to stuff the hole and stop the breeze. During the day, when it got hot, she would take out the bread dough to let some air in, and then repeat the process with some new bread each evening. Days went by as they rolled over the tundra – the image of Grandmother, staring at the fake wood-grain paneling on the walls of her train compartment, unable to see more than a grey smudge of sky over frost-covered fields, the sole highlight being the daily "filling of the hole" exercise still sticks with me as some kind of Kafka-esque punishment. Grandmother had hoped to read Russian novels during her trip, instead, she was living one!
Eventually, she fumbled her way to some of the other compartments. Realizing that her First Class cabin was really an isolation tank that would drive her insane. She made her way to the second and third class cars and ran across what she describes as a raucous carriage full of Russian cossacks. The trip was eventually salvaged by playing drinking games with the soldiers.
She may have been exaggerating. She always stretched the truth a bit. Maybe they weren't really cossacks, maybe the glasses weren't really broken. Who knows. I never really pushed her on it. It was the story and her joy in telling it that counted. And it's message.
You really don't need vision to see.
Tags family, humor
2 Comments on The Family Gathering
While everyone was down in Austin for the annual gathering of the tribes, I sorted through an old box of photos trying to streamline my memories. I don't have many prints anymore so most of what I found was from the last century (love saying that!). It was nice to actually hold the prints in your hand and put the best ones into a nicely bound album which is now in our living room. A book full of memories on the living room coffee table? There's a line that's been crossed somewhere, somehow that sounds significant.
As I transformed a box full of random photos into piles that were roughly arranged by major life-events (pre-marriage, pre-first kid, pre-second kid), I noticed that at regular intervals there was a photo taken at my grandparent's house in Yokohama where the family would gather for an annual feast. It's cool to see how people have changed over time (check out my eraser-head hair doo in 1990!) and I love how we're always hoisting the beers for the camera like we're at a table in Munich.
Grandpa is always at the end of the table and would preside over everyone – always making sure my glass was full and telling stories of the old days. He worked hard through his life, the post-war Japanese econmy was built by his generation. He's gone now, died almost three years ago to the day. My grandmother now lives in a nursing home so we don't get together as a large group anymore.
Need to fix that next time I'm back home.
Tags family, food & drink, history
1 Comment on Izumi
Went to Mie & Dav's celebration/baby shower for their baby due out anytime in the next few weeks. Mie literally looks like she ate an entire basketball – she's perfectly round.
No, they haven't decided on a name yet but "Tesla" was being mulled over as of yesterday. I'm sure they'll find the perfect name once they see her.
Dav caught this rare photo of Izumi who always hides from the camera. Isn't she beautiful?
Tags family


Can't get enough of winter greens.
Yum! That's my kind of meal. It looks delicious.
This is one of my favorites! My mouth is watering, just by looking at the photo. It's a keeper recipe, for sure! Thank you, Jovina, for sharing so many wonderful recipes!!!!!
This Alfredo sauce sounds delicious. I'll just saved it away to try.


Home » Browse » Magazines » General Education Magazines » District Administration » Article details, "Creating Political Activists: Want to Find the..."
With negative campaigning and voter cynicism on the rise, presidential candidates George W. Bush and John Kerry aren't the only ones facing a tough fight this fall. The same can be said for the thousands of civics, U.S. government and American history teachers trying to get the next generation of voters to care about the election and the political process it culminates.
That's an especially tall order, say election experts, in an era of dismal voter turnout by recent high school graduates and a popular culture that finds more wrong than right about elected leaders. But before teachers and curriculum developers draft their concession speeches, they might check into several programs offered by organizations specializing in hands-on and interactive approaches to elections.
From the long-running CNN Student News to the more recently developed Youth Leadership Initiative at the University of Virginia and the Media and American Democracy Program at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, teachers across grade levels and disciplines are finding answers to the problem of engaging and activating the student body.
"There's this perception that young people are apathetic," says Lea Brown, YLI's director of instruction. "That perception is unfortunate because they really aren't. If you ask a young person about issues--from capital punishment to the environment to the war in Iraq--kids have very passionate ideas. I think they have a harder time connecting that to the political process."
The Youth Leadership program, which was founded in 1998 at Virginia's Center for Politics and now counts 6,000 mostly high school and middle school teachers, makes those connections through a series of free computerized simulations that bring students closer to political realities. The centerpiece of the institute's presidential election coverage is a mock ballot that distinguishes itself from other online votes by offering a teacher-designed curriculum meeting state standards. Teachers can download lesson plans, the latest political analysis and recent charts and graphs about demographics and voting trends.
"School systems buy a textbook, and that's what they have for years," Brown notes. "This is a way for them to supplement a lot of what's out there at no cost to them."
Schools can also get a free, live-action CD-ROM called "A More Perfect Union," that lets users--individually and in groups-take on the role of a campaign manager in an imaginary U.S Senate campaign.
"If students are planning the schedule for their candidate," says Brown, "they have to look at the demographic information for that candidate. If they want to visit district 2, and 2 skews older, they might want to talk about Social Security. If the district has a high or low unemployment, they can see that."
There are news broadcasts built into the CD-ROM to which the young campaign managers must respond. They also have to schedule fundraisers and photo ops, order polls and analyze the results.
The institute program has drawn an enthusiastic following of teachers who have added their own innovations. Julie Strong, who teaches AP U.S. government and also American history at Albemarle High School in Charlottesville, Va., has been an active YLI member tot four years. She'll hit the ground running this term by having her AP students discuss their summer reading of Hardball, by TV political commentator Chris Matthews, with an eye to evaluating how well candidates Bush, Kerry and Ralph Nader are playing the political game.


text:
Letham är en by i Fife, Skottland. Byn är belägen 6,5 km
från Cupar. Orten har  invånare (2001). Några av stugorna byggdes från närliggande Mountcastle Quarry.

Referenser

Externa länkar

Orter i Fife

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Amy Dagestad MSN, RN, NE-BC, RNC-OB, Director of Maternal/Child Services at Mary Greeley Medical Center Amy Dagestad is a 2005 graduate of Allen College in Waterloo, IA with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing and a 2010 graduate of Allen College with a Master of Science in Nursing Leadership. She startedher career at UnityPoint Health Des Moines in Maternity Services and while there, worked as a Registered Nurse, Unit Based Educator, and Supervisor. Two years ago she took a positon with Mary Greeley Medical Center in Ames, IA as the Director of Maternal/Child Services. She is certified in Inpatient Obstetrics through the Nation Certification Corporation (NCC) and certified as a Nurse Executive through the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC).Amy is a member of the Association of Women's Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses (AWHONN) and the Iowa Organization of Nurse Leaders (IONL). Amy received a Daisy Award for Extraordinary Nursing in 2012, was named one of the top 100 great Iowa nurses in 2011, and received an Always Committed to Excellence award in 2014. In 2015 Amy had a poster presentation at the national AWHONN conference and she presented a Malignant Hyperthermia case study at the Cooperative Caregiving Conference. Amy is a co-author of "Keeping Cool When Things Heat Up During a Malignant Hyperthermia Crisis" which was published in the Nursing for Women's Health Journal in Oct/Nov 2017.
This presentation describes the experience of a health care team at a maternity center during their care for a woman exhibiting an atypical presentation of malignant hyperthermia and outlines the steps taken to rapidly identify the condition and begin treatment to save her life. Key components in ensuring a positive outcome in a malignant hyperthermia crisis include increased awareness and readiness to effectively treat and reverse the signs and symptoms of this condition.


text:
Q: Excel VBA Max 10 Values from dictionary I need to get the 10 maximum values from a dictionary. Given i have some data in the following form:
ID Value
1  23
2  342
5  -23
...

What is the fastest way to do this?
To make things clearer the following is a code-listing of how i would do this in C#:
class Custom {
  int ID {get; set;}
  double Val {get; set;}
  double Val2 {get; set;}
}

List<Custom> GetMaxValues(List<Custom> myList){
  return myList.SortByDescending(c => c.Val).Take(10);
}

I have included a second value in the C# custom class, since i would actually need several values in the dictionary. Would a multidimensional array be a good solution to hold triplets of data. Then i could simply run some sorting algorithm and pick the last 10 items from the array.
Edit: I just noticed that i can't use an array since the data has different types. The ID's are actually string and not integers.

A: Don't use a dictionary - use an ArrayList instead:
Sub foo()

Dim myList As Object
Dim resultArray As Variant

'// create the arraylist and populate it
Set myList = CreateObject("System.Collections.ArrayList")

For i = 100 To 1 Step -1
    myList.Add i
Next

'// sort the values numerically
myList.Sort

'// remove the last 90 elements (we're only interested in the first 10)
myList.RemoveRange 10, myList.Count - 10

'// pass the values to a single dimension array
resultArray = myList.ToArray()

'// print the results
Debug.Print Join$(resultArray, ",")

End Sub

MSDN ArrayList Class

A: I've generated some VBA that should return the top N values from a dictionary into an array. I've tried breaking it down into helper functions to make it a bit more legible and to divide the duties for reusability. Certainly, it can be developed further for error checking, but I mocked it up relatively quickly (for example, it ignores duplicates).
Let us know if it does what you need it to do, and if you need any help with adoption into your own code.
Sub PerformTheActions()
    Dim oDictionary As Object

    Set oDictionary = CreateObject("Scripting.Dictionary")

    AddToDictionary oDictionary, Sheet1.Range("A1:A33")

    va = ReturnTopNValuesFromDict(oDictionary, 10)

    For i = LBound(va) To UBound(va)
        MsgBox "Key: " & va(i, 1) & " Value: " & va(i, 2)
    Next i

End Sub

' Below is just a helper function to add a bunch of numbers into a dictionary
' You won't need to use it because you likely have other business logic to create your dict
Private Sub AddToDictionary(odict As Object, rng As Range)
    Dim cel As Range
    Dim nID As Integer

    nID = 1
    For Each cel In rng
        If Not odict.exists(cel.Value) Then
            odict.Add nID, cel.Value
            nID = nID + 1
        End If
    Next cel

End Sub

Private Function ReturnTopNValuesFromDict(odict As Object, nTop As Integer) As Variant()
    Dim topN() As Variant
    Dim nCounter As Integer
    Dim vCutoff As Variant
    Dim nCutoffIndex As Long

    ReDim topN(1 To nTop, 1 To 2)
    nCounter = 1

    For Each oitem In odict
        If nCounter <= nTop Then
            topN(nCounter, 1) = oitem
            topN(nCounter, 2) = odict(oitem)
            nCounter = nCounter + 1
        Else
            vCutoff = topN(LBound(topN), 2)
            nCutoffIndex = LBound(topN)

            For i = LBound(topN) + 1 To UBound(topN)
                If topN(i, 2) < vCutoff Then
                    vCutoff = topN(i, 2)
                    nCutoffIndex = i
                End If
            Next i

            If vCutoff > odict(oitem) Then
                'Do nothing because lowest value in array is greater than this item
            Else
                topN(nCutoffIndex, 1) = oitem
                topN(nCutoffIndex, 2) = odict(oitem)
            End If
        End If
    Next oitem
    BubbleSortArray topN
    ReturnTopNValuesFromDict = topN
End Function

Private Function BubbleSortArray(vArray As Variant) As Variant()
    Dim vPlaceHolder As Variant
    Dim nFirst As Long
    Dim nSecond As Long

    For nFirst = LBound(vArray) To UBound(vArray)
        For nSecond = nFirst + 1 To UBound(vArray)
            If vArray(nFirst, 2) < vArray(nSecond, 2) Then
                vPlaceHolder = vArray(nFirst, 1)
                vArray(nFirst, 1) = vArray(nSecond, 1)
                vArray(nSecond, 1) = vPlaceHolder

                vPlaceHolder = vArray(nFirst, 2)
                vArray(nFirst, 2) = vArray(nSecond, 2)
                vArray(nSecond, 2) = vPlaceHolder
            End If
        Next nSecond
    Next nFirst
End Function

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Whether you have pets that you want to keep safe while outdoors or you need some privacy from your neighbors, Action Fence provides a variety of residential fencing.
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I was very impressed with Action Fence. I called three fence installers and Dan Lawson from Action Fence was the first person to call me back and to show up for an estimate. Not only was Dan punctual, personable, and professional, but the quote he gave me was about $800 cheaper than the two other competitors! The fence was installed within 2 weeks of placing my order. The installers were also punctual and personable and did a great job. They installed the entire 150 foot fence and 2 gates within about 5 hours! The job looks great! Now I just have to wait a month and get the fence stained :).
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One of the easiest ways to pay attention to how the US dollar is doing is to simply follow the US Dollar Index. Looking at the chart, you can see that we ended up forming a bit of a hammer shaped candle for the Friday session, just above the 50 day exponential moving average (EMA).
That of course is a very bullish sign, but if we were to break down below the bottom of this candlestick, it suddenly becomes a "hanging man", which of course is a very bearish sign. Overall, the US dollar has gained for a couple of years in a relatively well-defined channel.
One of the first places you will see the US dollar move another asset is in gold. After all, gold is denominated in the same US dollars, and traders will often look to gold markets to protect themselves from dollar depreciation.
Recently, we have seen gold bounce around the $1300 level. You can see on the attached four hour chart that there seems to be a lot of buying interest between $1290 and $1300. There are three circles on the chart showing where this has happened recently.
If the US dollar were to gain strength, we could see gold break down below the important support level. If that's the case, the gold markets could find themselves looking towards $1275 level, and then even the $1250 level.
This is just one of the markets I will be paying attention to in relation to the US dollar.
The EUR/USD pair has been beaten down rather significantly as the US dollar has strengthened against almost everything. It is important to note that the EUR/USD pair is over half of the US Dollar Index.
Looking at the chart, it's obvious that the 1.12 level has been significant support in the past, so it makes sense that we will continue to see a lot of interest in this area, as it is the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level of the larger and longer-term move, as well as a scene of massive demand previously.
It is because of this that we should be watching this currency pair because if the 1.12 level holds rather significantly, it's likely that the US dollar will fall against almost everything, lifting the previously mentioned gold market, and possibly driving the EUR/USD pair back towards the 1.14 handle.
The S&P 500 has done reasonably well considering the strength in the US dollar. Given enough time, we often see a negative correlation between the two markets.
That being the case, it's very likely that the markets will come to a resolution one way or the other. Eventually, the US dollar works against the S&P 500 but ironically in the short term that may be one of the drivers of the US dollar, as people put money to work in US equities as there is no other viable alternative right now. It's a hard correlation to follow at times, because it can change in its meaning depending on other global macro factors.
The main take away from this is that the US dollar is going to hold the spotlight this coming week, and could tell you where assets are being directed. Which market you choose to play is entirely up to you, but the main take away is that you should let the US dollar guide your trades in those other markets.
Simply put, some of the most important things that professional traders will look for is what the fundamental assets are doing. The most fundamental asset without a doubt is going to be the greenback as most things are traded against it.
This will be true whether it's a stock, and Index, a commodity, or of course other foreign currencies. By paying attention to how it is behaving, quite often you can formulate better longer-term trading positions.
While many of these assets can move on their own, depending on the circumstance, as a basic underlying filter, you need to pay attention to the US dollar.
You should do more analysis before putting money to work, however, and uderstanding where the currency that you are trading against is going is your first step. Then you can focus on things like industrial demand for a commodity, earnings for a stock, or other such inputs.


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text:
To swing or not to swing, that was the question
by AIER admin | Dec 10, 2013 | General | 0 comments
The question of whether our industrial relations laws should be radically altered under the current Abbott government was the subject of this year's AIER Ron McCallum Debate. Two hundred of Australia's leading human resources, industrial relations and labour law practitioners gathered to hear leading union and employer advocates put their case for change or no change.
This year's Debate was chaired by the Hon Geoff Giudice, a Consultant with Ashurst Australia and former Judge of the Federal Court and President of Australian Industrial Relations Commission and Fair Work Australia. Also taking part were the Hon Brendan O'Connor, Shadow Minister for Employment, Mr Stephen Smith, National IR Director, AiG and Dave Oliver, Secretary, ACTU. Professor Ron McCallum also spoke. The Minister for Employment, Senator Abetz and his Assistant Minister were unavailable due to other commitments and sent apologies.
In preparation for the Debate AIER prepared an extensive discussion paper setting out the various proposals for change from a variety of stakeholders.
Stability as a virtue
In briefly introducing the topic, the Hon Geoff Giudice noted:
"The first point is that in this country we have an obsession with our industrial relations system. We cannot stop changing it. It would be difficult to find a country at a comparable stage of economic development which alters or attempts to alter its industrial relations system as frequently as we do.
"The second point is that there are significant costs associated with this instability. There are costs to the parties and their representatives in the policy formulation process, costs entailed in the legislative process and a range of direct and indirect implementation costs when the system changes.
"The third point is that our national obsession with changing the system can be a serious distraction from more productive activities.
"None of this is to suggest that our system should be static. Change can never be eliminated and nor should it be. Our laws must change in response to social and economic developments. We are talking about an area of life in which some level of disagreement and conflict is inevitable. And I also understand that in our polarised socio-political system when there is a change of government there is an expectation that the new Government will deliver reforms which favour its traditional constituencies.
"But it seems to me there is much to be said for an improved policy formulation process in which the stability of the system is a core value. A principle objective of policy should be to achieve a sustainable system: that is, a system which does not represent nirvana for either capital or labour but which both sides can live with. Such a system would provide greater certainty for our industries and greater predictability for investors and customers.
"The Briefing Note prepared for this debate by AIER deals with some of the possible barriers to achieving greater consensus. Those barriers will not be easily overcome. Leadership will be required from employers and unions and from government. In my respectful view all three should actively support the development of a more stable workplace relations system that would operate in the interests of Australian society as a whole."
Bi-partisan support needed for change
Shadow Minister Brendan O'Connor put a "no" case against another radical change in industrial laws. He noted that there was always a case for change when there is bi-partisan support for it, such as the introduction of enterprise bargaining for which there was a broad consensus. There was no support for changes such as individual statutory employment contracts, such as the AWAs introduced during the WorkChoices period by the Howard government and repudiated by the Australian people at the 2007 election.
Brendan O'Connor also rejected the need for a renewed Building and Construction Commission:
"Productivity did not rise during the last iteration of the ABCC nor did industrial disputes for that matter. But disturbingly fatalities rose…"
He also rejected the need for the proposed Registered Organisations Commission [ROC], to be created by new legislation introduced by the Abbott Government.
Both Bills he said were "aimed squarely at unions" and while the ROC could be seen as responding to unacceptable activities of certain HSU officials, it represented a radical departure from previous approaches:
"This Bill is a political play to exploit the very serious allegations of misconduct and criminal conduct at the Health Services Union. By playing politics and attempting to treat such organisations as if they were for profit corporations the government is going far beyond what is customary in this area.
"Indeed, it is a radical departure from the regulation of such bodies and not as it is arguing, heading towards to 'sensible centre'. It's no wonder then that the critics of this Bill include employer bodies that have criticised the way in which this Bill has been constructed and the potential and onerous implications for those organisations."
Industrial legislation, he concluded, should not swing from point to point like a pendulum, but neither could it be unchanging. What was needed was a system that delivered the society that Australians want and therefore it must bring the people with it.
Change needed within existing framework
Ai Group IR Director Stephen Smith, said that the discussion was important and argued for key changes to the Fair Work Act but within the current framework:
"It is an interesting topic because history shows us that wide swings in the workplace relations system are not a good idea. What tends to follow is a wide correction in the opposite direction. Fortunately these days few people are arguing for wide swings in workplace relations laws. There appears to be a general consensus that any changes that are needed should be made within the framework of the Fair Work Act.
"We have seen the IR pendulum swing quite widely over the past seven years. A widespread view in the community is that the Howard Government over-reached with the Workchoices legislation. However, an equally widespread view within industry is that the Rudd / Gillard Government over-corrected with the Fair Work Act and what is needed now is to return the IR pendulum to the sensible centre. The Australian Industry Group subscribes to this view.
"We need workplace relations laws that are more productive, more flexible and fairer than the current laws, and to achieve this we need a series of sensible and practical changes to the Fair Work Act.
"Our workplace relations laws need to encourage not deter favourable business decisions on investment and employment. Our laws need to promote flexible, modern workplace arrangements of benefit to employers and employees. Our laws need to encourage and support greater participation in the workforce and higher levels of productivity."
"Our workplace relations laws of course need to be fair – but fairness has many facets. The laws need to be fair both to employers and employees…"
Stephen Smith pointed to three key areas in which his organisation, on behalf of its members, was advocating significant change:
•	The scope of bargaining claims and enterprise agreement content – which should be brought back to the Electrolux decision
•	The general protections laws – which were causing major problems and where the number of claims threatened to lead to a collapse of the system
•	The transfer of business laws – which were drafted too broadly.
Ai Group's position was that these issues needed to be addressed urgently. Stephen Smith said that the Federal Coalition's industrial relations policy was "disappointing" and that these matters could not wait until after the 2016 election to be dealt with, but the Government was sticking to its line that only those changes mentioned in its policy document would be implemented in the first term.
Stay clear of the wrecking ball
ACTU Secretary Dave Oliver noted that 2013 represented 20 years since the 1993 Industrial Relations Reform Act ushered in a period of change, especially the decentralisation of wage fixing to the enterprise level. He said that the IR model that works best is one of collaboration, not confrontation.
Tripartism was an important value in our society that should be retained in any IR system. He noted that real wages were not keeping pace with growth and that the wages share of income was falling. The ACTU was concerned that the Abbott Government's proposed Productivity Commission Inquiry was likely to be a "Trojan horse" of changes really sought by the Government. Unions support productivity improvements but this was not the same as a "race to the bottom" in wages and working conditions.
He noted that the capacity of management was an important driver in productivity and that the current legislative settings were compatible with good outcomes for both enterprises and employees.
The pendulum, he concluded, should not be used as a "wrecking ball".
Broad based PC inquiry wanted
Professor Ron McCallum, for whom the Debate is named, reflected on the contributions of the three speakers. Prof McCallum commented first on the response of the previous Government to the Report of the Fair Work Act Review Panel, which he had chaired and which was released last year on the same day as the 2nd Ron McCallum Debate.
He said that he was disappointed with the response of the then Government, which made a number of changes to the Act not recommended by the Panel but did not make some technical amendments which had wide support, including those regarding individual flexibility arrangements and transfer of business.
Prof McCallum was also concerned about aspects of the new Government's legislative program. He described the legislation re-establishing the Building and Construction Commission as draconian and was concerned about the ROC, although he thought that to some extent unions "had walked into" this situation through the behaviour of some unions and union officials.
Professor McCallum said that any proposed Productivity Commission inquiry into industrial relations should be broad-based and well balanced. He called for the inclusion of Commission members with differing backgrounds and not just "labour economists" to conduct the inquiry.
He also noted that previous reforms had led to too much regulation and too much explaining about how everything should and, indeed must, be done. In difficult times, he said the Government should be cautious in its approach.
Prof McCallum did not want the IR pendulum to swing dramatically, but called for a broadening of the base of labour law, that is, to include those many types of workers outside the reach of effective labor law. Many of these were young workers excluded from continuing employment by means of casual, temporary, contract and other forms of insecure employment. Traditional forms of continuing employment were declining as a proportion of all employment.
"Work/life balance was important and Australia needed to be a more connected and more civil society, not just one focused on productivity alone, he said.
Following the speakers' presentations, the audience was able to make comments and to question the speakers. In this session:
•	Dave Oliver noted that the union movement works for all employees, not just union members, for example, through its minimum wage advocacy, and while condemning the conduct of officials of the HSU, he noted that many workers suffered at the hands of unscrupulous employers.
•	Stephen Smith advocated a role for individual enterprise agreements.
•	All participants noted there was general concern about the impact of the ROC legislation on office bearers in both unions and employer organisations.
•	The bullying legislation, due to come into effect from 1st January 2014, with cross-party support would be a new jurisdiction whose future would be closely watched by all.
•	That employers supported the Productivity Commission inquiry, while the Opposition was concerned to see that both economic as well as social issues were addressed.
Each year since its inception in 2005, AIER has held a public debate regarding important issues in workplace relations. It is part of AIER's commitment to promoting public discourse around important workplace issues. In 2011 we were honoured to have then Senior Australian of the Year Emeritus Professor Ron McCallum become a Patron of AIER and also agree to lend his name to our annual debate. Our debate has therefore assumed responsibility for promoting important ideas and discussions that are conducive to Ron's work. Our overarching theme for all debates is therefore "Justice at Work".

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
NSString * const kPXQLinkedInDeniedByUser   = @"the+user+denied+your+request";

@interface PXQLinkedInAuthorizationViewController () <UIWebViewDelegate>

@property (nonatomic, strong) UIWebView * webView;

@property (nonatomic, strong) UIBarButtonItem * cancelBarButtonItem;

@property (nonatomic, strong) PXQLinkedInApplication * linkedInApplication;

@property (nonatomic, readwrite) BOOL handleRedirectURL;

@end

@implementation PXQLinkedInAuthorizationViewController

#pragma mark -
#pragma mark Initialization

- (instancetype)initWithApplication:(PXQLinkedInApplication *)application {

    return [self initWithApplication:application delegate:nil];
}

- (instancetype)initWithApplication:(PXQLinkedInApplication *)application delegate:(id<PXQLinkedInAuthorizationViewControllerDelegate>)delegate {

    self = [super init];

    if (self) {

        self.linkedInApplication = application;

        self.delegate = delegate;
    }

    return self;
}

#pragma mark -
#pragma mark View Hierarchy

- (void)viewDidLoad {

    [super viewDidLoad];

    if(SYSTEM_VERSION_GREATER_THAN_OR_EQUAL_TO(@"7")) {

        self.edgesForExtendedLayout = UIRectEdgeNone;
    }

    //
    //  Cancel bar button item
    //

    UIBarButtonItem *cancelButton = [[UIBarButtonItem alloc] initWithBarButtonSystemItem:UIBarButtonSystemItemCancel target:self action:@selector(tappedCancelButton:)];

    self.navigationItem.leftBarButtonItem = cancelButton;

    self.cancelBarButtonItem = cancelButton;

    //
    //  Web View
    //

    self.webView = [[UIWebView alloc] init];

    self.webView.delegate = self;

    self.webView.scalesPageToFit = YES;

    [self.view addSubview:self.webView];
}

- (void)viewDidAppear:(BOOL)animated {

    NSString *linkedInAuthorizationUrlString = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"https://www.linkedin.com/uas/oauth2/authorization?response_type=code&client_id=%@&scope=%@&state=%@&redirect_uri=%@", self.linkedInApplication.clientId, self.linkedInApplication.grantedAccessString, self.linkedInApplication.state, [self.linkedInApplication.redirectURLString encodedStringForLinkedInAuthorization]];

    [self.webView loadRequest:[NSURLRequest requestWithURL:[NSURL URLWithString:linkedInAuthorizationUrlString]]];
}

- (void)viewWillLayoutSubviews {

    [super viewWillLayoutSubviews];

    self.webView.frame = self.view.bounds;
}

#pragma mark -
#pragma mark PXQLinkedInAuthorizationControllerDelegate Event Fireup

- (void)notifyDidCancel {

    if ( [self.delegate respondsToSelector:@selector(pxquisiteLinkedInAuthorizationViewControllerDidCancel:)] ) {

        [self.delegate pxquisiteLinkedInAuthorizationViewControllerDidCancel:self];
    }
}

- (void)notifyDidFail:(NSError *)error {

    if ( [self.delegate respondsToSelector:@selector(pxquisiteLinkedInAuthorizationViewController:failedWithError:)] ) {

        [self.delegate pxquisiteLinkedInAuthorizationViewController:self failedWithError:error];
    }
}

- (void)notifyDidSucceed:(NSString *)authorizationCode {

    if ( [self.delegate respondsToSelector:@selector(pxquisiteLinkedInAuthorizationViewController:succeededWithAuthorizationCode:)] ) {

        [self.delegate pxquisiteLinkedInAuthorizationViewController:self  succeededWithAuthorizationCode:authorizationCode];
    }
}

#pragma mark -
#pragma mark Cancellation

- (void)tappedCancelButton:(id)sender {

    [self notifyDidCancel];
}

#pragma mark -
#pragma mark WebView & OAuth Handlers

- (BOOL)webView:(UIWebView *)webView shouldStartLoadWithRequest:(NSURLRequest *)request navigationType:(UIWebViewNavigationType)navigationType {

    NSString *url = [[request URL] absoluteString];

    self.handleRedirectURL = self.linkedInApplication.redirectURLString && [url hasPrefix:self.linkedInApplication.redirectURLString];

    if (self.handleRedirectURL) {

        if ([url rangeOfString:@"error"].location != NSNotFound) {

            BOOL accessDeniedByUser = [url rangeOfString:kPXQLinkedInDeniedByUser].location != NSNotFound;

            if ( accessDeniedByUser ) {

                [self notifyDidCancel];

            } else {

                NSError * error = [[NSError alloc] initWithDomain:kPXQLinkedInErrorDomain code:PXQLinkedInErrorUserCancelled
                                                         userInfo:[NSDictionary dictionaryWithObject:@"The user has cancelled the authorization request." forKey:NSLocalizedDescriptionKey]];

                [self notifyDidFail:error];
            }

        } else {

            NSString *receivedState = [self extractGetParameter:@"state" fromURLString:url];

            //assert that the state is as we expected it to be

            if ([self.linkedInApplication.state isEqualToString:receivedState]) {

                NSString *authorizationCode = [self extractGetParameter:@"code" fromURLString: url];

                if ( ! authorizationCode ) {

                    NSError * error = [[NSError alloc] initWithDomain:kPXQLinkedInErrorDomain code:PXQLinkedInInvalidAuthorizationCode
                                                             userInfo:[NSDictionary dictionaryWithObject:@"The authorization code is nil or empty string." forKey:NSLocalizedDescriptionKey]];

                    [self notifyDidFail:error];

                }
                else {

                    [self notifyDidSucceed:authorizationCode];
                }

            } else {

                NSError *error = [[NSError alloc] initWithDomain:kPXQLinkedInErrorDomain code:PXQLinkedInInvalidApplicationState userInfo:[NSDictionary dictionaryWithObject:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"Invalid application state '%@'.", self.linkedInApplication.state] forKey:NSLocalizedDescriptionKey]];

                [self.delegate pxquisiteLinkedInAuthorizationViewController:self failedWithError:error];
            }
        }
    }
    return ! self.handleRedirectURL;
}

- (NSString *)extractGetParameter:(NSString *)parameterName fromURLString:(NSString *)urlString {

    NSMutableDictionary * mdQueryStrings = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc] init];

    urlString = [[urlString componentsSeparatedByString:@"?"] objectAtIndex:1];

    for (NSString * qs in [urlString componentsSeparatedByString:@"&"]) {

        [mdQueryStrings setValue:[[[[qs componentsSeparatedByString:@"="] objectAtIndex:1]
                                   stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@"+" withString:@" "]
                                  stringByReplacingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]
                          forKey:[[qs componentsSeparatedByString:@"="] objectAtIndex:0]];
    }

    return [mdQueryStrings objectForKey:parameterName];
}

- (void)webView:(UIWebView *)webView didFailLoadWithError:(NSError *)error {

    if ( ! self.handleRedirectURL ) {

        [self.delegate pxquisiteLinkedInAuthorizationViewController:self failedWithError:error];
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}

- (void)webViewDidFinishLoad:(UIWebView *)webView {

    if([[UIDevice currentDevice] userInterfaceIdiom] == UIUserInterfaceIdiomPad) {

        NSString* js =
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            @"meta.setAttribute( 'name', 'viewport' ); "
            @"meta.setAttribute( 'content', 'width = 540px, initial-scale = 1.0, user-scalable = yes' ); "
            @"document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(meta)";

        [webView stringByEvaluatingJavaScriptFromString: js];
    }
}

@end

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


3 CAR GARAGE!!! HUGE Master w/ HUGE HIS & HER WIC's/ Jetted Tub & TILE Shower, LG Country Kitchen w/ GRANITE Tops/ ISLAND/ BACKSPLASH/ DOUBLE OVEN, LG Great Room w/ STONE GAS Fireplace, LG Bonus Rm, LG Laundry Rm, LOTS of Custom Trim, TANKLESS GAS Water Heater & Covered Patio!! PRIVACY FENCE!!!!


Look at the divine tomatoes and basil I got from my garden! Add a nice loaf and olive oil and voila!
Yummy Bruschetta! It was so delicious!
I've frogged the watershed cardi I started as I got annoyed with myself for making stupid mistakes in following the chart. I've decided to just knit a nice woolly pair of socks with the 220 Cascade.
Speaking of "frogging", I've also frogged the estonian lily-of-the-valley scarf and opted for a lovely snowflakes-and-flowers triangular shawl. It is my first attempt at a triangular shawl and am finding the construction puzzling, but I'm sure it will all come together in the end!
So yes, I'm being very undecided about my knitting and changing my mind a lot! I seem to be going through a period of lack of confidence and general confusion. I think my rheumatoid is getting me down a little and making me feel very tired.
Anyway, the bruschetta was very yummy- you can really taste and smell the difference in tomatoes that are home-grown!
Yum! we have some new tomato plants and basil on my kitchen window.


text:
Is Vaginal Birth Safe for Women With Genital Herpes?
JGI / Jamie Grill / Blend Images / Getty Images
It can be stressful to know that you have to think about genital herpes during pregnancy. It's possible for there to be severe consequences if a child becomes infected with the herpes virus during labor or shortly after being born. In rare cases, neonatal herpes can even be deadly. Because of this, women with genital herpes are often counseled toward a very conservative management of their pregnancy and delivery options.
Despite this, conservative management may not be necessary for all circumstances. Not all pregnant women with genital herpes are at equal risk of transmitting the virus to their infant. The risk of neonatal herpes is highest, by far, for women who become infected with herpes during their pregnancy. That's particularly true if they become infected near the end of their pregnancy.
Transmission rates from mother to infant are substantially lower for women who have been infected for a long period of time. That's true even if they have an active infection during the course of their pregnancy. There is also some data that women with genital HSV-1 infections may have a greater risk of giving their infants neonatal herpes than women with HSV-2.
Risk Reduction Techniques
Doctors generally recommend suppressive therapy for all pregnant women with HSV infections. This should be started at 36 weeks of pregnancy. A C-section is also recommended if they have an active genital herpes outbreak near their time of delivery.
The suppressive therapy is to reduce the risk of an outbreak and lower viral shedding. The C-section is performed in order to reduce the chance that the infant will be exposed to the virus while passing through the birth canal.
Only a small percentage of neonatal herpes transmissions occur during the pregnancy itself. The vast majority happen during birth.
Deciding What to Do About Your Delivery
Neonatal herpes is a scary prospect. Many pregnant women are understandably torn about their pregnancy management options. That's particularly true if they are interested in having a more natural childbirth experience.
In addition, some women worry about infecting their child even with suppressive therapy. After all, the herpes virus can be present in the body even when there is not currently an outbreak. Therefore, they may not feel comfortable giving birth vaginally even if they haven't had an outbreak in years.
Can Doctors Detect Herpes During Pregnancy?
Doctors can certainly test for viral DNA during pregnancy. Still, there is some question about how useful these tests are, particularly when they're done more than a few days before birth. A 1999 study of herpes viral shedding during pregnancy found that almost 60 percent of women who gave birth within two days of having a positive test were still positive during delivery. However, testing any earlier than that was largely inaccurate at predicting herpes shedding at the time of birth.
Current guidelines from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) recommend against routine herpes testing during pregnancy.
Is Having Detectable Virus Levels Clearly Associated with Neonatal Herpes Infection?
A large 2005 study found that neonatal herpes was extraordinarily rare in women who were not culture positive at the time of delivery. Five percent of women who were culture positive for HSV gave birth to infants with neonatal herpes. Only 0.02 percent of women who were culture negative did.
It would be ideal if there were more large studies examining this question. Still, it seems likely that detectable virus levels at the time of delivery are linked to neonatal herpes infection. Or, more accurately, it seems clear that not having detectable virus levels during delivery makes transmitting neonatal herpes highly unlikely.
How Often Do People With Herpes Shed the Virus When They Don't Have an Outbreak?
A large 2011 study, published in JAMA, investigated how often people with asymptomatic herpes infections shed the virus and how much virus they shed. The researchers found that people with asymptomatic genital HSV-2 shed detectable levels of virus 10 percent of the time. That's about half as often as people with symptomatic infections. However, the amount of virus they shed was similar.
Brown ZA et al. Effect of serologic status and cesarean delivery on transmission rates of herpes simplex virus from mother to infant. JAMA. 2003 Jan 8;289(2):203-9.
Brown ZA et al. Genital herpes complicating pregnancy. Obstet Gynecol. 2005 Oct;106(4):845-56. DOI: 10.1097/01.AOG.0000180779.35572.3a
Garland SM et al. Do antepartum herpes simplex virus cultures predict intrapartum shedding for pregnant women with recurrent disease? Infect Dis Obstet Gynecol. 1999;7(5):230-6.
Rouse DJ, Stringer JS. Cesarean delivery and risk of herpes simplex virus infection. JAMA. 2003 May 7;289(17):2208; author reply 2208-9.DOI: 10.1001/jama.289.17.2208-a
Sheffield JS et al. Acyclovir prophylaxis to prevent herpes simplex virus recurrence at delivery: a systematic review. Obstet Gynecol. 2003 Dec;102(6):1396-403.
Tronstein E et al. Genital shedding of herpes simplex virus among symptomatic and asymptomatic persons with HSV-2 infection. JAMA. 2011 Apr 13;305(14):1441-9. DOI: 10.1001/jama.2011.420
My Partner's Cold Sores Gave Me Genital Herpes
Herpes Vaccine Development: Priorities and Progress
Dating When You Have Herpes
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Toulouse, France - The passenger aircraft fleet serving the Australia South Pacific region will grow from some 700 aircraft today to over 1,200 by 2033, with a doubling in the number of widebody aircraft. With aviation growth comparable with other mature markets such as North America and Europe, the region has the world's highest propensity to travel per capita.
While the fleet serving the region will increase by 70%, widebody aircraft will more than double from some 290 today to over 640 by 2033. In 20 years, the passenger fleet serving the region will increase by nearly 500 aircraft (146 single aisles like the A320 and A320neo and 353 wide-bodies from 250 to over 500 seats such as the A330, A330neo, A350 XWB and the A380). The region's propensity to travel (over three trips per capita) is almost double that of North America and it will remain the world's highest at over four trips per capita by 2033. Domestically, traffic to and from Australia's busiest airports, (Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth) is set to double with an additional ~90 million passengers a year by 2033.
Today, some 70% of international traffic is within the wider Asia Pacific region including China (PRC) and this is set to grow as it becomes home to 40% of the world's GDP by 2033. The PRC is Australia's single biggest export market and increased air links will fuel business and tourism between the two. Today, Chinese travellers indicate Australia among their top destinations. Forecasts for Australian inbound tourism generally suggest nearly 10 million visitors a year by 2022. Today, 99.7% of these tourists arrive by air, and in the future will increasingly arrive on aircraft like the A330neo and for denser routes the A350 XWB and A380.
By 2033, the number of aviation mega-cities globally will double to 91. Today's mega cities of Sydney and Melbourne will be joined by Perth, Brisbane and Auckland by 2033. These 91 centres of wealth will account for 35% of global GDP and will be served by high capacity aircraft like the A380, with some 95% of all long haul traffic travelling to from or through them.
Air transportation makes it possible to travel the region's vast distances and helps connectivity at a global and country level providing economic benefits. In the last 10 years, Australia's domestic traffic increased by nearly 90% for example, with a positive trend forecast to continue.
Globally, in the next 20 years (2014-2033), according to Airbus' Global Market Forecast, passenger traffic will grow annually at 4.7% driving a need for around 31,400 new passenger and freighter aircraft (100 seats and above) worth US$4.6 trillion. The passenger and freighter fleet will increase from today's 18,500 aircraft to 37,500 by 2033, an increase of nearly 19,000 aircraft. Some 12,400 older less fuel efficient passenger and freighter aircraft will be retired.


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text:
Inside Bangalore's traffic control room
August 20, 2008 Supriya Khandekar
Believe it or not, Bangalore does have a traffic control room. It is called the Traffic Management Centre and is situated on the first floor of Ashok Nagar Police Station. As you enter the air-conditioned room, you will see five LCD screens mounted on the wall. All of them are connected to computers. The screens show a grid of nine small screens with traffic movements captured through cameras. Any one of the junctions from the screen can be enlarged and seen in particular.
LCD screens with a grid of traffic various junctions (Pic: Supriya Khandekar)
The system uses two types of cameras: surveillance cameras and enforcement cameras. Presently the city has 40 surveillance cameras put on various junctions. Out of these, 33 are in working conditions and the others are yet to be connected. This camera is put on an eight metre-tall pole beside the traffic signals on the junctions. All the cameras are connected through cables (provided by BSNL) with the control room.
These cameras are German-made (Bosch) and can be rotated in 360 degrees to see any point on a particular junction. They are controlled by a mouse or a joy stick. The camera can be zoomed in upto 1.5 kms of distance along the road. With the help of the zooming, the number plates of the vehicles are captured.
All the screens constantly show a grid of all the different junctions and how the traffic is moving. At the same time one can also see if anyone is breaking the signals and also if the traffic constable is there on duty or not. If the constable is not seen on duty, the control room contacts him through a walkie-talkie and asks him to be on the junction. Even when the constable misses any violator, he is informed about that immediately, say the staff at the control room.
Recording violators and issuing fines
One of the screens with the traffic grid and the list of all the junctions on the left (Pic: Supriya Khandekar)
When a vehicle is seen violating the signal, driving speedily, or not following the traffic constable's directions, the surveillance cameras make a note of the vehicle (the number plate). This number is fed to an 'automation' computer as the police call it. This computer has all the details about all the vehicles registered under any RTO in the city. The automation computer is actually a data bank for all the vehicles that get registered in the city. This data base is updated regularly.
TRAFFIC QUICK INFO
(Bangalore Control Room, open to the public)
– Monitors over 700 traffic signals
– Maintained and programmed by Bharat Electronics Limited
– 110 signals under the control of city traffic police, rest under BEL staff.
– Lights green/red for 90 seconds in peak hours and 35 seconds otherwise.
– Signals ON from 7 AM to 11 PM, blinking mode from 11 PM to 7 AM
– Differentiated programmes are loaded on particular signals depending on the area and traffic rush.
– 40 Surveillance cameras
– 5 Enforcement cameras, each camera records around 200 traffic violators per day
Once the vehicle number is fed to the automation computer it shows the address, name of the person for whom the vehicle is registered. A challan is sent to the address and the person has to pay the fine in the nearest police station or in any Bangalore One customer service centre.
Along with this there is a computer that is connected to the enforcement cameras. The watch is kept in the similar manner as of the surveillance cameras. But the enforcement cameras have a special feature by which they flash and click the images. The image then becomes a reference to find out who, when and where violated the rules. When a violation is observed, the clicked image is fed to the automation computer. For any violator, the enforcement camera clicks three images which are analysed in the control room to verify and fine the violator.
The enforcement cameras are right now only on five junctions: Devegowda Petrol Pump in Padmanabhanagar, Hennur Cross, Kamaraj Road and the Tata Institute Junction (Malleswaram). One more camera is set up in JP Nagar which is not yet in working mode. All these cameras are using a special software called called Auto Number Plate Reader (ANPR). It helps identifying number plates of all the vehicles that pass a signal.
The control room staff say that per day at least 200 violators are caught on one camera. But not all violators get a challan, because at times the camera cannot get the exact vehicle number due to technical errors.
Traffic signal control and timing
Along with the different kinds of cameras, the centre also controls traffic signals in the city. There are more than 700 traffic signals in the city and all of these are maintained, controlled and programmed by Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL). Out of all the traffic signals, 110 are under traffic police's control. Some staff from BEL are stationed at the centre and they help in programming and controlling the rest of the signals.
All these signals are connected by BSNL cables to a controlling server and each signal is fed with a programme for a day. There are three types of signal controls – fixed time signals, vehicle activated control and synchronised control.
Fixed time signals run on a fixed time programme. For example each light (red, green and amber) will remain for a specific of 40 seconds. Then whether there is enough traffic or more the signal is programmed to be on one light for the set time. If there is more traffic the signal stays for more than 40 seconds as per the requirement. It trips only once the traffic flow reduces.
Vehicle automated control is a programme in which if the signal turns green and there aren't many vehicles requiring it to stay green for 40 seconds, then after waiting for 4 seconds after the last vehicle crosses, the signal automatically trips down. The line marked as the stopping line during a signal has sensors beneath. It can recognise if vehicles are passing by or not.
Synchronised control is programmed for all the signals coming along a particular road. They are programmed to show green/red/amber one after another after a set time. In this way, if one gets a green signal at the start of the way he can get green throughout the lane and red if the person is not lucky.
Each signal is controlled from the traffic management centre and all the programmes are fed into the signals usually on daily basis. The programmes can also be changed depending on the need. All the signals are programmmed to work from 7am to 11pm. The time for how long a green signal should remain can be changed depending on the traffic flow. On an average day the signal lights are green/red for 90 seconds in peak hours and 35 seconds in low hours.
From 11pm to 7am all the signals in the city are in a blinking mode and show amber blinking. This is done keeping in mind that there is low traffic in the night. But the programme can be changed if the conditions are such.
For VIPs and critical situations
There is another function known as Hurry Call. This is usually done when VIP movement is happening or in cases of emergency. In this feature, a full road clearance is done. Hurry Call is invoked when an ambulance is found caught in the traffic, though not very often, according to Sudhir R, Sub Inspector of Police.
The traffic management centre also has other rooms with staff keeping an eye on other traffic variations through walkie talkies. These control rooms are in direct contact with all the police constables on each signal and help them if they are stuck.
Helplines – 103 and 25588444/555
There is a manned helpline room where all of us can call when we are either stuck in traffic or if we see an accident happening and want immediate help. The main toll free helpline number is 103 for all traffic matters.
City traffic helplines
There is a second helpline, 25588444/555, which is a connected to a Telephone Voice Recording System (TVRS), which is a computer connected to the telephone lines. A caller is asked to leave his message and the message gets recorded. This system can be used when the caller does not wish to disclose his/her identity or when the 103 number is unreachable or busy.
The helpline gets more than 200 calls a day on the toll free number (out of which 50 per cent) are bogus calls, and the TVRS service on an average gets 20 calls a day and all of them are genuine, according to control room staff. The helpline numbers gets feedback calls from citizens as well, after a problem or issue is resolved or addressed, say staff. ⊕
Of lights and cameras, smoke and soot
Another reminder to BSY government
September 11, 2008 Divya Sharma
The 100-day-old BJP-government has still not answered key questions for Bangaloreans: notably, the Sakrama and property tax issues. A citizens' meet was the reminder.
They danced all day
May 9, 2012 Gaana Srinivas
Alliance Francaise celebrated world dance day by having performances for 12 hours straight. It was fun time for the performers and the audience.
Summer camp season – moms on the run
May 26, 2010 Padmalatha Ravi
Everyone complains about lost childhood in summer camps and extra-curricular activities. But what about the mothers who ferry their children from one class to another?
Rajangam says:
The basic prolem in Bangalore Trafic is nobody is folloewing lane discipline.Everybody crisscrosses creating a blockage.All western countries like PARIS, NEWYORK where traffic density is much higher there is no chaos. People whoever he may be follow the lane discipline rigourously.BTP should insist/enforce this simple thing ruthlessly by penalising the offenders.Itwill do wonders . BTP can try on some chaotics roads as a trial.
Santosh Ghargi says:
Finally, Bangalore Traffic Police are thinking of enforcing Traffic rules. Good news!! Hopefully roads will be more safer & a comman man's 'right to safety' is upheld.
Srikanth Srinivasan says:
Great post… and the most relevant of them all…. Glad to see that technology is harnessed to a great extent in traffic control. Hope that the situation improves in the future.
Siri Srinivas says:
Supriya, That was a super article. I always thought all the Traffic-Control talk was some mythical creation of the traffic police's PR wing.
For once, we're glad Big Brother is watching.(How effective it is, is anyone's guess though!)


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Rohaniza Usman is a Filipina peacemaker. In 2013 she won the N-Peace Award.

Biography
Born in the Philippines, Usman grew up in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and returned to the Philippines to attended Assumption College. She started her career working on programs for the Office of the Presidential Assistant for Youth Affairs in Manila. She then worked in the Peace Development program for the non-governmental organization (NGO), Asia America Initiative.

Usman is the founder of the NGO Teach Peace Build Peace Movement which focuses on Filipino youth involvement in the peace movement.

In 2013 Usman was awarded the N-Peace Award as an Emerging Peace Champion. She also received the 2014 Doha International Center for Interfaith Dialogue award. Usman is an Ashoka Fellow.

References

External links
A youth peace leader in Mindanao: Rohaniza Usman wins the N-Peace Award 2013 YouTube video

Living people
Date of birth missing (living people)
21st-century Filipino women
Women activists
Year of birth missing (living people)
Ashoka Fellows


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The World Health Organization reports that over 60 countries and territories suffer from continuing transmission of Zika, while the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) says that more than 40,000 people in the U.S. and its territories have been infected, including at least 4,750 pregnant women. With the growing danger of this infectious disease, and the impeding threat of neurological problems and brain damage it poses to developing babies, fast and accessible methods to screen for Zika and control its spread are urgently needed. One technology that promises to do so was the winner of the Nokia Sensing XCHALLENGE in 2013. Developed by Nanobiosym Inc., a Cambridge, MA firm, the Gene‐RADAR platform probes samples of bodily fluids placed on a "nanochip" and inserted into a portable device that rapidly reports the presence or absence of a pathogen. Following last week's FDA Emergency Use Authorization of the Gene‐RADAR platform for Zika Testing, Medgadget had the chance to sit down with Nanobiosym's founder and CEO, Dr. Anita Goel, a Harvard-MIT-trained physicist and physician.
Mohammad Saleh, Medgadget: Tell us about your Gene-Radar technology & Nanobiosym's goals for healthcare.
Dr. Anita Goel, Nanobiosym: The bigger vision is to really bring the next generation of decentralized, personalized, and mobilized healthcare. Our Gene-Radar technology (which won the first X-prize in healthcare) is really the first model that moves in that direction. An example of this is our recent FDA Emergency Use Authorization for the first application of this platform for a more 'real-time' Zika test. It's one step closer to the achievement of our bigger vision.
Medgadget: How does the Gene-Radar system work?
Goel: Our technology is essentially based on amplifying the detection of DNA or RNA. The underlying science comes from my own research pursuits to understand the physics of how nanomachines read and write DNA, that we have been working on at the Nanobiosym Research Institute. I have published some of the underlying science in journals like Nature Nanotechnology, Scientific American (India edition), and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It represents a broader, 20-year research portfolio including multiple projects that I have served as PI on at Nanobiosym funded by DARPA, DOD, DOE, USAID, GCC, NSF, AFOSR, and NASA and CASIS. My training as a physicist and medical doctor from Harvard and MIT has enabled me to work at this nexus where physics, medicine, and nanotechnology converge. That's really been the inspiration for some of the technological capabilities underlying Gene-Radar. In our commercial company, Nanobiosym Diagnostics, we're trying to bring these technological capabilities to help address some of the biggest healthcare challenges on our planet right now, from a healthcare perspective.
Medgadget: How do you envision Gene-Radar enabling you to decentralize, personalize, and mobilize healthcare?
Goel: Well, the current paradigm of diagnosis is basically a centralized model of delivery. You go to your doctor's office, they draw your blood or other body fluids, and they ship it to a centralized lab, for example on a FedEx truck. The centralized lab then performs gold-standard molecular testing using big machines that weigh several hundred pounds and can cost between a few hundred thousand dollars to a million dollars. They run your DNA/RNA molecular analysis (PCR, sequencing, etc), then the data comes back to your doctor's office. Then you have to go back for a follow-up visit, and you get your prescription. This process, depending on where you are and what disease you're being tested for, can take anywhere from days to months in the USA. There are 4 billion people on our planet today that don't even have access to this centralized, highly bulky, diagnostics infrastructure available to us here.
Even here in the USA, we're sort of on the verge of a multi-trillion dollar healthcare crisis. All the policies coming out of Washington DC might be nice, but they alone cannot solve these problems – we need transformative technologies, we need to upgrade our nation's infrastructure and our global healthcare infrastructure. In the context of pandemics or epidemics like Ebola, Zika, influenza, you run into a situation where, even though we have some of the best centralized infrastructure, it starts to break down. In the case of the Zika crisis last summer in Florida, some places were doing up to 1,000 Zika tests per month! There was such a back-log of samples being sent to the centralized CDC lab that the wait time for a result could get as high as 5 weeks – imagine that for a pregnant woman waiting to find out if her baby is in danger.
Another example is a few years ago in the Ebola crisis, tax-payers in New York spent north of 20 million dollars for one Ebola case because our healthcare infrastructure was simply not equipped to handle these kinds of global health emergencies. FedEx trucks did not want to transport samples and the centralized labs did not want to touch it. So you're left with a crisis where patients are entering a hospital and the hospital doesn't know what to do because they don't have the facility to test the patient on the spot but they need to quarantine them nonetheless. This, along with the public fear, creates quite a bit of chaos. In the case of a respiratory pathogen, you would really need a way to instantly test and quarantine infected patients. Having a rapid response technology, having a more mobilized, personalized, and decentralized testing capability for on-the-spot, real-time screening at an affordable cost is paramount to stopping the spread of a deadly pandemic.
Medgadget: Where do you envision this system being deployed, on the field in emergency outbreaks or at airports or labs?
Goel: Our vision is to eventually do both. The FDA Authorization we currently have is very limited to certain kinds of labs and only for Zika testing in the serum, as per FDA and CDC guidelines and protocols for how and when the test is appropriate. However, Gene-Radar as a platform could in the future accommodate other types of body fluids and we are currently considering doing the additional clinical trials for other clinical samples, such as urine or whole blood, to expand the applicability of the detection system.
Medgadget: You previously mentioned your vision for deploying Gene-Radar as a rapid-response diagnostic tool. Is the technology currently capable of detecting novel, yet-to-be sequenced pathogens?
Goel: The current generation of Gene-Radar looks for biomarkers that we already know the sequence for, so you would need to know the target before you go after it. However, our dreams for the future are bold. For now, the Gene-Radar 1.0 that we've rolled out does not involve any sequencing.
Medgadget: How does your Gene-Radar system differ from other diagnostic tools for Zika?
Goel: There are two flavors of tests for Zika. One looks at the antigen-antibody interaction – a serology test that looks for Zika-specific antibodies. These tests can have some non-specificity associated with natural antigen-antibody interactions, leading to potential false-positives. The other flavor of tests is nucleic acid based tests, looking for DNA/RNA sequences. Zika is an RNA virus, so we have sequence-specific recognition. In the case of Zika, serological testing can often show cross-reactivity with Zika-like viruses such as Dengue or Chikungunya and hence leads to high false-positive rates. The molecular tests look precisely at the RNA sequence and can distinguish between these diseases. We have done extensive studies with our Gene-RADAR Zika test and observed very clear profiles that minimize any cross-reactivity. This is based not only on our primer designs and how we do our amplification, but on our optimization of all aspects of the amplification process.
If you look at the competitive landscape for emergency use authorized PCR Zika tests, they tend to involve large, bulky, expensive platforms that can weigh a fifty pounds or higher. Our machine fits in your hands, is about the size of an iPad, and weighs 3.5 pounds. The FDA has not yet given us clearance to use it at the point-of-care. However, the footprint of our machine is like going from a big mainframe computer down to an iPad – it's a step in the direction of our bigger vision to change the paradigm. We envision that our research into single-molecule diagnostics and nano-biophysics will enable smaller and smaller products.
The other distinction is that the other platforms can take several hours to produce results. We're giving results back in about an hour, not including sample setup and preparation time, which is dependent on the operator.
Medgadget: What is the test's limit of detection and false-negative rates? How does it fare for asymptomatic Zika-infected individuals?
Goel: The best way to compare those is to look at our Gene-Radar's Zika Test Instructions for Use FDA document. The FDA supplied us with some reference samples and unknown standards for which we reported limits of detection. Because it's a standard that can be used to compare across all available test platforms, you can see that we fare very well compared to other systems that use PCR-based detection. Zika is usually detectable in the serum for around two weeks, so this test system could still detect its presence in asymptomatic patients if they are tested in the correct window. If we expand the applicability of this system to other bodily fluids, we could theoretically expand this window of detection using our Gene-Radar technology.
Medgadget: Could you touch on the clinical trials performed before Gene-Radar was authorized by the FDA?
Goel: It involved the estimation and confirmation of limit of detection, reactivity and cross-reactivity testing, extensive in silico testing, and then a clinical trial that used real positive samples from infected patients, contrived samples where human serum samples are spiked with known concentrations of Zika virus, and negative human serum samples. They were all double-blinded and run in a head-to-head comparison with one of the traditional PCR-based assays.
Medgadget: How much does the Gene-Radar system cost?
Goel: We are still in the process of optimizing that. Our vision and dream is to make it affordable so that even the very poorest areas can have access to it. However, we still have to scale-up our production and we are working with an ecosystem of collaborators to figure that out. What we're doing now is inviting people who want to partner with us on the roll-out and distribution of this to set the right pricing and generate an adequate supply.
Medgadget: What are some other next steps that will enable you to bring this technology to a wide user-base?
Goel: We're very collaboration-based. We're always working with potential customers, global health agencies, and hospitals. We're working out exactly which new applications will be of greatest interest. Through our research incubator [Nanobiosym Research Institute], we have the ability to custom-build an app for those who might be interested. An example is to develop new personalized therapies for cancer through specific biomarker-based diagnostics. That's on our R&D side. On the commercial side, we're planning to focus on some of the most pressing infectious diseases and pandemics. We're trying to get this tool ready, so that we could be helpful in the context of global and public health emergencies.
Medgadget: I've seen reports of interest in Gene-Radar from DARPA and NASA. Could you touch on those collaborations?
Goel: Our research institute has been funded multiple times by the US military, DARPA, the Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, and NASA. Our most recent contract with NASA and CASIS aims to put some of our scientific research on the International Space Station (ISS). There are ideas on how we could, for example, one day put a Gene-Radar system on the ISS for analysis of astronaut health in real-time or, for example, use it to aid in the search for life on other planets. But that's part of a bigger dream and vision. In the meantime, we're hoping these collaborations can enable us to push the frontier of where physics, medicine, and nanotechnology converge.
Medgadget: Where do you see the nano-biotechnology field heading over the next few years?
Goel: Nanotechnology has been around for a long time, and it's projected to become a 4.8 trillion dollar industry globally. But right now, it's still for the most part sitting in universities and R&D labs. My vision for the Nanobiosym incubator was to help bring this new area of technology to the world so we can solve some of our biggest challenges in healthcare, energy, environment, clean water, food, etc. Our incubator focuses on bringing together a holistic approach using physics, medicine, nanotechnology, and information technology to create new science or technology, then incubate it all into different products and spin-off companies that can transform how we solve some of the world's greatest challenges.


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