Defining the 3 goals of palliative care

After finishing medical school and my residency in internal medicine, I undertook an additional year of training in a field called palliative care.  Patients who notice my background sometimes ask me what exactly palliative care means.  It’s really a simple concept.  Palliative care is helping people with a serious illness have the best possible quality of life.  It’s enabling sick patients to make the most of the time they have left to live.  The term palliative care comes from the latin word palliare which means to cloak or support.

Helping people have the best quality of life possible is a simple idea, but how do you do it? I will address that point, but first I want to distinguish palliative care from hospice since the two terms are often understandably confused.  Hospice provides care for terminally ill patients and their families.  Hospice care is often provided in a person’s home, but it can also be utilized in a facility such as a nursing home or assisted living.  Hospice incorporates a team of healthcare professionals, from doctors and nurses, to social workers, health aids, and chaplains.  It is a benefit under Medicare and many insurance plans.  Palliative care is a broad concept that encompasses hospice.  At some point, a person with an illness will move closer to death and hospice may helpful for allowing them to have the best possible quality of life.  But helping a person with an illness feel their best doesn’t have to wait until he  or she is dying.  It can start as soon as they are diagnosed and while they are receiving treatment to cure their illness or prolong their life.

Palliative care’s roots can be traced to Dame Cecily Saunders’ work in Great Britain in the 1960s developing the modern hospice movement.  In the 1970s, an oncologist named Dr. Balfour Mount in Canada incorporated the principles of hospice into care even before people approached the end of life.  He coined the term palliative care.  Over time, more and more hospitals have developed palliative care teams and recently formal specialized training programs in palliative care have been developed.

So how do we provide palliative care?  What are the ways that we can enable a person with a serious illness to enjoy the best possible quality of life?  I’m going to discuss three essential components of palliative care:  identifying goals of care, controlling symptoms and caring for the whole person.

Quite often when caring for somebody with an illness the goal simply becomes treating the illness.  So if somebody has lung cancer the goal is to eliminate or slow down the cancer.  Or if somebody has congestive heart failure, the goal is to have the heart pump effectively for as long as possible. But why do we treat the illness in the first place? Treating the illness is a means to helping the person be their best and make the most of their life.  Treating the illness should not be the primary goal.

I want to provide some examples of identifying goals of care. The first centers upon a person I’ll call Mary.  Rather than being an exact story of a particular case, Mary’s tale is a composite of some situations I’ve encountered over the years of my training and practice.  Mary was a 88-year-old frail woman with many different chronic illnesses.  She developed severe pneumonia for which she was hospitalized.  In the hospital, she became very weak, so that she had to discharged from the hospital to a rehabilitation facility to try to regain some strength.  Soon I received a note from the hospital stating that she had been admitted again for another episode of pneumonia.  During this hospitalization, she suffered a stroke.  When I went to visit her in the hospital, she was scheduled to have a feeding tube inserted since the stroke had left her with difficulty swallowing.  I sat with her family and we discussed what was right for Mary.  We first exchanged information.  I asked them their understanding of what was going on with her body.  I then explained that the feeding tube would not prevent her aspirating her saliva.  In addition, the stroke had left her confused and if a feeding tube was inserted, Mary would likely try to pull it out.  She might have to be restrained or receive heavy sedative medications to keep the feeding tube in.  Since Mary was too confused to make any decisions, I asked her family, what would have been her goals of care in this situation.  After reflecting upon this, they felt certain she would not have wanted the tube inserted.  She would have most valued her quality of life.   So we did not have the tube inserted and she was sent home with the support of hospice.  When I received a note from Mary’s daughter later telling me she had died, they were grateful they had not put her through another procedure and that she had been able to spend her final days in the comfort and familiarity of home rather than at the hospital.

Another example of identifying goals of care is Amy Berman.  She is a nurse who has become a spokesperson for palliative care.  When she was diagnosed with advanced, incurable breast cancer she was first advised to have a mascectomy and intensive chemotherapy and radiation.  Getting a second opinion from a different oncologist and a palliative care physician, she decided on a different course.  In order to be able to feel well enough to enjoy the time she had left to live, she decided on a gentler, less toxic chemotherapy regimen and high quality symptom control.  My patient Mary and Amy Berman benefited because instead of just going with the flow, there was thought given to what their goals of care were.

Another task of palliative care, another way that we seek to enable people have the best possible quality of life, is through controlling burdensome symptoms.  Sometimes in treating illness, especially cancer, burdensome symptoms get neglected.   So the cancer may be shrinking, but the person’s pain may be excruciating.  Palliative care doctors and nurses work to be very good at treating pain and other symptoms.  They also seek to train other health care providers to do this effectively.  Some of the common symptoms we treat are pain, nausea, shortness of breath, fatigue, depression, anxiety, delirium, and constipation.  There is an art and science to treating each of these symptoms well and doing so can make a tremendous difference to a patient and their loved ones.

The last component of palliative care is treating the whole person.  I’d like to ask you to imagine for a moment that you were facing imminent death.  What things would allow you to best bear this experience?  What could make it as positive and meaningful as possible?  In a national survey published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, 340 seriously ill patients were asked to rank 9 attributes of quality of life at the end of their lives.  The patients ranked “peace with God” just below “freedom from pain” as the most important attribute of a good death.

This points to the fact that illness is not just something that happens to our bodies.  It affects the way we think about ourselves and make sense of the world. It affects our finances.  It affects our relationships. Cicelly Saunders’ term for the many ways that an illness affects a person is called “total pain.”  Palliative care seeks to provide holistic care by attending to the multiple ways that illness affects a person.

To do this, palliative care uses a team approach.  A typical palliative care team includes a physician, nurse, social worker, and a chaplain.  They each have skills to address the different aspects of person’s experience of illness.

So what is palliative care?  Palliative care is the goal of helping people live as well as possible for as long as possible.  It does so by aiding individuals in identifying their goals of care, controlling burdensome symptoms, and caring for the whole person.

Although most of my work as a doctor is in the field of internal medicine, I still have the privilege of practicing from time to time at Hospice Austin’s Christopher House.  A gift to the Austin community, Christopher House serves people enrolled in hospice whose symptoms are too severe to be controlled at home.  It seeks to honor this sacred time in individuals’ lives by providing a home-like environment for patients and their families.

James Marroquin is an internal medicine physician who blogs at his self-titled site, James Marroquin.

  • Tiredoc

    Thank you for your post. It’s always nice to hear that palliative medicine isn’t just about pain control, but supporting patients in their, not your goals.

  • EE Smith

    There seem to be so many misconceptions out in the wider community about palliative care, a lot of confusion, even conflating palliative medicine with the dreaded “death panels”.

    This was an excellent piece, one that I am bookmarking to send on to friends and family. Thank you for writing it.

  • katerinahurd

    Do you think that the legal equivalent of palliative care is Death with Dignity acts of Oregon and Washington? Do you think that aggressive medical treatment leads to palliative care? Who qualifies for palliative care?

    • Mika

      Palliative and hospice care offer true death with dignity. What assisted suicide people use the euphemism “death with dignity” for is “killing people”.

      We have made great strides in palliative care and hospice care, and will continue to get even better … unless there is an “out” offered, i.e. “well all that is just too hard, and too expensive, let’s just kill you instead”.

      Last week it emerged that a staggering one in 30 deaths in the Netherlands are now from euthanasia, after the Dutch government allowed mobile death squads to kill sick and elderly people in their homes. In Belgium, where nearly 1 in 50 deaths are people deliberately killed by their doctors, a cancer specialist recently killed a 44 year old transsexual who was unhappy with a botched sex-change operation… at his request, of course.

      Don’t conflate true death with dignity, which is achieved by skilled medicos and allied care workers providing top-notch comfort care to terminally ill patients, with “assisted suicide”, which is allowing doctors to kill those patients instead. That scares me.


Esso Hockey since 1936Legends Of Hockey
Esso Hockey since 1936
Gillies, Clark

Gillies, Clark

Clark Gillies' leadership qualities and hockey ability was a large reason why his teams won championships at both the amateur and professional level. His amateur career was highlighted by a Memorial Cup championship prior to a National Hockey League career that spanned 14 seasons. At 6'3" and 215 lbs., Gillies was one of the league's premiere power forwards during the second half of the 1970's and early 1980's. The left winger teamed up with fellow Hockey Hall of Famers Mike Bossy and Bryan Trottier to form one of the decade's most lethal forward lines, nicknamed the "Trio Grande".

Gillies was born on April 7, 1954 in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada. He earned a reputation of playing tough with the ability to provide offence during his three seasons with the Western Canada Junior Hockey League's Regina Pats. In 1973-74, the Pats won the west and then became the best junior team in the nation by winning the Memorial Cup championship. He was named to the WCJHL First All-Star team that season. Later that spring he was drafted fourth overall by the New York Islanders whereupon he made the team following his first NHL training camp, never playing a minor professional game. At the World Hockey Association draft the same year, Gillies was selected in the third round by the Edmonton Oilers.

At around the halfway point of Gillies' third NHL season, Eddie Westfall, the New York Islanders captain, removed the "C" from his sweater. After a special dressing room vote, the young Gillies was chosen as the new team captain. As a test of his strength in the dressing room, Gillies backed it up with leadership on the ice. During the 1977 NHL playoffs during a quarterfinal round against Buffalo he recorded three consecutive game-winning goals to tie an NHL record. After two and a half seasons, Gillies resigned as captain and was succeeded by future Hockey Hall of Famer Denis Potvin. A period of league domination continued in the spring of 1980 as the Islanders won their first of four consecutive Stanley Cups equaling Montreal's achievement in the late 1970's. During the 1984 playoffs, Gillies notched a career-best 12 goals that included a hat trick in game two of the finals against the Edmonton Oilers. Nicknamed "Jethro" (after the Beverly Hillbillies TV show character) by his teammates, Gillies played two more seasons to end his years as a member of the Uniondale, New York-based team. His career with the Islanders spanned 12 seasons where he registered regular season totals of 304 goals and 663 points, fourth in all-time scoring for the franchise. Ninety-two of those goals, or almost one-third were power play markers. As well, fifty-four of his regular season goals were either game-winning or game-tying goals.

During the summer of 1986 he was obtained by another New York State team, the Buffalo Sabres, in the annual Waiver Draft. He played two seasons with the Sabres, before retiring after the 1987-88 season.

Gillies was a two-time NHL First Team All-Star left wing in 1977-78 and 1978-79. He participated in the 1978 NHL All-Star Game and the following year was selected to play with the NHL All-Stars in the 1979 Challenge Cup. His Islander line was the number one NHL unit against the Soviet Union national team. "The Trio Grande" was also an obvious choice to lead Team Canada at the 1981 Canada Cup, where Gillies helped Canada earn a second place finish.

He retired from the NHL with regular season totals of 319 goals, 378 assists for 697 points. In 147 NHL playoff games he scored 47 and assisted on the same for 94 points. On December 7, 1996, Clark Gillies' number "9" was retired by the New York Islanders as a symbol of his great contribution and significance to the team.

Esso hockey medals of achievement


Connecticut approves highest state minimum wage

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy announces a proposal to raise the minimum wage in Connecticut. File photo

HARTFORD >> Connecticut state lawmakers Wednesday became the first in the country to pass legislation that would increase the state’s minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, by 2017, the same rate President Barack Obama wants for the federal minimum wage.

Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, who recently appeared with Obama and several New England governors to tout the proposal, applauded Wednesday’s votes, saying he’ll sign the bill into law at the same New Britain restaurant where Obama dined earlier this month during a visit.

“I am proud that Connecticut is once again a leader on an issue of national importance,” Malloy said. “Increasing the minimum wage is not just good for workers, it’s also good for business.”

Jack Temple, a policy analyst for the National Employment Law Project, said Connecticut’s vote clears the way for other states to pass the legislation, and possibly Congress.

“I think the significance cannot be overstated for this,” he said. “The more action we see on the state level like this, that’s always an ingredient for momentum at the federal level as well.”

The New York-based nonprofit research and advocacy group said similar proposals are also being considered by lawmakers in Maryland, Massachusetts, Hawaii and elsewhere.

The $10.10 wage is the highest imposed by a state, but there are higher minimum wages imposed by cities, including $10.74 in San Francisco. Washington, D.C., will raise its minimum wage to $11.50 by 2016.

“I hope Members of Congress, governors, state legislators and business leaders across our country will follow Connecticut’s lead to help ensure that no American who works full time has to raise a family in poverty, and that every American who works hard has the chance to get ahead,” Obama said in a statement after Wednesday’s vote.

Yet Republican lawmakers said the move was the latest in a string of legislation, including mandatory paid medical leave, making Connecticut uncompetitive.

The bill passed the Democratic-controlled General Assembly on largely party lines Wednesday. It passed 21-14 in the Senate and 87-54 in the House.

Under current law, Connecticut’s minimum wage was already scheduled to climb by 30 cents to $9 on Jan. 1, 2015. But under this bill, it would instead increase to $9.15 an hour. It would go up to $9.60 on Jan. 1, 2016 and to $10.10 on Jan. 1, 2017.

Between 70,000 and 90,000 people earn the minimum wage in Connecticut, said Senate President Donald Williams, D-Brooklyn.

Republican senators acknowledged some people would benefit but questioned whether struggling small businesses and the state’s economy are strong enough to absorb the increase.

“To call it soft is a compliment,” said Sen. Joe Markley, R-Southington. “We’re increasing the minimum wage at a time when the demand for employment is already low.”

Malloy, who has yet to announce his re-election plans, has made the minimum wage a major political issue. Besides appearing with Obama, Malloy was involved in a recent on-camera partisan feud outside the White House with Louisiana Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal over the $10.10 federal minimum wage proposal.

According to a Quinnipiac University Poll released earlier this month, 6 in 10 registered Connecticut voters support increasing the wage to $10.10 or more. The survey of 1,878 registered voters had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.3 percentage points.


Bring Back Bubba! - On Missing Bill Clinton:

Columnist Steven Chapman is missing Bill Clinton, a sentiment that has often occurred to me in recent years as well:

Clinton, for all his appetites and excesses, was a cautious, centrist sort of Democrat. He had innumerable ideas for things the government could do, but most were small and fairly innocuous. He was willing to go along with Republicans on some of their sound ideas—such as balancing the budget, reforming the welfare system, and expanding foreign trade.

He focused on making government better, not making it bigger. He didn't greatly enlarge Washington's role in our lives. He proclaimed—or conceded—that the "era of big government is over...."

Obama's fiscal blueprint builds on profligate habits established by George W. Bush. Under Clinton, federal spending fell to 18.4 percent of gross domestic product—the lowest level since 1966. By 2007, it was up to 20 percent. By 2019, according to the administration, it would rise to 22.6 percent.

In retrospect, Clinton's record looks very good compared to that of both of his successors, each of whom presided over massive expansions of government. Among the many flaws of Obama's recently passed stimulus bill is its undermining of the 1996 welfare reform act, one of Clinton's greatest achievements.

There is no need to romanticize Clinton. Government growth was constrained on his watch in part because his worst instincts were checked by a Republican Congress, and he in turn checked theirs. As a general rule, divided government leads to limited government. Obviously, Obama has also been able to take advantage of a massive economic crisis, the kind of event that often provides opportunities for expanding government power. Clinton's relatively impressive record was in part the product of the political constraints he faced (no big crisis to exploit, and a Congress controlled by a hostile opposition party during his last six years in office).

Still, Clinton appears to have had a genuine commitment to welfare reform and free trade, among other market-oriented policies. No such tendencies are evident in Obama. I never knew how much I would miss Bubba until he was gone.


Blog des AK Psychiatriekritik der NFJ Berlin

Kategorie: Diskriminierung

Heteronormative Violence of Mainstream Psychiatry: A Cautionary Tale

In 2013, California became the first state to pass legislation banning licensed professionals from trying to change the sexual orientation of minors from homosexual to heterosexual. In 2014, similar legislation passed in New Jersey, with other states, including New York, Massachusetts, and Ohio, following suit. However, “reparative therapy,” which grew in popularity with psychiatry’s increased medicalization of same sex erotic desire throughout the 20th century, is hardly a practice of a bygone era. In June 2014, the Republican Party endorsed the support of reparative therapy in Texas, while organizations such as the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality continue “treating” homosexual men and women in an effort to change their sexual desires to heterosexuality–all with dire consequences to individuals undergoing such treatments.

I was in a form of reparative therapy in British Columbia, Canada, for six years, after which I filed a medical malpractice suit against my former psychiatrist, “Dr. Alfonzo,” for treating my homosexuality as a disease. If these new laws are to be criticized, it is that the use of “change” therapies on people older than 18 should be prohibited as well. I was 24 when I met Dr. Alfonzo, 31 when I left his therapy, and almost 40 when the lawsuit ended in an out-of-court settlement in 2002. Nearly twenty years after leaving the therapy, I am still affected by the consequences of those six years of “treatment.”

Why Do We Say That Mental Health Detention is Discrimination?

Time for a Policy Against Psychiatric Bullying

In the domestic violence field, the methods employed by men to bully and abuse women and children are identified in the Duluth Project’s Power and Control Wheel, a tool developed by survivors of domestic abuse.

Replace male privilege with medical privilege, change a few descriptors and you have a good explanation of the ways in which psychiatry maintains its dominance over individuals and societies.

Name calling (diagnostic labelling), coercion (forced treatment), threats (removal of children, incarceration) . . . the parallels are obvious.

There is no accepted definition of bullying either in statute or general use but the elements common to most definitions include the misuse of power and influence to cause fear, distress, humiliation and harm to vulnerable people. Bullying within family, work and student relationships is generally understood as being learned and practiced within social, cultural and institutional contexts.

Arguably, psychiatry is nothing more than officially sanctioned bullying and abuse.

Not all South Africans have the right to register

8(c) of the Electoral Act No. 73 of 1998 also states that persons declared by a High Court to be of “unsound mind” or declared “mentally disordered” may not be registered on the voters roll. This is discriminatory and excludes people with a psychosocial disability from the voters roll.

Keine Zwangsbehandlung für Hartz-IV-Empfänger per Eingliederungsbescheid

Das Jobcenter Schleswig-Flensburg versuchte einen Empfänger von Leistungen nach dem SGB II (Hartz IV) per Eingliederungsbescheid unter Sanktionsdrohung dazu zu zwingen, sich psychiatrisch behandeln zu lassen. Dass dies Grundrechte verletzt, meint auch das Sozialgericht Schleswig.

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Names Searched Right Now:

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Gender: F Meaning of Amelina: "work" Origin of Amelina: Old German form of Emmeline and Amelia

Popularity: this week.

Now that the range of names including the modern Emmeline and Amelia -- relatives of each other, but of neither Emily nor Emma -- have become so fashionable, the original root name Amelina is due up for reconsideration as well. A lovely, delicate choice, its main disadvantage is that it sounds like a modern elaboration rather than the original name. And perhaps that it will be so often misspelled and mistaken for other forms of itself. But it is a lovely name with deep roots.

Famous People Named Amelina

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How to remove hotfix backup files

Hotfix backup files can grow into the dozens. Here's a free tool to remove hotfix uninstall directories.

Whenever a hotfix is installed in Windows XP or Windows Server 2003, a copy of all the files replaced by the hotfix is placed in a hidden directory in the %SystemRoot% folder (usually C:\Windows). This hidden directory is named after the Knowledge Base article for the relevant hotfix, such as $NtUninstallKB867282$, and contains an uninstallation utility.

If the hotfix doesn't work -- or breaks more than it fixes -- you can remove the hotfix using the executable in the hotfix's spuninst directory. However, the hotfix almost always works fine.

The problem is that the number of installed hotfixes on a system can get pretty high, especially if there's a long period between service packs. When a service pack is installed, all the hotfix directories are removed since the service pack contains all of those hotfixes anyway -- and since they've been thoroughly regression-tested by that point, the uninstaller really isn't needed. But between service packs, the number of uninstallation directories for a given system can be in the dozens, wasting space.

Programmer Doug Knox has written a tool called XP Remove Hotfix Backup that cleans out the hotfix uninstall directories.The tool not only removes the directories, but also the relevant Add/Remove Programs entry for each hotfix. (Though hidden by default, these entries are still there; you'll see them if you check the "Show Updates" box at the top of the Add/Remove Programs window.)

Note: XP Remove Hotfix Backup does not remove hotfixes for native Windows applications, such as Outlook Express, Internet Explorer or Windows Media Player, but only for the operating system itself. Note also that the deleted files are removed permanently; the program has no "undelete" option.

The free version of the tool deletes all the hotfix backups it can find. The licensed version can selectively delete hotfixes.

The program will run under Windows 2000 as well as XP, but it has not been tested to do so, so it is not recommended that you use it for that.

More information on this topic:

This was first published in November 2005

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Different kinds of light are all waves, they just have different wavelengths and frequencies. If you know the wavelength or frequency of a wave of light, you can also figure out its energy. Long wavelengths have low energies, while short wavelengths have high energies. It’s easy to remember if you think about being on a boat. If you were out sailing on a day with short, choppy waves, you’d probably be pretty high energy yourself, running around to keep things from falling over. But on a long wavelength sea, you’d be rolling along, relaxed, low energy.

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View the Making of a TED-Ed Lesson: Bringing a pop-up book to life

View the TED-Ed Lesson Particles and waves: The central mystery of quantum mechanics

One of the most amazing facts in physics is that everything in the universe, from light to electrons to atoms, behaves like both a particle and a wave at the same time. But how did physicists arrive at this mind-boggling conclusion? Chad Orzel recounts the string of scientists who built on each other’s discoveries to arrive at this ‘central mystery’ of quantum mechanics.


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Emotional contagion

Emotional contagion

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Emotional contagion is the tendency to catch and feel emotion

s that are similar to and influenced by those of others. One view developed by John Cacioppo
John Cacioppo
John T. Cacioppo is the Tiffany and Margaret Blake Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. He founded and is Director of the University of Chicago Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience and the Director of the Arete Initiative of the Office of the Vice President for...

 of the underlying mechanism is that it represents a tendency to automatically mimic and synchronize facial expression
Facial expression

s, vocalizations, postures, and movements with those of another person and, consequently, to converge emotionally. A broader definition of the phenomenon was suggested by Sigal G. Barsade—"a process in which a person or group influences the emotions or behavior of another person or group through the conscious or unconscious induction of emotion states and behavioral attitudes".

Emotional contagion may be involved in mob psychology crowd behaviors, like collective fear

, disgust

, or moral outrage, but also emotional interactions in smaller groups such as work negotiation, teaching and persuasion
Persuasion is a form of social influence. It is the process of guiding or bringing oneself or another toward the adoption of an idea, attitude, or action by rational and symbolic means.- Methods :...

 contexts. It is also the phenomenon when a person (especially a child) appears distressed because another person is distressed, or happy because they are happy. The ability to transfer moods appears to be innate in humans. Emotional contagion and empathy

 have an interesting relationship; for without an ability to differentiate between personal and pre-personal experience (see individuation
Individuation is a concept which appears in numerous fields and may be encountered in work by Arthur Schopenhauer, Carl Jung, Gilbert Simondon, Bernard Stiegler, Gilles Deleuze, Henri Bergson, David Bohm, and Manuel De Landa...

), they appear the same. In The Art of Loving
The Art of Loving
The Art of Loving is a book written by psychologist and social philosopher Erich Fromm , which was published as part of the "World Perspectives Series" edited by Ruth Nanda Anshen...

, Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm
Erich Seligmann Fromm was a Jewish German-American social psychologist, psychoanalyst, sociologist, humanistic philosopher, and democratic socialist. He was associated with what became known as the Frankfurt School of critical theory.-Life:Erich Fromm was born on March 23, 1900, at Frankfurt am...

 explores the autonomy
Autonomy is a concept found in moral, political and bioethical philosophy. Within these contexts, it is the capacity of a rational individual to make an informed, un-coerced decision...

 necessary for empathy which is not found in contagion. Fromm extolled the virtues of humans taking independent action and using reason to establish moral values rather than adhering to authoritarian moral values. Recognizing emotions and acknowledging their cause can be one way to avoid emotional contagion. Transfers of emotions have been studied in different situations and settings. Social and physiological causes are the two largest areas of research.

, organizational morale, and corporate morale. Furthermore, Worline, Wrzesniewski, and Rafaeli (2002) make mention that organizations have an overall "emotional capability" (p. 318), while McColl-Kennedy and Smith (2006) examine the concept of "emotional contagion" (p. 255) specifically in customer interactions. These terms are arguably all attempting to describe a similar phenomenon; each term is different from one another in subtle and somewhat indistinguishable ways. Future research might consider where and how the meanings of these terms intersect, as well as how they differ.

Implicit emotional contagion

Unlike cognitive
In science, cognition refers to mental processes. These processes include attention, remembering, producing and understanding language, solving problems, and making decisions. Cognition is studied in various disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science...

Computer-mediated communication
Computer-mediated communication is defined as any communicative transaction that occurs through the use of two or more networked computers...

One view, proposed by Hatfield and colleagues, describes the emotional contagion process as a primitive, automatic and unconscious behavior. According to them, it takes place through a series of steps. When a receiver is interacting with a sender, he perceives the emotional expressions of the sender. The receiver automatically mimics those emotional expressions. Through the process of afferent feedback
Feedback describes the situation when output from an event or phenomenon in the past will influence an occurrence or occurrences of the same Feedback describes the situation when output from (or information about the result of) an event or phenomenon in the past will influence an occurrence or...

Social comparison theory
Social comparison theory is a theory initially proposed by social psychologist Leon Festinger in 1954. It explains how individuals evaluate their own opinions and desires by comparing themselves to others.- Basic framework :...

Dispositional affect
Dispositional affect, similar to mood, is a personality trait or overall tendency to respond to situations in stable, predictable ways. This trait is expressed by the tendency to see things in positive or negative way. People with high positive affectivity tend to perceive things through “pink...

 at which the emotion is displayed. As higher energy causes more attention to it, the prediction is that the same emotional valence
Dispositional affect

Explicit emotional contagion

Contrary to the automatic infection of feelings described above, there are times when others' emotions are being manipulated by a person or a group in order to achieve something. This can be a result of intentional affective influence by a leader or team member. Suppose this person wants to convince the others in something, he may do so by sweeping them in his enthusiasm. In such a case, his positive emotions are an act with a purpose of "contaminating" the others' feelings. A different kind of intentional mood contagion is by giving the group a reward, or treat, in order to alleviate their feelings.

Emotional labor

Emotional labor

 develops into deep acting
Emotional labor

, emotional contagion is the byproduct of intentional affective impression management.

Factors influencing group contagion

There are several factors which determine the rate and extent of emotional convergence in a group. Some of these are: membership stability, mood-regulation norms, task interdependence and social interdependence.

Besides these event-structure properties, there are personal properties of the group's members, such as openness to receive and transmit feelings, demographic characteristics and dispositional affect, that influence the intensity of emotional contagion.

Evolutionary point of view

A somewhat different explanation of the emotional contagion phenomenon is provided by evolutionary theorists: "Given that emotions function to help humans adapt to social situations it makes sense that one person's emotion would affect another's. Just as herd animals would benefit from rapidly passing messages about risk and reward, emotional contagion seems to be adaptive for humans to function in groups. This system can enable a rapid communication of opportunity and risk, mediate a group interaction, and help humans attend to social rules and norms such as maintaining harmonious interaction with a powerful ally".

Intragroup emotional contagion

Industrial and organizational psychology
Industrial and organizational psychology is the scientific study of employees, workplaces, and organizations. Industrial and organizational psychologists contribute to an organization's success by improving the performance and well-being of its people...

 that highlight the benefits of work-teams. Also, putting people together as a group and expecting everything to pass quietly is being naïve. Emotion

s come into play and a "group emotion
Group Emotion

" is formed.

The group's emotional state has an influence on factors such as cohesiveness, moral

, rapport
Rapport is a term used to describe, in common terms, the relationship of two or more people who are in sync or on the same wavelength because they feel similar and/or relate well to each other....

Employee-customer emotional contagion

The interaction between service employees and customers is considered an essential part of both customers' assessments of service quality and their relationship with the service provider. Positive affective displays in service interactions are positively associated with important customer outcomes, such as intention to return and to recommend the store to a friend. It is the interest of organizations that their customers be happy, since a happy customer is a satisfied one. Research has shown that the emotional state of the customer is directly influenced by the emotions displayed by the employee/service provider via emotional contagion. But, this influence is dependent on the degree of authenticity of the employee's emotional display, such that if the employee is only surface-acting, the contagion of the customer is poor, in which case the beneficial effects stated above will not occur.

Married couples

Robert Levenson, Ph.D., researches human psychophysiology. Levenson uses longitudinal studies
Longitudinal study

 of married couples

' physiological responses. He measures how empathy requires a calm and receptive emotional environment for the couple to be in physiological sync. When an emotional hijacking is taking place (anger or argument) empathy declines and the cognitions of the spouse are blocked.

Dr. Ed Diener maintains that genetics influences our positive and negative dispositions. David Lykken offers an emotional set point
Set point
Set point or setpoint might mean one of:* Set point , a tennis term meaning one player is one point away from winning a set* Set point , a term referring to any one of a number of quantities Set point or setpoint might mean one of:* Set point (tennis), a tennis term meaning one player is one point...

 theory he backs up with habitability studies of twins.

Psychologist Elaine Hatfield theorizes emotional contagions as a two-step process: Step 1: We imitate people, if someone smiles at you, you smile back. Step 2: Changes in mood through faking it. If you smile you feel happy, if you frown you feel bad. Mimicry seems to be one foundation of emotional movement between people. Hour old infants will mimic a person's facial expressions such as smiling.

Martin E.P.Seligman, Ph.D., uses synchrony games to build children's learning that "your actions matter and can control outcomes". When a baby bangs on a table the adult bangs on the table, replicating the action. This is one way emotional learning can be validated by an adult.

Neurological mechanisms

Vittorio Gallese
Vittorio Gallese

 posits that mirror neuron
Mirror neuron

Premotor cortex

The amygdala

 is the part of the brain mechanism that underlies empathy and allows for emotional attunement and creates the pathway for emotional contagions. The basal areas including the brain stem form a tight loop of biological connectedness, re-creating in one person the physiological state of the other. Howard Friedman, a psychologist at the University of California at Irvine thinks this is why some people can move and inspire others. The use of facial expressions, voices, gestures and body movements transmit emotions to an audience from a speaker.

Insulation and inoculation

The concept of insulating oneself from emotional contagion is called emotional detachment
Emotional detachment
Emotional detachment, in psychology, can mean two different things. In the first meaning, it refers to an "inability to connect" with others emotionally, as well as a means of dealing with anxiety by preventing certain situations that trigger it; it is often described as "emotional numbing" or...

. Alexithymic conditions may be one avenue people use to avoid emotional contagions. Primary alexithymia has a distinct neurological basis and a physical cause, such as genetic abnormality, disrupted biological development
Developmental biology
Developmental biology is the study of the process by which organisms grow and develop. Modern developmental biology studies the genetic control of cell growth, differentiation and "morphogenesis", which is the process that gives rise to tissues, organs and anatomy.- Related fields of study...

 or traumatic brain injury
Traumatic brain injury

 (an example would be stroke). Secondary alexithymia results from psychological influences such as sociocultural conditioning, neurotic retroflection or defense against trauma. Secondary is often seen in post-traumatic stress patients. Secondary alexithymia is presumed to be more transient than primary alexithymia and hence more likely to respond to therapy or training.

Howard Gardner
Howard Gardner
Howard Earl Gardner is an American developmental psychologist who is a professor of Cognition and Education at Harvard Graduate School of Education at Harvard University, Senior Director of Harvard Project Zero and author of over twenty books translated into thirty languages. Since 1995, he has...

 has developed his multiple intelligence
Theory of multiple intelligences
The theory of multiple intelligences was proposed by Howard Gardner in 1983 as a model of intelligence that differentiates intelligence into various specific modalities, rather than seeing it as dominated by a single general ability....

 theory to include:
  • intrapersonal intelligence, which entails the capacity to understand oneself, to appreciate one's feelings, fears and motivations. In Howard Gardner's view it involves having an effective working model of us, and to be able to use such information to regulate our lives.

The use of interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligence can create an atmosphere of growth for individuals.

See also

Further reading

    Cambridge University Press
    Cambridge University Press is the publishing business of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII in 1534, it is the world's oldest publishing house, and the second largest university press in the world...

    . (1994)
    St. Martin's Press

     Griffin. (2000)
  • Seligman, Martin
    Martin Seligman
    Martin E. P. "Marty" Seligman is an American psychologist, educator, and author of self-help books. His theory of "learned helplessness" is widely respected among scientific psychologists....

    . Authentic Happiness, Free Press
    Free Press (publisher)
    Free Press is a book publishing imprint of Simon and Schuster. It was founded by Jeremiah Kaplan and Charles Liebman in 1947 and was devoted to sociology and religion titles. It was headquartered in Glencoe, Illinois, where it was known as The Free Press of Glencoe...

     ( 2002)
  • Showalter, Elaine
    Elaine Showalter
    Elaine Showalter is an American literary critic, feminist, and writer on cultural and social issues. She is one of the founders of feminist literary criticism in United States academia, developing the concept and practice of gynocritics.She is well known and respected in both academic and popular...

     Hysterical Epidemics and Modern Culture New York: Columbia University Press
    Columbia University Press
    Columbia University Press is a university press based in New York City, and affiliated with Columbia University. It is currently directed by James D. Jordan and publishes titles in the humanities and sciences, including the fields of literary and cultural studies, history, social work, sociology,...

  • Goleman, Daniel
    Daniel Goleman
    Daniel Jay Goleman is an author, psychologist, and science journalist. For twelve years, he wrote for The New York Times, specializing in psychology and brain sciences. He is the author of more than 10 books on psychology, education, science, and leadership.-Life:Goleman was born in Stockton,...

     Working with Emotional Intelligence Bantam Books
    Bantam Books

    . (1998)

External links


Kauai's Tree Tunnel on the way to Koloa town and Poipu beach, was planted over 150 years ago when the wealthy 'Scotsman' and Kauai cattle rancher Walter Duncan McBryde donated over 500 Eucalyptus trees that were left over after landscaping his estate. The tree tunnel is over a mile long and shades the cars that pass underneath along the highway.
Where I was standing to get this shot was at a three way intersection, and of course I picked one of the busiest times to try and get it! I really wanted this shot without any cars in it and I noticed that every few minutes there would be a break in the traffic. After standing in the middle of the road for about 10 minutes I got this shot a split second before a car came into the frame on my right side. The only thing I had to clone out was some lady standing on the right side of the road taking pictures with her camera phone!

Discover more inspiring photos like this one.

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Supreme Court guts Voting Rights Act

The Supreme Court today gutted the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 by a 5-to-4 decision. Before the ink even dried on today's landmark ruling its implications quickly became stunningly clear.

Huge crowd pledges to fight for MLK's 'Dream'

Fifty years after Dr. King first gave his "I Have a Dream Speech" to 100,000 in this city, a diverse sea of people again flooded a two-mile stretch of Woodward Ave, Detroit's main thoroughfare.

End of slavery celebrated on June 19

Texans, and an increasing number of people across America, celebrate the end of slavery on June 19 because on that day in 1865 Gen. Gordon Granger announced that slavery was ended for good.

Detroit remembers 50 years after King's "I Have a Dream" speech

Why are tens of thousands again prepared to march in Detroit? "We need a better Detroit, better Michigan, better jobs, and better justice, to turn the dream of 1963 into the reality of 2013."

“Jackson, hell yes:” Chokwe Lumumba elected mayor

The right wing's Southern strategy can only be defeated by a progressive Southern strategy.

Chicago’s “Red Squad” stories reveal damage to democracy

CHICAGO - A lively symposium on this city's infamous "Red Squad" took place June 1 at the Chicago History Museum.


How 'Tivoli' would ruin Yarmouth

I read with interest your Nov. 26 front-page story about the revitalizing efforts for the much-maligned Route 28 in Yarmouth. I studied the schematic of the proposed "Tivoli Center" water park, marveling at the idyllic depiction of Route 28 with three or four cars wending their way by the six-story, 30-acre entertainment complex. I got to thinking about what this project might mean for my South Yarmouth neighborhood and the Cape in general.

Whatever the concerns or worries Yarmouth's citizens may or may not have regarding taste level and design of a venue from the man who gave us the giant skull now gracing his property, I can't imagine that any Cape Codder believes traffic is not going to be a monstrous problem at "Tivoli Center."

Louis Nickinello, the developer, says that tourists today want a "Disney culture" where folks won't have their vacation ruined by the weather. Anyone who has been on Route 28 on a rainy August day can well imagine the result when hundreds of people trying to salvage their vacation from the weather head to "Tivoli." They will join the throngs already lining the roadway in the rain.

We can imagine them sitting bumper to bumper in idling vehicles with the kids, AC cranked, burning $4-a-gallon gas, filling the sea air with exhaust fumes, inching to an indoor water park that may as well be in Oklahoma for all the Cape Cod feeling it has (Tivoli?).

Is this really the best we have to offer our visitors? And does it really matter how "green" and eco-friendly the destination is when the act of getting there is so environmentally destructive?

Wisconsin Dells is cited as an example of the success of such water park recreation. Having lived in Wisconsin for 16 years, I had a good laugh over this. Wisconsin Dells is a tiny town in the middle of miles of open farmland, beautiful wild country and state parks. It is in a huge state situated in the middle of the country. It has a population of less than 3,000 and lots of room. The density is nowhere near that of the Cape.

Wisconsin Dells lies less than two miles from Interstate 94 and, despite its wee size, has its own exit off that highway. The area is flanked and crisscrossed by multiple state and county roads, including some four-lane divided highways. In other words, it is in the middle of nowhere and has abundant access from multiple directions. Even so, Wisconsinites know to avoid the Dells area in the summer because of the traffic.

Of course traffic is only the start when thousands of people flood into small areas. A quick check of reveals that the crime rate in Wisconsin Dells, including rape, burglary, theft and auto theft, is two to four times that of the U.S. average. It has exceeded the U.S. violent and property crime rates for the past 10 years and requires twice the number of law enforcement personnel as the U.S. average. On Neighborhood Scout's crime graph of 0-100, with 100 being the safest communities, Wisconsin Dells ranks a 0 (Yarmouth an 18). Additionally, its household income is generally lower than the U.S. average, belying the "hundreds of good jobs" enticement we've heard from "Tivoli" proponents.

The special town meeting (representative of less than 5 percent of the population of Yarmouth, by the way) had speakers bemoaning that visitors and others wanting to get from Hyannis to points down-Cape are frequently directed to go through Yarmouth, as there is nothing to stop for. I submit that this development will, indeed, solve that problem. People will be instructed to go around Yarmouth because in addition to the 800-car underground parking garage at "Tivoli" there will be a 1,000-car parking lot known as Route 28.

Does Yarmouth's Route 28 need planning and new development? Yes. Most of the proposed plans sound wonderful and do speak to traffic issues. The "Tivoli" project, however, has little to say about how traffic will affect not only Route 28, but all the thickly settled, primarily residential roads feeding the area. There is no mention of the impact on the nearby historic district, which we can envision inundated with vehicles trying to avoid 28.

To pretend that this megaplex is the answer and, in fact, the key to revitalization, while offering no solutions to already stifling traffic problems, is to insult the people who have invested themselves in making South Yarmouth their home.

We can only hope that clearer minds will prevail through the permitting process as all Cape Codders realize the negative impact that putting this high-capacity tourist park in the middle of an already densely populated and traffic-burdened area will have on their quality of life.

Maureen Carser lives in South Yarmouth.


Recycling Think and Sort Game

easrth day activities for kids

There is no way I would have ever expected this game to be half as popular as it is with my son. He has always loved garbage and recycling, but he took what I thought would be a fun activity and made it something he uses with this other toys. Calling it his recycling depot he has plopped it down on our family room floor all weekend next to the lego fire station and ferry dock. Oh and he continues to sort and re sort the items too! He’s using his imagination, pre math skills and problem solving too!

  1. Gather your materials. You will need 2-3 containers, some card stock, magazines , scissors, and double stick tape.
  2. Start by cutting out different recyclable and non recyclable  items. This is where they need to really stop and think . If you are doing this with a younger or easily frustrated kiddo do this step yourself and have the game ready for them to figure out. My son was reading when I did this step , it would have been too much for him to make and play the game.
  3. Tape them onto the card stock. I am using some of the 250 plus business cards that read notimeforflashcards,com  <— did you catch the comma? I digress.
  4. Make simple recycle and garbage signs on some card stock and place in the containers.
  5. Ok time to play.
  6. Something I loved about this was how hard he thought about each picture. With the kleenex he said ” Well we throw away the tissue with boogers but recycle the box…” then thought for a while before deciding. After this super simple activity he has been asking ” Is this recyclable Mama? “About everything in our house!

Little Pirate: Why Do We Recycle? by Innovative Kids is a really fun book about recycling with a pirate theme. Yes a pirate theme. Readers learn about recycling, composting and garbage along with two young pirates who need to clean up their ship. The pirates ask questions about different waste and the wise parrot fills them into the facts like the best bag to use while shopping is a cloth one, and what happens to the metal, glass and paper after we put them in the recycle bin.

Trash And Recycling by Stephanie Turnball is a great book ! I learned more about garbage and the recycling process reading this to my son over lunch than I ever knew! He loved it and despite being a pretty sophisticated book for a 3 year old immediately asked to read it again as soon as I closed it. It explains the whole process from curbside pick up, land fills, incineration and recycling. The idea for today’s activity came from the sorting of  recyclable garbage from this book!


buy pakula 04

0305 Wind On Leaders

             Between The Lines

Ch 03: Knots and Connections

05: Wind-on Leaders
by Top Shot Tackle

0305_DiaWind-on leaders is a system where the leader is connected to the main line in a manner which allows the leader to be wound directly onto the reel spool. Using leaders of 100lb or less, knots such as the uni knot are adequate as are several other types. Leader sizes greater than this require other connection systems such as the Dacron or Spectra splice. The method of connection of the leader to the main line is a critical factor. There is a very high failure rate when this is done incorrectly.

An example of a 24kg outfit using a wind-on leader is a short double say, 3-feet, connected to a 19-foot-long 200lb wind-on leader, via a spliced Dacron loop. At the other end of the wind-on, a snap swivel with a breaking strain greater than 200lb, is crimped. The lure leader is 9-feet of 300lb. Note that under IGFA rules this is measured from the end of the loop that connects to the main line to the end of the lure skirt or trailing hook, whichever is the longer.

Other factors should be taken into consideration when making the decision whether to use wind-on leaders or not, some of which are:

- Wind-on leaders take up a significant amount of space on the spool which means you will not be using a full spool of line. This results in a loss of speed in recovering line and a greater variance in drag setting, as the line loss will diminish spool size, increasing drag setting quicker than if you use a full spool of line.

- They are dangerous if they get jammed in the reel housing. To prevent this more space on the reel spool should be allowed for them.

- The leader length and thickness should be considered. A wind-on leader in some areas is considered to be as long a length of 600 or 800lb leader as possible regardless of line class, bait or lure size. If they are considered more an extension of the main line with added strength then the system will work more effectively. There are several examples following.

Line Class Double Wind-on Leader
12lb 4 feet 9 feet x 100 lbs 5 feet x 150lbs
16lb 4 feet 9 feet x 100 lbs 5 feet x 150 lbs
20lb 4 feet 9 feet x 150 lbs 5 feet x 200 lbs
30lb 8 feet 20 feet x 150 lbs 8 feet x 200 lbs
50lb 8 feet 20 feet x 250 lbs 8 feet x 300 lbs
80lb 8 feet 20 feet x 300 lbs 8 feet x 400 lbs
130lb 8 feet 20 feet x 400 lbs 8 feet x 500 lbs

The breaking strain of the wind-ons and leaders reflects how much abrasion one could expect during a prolonged fight with a marlin using the likely drag settings for each line class. There are situations where using heavier or lighter wind-ons and leader sizes may be an advantage. Note that in all situations the connection between the wind-on and leader should be at least the breaking strain of the wind-on leader.

The lengths of the double, wind-on and leader are based on the IGFA allowable lengths and also an allowance to take into consideration the lengths of the leader, which should be at least the length of the fish you expect to catch. This length allows the lure to slide away and not be used as a counterweight to help throw the lure when the fish shakes its head and/or jumps.

 - Wind-on leaders are economical as the short leaders use much less material.

 - Lures on shorter leaders are easier to store.

 - The extra leader length of the wind-on allows the traceman to get hold of the leader earlier in the fight than if using shorter leaders. They can also be used by the angler in the same manner as with taking a wrap on the double as shown in the advanced angling exercises.

Making a Wind-on Leader:

The following is the Top Shot Tackle method of preparing a wind-on leader. The methods and tools shown in use can also be incorporated into making topshots.

1 - Cut 2-feet of Dacron. The Dacron should not be of a greater breaking strain than the nylon used as the system is based on the Dacron expanding to fit tightly over and securely grip the nylon leader.

2 - With one end of the Dacron slightly shorter than the other, form a loop of around 1-inch using a loop needle by passing the Dacron back through itself at right angles.

0305_Tana3 - Here we are showing how to make a Tanaka splice. The Tanaka loop holds the Dacron proud and stops the hinging that occurs without this addition. This is done by passing alternate ends of the Dacron through the other at right angles at least three times each end, that is, a total of six passes of the needle.

4 - The shorter end of the Dacron is then threaded down the middle of the longer end. The longer end is then bunched up at the loop end and held in place by a needle or safety pin.

5 - The end of the leader nylon that will be used as the wind-on is cut at an angle, also known as a rat tail, and inserted into the back of the appropriate-sized needle. The nylon is then threaded up the inside of the shorter end of the Dacron.

The needle is then removed from the wind-on. The nylon end is then superglued to hold it in place and pulled back into the Dacron.

6 - The Dacron loop is then placed in the stretching jig and stretched down over the nylon by pulling with the fingers and rubbing it down, and then held in place with a drop of superglue. The longer Dacron end is now freed and also pushed and then stretched over the shorter end and the nylon is once again held place with a drop of superglue.

7 - Prior to binding the join of the Dacron and nylon, the leader is again stretched in the jig. This stretching is very important in making a secure, reliable wind-on loop splice hold under the extreme pressure of a fish striking and fighting.

As with the top shot there are several possible methods. In this case the Top Shot Tackle bobbin is used with 80lb Spectra thread. A drop of superglue is once again put on the end of the Dacron and the splice is begun, ensuring the bobbin is pre-tensioned. Used in the method shown the bobbin will automatically track down the Dacron.

The Bobbin bind is then finished off with a variation of half hitches and rather than end it there, another bind is done back over the top and past the first one for extra security, and once again finished with a variation of half hitches.

The splice is now complete and can be coated as with the top shot with a flexible superglue or waterproof adhesive for added protection and security.

As with the previous top shot, half hitched wax thread is also a very secure method of securing the area of the Dacron to nylon join.

0305_WOSnapThe snap is then attached to the leader using abrasion-resistant chafing gear such as a thimble or nylon tubing. It is also important to note that a crimp wound into a tip may well damage it, so something should be used to cushion this, such as wax thread bind or a small flexible bead glued into position.

The wind-on leader is connected to the main line double as follows:

- Pass the double through the Dacron loop.

- Pull the leader through the double out through the top and over the outside of the double.

- Then back up through the middle and over the other side of the double.

- Pass the leader back through the middle from underneath out to the top.

- Snug up, moisturising the nylon as you pull the loops away from each other to tighten them.

Between The Lines


Conditions deep inside giant planets recreated in lab

In what could lead to better understanding of how giant planets form, researchers have experimentally recreated the conditions that exist deep inside giant planets, such as Jupiter, Uranus and many other planets recently discovered outside the solar system.

New breakthrough gets fusion fuel closer to reality

Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) have taken a step to bring fusion fuel closer to reality.

Mini `space cop` satellites to help control traffic in space

A team of scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are using mini-satellites that work as " space cops" to help control traffic in space.

Water vapour in exoplanet`s atmosphere hints at its formation

A team of international scientists has made the most detailed examination yet of the atmosphere of a Jupiter-size like planet beyond our solar system.

How order emerges from chaos in cosmos

Astronomers have reported surprising discovery of self-organized electromagnetic fields in counter-streaming ionized gases.

Humans played dominant role in ocean warming

Most of the observed global ocean warming over the past 50 years is attributable to human activities, according to a new study.


Define the problem

The first step in problem-solving is to define precisely the problem that you want to solve.

In effective problem-solving, you need to set yourself to answer only one question: the key question. A key question isn’t an isolated element. Instead, it is part of an introductory flow, complementing a situation and a complication. This introductory flow also belongs to an environment, where you specify the key stakeholders for your problem and the elements out of scope, amongst other things. Therefore it is fundamental that you identify clearly which question you should solve and what its environment is.

Of course, an essential part of defining your problem is to define if you want to understand the root cause(s) of a situation (i.e. solve a “why” problem) or if you want to identify how to solve it (as a general rule, only ask “how” if you know “why”).

Remember that a solid problem definition is probably the most overlooked step in problem solving. Ironically, it is the step that has the greatest return on investment, because it is a leadership step, rather than a management one. Just like you can’t win a race—even if you are the fastest runner in the world—if you don’t set to run in the right direction to begin with, the success of your entire problem resolution process depends on your ability to identify the right problem. So don’t overlook this step. Resist the urge to jump into developping issue trees too early. Instead, invest enough time here; it will pay off later.


His long career at Vogue spanned a number of radical transformations in fashion and its depiction, but his style remained remarkably constant. Imbued with calm and decorum, his photographs often seemed intent on defying fashion. His models and portrait subjects were never seen leaping or running or turning themselves into blurs. Even the rough-and-ready members of the Hell's Angels motorcycle gang, photographed in San Francisco in 1967, were transformed within the quieting frame of his studio camera into the graphic equivalent of a Greek frieze.

Instead of spontaneity, Mr. Penn provided the illusion of a seance, his gaze precisely describing the profile of a Balenciaga coat or of a Moroccan jalaba in a way that could almost mesmerize the viewer. Nothing escaped the edges of his photographs unless he commanded it. Except for a series of close-up portraits that cut his subjects' heads off at the forehead, and another, stranger suite of overripe nudes, his subjects were usually shown whole, apparently enjoying a splendid isolation from the real world.

He was probably most famous for photographing Parisian fashion models and the world's great cultural figures, but he seemed equally at home photographing Peruvian peasants or bunion pads. Merry Foresta, co-organizer of a 1990 retrospective of his work at the National Museum of American Art, wrote that his pictures exhibited ''the control of an art director fused with the process of an artist.''

A courtly man whose gentle demeanor masked an intense perfectionism, Mr. Penn adopted the pose of a humble craftsman while helping to shape a field known for putting on airs. Although schooled in painting and design, he chose to define himself as a photographer, scraping his early canvases of paint so that they might serve a more useful life as backdrops to his pictures.

He was also a refined conversationalist and a devoted husband and friend. His marriage to Lisa Fonssagrives, a beautiful model, artist and his sometime collaborator, lasted 42 years, ending with her death at the age of 80 in 1992. Mr. Penn's photographs of Ms. Fonssagrives not only captured a slim woman of lofty sophistication and radiant good health; they also set the esthetic standard for the elegant fashion photography of the 1940s and '50s.

Ms. Fonssagrives became a sculptor after her modeling career ended. In 1994, Mr. Penn and their son, Tom, a metal designer, arranged the printing of a book that reproduced his wife's sculpture, prints and drawings. In addition to his son, Mr. Penn is survived by his stepdaughter, Mia Fonssagrives Solow, a sculptor and jewelry designer; his younger brother, Arthur, the well-known director of such films as ''Bonnie and Clyde,'' and eight grandchildren.

Mr. Penn had the good fortune of working for and collaborating with two of the 20th century's most inventive and influential magazine art directors, Alexey Brodovitch and Alexander Liberman. He studied with Mr. Brodovitch in Philadelphia as a young man and came to New York in 1937 as his unpaid design assistant at Harper's Bazaar, the most provocative fashion magazine of the day. But it was under Mr. Liberman, at Vogue, that Mr. Penn forged his career as a photographer.

In the book ''Irving Penn: Passage'' (1991), a compilation of the photographer's career, Mr. Liberman wrote of meeting Mr. Penn for the first time in 1941: ''Here was a young American who seemed unspoiled by European mannerisms or culture. I remember he wore sneakers and no tie. I was struck by his directness and a curious unworldliness, a clarity of purpose, and a freedom of decision. What I call Penn's American instincts made him go for the essentials.''

Irving Penn was also a consummate technician, known equally for the immaculate descriptive quality of his still-life arrangements of cosmetics and other consumer goods and for his masterly exploration of photographic materials. Not content with the conventions of the darkroom or with the standard appearance of commercial prints, he was willing to experiment. He resorted to bleaching the prints of his nudes series, eliminating skin tones and making female flesh appear harsh and unforgiving but nonetheless sexually charged.

At the height of the cultural convulsions of the 1960s Mr. Penn taught himself to print his own pictures using a turn-of-the-century process that relies on platinum instead of more conventional silver. The process produces beautiful, velvety tones in the image and is among the most permanent of photographic processes, although it requires time-consuming preparation and precise control in the darkroom.


ASU’s “Security & Defense Systems Initiative” (SDSI) addresses national and global security and defense challenges through an integrative, transdisciplinary, “whole system” approach that involves the following three key areas.

Integrative, transdisciplinary "whole system" approach

Technology Solutions

Programs supporting technology research and development to address current and emerging needs in security and defense.

Our contributions to advancing technologies include basic and applied research efforts as well as advanced technology development programs. These are primarily organized around seven Research Thrust Areas that reflect some of the most urgent needs of the security and defense challenges being faced over the next decade and beyond. SDSI combines a traditional on-campus, unclassified, low-TRL research capability with an off-campus, higher-TRL research entity called ASURE that is able to conduct higher-TRL and specialized research extending to the highest levels. This allows SDSI to contribute to technology research and development efforts ranging from TRL0 to TRL7+ and to address programs extending across all security levels.

Law and Policy Issues

Programs supporting laws, polices, and regulations enabling greater protections of national and global security while ensuring the privacy, freedoms, and way of life that define our society.

In many cases the technologies available to address security and defense challenges exceed the legal and policy layers needed to make effective use of them. SDSI seeks to contribute to an informed, reasoned, and mature understanding of key issues at the intersection of science and technology with law and policy. Our goal is to contribute to the development of appropriate legal and policy enablements that address the security and defense challenges we face.  To do this, we bring together law and policy experts, military leaders, technologists, social scientists, and experts in human rights and the law of armed conflict to understand the wide range of viewpoints involved and develop a clearer assessment of potential solution approaches.

Root Social Causes

Programs that examine social, cultural, and economic causes of emerging security and defense challenges, to address these before they grow to become major threats that may require costly action.

These range from factors that can contribute to cross-border tensions, to cultural factors that can create potential for future security and defense issues, to the competition for natural resources and the networks needed to enable their equitable distribution. By better understanding these drivers of potential future conflicts, SDSI can help support the development of solutions to alleviate them.  We work with researchers across a wide range of fields, including the humanities and social sciences, to clarify the key issues involved and define innovative routes for addressing them in distinctly integrative and transdisciplinary ways.

Together these three components of the “Security & Defense Systems Initiative” (SDSI) allow ASU to bring the entire intellectual resources of the largest single university in the U.S. to bear on some of the greatest challenges being faced in the security and defense area.


This Week at War: Playing Risk

My Foreign Policy column discusses some risky assumptions inside the Pentagon's new strategic guidance. I also discuss why Gulf Cooperation Council members are still failing to cooperate on Iran.

The Pentagon's risky new assumptions

Last week, I discussed the release of the Pentagon's new strategic guidance, the document that attempts to explain how the U.S. military services and field commanders plan to cope with a $487 billion cut from their previous 10-year budget plan. Defense analysts now await the White House's detailed defense budget request, a document that is bound to contain a lot of unhappy news for Congress members and defense contractors. I noted last week that the strategic guidance implied substantial cuts to the Army and Marine Corps, implicitly accepting that the United States will no longer be able to send major deployments to two simultaneous crises. But that is just one of many risks the new guidance will force Pentagon planners to cope with.

The cuts to U.S. ground forces will necessarily increase the responsibilities borne by U.S. allies. The strategic guidance discusses the Pentagon's "plan to operate whenever possible with allied and coalition forces." In addition, the document emphasizes the importance of providing security force assistance to build the capacity of partner forces. The authors of the new strategy are counting on this assistance to help fill in for reduced U.S. forces in the future. In reality, however, traditional allies in Europe and elsewhere continue to cut rather than increase their military capacities. Recent U.S. "coalitions of the willing" did produce contributions from many countries, but the majority of these contributions were militarily insignificant. Future U.S. security crises might matter even less to U.S. allies, which will be reluctant to provide significant troop contributions. Planning for allies to do the work previously done by now-furloughed U.S. soldiers is a risk.

In his rollout of the new strategy, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta called for U.S. forces to be "more agile, flexible, [and] innovative" as a way of compensating for reduced numbers. But what does it mean precisely to be more agile, flexible, and innovative? Can Panetta and his staff point to specific indicators of agility or flexibility that his forces cannot achieve now but could under different conditions? What training, leadership, or equipment is required to achieve these undefined higher levels of agility and flexibility? Without a more detailed description, it sounds more like sloganeering than a strategy. Panetta and others may express a desire to more rapidly shift forces around the globe in response to crises, but U.S. forces face an increasing challenge of denied access from adversary missiles, a fundamental threat the new strategy is supposed to address. Until the Pentagon resolves the anti-access challenge, improved strategic mobility is itself another problem, rather than a solution to a problem of reduced troop numbers.

The strategic guidance discusses the idea of "reversibility," or retaining the military's ability to reconstitute forces in response to crises. The report describes plans to retain larger numbers of field-grade officers and sergeants in the Army and Marine Corps to accommodate rapid reconstitution of previously shuttered formations. The strategy also discusses an updated role for reserve forces to reconstitute needed combat units. Although these are sensible preparations, in the past it has usually taken two years or more for the U.S. military to fully adapt to major strategic shocks. This is the typical amount of time a large bureaucracy like the Pentagon needs to comprehend a new adversary and its tactics, accept that the new challenge differs significantly from those forecast in prewar plans, and then overcome the bureaucratic hurdles needed to design and implement effective responses. The new strategic guidance may hope to speed up this timeline, but simply assuming it will go faster next time is a risk.

The impending defense cuts increase stress for Pentagon planners because they reduce the margin of error they will have to work with. Possessing redundancy and safety margins of troops, equipment, and bases seems wasteful, even more so during a budget crisis. Getting the new strategic guidance to work during a future crisis will mean hoping that the new planning assumptions come true and that Murphy's Law doesn't strike too often. U.S. military history shows that "planning for perfection" rarely turns out well.

When it comes to Iran, the United States could use a little more help from its Arab friends.

In a Jan. 8 interview, Gen. Martin Dempsey, the Joint Chiefs chairman, admitted that Iran did have the military capacity to block the Strait of Hormuz "for a period of time." Dempsey went on to reassure his questioner that U.S. military forces around the Persian Gulf region could eventually reopen the strait to maritime traffic. After just completing one round of naval maneuvers, Iran promised an even bigger naval exercise in February. Over at least the medium term, the United States will have to bear the primary responsibility for guaranteeing access to this critical portion of the global commons. Over the long run, the United States would like its Arab allies to pick up a bigger share of the burden. Unfortunately, a recent conference sponsored by U.S. Central Command and the Rand Corp. seemed to throw a barrel of cold water on this prospect.

A new publication from Rand discusses the results of this July 2011 conference, which was keynoted by Marine Gen. James Mattis, the head of Centcom, as well as Puneet Talwar, senior director for the Persian Gulf region for the National Security Council. Around 100 regional experts participated in various panel discussions under Chatham House rules, meaning their remarks were recorded but not attributed by name.

The United States has an interest in promoting a NATO-like political and military alliance among its Sunni Arab allies in the region as a balancing force to Iran. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), composed of Saudi Arabia and the other smaller Sunni countries on the western side of the Persian Gulf, would ideally be the basis of this balancing force. Regrettably, the conference participants concluded that the GCC remains bogged down by mistrust and a lack of coordination. Even worse, just when rising tensions with Iran should be increasing cooperation with the United States, Washington's relations with most GCC countries, most notably Saudi Arabia, are worsening.

Events in 2011 afforded several GCC countries a chance to flex their military muscles and to do so in cooperation with other GCC members and the United States. For example, GCC member Qatar was a major player in the Libyan rebellion, supplying both fighter aircraft and a large contingent of special-forces advisors to the rebels, an action that was supported by other GCC members. Yet the conference concluded that GCC support for the Libyan rebels was motivated by animus toward Muammar al-Qaddafi and was therefore not a precursor for better military cooperation among members in the future. Similarly, the Saudi-led GCC intervention to prop up Bahrain's royal family is expected to do little to improve GCC military coordination against the Iranian threat. In fact, the conference suggested that the internal crackdown in Bahrain may have damaged the Bahrain royal family's credibility and may eventually place U.S. military bases in the country in jeopardy.

According to the conference participants, the Arab Spring has created collateral damage to U.S. relations with key Gulf countries. Leaders in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere were not pleased with the Obama administration's abandonment of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. U.S. policymakers seem to make a clear distinction between external threats to the Sunni Arab countries, to which the United States has pledged to respond, and internal threats, which the United States sees as each country's responsibility. The Sunni monarchies, fearing Iran's covert and irregular-warfare capabilities, do not so neatly see the distinction between Iranian-sponsored external and internal threats. The conference reported that some GCC leaders, having lost some confidence in U.S. reliability, are now looking east to India and China to diversify their security relationships.

U.S. diplomats and regional commanders such as Mattis are caught in several dilemmas. Over the long run, U.S. officials want to encourage more self-reliance and cooperation among GCC states. Yet they also want these countries to have enough confidence in U.S. guarantees that they won't wander off to establish alliances with the likes of China. Similarly, the Arab Spring seemed to bring about the possibility of greater self-government in the Arab world. But U.S. officials have also discovered that pushing this fundamental value might put at risk U.S. security relationships in the region and thus increase the burden on U.S. forces responsible for global commons like the Strait of Hormuz. Mattis's conference showed that solutions to these dilemmas are as far away as ever.

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I agree that reliance on security force assistance and the assumption that allies and partners will enable us to mitigate the risks associated with reduced defense funding is based more on hope than fact. Most of the foreign contributions to both Iraq and Afghanistan were/are militarily insignificant, but then on the other hand when it comes to dealing with globally networked threats such as terrorism, WMD proliferation, transnational criminal organizations, etc. relatively minor investments in security force assistance and procedures for sharing information and collaboration on areas that are common concerns is much more effective than trying to go solo.

When it comes to being “more agile, flexible, [and] innovative,” why should Secretary Panetta point to specific indicators? It is a task to the JS and services to develop these innovative solutions, and I think there are several innovative approaches that can be developed to address a wide range of security challenges. If the SECDEF gave examples they would be interpreted as guidance and limit the creativity of the staff.

Maybe I’m the last holdout, but it seems we’re making too much of the anti-access problem. Any State on State conflict has and will involve offense and defense. Defense has always included anti-access technologies and tactics, and if we were on the offense we had to develop the means to overcome them whether it was hitting the beaches in Normandy or storming Japanese islands, or the landing at Inchon, or the deep bombing raids into North Vietnam, and so forth. No doubt as our adversaries technologies evolve and tactics change, our technology and tactics must change also. Maybe excessive focus on irregular warfare over the last 10 years has created a deficit in that co-evolution, but it seems that could be addressed rather quickly.

I don’t think reversibility is a greater risk than it has been historically, and actually it may reduce risk in some ways. If we have a standing force that is trained and equipped for the wrong fight, and its leaders are indoctrinated with inappropriate doctrine, forming a new force from scratch may be more effective. I realize this is a reach, but perhaps worth considering.

You made some interesting comments about the political dynamics in CENTCOM due to the Arab Spring I wasn’t aware of that support your arguments about over reliance on coalitions and SFA. However, since the new strategic guidance talks about the strategic shift to the Asia-Pacific region it would seem appropriate to address that also. I also think we may not be putting enough emphasis on our backyard in SOUTHCOM.

Let's face it, Robert, the Saudis have been ticked off ever since the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, "delivering" Iraq into the hands of the Iranians. Ever since, one could even make the case for the Saudi's perceiving U.S. moves in the region as being incompetent. As it is, the Saudis are contending with Shia unrest in their own country and neighboring Bahrain. A war with Iran would likely be like pouring gasoline onto the flames of this unrest.

As for the GCC and a potential regional war, they actually live in the neighborhood and would be physically and materially impacted; where we Americans would likely only see a relative pinch to our pocketbooks in the form of $6 to $8 a gallon fuel, and associated price increases at the supermarket.


What Is Pain?

Understanding Your Body

Sometimes pain may be just a nuisance, like a mild headache. At other times, such as after an operation, pain that doesn't go away—even after you take pain medicine—may be a signal that there is a problem. If you have an operation, your nurses and doctors will ask you about your pain because they want you to be comfortable, but also because they want to know if something is wrong.

Be sure to tell your doctors and nurses when you have pain. They can help you to prevent or control pain so you can get well faster and improve your results after surgery.

Proceed to Next Section

Current as of November 2007
Internet Citation: What Is Pain?: Understanding Your Body. November 2007. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD. http://www.ahrq.gov/patients-consumers/prevention/understanding/bodysys/edbody11.html


Comic-Con has become more of a pop cultural festival, and to not be included feels like you're missing the biggest celebration of the year.

Felicia Day


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More Roots of Complex Numbers - Problem 3 2,015 views

Teacher/Instructor Norm Prokup
Norm Prokup

Cornell University
PhD. in Mathematics

I want to talk about a special problem that involves the roots of a complex number. Finding the nth roots of unity.

An nth root of unity is a complex number z satisfying the equation; z to the n equals 1. For example, the fourth roots of unity would be numbers satisfying z to the 4 equals 1. Let's find the cube roots of unity. These are the third roots of unity. These would satisfy z cubed equals one.

The first thing we have to do is express 1 in trigonometric form. 1 is a complex number, so you can do this. The modulus is of course going to be 1, and the argument is going to be 0; Cosine 0 plus i sine 0. What's the first root of unity going to be? Well I need to take the modulus of the original number and take its third root. Now the third root of 1 is 1. The modulus of all the roots is going to be one.

What's the argument of the first root? You take this number 0 and divide by 3. 0 divide by 3 is 0, so I get 0. Of course this is exactly the same number as I started with, so I get 1 and of course that makes sense. 1 cubed is 1. 1 should be one of the cube roots of unity.

Let's look for the second one. Remember there are going to be 3 of them. z sub 2 is going to be; same modulus, 1. What do we add to 0 to get the next root? Well we have to add 2 Pi divided by, whatever the index of the root is, 3, well 2 Pi over 3. I'm going to add 2 Pi over 3 to this and I get cosine of 2 Pi over 3 plus i sine 2 Pi over 3.

The cosine of 2 Pi over 3 is -1/2. Sine of 2 Pi over 3 is root 3 over 2. -1/2 plus root 3 over 2i. That's going to be another cube root of unity.

What about the third? 1, that's the modulus, cosine of; I add another 2 Pi over 3 to this. I get 4 Pi over 3 plus i sine 4 Pi over 3. Cosine of 4 Pi over 3, -1/2. Sine of 4 Pi over 3 is negative root 3 over 2. So I get negative one-half negative root 3 over 2 i.

The cube roots of unity are; 1, -1/2 plus root 3 over 2i and -1/2 minus root 3 over 2i. Any of these numbers if cubed gives 1.

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Search The CSA
EC Number

Catalytic Site Atlas

CSA LITERATURE entry for 1k4t

E.C. nameDNA topoisomerase
SpeciesHomo sapiens (Human)
E.C. Number (IntEnz)
CSA Homologues of 1k4tThere are 19 Homologs
CSA Entries With UniProtID P11387
CSA Entries With EC Number
PDBe Entry 1k4t
PDBSum Entry 1k4t
MACiE Entry 1k4t

Literature Report

IntroductionEukaryotic DNA topoisomerase I (topo I) is an enzyme that acts to relax supercoils generated during transcription and DNA replication. Due to of the size of the eukaryotic chromosome, removal of these supercoils can only be accomplished locally by introducing breaks into the DNA helix. Topo I mediates DNA relaxation by creating a transient single-strand break in the DNA duplex. This transient nick allows the broken strand to rotate around its intact complement, effectively removing local supercoils. Strand nicking results from the transesterification of an active-site tyrosine (Tyr-723) at a DNA phosphodiester bond forming a 3-phosphotyrosine covalent enzyme-DNA complex. After DNA relaxation, the covalent intermediate is reversed when the released 5-OH of the broken strand reattacks the phosphotyrosine intermediate in a second transesterification reaction. The rate of religation is normally much faster than the rate of cleavage, and this ensures that the steady-state concentration of the covalent 3-phosphotyrosyl topo I DNA complex remains low.
However, a variety of DNA lesions and drugs have been shown to stabilize the covalent 3-phosphotyrosyl intermediate. For example, camptothecin (CPT) is a natural product that was originally discovered because of its antitumor activity and was later demonstrated to cause the accumulation of topo I DNA adducts in vitro and in vivo.CPTs bind the covalent 3-phosphotyrosyl intermediate and specifically block DNA religation, thus converting topo I into a DNA-damaging agent. Topo I is the sole intramolecular target of CPT, and the cytotoxic effects of CPT poisoning are S-phase specific. During DNA replication, the replication fork is thought to collide with the trapped topo I DNA complexes, resulting in double-strand breaks and ultimately cell death.
MechansimThe nucleophilic Tyr723 attacks the backbone posphate group leading to cleavage, the leaving group 5'-oxygen is protonated by Lys532. Controlled rotation of the DNA helix then relaxes its supercoil, after which the nicked strand is re-ligated.

Catalytic Sites for 1k4t

ResidueChainNumberUniProtKB NumberFunctional PartFunctionTargetDescription
TyrA723723macie:sideChainTyr attacks the phosphate back bone to form a phosphotyrosine intermediate.
ArgA488488macie:sideChainStabilises transition state by hydrogen bonding to the non-bridging oxygen.
ArgA590590macie:sideChainStabilises transition state by hydrogen bonding to the non-bridging oxygen. Note could also contribute to lowering pKa of Tyr723 leading to its deprotonation for nucleophilic attack.
HisA632632macie:sideChainStabilises transition state. Note was originally thought to eb the general acid.
LysA532532macie:sideChainKnown to act as the general acid which protonates the leaving 5'-oxygen atom.

Literature References

Notes:Note 2005 paper stating Lys532 is an essential catalytic residue.
Stewart L
A model for the mechanism of human topoisomerase I.
Science 1998 279 1534-1541
PubMed: 9488652
Interthal H
The role of lysine 532 in the catalytic mechanism of human topoisomerase I.
J Biol Chem 2004 279 2984-2992
PubMed: 14594810


Student Is Sent $350,000 Government Drone

Part of an unmanned aircraft used by the US government to monitor wildlife is wrongly delivered to a college student.

The NOAA says the device was "misdelivered"

A college student was left baffled after he was accidentally sent part of a $350,000 (£206,000) government drone.

He received the environment and wildlife monitoring Puma drone pieces - owned by the US National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) – on Monday.

Photographs posted to reddit by the user - known as Seventy_Seven - showed a large box filled with neatly packaged drone pieces, including what looks like a control panel.

The student said he called delivery firm UPS, which said the package was his and it was up to him whether to keep it.

Since then he has contacted the NOAA, who are now trying to organise a collection.

He wrote: "They were happy I reached out to them, and now know where their missing shipment went.

"After describing what happened, he seemed pretty content about it."

The package was sent from MacDill Air Force Base in Florida in plain packaging, addressed to the student.

The drone has a range of around eight miles and can fly for about two hours at a time.

The completed drone will be used to monitor the sanctuary's environment.

Mr Miller added: "We're just wanting to get that missing package to the sanctuary so we can start flying the mission."


Yes. Sorry to not specify that.

Here's what Wall said in the 1912 Dictionary of Photography: "Chrome Alum...soluble 1 part in 10 cold water...It is used for hardening gelatine, as, for example, in the preparation of emulsions for dry plates to prevent frilling... Potash Alum..It is used for rendering the films of gelatine less liable to mechanical injury, by hardening them, and also clears them from stains. Solubility: 9.5 in 100 of cold water, 10 in 8 of boiling water..."

I take this to mean that chrome alum was traditionally used as a final addition to the emulsion itself, and that potassium alum was used in hardening baths. If so, it still needs some investigation to see if that would work for us. "Alum" just went on my grocery list. I've never used chrome alum in any of my emulsions, so the issue about its availability has slipped under my radar. Thanks for bringing this up .


Source: The Verge

Comments     Threshold

From my experience...
By Torgog on 3/20/2014 12:06:18 PM , Rating: 3
As a high school teacher and school administrator for the past 27 years I've seen the progression of distractions firsthand. Fads come and go, but the infiltration of electronic communication / entertainment / information is unlike anything I've seen. It is by no means a fad. Hence, accepting and utilizing the devices eliminates the predictable resistance that comes with forcing students to part with a device that has become an ingrained part of their daily existence.

There are two approaches to student cell phones that I have seen used successfully, more so when used in conjunction.

1) Train the students. From the start of the school year I trained my students on appropriate use of their devices. There is a time and place each class period for their usage. Each period there is a set countdown to "airplane mode". Students respect my position in the classroom and, hence, respect my rules. Likewise, there are swift consequences for violations of the rule.

2) Embrace the access. I've found ways for students to constructively use their devices as part of lessons, either as a research device or calculator. Students are notified prior to the lesson that devices will be allowed, but only on cue. This means it sits on the desk, but unused until that time.

It takes time to retrain the students on usage in my classroom. What makes it more difficult (but not impossible) are classrooms where there are no rules on the devices. But this is true for any teacher trying to overcome the shortcoming of those teachers with poor classroom management.


My sister is looking for some guidance on how to style her locs. They are grazing shoulder length at this point. The only youtuber that I know of with a great loc channel is chescalocs, but a lot of her styles aren't really feasible for someone with sl hair.

Any suggestions?