Happy Holi Messages , Shayari , Images , Greetings : As you all know Happy Holi is coming and here we are providing some beautiful stuff related to Happy Holi festival like Happy Holi Messages , Shayari , Images , Greetings, Happy Holi Best images for kids. Festival of colors- is undoubtedly the most fun-filled Hindu festival. It is an occasion that brings in an unadulterated joy, fun and play, dance and music, and, of course, lots n lots of bright colors. With winter season coming to its end, it's time to come out of our cocoons and enjoy this spring festival. Send our latest collection of happy holi best images for kids to your near and dear ones. Every year Holi is celebrated on the day after the full moon in early March. This is the time for spring harvest also. The new crop refills the stores in every house and perhaps such abundance accounts for even more fun and joy during Holi. Because of this reason Holi is also known by the names - 'Vasant Mahotsava' and 'Kama Mahotsava'. Like every Indian festival, a number of mythical tales linked with this festival also. You can also find Google search result related to happy holi 2019 such as Happy Holi Best images for kids, Happy Holi Messages , Shayari , Images , Greetings. There are three tales of three legends associated with Holi: the Holika-Hiranyakashipu-Prahlad episode, Lord Shiva's killing of Kamadeva, and the story of the ogress Dhundhi. Download Happy Holi Messages , Shayari , Images , Greetings from our website. The name of the festival has derived its name from Holika, the sister of king Hiranyakashipu. Holika as per the orders of her brother tried to kill a child named Prahalad, by walking in the fire with the child. However by the grace of God Prahalad survived and Holika got burnt. This myth has a strong association with Holi Festival. Even today also, there is a practice of hurling cow dung into the fire and shouting obscenities at it. I hope you like the below mentioned Happy Holi Messages , Shayari , Images , Greetings, Happy Holi Messages , Shayari , Images , Greetings, Holi Best images for kids and Holi Love images for kids.
Mubarak Ho HAPPY HOLI ka Tyohar.!
Holi 2016 Mubarak ho mere yaar!.
Shubh Ho Aap Sabko Ye Rangon ka Tyohar HAPPY Holi.!
We had discussed about Happy Holi Messages, Shayari , Images , Greetings for 2016, holi images for kids. If you like this happy Holi 2019 information then must share with on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Whatsapp etc. Some practices, that at other times could be offensive, are allowed during Holi festival. You can download Happy Holi Messages , Shayari , Images , Greetings for free. Throwing balloons filled with water, squirting colored water on passers-by, getting intoxicated on bhaang, dunking in mud pool amidst teasing and laughter and reveling with companions is perfectly acceptable on this day. Offices and shops remain closed on this day. People forget all their worries and get crazy and whacky. Children take special delight by spraying colored water on each other with their pichkaris. People form groups and move in colonies- applying colors (gulal) and exchanging greetings. Dance, songs and mouthwatering sweets are the other highlights of the day. Do not forget to share this information about Happy Holi Messages , Shayari , Images , Greetings and holi images for kids.


text:
Northwest Kidney Centers celebrates 60th anniversary, will honor legacy throughout 2022
Seattle, WA – Northwest Kidney Centers, the world's first dialysis organization, is launching a year-long celebration to honor its 60th anniversary. Now the eighth largest dialysis provider in the United States, non-profit Northwest Kidney Centers is a leader in patient care, education and research.
"We are excited and proud to celebrate a legacy of 60 years that has given life and hope to thousands of people with chronic kidney disease around the world," said Rebecca Fox, President and Chief Executive Officer of Northwest Kidney Centers. "What was at first thought of as a miracle treatment championed by Northwest Kidney Centers in 1962 has now become the standard of care around the world."
Northwest Kidney Centers grew from a world-changing invention in 1960, when University of Washington researcher Dr. Belding Scribner created the Scribner Shunt, a medical device that allowed people to live indefinitely with repeated dialysis. Community leaders came together to raise money and find space so Northwest Kidney Centers could open its doors in Seattle on Jan. 9, 1962.
This legacy of innovation is still present in Northwest Kidney Centers' support of research for new treatments and new discoveries to better patient's lives through its collaboration with the Kidney Research Institute and the Center for Dialysis Innovation.
Throughout 2022, Northwest Kidney Centers will honor its legacy and celebrate the future of care for those with kidney disease with the community at events including the HopeBuilders Luncheon on May 12 and the Discovery Gala on October 15.
Kidney disease is one of the most prevalent health problems impacting adults in the United States. It is the ninth leading cause of death and more than one in nine adults will experience kidney disease in their lifetime. Black Americans are almost four times as likely as white Americans to develop kidney failure, and there has been a 70% increase in kidney failure among the Hispanic population since 2000. Approximately 90% of those with kidney disease do not know they have it.
"People with kidney disease are not always aware of their many options," said Dr. Suzanne Watnick, Northwest Kidney Centers Chief Medical Officer. "We focus not only on the treatment of those with end-stage kidney disease, but also education for the community on how to slow the progression of kidney disease."
Northwest Kidney Centers serves nearly 2,000 patients a year in 20 dialysis centers and eight hospitals, accounting for 80% of dialysis treatments in the Puget Sound region.
As a community-based nonprofit, Northwest Kidney Centers' mission is to treat patients throughout their kidney disease journey. Through education about health and nutrition, it hopes to reach people at risk of kidney disease to intervene before it is too late. It also offers one of the first-in-the-nation kidney palliative care programs, which is 100% donor supported.
"Northwest Kidney Centers' history and roots in the local community run deep. We're so proud to invest more than $3 million annually to support those in need," said Fox. "I feel honored to be entrusted with shepherding Northwest Kidney Centers' legacy into the next 60 years and beyond."

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The 117 cam performs well in a mid-size cubic inch open with large valves. This cam is easy on the valve train for a cam with this much lift.
The 127 is recommended for a .563 Stroke,3 inch + bore. It is designed for the Open and Junior Dragster classes.


The weather is warming up and it's almost time for shorts, skirts, and swimsuits! Did that make you sweat a little? No worries! This workout will tone your thighs, tighten your backside, and get you ready for Summer. And Summer is just around the corner, so if you're ready to show some leg or just want to fit into a pair of short-shorts then this is the workout for you!
For best results, do this workout 2-3 times a week on alternating days. Move through each exercise as a circuit, one after the other. Then, repeat the entire circuit 2-4 times depending on your fitness level. Take a 45-60 seconds rest between circuits to grab water and recover. Here we go!
Move through each exercise as a circuit, one after the other. Then, repeat the entire circuit 2-4 times depending on your fitness level. Take a 45-60 seconds rest between circuits to grab water and recover.
Notes: Sculpt your outer thighs with this squat variation. Do 20 total, alternating legs.
Notes: Lift and tone your backside with this move. Be sure to keep the knee of your stabilizing leg slightly bent. Do 15 kickbacks on each leg.
Notes: Leg circles will slim your thighs and work your abs. Perform 25 clockwise circles on each leg and be sure to lean back with a straight back!
Notes: Place a medium weight free weight behind one knee and kick your heel up and back towards the ceiling to seriously sculpt your backside! Let's do 15 on each leg.


text:
Q: I Keep Getting Invalid datetime format: 1292 Model
class ClickMeeting extends Model
{
    protected $table = 'clickmeeting';
    public $timestamps = false;
    protected $dateFormat = 'U';
    protected $guarded = ['id'];

    static $videoDemoSource = ['upload', 'youtube', 'vimeo', 'external_link'];

    public function ClickMeeting()
    {
        ///
    }
}

Controller
public function dashboard()
    {
        $client = new Client();
        $uri = 'https://api.clickmeeting.com/v1/conferences/active';
        $header = ['headers' => ['X-Api-Key' => 'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx']];
        $res = $client->get($uri, $header);
        $conferences = json_decode($res->getBody()->getContents(), true);

        // dd($conferences);

        collect($conferences)
            ->each(function ($conference, $key) {
                ClickMeeting::firstOrCreate([
                    'parent_id' => $conference['parent_id'],
                    'room_type' => $conference['room_type'],
                    'room_url' => $conference['room_url'],

                ],
                [
                    'starts_at' => $conference['starts_at'],
                    'ends_at' => $conference['ends_at'],
                    'room_pin' => $conference['room_pin'],
                    'title' => $conference['name'],
                    'name_url' => $conference['name_url'],
                    'access_type' => $conference['access_type'],
                    'lobby_enabled' => $conference['lobby_enabled'],
                    'lobby_description' => $conference['lobby_description'],
                    'registration_enabled' => $conference['registration_enabled'],
                    'status' => $conference['status'],
                    'timezone' => $conference['timezone'],
                    'timezone_offset' => $conference['timezone_offset'],
                    'paid_enabled' => $conference['paid_enabled'],
                    'automated_enabled' => $conference['automated_enabled'],
                    'type' => $conference['type'],
                    'permanent_room' => $conference['permanent_room'],
                    'embed_room_url' => $conference['embed_room_url']
                ]);
            });

        $conferences = ClickMeeting::get();

        return view('admin.clickmeeting.dashboard',compact('conferences'));

SQLSTATE[22007]: Invalid datetime format: 1292 Incorrect datetime
value: '2022-06-22T16:10:00+00:00' for column 'starts_at' at row 1
(SQL: insert into clickmeeting (parent_id, room_type,
room_url, starts_at, ends_at, room_pin, title, name_url,
access_type, lobby_enabled, lobby_description,
registration_enabled, status, timezone, timezone_offset,
paid_enabled, automated_enabled, type, permanent_room,
embed_room_url) values (?, webinar,
https://abc.clickmeeting.com/urinary-tract-infection-in-children,
2022-06-22T16:10:00+00:00, 2022-06-22T17:10:00+00:00, 477736894,
URINARY TRACT INFECTION IN CHILDREN,
urinary-tract-infection-in-children, 1, 1, , 1, active, Africa/Accra,
0, 0, 0, 0, 0,
https://abc.clickwebinar.com/embed_conference.html?r=123456))

I keep getting Invalid datetime format: 1292 Incorrect datetime value. Help is greatly appreciated. Thank you

A: I think these occur because the DATETIME value in the statement above uses a format that is not supported by MySQL, you can use the STR_TO_DATE() function for passing the starts_at variable into the database.
The code like
'starts_at' => STR_TO_DATE($conference['starts_at'], "%m-%d-%Y %H:%i:%s"),

Please check this link you can find more about the STR_TO_DATE() function

A: Try use Carbon\Carbon for assigning your dates:
collect($conferences)
    ->each(function ($conference, $key) {
          ClickMeeting::firstOrCreate([
            ....
          ],
          [
            'starts_at' => Carbon::parse($conference['starts_at']),
            'ends_at' => Carbon::parse($conference['ends_at']),
            ....
          ]);
    });

Alternatively, you could tell laravel which fields are date using the $casts property:
class ClickMeeting extends Model
{
    ....
    protected $guarded = ['id'];
    protected $casts = [
          'starts_at' => 'datetime',
          'ends_at' => 'datetime'
    ];
    ....
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Christopher R. McCurdy,
Oliver Grundmann
Kratom consumer protection act will add much needed regulation to the marketplace | Column
Florida can require products sold in the state to meet a higher bar of product purity, establish labeling requirements and limit sales to consumers 21 years and older. These are much-needed steps.
A kratom tree. The Florida Legislature is taking up a bill that would regulate the sale of products made from the plants leaves. [ Wikimedia Commons ]
Published Feb. 5, 2022
Kratom, or Mitragyna speciosa as it is known botanically, is a traditional Southeast Asian medicine that has been utilized by indigenous populations for centuries to increase endurance, enhance mood, treat pain and mitigate opioid withdrawal symptoms. It is the latter use that has attracted our attention from a research standpoint during the global opioid crisis.
Christopher R. McCurdy [ Provided ]
For over 25 years, one of us (McCurdy) has studied the design, synthesis and development of drugs to treat pain, anxiety and substance use disorders. While more research is urgently needed, for the past 15 years my team has investigated kratom and its chemical components to understand how they may be of use in treating the many conditions it has been anecdotally associated with. The first priority was to investigate the potential of kratom to reduce harm in opioid-dependent individuals and provide the medical community with solid scientific data to support or refute these claims.
Oliver Grundmann [ Provided ]
Over the past seven years, one of us (Grundmann) has studied the use patterns and motivations for kratom consumption in the United States indicating that self-treatment is widespread for acute and chronic pain, anxiety and depressive disorders and mitigation of withdrawal symptoms from substance use disorders.
In 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 91,799 drug overdose deaths occurred in the United States. This was a staggering 31 percent higher rate than in 2019. Florida accounted for nearly 8,000 deaths during that time. There is no doubt that the pandemic contributed to this increase; however the currently utilized treatment options for substance use disorders or substance misuse are not sufficient to mitigate the current reality.
Although traditional use of kratom has been ongoing for centuries with no reports of serious harm, in the United States kratom products have been implicated in toxicology reports as a contributing factor to death in some cases. It is important to note that in the overwhelming majority of these cases, kratom was not ingested alone. Yet, several possible reasons could explain the differences seen in the United States, including the difference in how kratom products are shipped, stored or aged and how an individual approaches the intent of their use.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration executed an import ban on kratom to the United States, but products are widely available in the U.S. marketplace. In fact, as of June 2019, approximately 1,950 metric tons of kratom were being exported to the U.S. per month. Therefore, a substantial population of Americans are using kratom as a self-treatment or recreational substance for the aforementioned, scientifically understudied indications.
In the U.S., there is currently not enough regulatory enforcement to ensure that dietary supplements or products like kratom are sold to consumers as standardized, high-quality, and pure plant material. Without improved regulatory oversight aimed at protecting consumers, individuals could purchase fake or low-quality (suspect) products in retail establishments that sell kratom. Even worse, unregulated kratom products could be adulterated with other dangerous substances.
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As is the case with other readily accessible over-the-counter and supplement products, kratom has pharmacological effects that can interfere with and affect other medications and pre-existing health conditions. It is in the consumers' and public interest to ensure available kratom products are appropriately regulated. Allowing a lack of regulatory standards could further contribute to harm and undermine more research that is so important to the future regulatory decisions at the federal level.
The Florida Legislature currently has the opportunity to pass the Florida Kratom Consumer Protection Act (SB 1076) that would require products sold in the state to meet a higher bar of product purity, establish labeling requirements, and limit sales to consumers 21 years and older. It is a much-needed step to put some regulations in place and increase the safety of products that consumers have available to them.
With this legislation, the future of kratom research and education to the public and health care professionals will be strengthened. There is a substantial lack of understanding of kratom in the medical community. Nonetheless, consumers should consult with their physician or pharmacist if they wish to take kratom. By enhancing the regulatory environment and increasing awareness of kratom in the state, opportunities to elevate knowledge and research will certainly follow. The currently proposed Florida bill is an important step in standardization and regulation of kratom as we increase our scientific knowledge.
Christopher R. McCurdy is a professor in the University of Florida College of Pharmacy and director of the UF Translational Drug Development Core. Oliver Grundmann is a clinical professor in the department of medicinal chemistry in UF's College of Pharmacy.
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There are some expert skiers out here – many who take skiing to the extreme limit. The "bowls", the "extreme terrain", getting lost in the "back country", outlasting an avalanche or 2, or sking backwards down the double blacks. These were some impressive feats to admire…and the apres ski was all about bragging rights. But, for all of these extreme teens…and twenty-something DUDE-to-the-max skiers…I had to ask. Can you hoola hoop on skis? Nobody appeared to be bragging on this one…so on Day 3…I would make my mark. Yes, the poles had to go. The ski jacket had to go too. It was cold, windy and snowing hard – so I needed to make this both quick and impressive. Today – was HOOLA day at The Breck. Paparazzi Paddy captured the moment…and there is no disputing THIS CHIC can HOOP on skis. Take that — extreme ski-Rocky-Mountain-Dudes!
Jean Claude had acclimated nicely, but, I can no longer breathe. By day 3 the thin air had become a bit much. At 10,000′ elevation in the Rockies – weird stuff happens. It was snowing mega amounts, and visibility was nil. We froze just riding up the chairlift. A good day to knock off early, and try to re-oxygenate. What better place than the OXYGEN LOUNGE on Main Street. When I first noticed this lounge – I thought it was a bar…but no. You pay a fee to get pumped up with 90% oxygen mixed with an aromatherapy of your choice for 15, 30 or 45 minutes. Aaaaahhh…Paddy and I enjoyed a most delightful O2 Fix.


Who's Worried About Abstract for Thesis and Why You Should Care Who's Worried About Abstract for Thesis and Why You Should Care The Ultimate Abstract for Thesis Trick Such a handy and smart direction of composing your thesis will surely bring you the very.
Assignment on Managerial Economics for Dummies Assignment on Managerial Economics for Dummies Economics is an easy yet an extremely much crucial subject. It becomes worse when you need to take care of managerial economics, since this is.
Best Powerpoint Presentations Secrets That No One Else Knows About Best Powerpoint Presentations Secrets That No One Else Knows About On-line video tutorials are also the majority of the time covered by PowerPoint presentations, because you can readily get.
Completed Assignments at a Glance Completed Assignments at a Glance The assignments should be written at a level which should match the student all-around ability generally speaking. Individuals who submitted assignments are.
A Deadly Mistake Uncovered on Covering Letter for Application and How to Avoid It A Deadly Mistake Uncovered on Covering Letter for Application and How to Avoid It Should youn't have any employment history doesn't mean that you cannot land on your preferred position. Click.
Understanding Creative Writing Harvard Understanding Creative Writing Harvard What's Actually Going on with Creative Writing Harvard If you're writing an essay, a good idea is that you start with creating an outline featuring all.
Life After Critical Thinking Papers Life After Critical Thinking Papers What You Don't Know About Critical Thinking Papers Lots of people just don't need to think that thinking is a skillthat has to be exercised regularly, and.
Who Else Wants to Learn About English Literature Dissertation?
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My friend's K-50 was repaired for that issue Jan 2015 by Precision and continues to operate with no problems. If you have concerns about the quality of replacement parts, perhaps the good folk at Sun Camera Repair (authorized repair for Ricoh/Pentax Canada) can set your mind at ease.
Mine did but I have no idea how long it lasted as I eventually traded it. It worked for about 6 months originally then was repaired and then worked 6 months before I got a K-3.
Pentax has used the same aperture control block design in their entry/mid-range bodies since at least the K100D, and it has worked reliably in thousands of cameras for over a decade. However, based on what we've learned in the linked thread, it appears that a solenoid used in the ACB of the K-30/50 is failing more often than previous versions. The solenoid in question is a standard part made by multiple vendors for use in cameras and DVD players.
This does not mean that ALL (or even most) of the solenoids used in the K-30/50 will fail eventually, nor does it mean that a replacement solenoid from a different batch or a different supplier will NEVER fail. What it should mean is that a repaired unit should have a failure rate no worse than a new camera.
Been holding fine on mine for over a year now.
Thanks folks. I have opted to go ahead with the repair.
I sent my then two year old K-30 in for repair, I got it back 19 months ago and so far so good (knock on wood).
My 1st K-30 failed at 50K.....warranty repair lasted 3 months and it failed again.......sold that one on Ebay for Parts.
2nd new K-30 (backup Body) failed at 7K just out of warranty......tossed that one in the Trash Can and Moved on to K3 then to K3II , and also the K-1.....Problem solved !
Life is Too Short to worry about repetitive problems with this model......Ditch it and Move On to something more reliable. Also BUY the longest extended warranty you can possibly find.
Last edited by Dlanor Sekao; 08-15-2016 at 04:12 PM.
Oh please tell me you didn't really throw the broken K-30 away..
I absolutely did....Showlow Arizona.......tossed it (Slam Dunked it actually) right in the Campground dumpster at 10AM and Immediately ordered a K-3II from B&H.......they expressed shipped it to the campground Host and I got it within 36 hours !
Aww.. I would have paid you something for it. I wanted one that still turned on that I could potentially break forcing a K-50 firmware onto it.
When I had a K-30 I noticed it was possible to feed it a K-50 firmware by simply renaming the file to that of a K-30's. Too scared to try it though at the time (since it was only a few months old). Wanted to see if it would work.. if it bricked the 'broken' camera, it wouldn't be a problem.
You don't suppose you could go back to that campground and fish out the K-30?
Last edited by Dlanor Sekao; 08-16-2016 at 12:21 AM.


text:
Appalachia High was formed from the amalgamation of St. Joseph's High School in St. George's and Assumption High School in Stephenville Crossing. June of 2001 saw the closure of Assumption High School and St. Joseph's High School and in September of that year the new Appalachia High School opened its doors to the students of the area. It is a grade 9 to 12 school with a student population of about 160 students and serves the communities of St. George's, Stephenville Crossing, Black Duck Siding, Matis Point, and Flat Bay. The new extensions to Appalachia High include a link that joins the high school with Our Lady of Mercy Elementary School.
Our objective as a school is to aid in the intellectual, social, emotional, and moral development of each and every student. The staff at Appalachia High School is here to support the students in their academic success, as well as co-curricular and extra-curricular activities. There are many opportunities available for our students and we all strive to assist them in developing their particular talents and skills. Students and staff are working together to create a positive learning environment whereby students see the value of lifelong learning.


text:
Borbo gemella is een vlinder uit de familie van de dikkopjes (Hesperiidae). De wetenschappelijke naam van de soort is voor het eerst geldig gepubliceerd in 1884 door Paul Mabille.

Hesperiinae
IUCN-status niet bedreigd

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Q: json to xml conversion in mulesoft I am giving input as JSON file using post method.
{
    "student":[
    {
        "id":"101",
            "name":"sindhu",
            "branch":"cse"
    },
    {
        "id":"102",
        "name":"anusha",
        "branch":"ece"
    },
    {
        "id":"103",
        "name":"teja",
        "branch":"cse"
    },
    {
        "id":"104",
        "name":"anju",
        "branch":"ece"
    }
    ]
   }

I want output in XML using groupBy operator, for example groupBy "branch".

A: Try using this:
<flow name="stackoverflowFlow">
    <http:listener config-ref="HTTP_Listener_Configuration"
            path="/jsonToXml" doc:name="HTTP" />
    <dw:transform-message doc:name="Transform Message">
        <dw:set-payload>
            <![CDATA[%dw 1.0
%output application/json
---
{
"student": payload.student groupBy $.branch
}]]>
        </dw:set-payload>
    </dw:transform-message>
    <json:json-to-xml-transformer doc:name="JSON to XML" />
    <logger message="#[payload]" level="INFO" doc:name="Logger" />
</flow>

Final Output:
<student>
   <cse>
      <id>101</id>
      <name>sindhu</name>
      <branch>cse</branch>
   </cse>
   <cse>
      <id>103</id>
      <name>teja</name>
      <branch>cse</branch>
   </cse>
   <ece>
      <id>102</id>
      <name>anusha</name>
      <branch>ece</branch>
   </ece>
   <ece>
      <id>104</id>
      <name>anju</name>
      <branch>ece</branch>
   </ece>
</student>


text:
Ludwik II de Male (ur. 25 października 1330 w Male, zm. 30 stycznia 1384 w Lille) – hrabia Flandrii, Nevers, Rethel i Artois, hrabia-palatyn Burgundii, jedyny syn Ludwika I de Nevers i Małgorzaty, córki króla Francji Filipa V Długiego.

Jego ojciec zginął w 1346 r. w bitwie pod Crécy (Ludwik również uczestniczył w tej bitwie, towarzyszył potem królowi Filipowi VI w drodze do Amiens). Ludwik został wówczas hrabią Flandrii (jako Ludwik II) oraz hrabią Rethel i Nevers (jako Ludwik III). 1 lipca 1347 r. w Saint-Quentin, poślubił Małgorzatę (9 lutego 1323 – 1368), córkę Jana III, księcia Brabancji, i Marii d'Évreux, córki Ludwika d'Évreux. Ludwik i Małgorzata mieli razem dwóch synów i córkę:
 Piotr (zm. 3 marca 1376)
 Karol (zm. przed swoim ojcem)
 Małgorzata III (13 kwietnia 1350 – 16 marca 1405), hrabina Flandrii, Artois, Nevers, Rethel i Burgundii

Ludwik miał również wiele dzieci ze związków pozamałżeńskich. Trzech jego nieślubnych synów zginęło 25 września 1396 r. w bitwie pod Nikopolis.

Po objęciu władzy Ludwik musiał stawić czoło rebelii mieszczan Gandawy w latach 1347–1349. W tym czasie na kraj spadła też epidemia "czarnej śmierci". W 1355 r. zmarł teść hrabiego i Ludwik przyjął tytuł księcia Brabancji. Nie udało mu się jednak zdobyć kontroli nad księstwem, które pozostało w rękach jego szwagierki, Joanny. Ludwikowi udało się jednak przyłączyć do Flandrii Antwerpię i Malines.

Ostatnie lata rządów Ludwika upłynęły pod znakiem walk wewnętrznych we Flandrii. W 1379 r. wybuchło powstanie mieszczan Gandawy, które zostało stłumione dzięki pomocy zięcia Ludwika, Filipa Burgundzkiego. W 1382 r. wybuchła jednak kolejna rewolta pod wodzą Filipa van Artevelde. 3 maja Ludwik został pokonany w bitwie pod Beverhoutsveld. Klęska hrabiego wywołała rebelię w kolejnych flamandzkich miastach. Tylko Dendermonde i Oudenaarde pozostały wierne Ludwikowi. Hrabia musiał uciekać do Francji.

Skorzystał tam ze swoich wpływów na dworze (jego zięć Filip był regentem Francji w imieniu nieletniego Karola VI) i wyjednał francuską pomoc zbrojną. 27 listopada 1382 r. buntownicy zostali pokonani pod West-Roosebeke, a van Artevelde zginął na polu bitwy. Ludwik walczył ze zbuntowanymi mieszczanami Gandawy (wspieranymi przez Anglików) do swojej śmierci w 1384 r. Rebelia wygasła rok później.

W 1382 r., po śmierci swojej matki, Ludwik odziedziczył hrabstwa Burgundii i Artois. Nie pozostawił po sobie legalnych synów. Jego dziedziczką została jego córka, Małgorzata.

Władcy Flandrii
Władcy Nevers
Władcy Rethel
Hrabiowie Burgundii
Władcy Artois
Dynastia z Dampierre
Urodzeni w 1330
Zmarli w 1384


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R+L Carriers receives final approval to fund benefit risks through captive
Jerry Geisel
Alternative Risk Transfer/Captives Benefits Legislation & Regulation Benefits Management Health Care Benefits Regulation Disability More + Less -
WASHINGTON—The Labor Department has given final approval to a freight carrier's plan to fund employee benefit risks through a captive insurer.
Under the arrangement, Wilmington, Ohio-based R+L Carriers Shared Services L.L.C. will use Royal Assurance Inc., a captive licensed in Arizona, to reinsure accidental death and dismemberment benefits, life, and long-term and short-term disability risks that are insured by a unit of Unum Group.
Royal Assurance is owned by members of the family that founded the freight carrier, which has about 9,000 employees.
R+L's application was filed by George O'Donnell, senior vp with Aon Hewitt in Somerset, N.J.
The Labor Department approval—known as a final exemption and published in Thursday's Federal Register—followed its final authorization earlier this week of a Microsoft Corp. proposal to expand benefit risks funded through the Vermont branch of its Bermuda-based captive insurer.
Most Read in Benefits Management


We weren't originally planning on taking a whole week in Jackson, but so much of this trip has not been planned in a lot of ways. We rarely look at our route more than a day in advance and we most certainly take things as they come.
I was hoping to write a midway reflection of the trip when I got to Jackson, but as so often on this trip I find I have all these opportunities to experience different things, meet new people, that writing most certainly takes a back seat. That is probably evident to most of you that read my blog just based on how far behind I am.
So today I am going to take a crack at it.
Why do I peddle? Is it for the escape or the experience? It feels like a little of both.
What am I escaping? Work is a no brainer. When you are on the road, peddling for hours, it's easy to get lost in the landscape, the exercise itself, the company of your friends and the thoughts of life outside of work. It's as if it melts away and has never been a part of your being, your life. Things slow down immensely, but in a good way. The idea of being on the bike for 5,6 or 8 hours is something you look forward to, its surprisingly very enjoyable, even with the physical pain at times. Work is never like that, you sit there hoping the time passes quickly, not wanting to absorb the memories of the day, not wanting that to be what takes up space in your brain. There are most certainly those who love what they do for income and I believe I am understanding why it's probably such a healthier way to live. Work is often a race to the finish, when you are on the bike, you're not really "racing" anywhere, you are just going, taking in each minute, the details of the world that surrounds you and letting it fill you up which brings me to experience.
The escape brings the experience, it opens you up, it frees your mind, body, soul so that you can really listen to that breath, experience that smell, register that sight in a way that you can't at a computer, or in a meeting, at least not for me. The world becomes so much larger, but in a way that vastness becomes more and more comfortable, less and less overwhelming and you feel like everywhere is your home, this is your space that you have been given to live in, to play in.
While the world is beautiful, the different lands all spectacular, I know for me and as I have heard Ryan say so often, it's the people that truly make it what it is. I love taking in the sights, being outside, but without the company, the stories, the sharing, it would only be half of what it is. Which leads me to wonder how I would have handled the trip solo.
I believe isolation is important, although I'm not sure isolation is the best word. Time "alone" is often the opposite of isolation to me, it's a time to connect with yourself. Time to let the mind wonder on its own, to decide what it wants to think about. For me that is often Kelly, good memories and tough ones, but it's nice to remember, to not have any outside distractions, as the memories seem to become more and more vivid. It's as if this time away has made me better at remembering. It's remarkable how well I remember each day on the bike, the people I met, the land I passed, and with that I seem to remember things from pass before riding even better.
But total Isolation? I don't think that is part of my disposition. As much as I can disappear for a day, or two or even three, the technology of today's world allows me to talk with my family or friends fairly on demand, to connect with home, which allows me to live in both worlds still. The writing of this blog and the sharing of this particular time away is a perfect example and something I am grateful I am able to do.
So over the last 50 plus days there have been many things I have been able to reflect on while riding, who I think I am, who I want to strive to be, what I want my life to look like, what I'll do when I get home, what other experiences I will want to tackle, or at least try to. It's been great to step back and have "time" to really look at what these things where before leaving and what I believe they will be once returning, but the thing that crosses my mind more often than anything else? Death.
Death, what it means to die and be dead, they sound like morbid thoughts and I guess at times they can be, but for the most part they are not. We all must think about death in some way, maybe for some of us it's a fleeting far away thought, a finishing point we don't allow ourselves to believe is truly coming, some distance place that while approaching, we never take the time to recognize it. For others I would imagine it can be a driving point of fear, meaning if I try this thing I might die and therefore I can't try it. But that fear is most certainly not rational, we might be afraid to sky dive even though the statistics might say driving our car is more dangerous, yet we do it anyway without much thought. For others maybe it's crippling, it freezes them from doing anything, from attempting change and hoping that if they just stay stuck, nothing bad will ever happen.
My time spent thinking about death and my relationship with it was most certainly sparked by losing Kelly, and the grace in which she handled having a more intimate knowledge of its arrival than most of us will. How to make decisions in the face of that? But that is just that, we all face it and for me I continue to try and confront it head on. I think I first noticed it while ski racing this winter. I was always an able racer, known in my younger years for laying it on the line and crashing a bunch, but I never actually did. I think I crashed so often more out of fear of failure than actually letting go. I hated losing and often crashing was an excuse for not putting up a bad time. This winter I found myself more and more truly letting go on my ski's, finding that point of just letting it happen and as a result I was faster and in a way more in control. If I got hurt, I got hurt, what was really the consequence? I can't change this thing we call death, but I can change how I relate to it, just like you train yourself to do anything.
So the bike trip brought this out again, every person you meet asks you in some way "are you worried?", or "it has to be dangerous right?", that or they tell you that you're nuts, that they can't believe you are doing something like this. It's most certainly all relative. When we met Wyatt Welter, who is long boarding the circumference of the 48 states, self-supported, I quickly had those same thoughts, but only for a moment, as those thoughts turned from that is crazy, to I get it and what a great way to take it all in.
So today I am sitting in the lodge at Devils Tower writing this, mentally prepping myself to climb the tower tomorrow. The plan was to climb today but the weather isn't the best and tomorrow is supposed to be great. We have no hurry, so we've decided to wait it out. For those of you who don't know it, according to Wikipedia, Devils Tower is an igneous intrusion or laccolith in the Bear Lodge Mountains. The climb from the visitor center is over 800 feet with 500 of it or more roped in. For many back home that know my fear of heights, it's hard to imagine me tackling this, but hopefully by this time tomorrow Mr. Sock Monkey and I will have made it to the top with a picture for proof. What do I have to fear but the gain of another incredible experience, another day where I can hear my breath, my heart beat, the smell of the rock and air and feel life in a way I can't sitting in front of this computer. So Dave Linn, if you are reading this, tomorrow is probably a day with fear, but a day to tackle it!


text:
Can Virtual Reality Help Heal Addiction?
Featured Guest: Noah Robinson
Can putting on a virtual reality headset be more than just a game and have a real therapeutic impact on someone's emotions and behaviors?
We'll discuss this with researcher Noah Robinson on this episode of Recovery Unscripted.
Interviewer: I'm here with Noah Robinson. Thank you so much for your time today.
Noah Robinson: Thanks for having me.
Interviewer: All right. To start, let's have you tell us a little bit about your personal story and how you got introduced to video games because I know that's a big part of why you're doing what you doing now.
Noah: Right now, just for some background, I'm currently a doctoral student studying clinical psychology at Vanderbilt. I've always wanted to be a psychologist since I was 10. At around the age of 13 I realized that I was gay, and so then I started to– I developed feelings of shame and things like that and started to play a lot of video games as a way to escape that negative emotion that I was experiencing.
I started playing this game called RuneScape which is basically like World of Warcraft or one of these games where you log into this massive environment and there's other people that you can talk to and do activities with and those kinds of things. From the age of 13 until about 18, I played RuneScape. I was logged in for about 8,500 hours.
[laughter]
Interviewer: What does that work out to?
Noah: It works out to a 40-hour-a-week full time job for almost four years.
Interviewer: Wow.
Noah: I was a professional gamer, in some sense. Then I came out of the closet when I was 18, and then I didn't play RuneScape anymore. I didn't feel that need to escape into this virtual world. Basically,– I've always had been interested in technology because that was a huge coping mechanism for me. I think that my addiction, I do think it was an addiction although I didn't have withdrawal–
Interviewer: To video games?
Noah: Yes, I think I was addicted. I didn't withdraw from them or anything like that, but I did have a need to regulate my emotions via some kind of external source that I was relying on. After I came out then I resolved those negative feelings of shame and guilt and things like that. Once I had a more competent sense of self, then I didn't need to escape into a virtual world because I could live in the real world and be happy and fulfilled and things like that.
Interviewer: Could you talk a little bit more about that immersive escapism element of gaming?
Noah: Yes. I mean basically, I was able to remove myself from my own thoughts and feelings and go into a world where I can interact with other people. I was able to go on quests and get 99 strength through training and things like that. There was leveling, there was validation, there was reward. Sexuality wasn't a component of the interactions because it was text chat with other people. I created a clan of 400 people that I led and things like that. It's like a whole– I was at leadership and–
Interviewer: [laughs] It's really fulfilling a lot of things that we all want from the world.
Noah: Yes. A sense of meaning and purpose. I saw barriers to feeling a sense of meaning and purpose in real life because at that time I couldn't reconcile the idea that I was different and gay and I could have a family and kids. I was able to escape that and create a sense of self that was fully reliant on this virtual fictitious world. There are parallels to how anyone who's using mood-altering substances trying to change their mood and escape those feelings and those thoughts that are negative and trying to regulate that negative emotion. That's my experience with technology.
Interviewer: Trying to maybe be someone different than who they are, or experience a different life than what they're living, right?
Noah: Yes.
Interviewer: Cool. Then it sounds like that meant a lot to you growing up, and then eventually, you came into contact with VR, virtual reality. Could you describe how you first encountered that?
Noah: Yes. After college, I went to University of Maryland and graduated, and then for two years I worked at the National Institutes of Health as a research fellow. When I was there I just sat in a lab, I was actually doing work on meaning and purpose in life for people who have rare and undiagnosed diseases. I was learning about what drives people and what motivates them to change and things like that. I basically was sitting in a lab where my desk, I don't know.
Interviewer: Take time.
Noah: While I was at the National Institutes of Health, I was sitting in a lab, that wasn't the lab I was actually in but I just happened to be there. The engineer behind me had a virtual reality headset and he'd just brought it in and he let me try it. The second I tried it, I was blown away because there's this feeling of leaving your current environment and being put into another one.
Interviewer: Kind of an amplified version of what you experience was with RuneScape.
Noah: Exactly. I realized, "Wow, this is huge for psychology," but I wasn't quite sure how. Then I purchased a headset, bought it home, and started learning how to build virtual environments.
Interviewer: What year was this?
Noah: This was 2015 or 2014.
Interviewer: Okay, so really early in VR.
Noah: Yes. When I said VR to people, they're like, "What's VR?" People didn't know what it was. I always had to say virtual reality. That's a big difference now as people really hear about it. I just started creating my own environments which in and of itself was a pretty cool thing because you're using this visual program like Photoshop and you're building an environment, then you put on the headset and you're in it. You're looking around all around you and you're in this whole thing which is–
Interviewer: Did you ever experience building, I don't even know what you would call that. Is that like coding? [laughs]
Noah: Yes, it's more like Legos than coding, actually, so you can just drag a tree instead of landscaping. It's pretty easy. It gets more sophisticated, but the program that you learn to build things on is easy to learn, hard to master, kind of thing. Then I started trying that. I also experienced putting on the headset and being transported to a social environment where I can talk to other people. That was really powerful for me. I was alone in my room and I'll put on the headset and then I was with others.
Interviewer: There are real other people who also are on headsets?
Noah: Yes, from around the world who were connected via the internet. That was through an application called VRChat that has now grown a lot. When I first did it, there was almost no one there, like 15 people or anything, and now there's thousands of people logged in at any time. That's a kind of sign. It's like this movie Ready Player One that just came out. They have this thing called the Oasis where people can log in. I wonder things like that, how much that would mitigate drug use. If someone had a way to have an escape but they're escaping into an environment that's actually treating the reason that they're escaping in the first place.
What if, for me, RuneScape instead of being a game, what if that could treat my underlying problem kind of thing?
Interviewer: Sure. What were some of the first things you looked at when you started experimenting using VR for like your psychology work that you were doing?
Noah: Basically, I started working at JourneyPure and they– Basically, we had a patient in the detox unit and they had a really intense intake interview. We do a little intake interview and ask them what their reasons were for using and everything. Afterwards, I asked her, "Do you want to try virtual reality?" All I knew was that it's fun, and I told her, "We haven't done this with a patient before, but if you want-"
Interviewer: You just tried yourself up until that point?
Interviewer: Also, could you describe, because people may not know what JourneyPure is, is that inpatient or outpatient, or whatever it is?
Noah: As part of my clinical training at Vanderbilt, we learned how to do therapy, and so my practicum placement is at JourneyPure, which is an inpatient rehab facility. They also have outpatient facilities as well. My supervisor Brian Wind is really into technology. JourneyPure uses an app to follow patients for a year after they leave the facility and keep connected to them. I knew that, and so really when I first met Brian at this practicum fair, I approached him and said, "Hey, I heard you guys are into technology. I'd love to bring my virtual reality and figure out a way for us to collaborate."
I hadn't been working in the addiction space at that point. This was a year ago, I was doing social anxiety. I built this whole experiment to try to help people with social anxiety learn how to interact with others in a more positive and healthy way, but–
Interviewer: You've been testing that at Vanderbilt?
Noah: Yes. This isn't even as intimidating- I'm not nervous. When I was interviewed for local TV, that was nerve-racking because they put such a big camera in front of me. Okay. Where was I? I was saying–
Interviewer: You had just talked about the social anxiety and the work you're doing.
Noah: I hadn't done addiction work by the time when I started my practicum placement at JourneyPure. Bryan and I were thinking, and I asked him, "Can I bring the virtual reality?" He said, "Sure." I brought my virtual reality and I do this intake interview with a patient. She was in detox and she had just gotten there. As with most people who come to detox, she had gone through a lot to end up deciding to get to rehab. She actually hadn't really decided. She had attempted suicide, had been transferred to the hospital, and then transferred to JourneyPure detox and was telling me about this whole experience that she'd had and was crying. It was really intense.
Then afterwards, I asked her, "Do you want to try virtual reality?" She said, "Sure." I put her in the headset and I started this little tutorial that has a British robot that walks you through everything, and she instantly starts smiling and laughing. She was really excited about this. We saw this transformation in her affect. She was really excited about it and we saw this transformation in her emotions. Her whole experience went from being withdrawn and sad and very negative emotionally to positive and excited and interested.
This was a really exciting observation that we had. The therapist who was supervising me and I looked at each other and we were in shock when we saw her laughing after she had just been telling us about her experience. [coughs] Sorry. That was our first patient.
Interviewer: To back up one step, as you're getting into your practicum, you could have decided to focus on any number of applications for different technologies and even other applications for VR. What made you decide to see if this can fit into addiction treatment specifically?
Noah: Well, I was always interested in addiction given my own history with video games and things like that. I also did some research on addiction previously during college. I was just interested in that, but, really, the biggest reason was that it was at practicum site, JourneyPure, that was already using technology to stay in communication with their patients. I saw that they were already open to using technology because some practicum sites and places are not using much technology so they may not be as open to new technology.
Interviewer: When you were bringing this idea up to people in your program at Vanderbilt, for example, was there some skepticism about VR and using it in this way?
Noah: Some would be an underrated term. Basically, I got accepted to Vanderbilt to work with a professor who actually moved to a different university before I got here. I had to decide whether or not to go with him, and I decided not to. Then I had two mentors. This is co-mentorship and they were great mentors. The only issue was that I don't think that they were as interested in exploring the potential of virtual reality, as they wanted to train me in a more traditional scientific way.
They wanted to train me in this more traditional scientific way which is, basically, you need to find a problem that occurs in psychology and then develop a hypothesis and test it. Really, with this virtual reality, there's something here that's pretty powerful. We don't know exactly– I feel like we're holding this tool that's really powerful psychologically. It's been proven to treat PTSD, phobias, things like that really, really effectively. For me, I felt like I needed to explore how virtual reality can be used. I wasn't sure, I couldn't develop a hypothesis right then last year. I wanted to see, where can it fit and where can it be applied?
That was a bit challenging because right when I started this practicum at JourneyPure and saw this reaction with this patient, I brought that back and that wasn't very well received by my mentors. They were– I don't know. They were upset that I had even put the patient in virtual reality. They're asking why had I done that and that kind of thing. I realized that I had to– Honestly, at that point, I had to say, "I don't think this is a good fit," and I started looking for a different faculty member to work with. I had to take the risk of getting kicked out of the program, actually, in order to stick to what I wanted to do, which was really hard.
It was weird because everyone outside of the program is really excited about it and there's people inside the program who were too– There's just this two people that weren't as excited, I guess. Then now, I'm now working with a mentor. His name is Steve Holland, Dr. Holland. He is a protege of Aaron Beck who created cognitive behavior therapy. He hadn't taken a student in 15 years, but he decided to work with me. He was on my committee the first year, so he got some exposure. He's been really excited about it.
He came down to JourneyPure to see, how are patients reacting? We interviewed a couple of patients that I've been doing therapy with and he said, "This really surpassed my expectations," after he observed. He observed one patient change. One patient was having panic attacks and couldn't participate in therapy at all at JourneyPure. She was about to leave against therapeutic advice. Then I put her in virtual reality. We went into VRChat together, so we had two VR setups and we were connected through the internet and talking. We explored all these virtual worlds. We went to an art gallery, a random guy from Copenhagen joined us. He just happened to be logged in and we got talking.
Before she went into the VR, her hands, she was so sweaty that the controllers that she was holding were dripping with sweat. Afterwards, she sat down and she said– She was calm, you could just tell that her whole mood was different. She said it felt like she had taken benzo or benzodiazepine but the difference is that this felt an like authentic mood change whereas the benzo just numbed her. After my mentor saw that, Steve Holland, he saw that and later he said to me that he came to JourneyPure to be supportive of what I was doing but he said his expectations were blown away, and that he really thinks that there's something powerful here.
This is a guy whose whole career has been devoted to developing novel treatments for depression, improving treatment, randomized controlled trials. It's really exciting to have that kind of support. This year has felt like everything clicked into place. I've had a lot of support and guidance on how best to implement this. I was yelled at last year because they said, "We've never had a grad student come in and just say this is what I want to do." I took a risk when I wrote my personal statement for graduate school. People told me not to talk about virtual reality because they said–
Interviewer: You'd scare them off?
Noah: Yes. Then no researchers were really doing this that I applied to so they said, "Don't." I said, "I don't want to spend six years doing research on something when there's this huge potential with virtual reality."
Interviewer: Right, and the timing is so right for that.
Noah: Yes. I had to stick to my instinct. I don't know. It's been an interesting journey to get here but now, we're seeing– Basically, we're starting detox and we have this patient react in this really positive way. Then I started putting other detox patients into virtual reality.
Interviewer: I was going to ask, what are the typical responses that you're seeing? I know you've mentioned a couple.
Noah: The first response, she took off the headset and said– This same person took off the headset and said, "All my anxiety is gone," which is a pretty– It's a pretty incredible thing to hear someone say that after we didn't put any– They didn't have any pharmacological intervention, they just had this headset that they wore. Then I had the next patient. I put them in and they started laughing and smiling. They take it off and also say that their anxiety goes down from like a 9 out of 10 to a 1 out of 10. This keeps happening over and over again. At one point, the nurses came to me and said, "What are you doing to these patients because they're leaving, they're miserable, they come back, they're smiling, laughing and happy." Then of course–
Interviewer: They were seeing the changes long after.
Noah: Yes, for hours. Then of course, once you change someone's mood like that then all of their– They're more pro-social. They're interacting with the staff, the other patients, and so there's this positive feedback loop that keeps happening. Patients who were lying in bed all day were all of a sudden able to get up and talk and be active and interact with others. It was just an unbelievable change that we were seeing, but I realized that I was just standing there while the patient was in the virtual reality.
I was putting them in, I was handing them these two hand controllers.
Also, just something that clarify is that this virtual reality is not the phone-based mobile virtual reality, the portable one that's lower quality. This is desktop computer-based virtual reality where you have to plug it into a computer with a really sophisticated graphics card. The whole setup is about $1,400.
Interviewer: It's different than what people may have experienced on their smartphone?
Noah: Exactly. Yes, because people think, "Oh, that's virtual reality." That's not virtual reality. It is but it's not at the same time because– If we're competing with heroin here, you need something that's really, really immersive and effective, so we're using the top-of-the-line stuff. I realized, though, I was just putting the patient in the virtual reality setup, and I wasn't actually with the patient, so I brought my own second computer and headset to JourneyPure. At this time, I was just using my own equipment. I basically went into virtual reality with the patient and into VRChat. I was guiding them around and talking to them.
All a sudden, we were seeing that the effects that we were seeing in the beginning of the person being in virtual reality alone, that's helping to regulate their emotion, it's increasing their positive emotion and decreasing their negative emotion. On top of that, if I went in with the patient and started doing therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy with them, we found that for some reason they were more receptive to the therapy than if you try to do it in person when they're feeling anxious and negative and not receiving it as well.
Basically, this past year has been to explore, how can we deliver therapy in virtual reality, and take advantage of the fact that the virtual reality helps to reduce that negative emotion? When someone's in a more positive regulated state, teach them the skills and CBT. Basically, teach people on how to analyze their own thoughts or change their behaviors, and take a step back from their negative emotion and realize that they have control over negative emotion, or that not all their thoughts, those negative automatic thoughts, that negative self-talk that people might have like, "I'm worthless," or things like that, that those things are not actually accurate.
When we teach someone those skills, if they're in this virtual reality and they're immersed and they're more regulated, they're able to learn these things, and so when they take off the headset and as those negative events start to happen, or as that negative emotion starts to come back, they're able to visualize the model that I just drew for them in 3D, and then apply it to those situations. What we're seeing, and this is just anecdotal at this point, is that after one or two sessions of this kind of therapy, patients are at the point that would normally take five or six sessions of a in-person therapy for them to get to that point.
Interviewer: You've described a little bit of this, but looking at the program itself, how do you describe to people what they're going to experience, what they're going to see when they put on that headset?
Noah: It's very difficult to describe. I just explain that we're going to go into a virtual world, we're going to explore a little bit together after I do a tutorial. We're going to explore a little bit together and then we're going to some therapy. What happens is that I basically take them to these really abstract, beautiful worlds, swirling colors all around, or we can go to the Titanic or we can go to the moon. You can really go anywhere, you go to the beach. We just explore and I help them– Really, it's a mindfulness experience. They just get calm and are immersed, and they're not thinking about their kids or their parents or why they're in rehab, they're not even thinking that they're at rehab.
Interviewer: It makes them more present where they are.
Noah: Yes. Then I take them to a room and I say, "Tell me about the most recent time you felt negatively, even at the rehab center." We use it as a jumping point to teach them the skills of cognitive behavioral therapy.
Interviewer: You're going in there and they see you as an avatar?
Noah: Yes, we move with avatars. I actually have a 3D scan of myself from a conference. I'm there. I need to get another 3D scan in more casual outfit because I have a blazer and things like that on.
Interviewer: A little professional. [laughs]
Noah: Yes. I'm there and I'm moving my hands and my hands in the virtual environment are moving. I move my head and my head moves so we can nod, and you blink. [crosstalk]
Interviewer: Perhaps some of that's non-verbal communication.
Noah: Yes, exactly. It feels very real, but the patients report that they're able to talk about things that they wouldn't feel comparable face to face talking about. In our first session, I had a patient talk about sexual abuse that she had experienced, and she was really surprised afterwards. I interview patients after about their experience and she said she was really surprised because she didn't think that she would talk about that. There are all these advantages that it seems that the virtual reality can provide for delivering more effective therapy.
Interviewer: What's your theory about how and why these visual and sensory immersive elements impact the user's thoughts and behaviors?
Noah: Basically, the basic model in cognitive behavioral therapy, you imagine a circle, that's our environment, and within that circle, wherever we are in our environment, we have thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and then also whatever's happening in our body, our bodily experiences.
With virtual reality, what's happening is that– Typically, in cognitive behavioral therapy, what you want to do is teach someone that they can change their thoughts or they can modify their behaviors or they can adjust their physiology. They can take medicine, sometimes illicit drugs to change their physiology. The idea being that you can't actually change your feelings directly. It's hard for us to just decide not to feel anxious, but these other things, the thoughts, the behaviors, or the physiology can all affect our feelings because if we change the way that we're thinking then we might not feel as anxious. If we engage in a different behavior and go out and do something fun, we might not feel as anxious or if we taking anti-anxiety medication or heroin also can make you feel less anxious temporarily.
The thing that virtual reality does is that the whole circle that these things are occurring in the environment completely changes. This is a new fourth way that you can actually change someone's feeling by completely changing the context that they're in.
Interviewer: Like putting a filter over the whole circle.
Noah: Exactly. Just plucking the person out of their own environment and putting them in this completely novel abstract environment. Then all of a sudden, all of that negative feeling goes away, and then positive feelings starts to come back.
Interviewer: What are some of the measurable outcomes that you're either looking at all ready or hoping to measure and test?
Noah: This past semester that just ended, I recruited eight undergraduates at Vanderbilt and they were running patients at JourneyPure in virtual reality for 56 hours a week total. We did about I think 250 30-minute sessions of virtual reality. Our outcome measure was this questionnaire that asked for self-report positive emotion and negative emotion. We had people do this before and after the virtual reality sessions, and then also every evening and morning while they're at rehab.
Right now, my master's thesis this summer, because I'm in a PhD program but it's built into the PhD program, my master's thesis is going to be to analyze that data and actually see, how long does this effect last? How much change is there? We're already seeing that there's a big increase in positive emotion and decrease in negative emotion right after the VR session. People are reporting that this lasts for the whole day, that they're feeling completely differently. I mean people are saying, "I really want to do the VR again. I really want to do–"
What they're doing in this experiment this semester is what I started out in detox doing which is just individual environments. They're just playing games. They're playing Ping-Pong, they're playing Guitar Hero, things like that. These are immersive. I mean you're in a stadium doing that kind of thing. Fruit Ninja, things like that. It's really immersive, and it's all around you. We're measuring how that changes their emotions.
The next step is going to be to actually do cognitive behavioral therapy in a virtual reality environment and measure that outcome, which is a little bit harder. It's little bit harder to measure the skill acquisition of, how do you actually know someone's able to identify negative feelings and reframe their thoughts and things like that? But there is a measure we'll be using where we give little vignettes and see if the person's able– if they've developed the skill set required to identify that someone's having a bias in the way that they're viewing the situation and things like that.
Interviewer: They'll respond a certain way and it'll let what's going on underneath?
Noah: Exactly. Eventually, we could actually do that in virtual reality with an automated computerized avatar and have them respond, but that'll take a little bit more programming and things.
Interviewer: I read that you also recently presented at Harvard about this. Now that you've started implementing the VR program, you're seeing some results with real patients in the real world, how is the academic and clinical community responding to your work? What's the response you're seeing when you're talking about it now?
Noah: People are really excited about it. Everyone– My title at Harvard and some other places has been Treating Addiction with Virtual Reality. Everyone thinks I'm talking about one specific thing, that the most obvious application here is, let's put people in situations where there are drugs and then teach them how to refuse the drugs. That's called exposure and response prevention. That's important but I don't think that's what's actually going to prevent relapse. What people are excited about is that we're seeing that there's a way that virtual reality can actually change people's emotions and provide emotion regulation to people, which is also why people are seeking [unintelligible 00:30:44].
Interviewer: [unintelligible 00:30:45] there's underlying stuff.
Noah: Yes. It's really interesting. Aaron Beck, my mentor's mentor who created cognitive behavior therapy–
Interviewer: That's the Beck Institute.
Noah: Yes. I'm reading his book on substance abuse treatment, CBT for substance abuse and it's really interesting because he makes the point that basically, if someone's having a craving and have the urge to use a drug, that using the drug is a behavior, an automatic behavior that they've learned. Not using the drug is a cognition, a thought that the person has to have and this thinking of, "Okay, I'm not going to use the drug. I'm going to reason through this. I know that I shouldn't. There's all these consequences." You're really trying to stop someone from engaging in a behavior and encouraging them to just think, just to not do the behavior.
I don't think that that's actually necessarily going to prevent them from using, but if they have an alternative behavior, which is picking up a virtual reality headset and putting it on, all of a sudden there's not– you're not pitting a negative behavior to a thought, you're pitting a negative behavior to a positive behavior, so something alternative. That's what Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous or any kind of social support– I mean, someone's like, "Okay, I'm not going to use my drug. I'm going to text my sponsor. I'm going to do this other behavior. I'm going to do this thing."
Virtual reality might just be the natural extension of an alternative behavior. It's not like you're telling the person, "Instead of using your drug, you need to go in and put on the headset and go to a bar and pretend to refuse a drink," you're going to put on the headset and be in a beautiful world and explore and talk to people and get the intervention and level of care that you need from home that can treat the underlying anxiety or depression or reason that someone might be craving the drug in the first place.
Interviewer: Right, because that gets back to the escapism we were talking about earlier. They could go to a bar and escape with a drink and escape from their real life, them themselves or they could go into what you're just describing, into a beautiful world, and that's still escape. That seems like it's filling the same void.
Noah: Yes. The key, because a lot of people ask, "What if everyone's addicted to virtual reality?" Well, one thing, virtual reality can't kill you, so if we have a virtual reality epidemic on our hands, that would be a big improvement from where we are right now.
Interviewer: [laughs]
Noah: The other thing is that people will be– They're not just escaping, they're going to be escaping into an environment that's meant to treat the underlying reason why they're escaping. That's really important is that I'm not trying to monetize. Facebook has virtual reality and they're going to be trying to do anything they can to keep you in their virtual environment and keep you escaping, but what we're trying to build is a environment that's actually treating the person's underlying psychopathology.
Interviewer: Going beyond just the escape, but once they're in that environment where they, as you described, where they can feel like they can open up or let their guard down a little bit more, then you can bring in some positive interaction.
Noah: It's interesting because some of the literature on mood-altering substances to use in psychotherapy so LSD-assisted psychotherapy or MDMA-assisted psychotherapy that people read about, this is just a theory right now, but potentially, some of the mechanisms that we're seeing are similar in that LSD and MDMA both modify the mood and help people see their own problems from a new perspective. Potentially, that's what we're seeing with the virtual reality as well is that it's altering people's mood and allowing them to see their own problems from afar and things like that.
Interviewer: What are your plans for the next step or next couple of steps in your work, in studying the application of VR in this way?
Noah: I just got a small grant to basically go out and interview different rehab centers and patients and things like that about how they would use this technology and how we could commercialize it. For me, it's really important not to– I don't know, I don't want to go through the health insurance industry. It'd be great if health insurance can reimburse some of the cost of this equipment, I mean the desktop experience of VR is the same as one and a half days of inpatient rehab, and they can be sent home with a whole setup. I really want it to be accessible to people and that's really important.
This summer, I'm going to be trying to interview people to understand, what are their needs, what would be a reasonable way to implement this? Then also try looking at the research to eventually build up to randomized controlled trial. That's the most important thing is to have the scientific evidence. I also think that there can be a beta or a preliminary distribution of something that people can try and get feedback on. JourneyPure is very interested in helping me to build this up and all that stuff.
These two main next steps is one, to talk to people, rehab centers, and patients and see, what are the needs, how can we create something that fulfills those needs and keeps people sober? The other thing is to prove the science behind the intervention and understand the underlying theory, and conduct a randomized controlled trial. I'm really interested in doing a trial that has a bunch of– Trials have arms or, basically, different groups of people that you're comparing the efficacy against. I think that we might need to do something with medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorders. There's all this talk about buprenorphine and medication-assisted treatment and that it's like this holy grail.
It's good but we need to compare it to other psychosocial interventions. I'd like to see some randomized controlled trial that's treatment as usual, buprenorphine-only, virtual reality-only, and then buprenorphine and virtual reality to see, what is the most effective method of intervention? What if virtual reality is 75% as effective as buprenorphine? Then you don't have to have people on the drug for the rest of their life. That could be a good potential alternative intervention.
Interviewer: This seems like a big calling for you. Do you see yourself spending your career in this space, in this interaction between VR and treatment?
Noah: Yes, I think so. Clinical research. I'd ideally like to have some intervention going and conduct a research off of it, and to faculty position somewhere or stay in academia and continue down this line. Increasing our knowledge of how virtual reality can be used, we're only at the start of it. There's amazing researchers out there, but there's only a handful of researchers who've been doing virtual reality behavioral research.
As the technology proliferates and as more people adopt it and researchers realize that there's this huge population of people and you can collect all this data and learn and improve treatment, there's going to be a lot of potential to develop. A lot of people will spend their careers on this and step on something they want to do. I finally convinced my academic– I've gotten academic approval, so to speak, of pursuing virtual reality in this way, so it's very validating.
Interviewer: As we've said, VR is in its infancy in a lot of ways. As you look at the bigger picture, how do you see it growing over the next few years? How do you see it expanding into other parts of our lives?
Noah: Virtual reality, once people have it in their homes, it's going to be standard for so many different things. Education's going to be a huge application. Once there is a home school virtual reality world that someone can go to and it's proven to be as effective as a $50,000 a year private school, that you could have– Just as Uber fit in the taxi industry, there could be a virtual reality home school that threatens the private education industry.
Learning about mitosis and going into the cell and seeing the division and all that stuff, or going back to the civil war or whatever. You can really be in these places and learn about them and experientially develop memories of these events. That's going to be really going to be powerful, and it's going to be more effective than the way that we teach things now through-
Interviewer: And take it to farther places they wouldn't have accessed.
Noah: Exactly. Education, training, healthcare, surgery, things like that but also really any training, whether you're working at the deli counter at Walmart, which is already happening, people are giving training for that, or you're training police on how not to shoot so quickly or you're training prisoners on how to re-enter society and things like that, all these things are already starting to happen. It's going to be a huge thing. Also, there's a lot of concern that I have on– I'm getting chills right now thinking about it because we've had all these shootings.
I've run the Nashville virtual reality meetup and it's the last Thursday of every month. Just yesterday, there were some children who they love the army, they come every month. It's really cute because they get excited about it and ask all these questions, but they were playing this game called Superhot with a gun. You're holding a controller, that's the gun, and you're ducking and you're moving and you're dodging and you're learning how to hold up a gun and aim it and shoot it. It's motor memory that's being formed. It's motor learning–
Interviewer: It's like military training, basically.
Noah: Yes. I'm really worried about that because as these shootings continue to happen and as there's this unintended training simulation about how to do shootings, how to dodge, it's very different than just clicking a button on your Xbox controller to shoot things. I think that that's going to make people better at murdering people, which is really scary.
Interviewer: And to normalize it, "Hey, it feels like I've done this before, this isn't a big deal."
Noah: Right. If this same kind of simulation can treat combat-related PTSD, you put someone in virtual Iraq or Afghanistan and after one or two sessions of VR therapy their PTSD is treated, it's going to also train people, exactly military training, for civilians on how to commit these kinds of things. There's a lot of positives of virtual reality and that's what I'm focusing on, but I also want to warn people about the potential risks and negatives.
Also, people think Cambridge Analytica is bad with Facebook and data. Facebook with the Oculus Rift now collects all of your movement data, what you're looking at, they can collect what you're saying and who you're saying it to, and they don't even have eye tracking yet. Once they have that, they're going to be able to infer our cognitions and what we're thinking, basically, by where you're looking, how long you're looking at it, all those kinds of things. It's going to make Cambridge Analytica look antiquated, a joke kind of thing.
The ability to manipulate and control people is going to be very, very high. I just mentioned these things not to be a downer. I'm very excited about virtual reality.
Interviewer: You look at cars, you look at the Internet, they're huge downsides, even as they've become a big part of our lives.
Noah: Yes, and that's really important for people to remember. It's also important not to just let children use virtual reality. We don't know what the effects are. It's very powerful. We know that because it can treat these disorders really powerfully, which means that it could also create a lot of problems for people that parents don't really realize. There's a lot of exciting things, but it's also important to remind people that getting a virtual reality headset is not necessarily this cure. Another thing I also wants to remind people is that everything I'm doing right now, and I just feel really important ethically to just hammer this, is that none of this has proven to be an effective intervention. We haven't done a randomized controlled trial to prove it. I don't want people out there to think that they can go out and just buy a virtual reality headset and all of a sudden have-
Interviewer: Cure themselves.
Noah: Yes, but I do think that buying virtual reality and using it could be a helpful tool for them, but it's not proven as an intervention and there's still– People need therapy and rehab and things like that. It's a really-
Interviewer: It's part of a larger picture.
Noah: Exactly. I just think that's important because I don't want to make it seem like I'm saying, "Oh, yes, go out and buy a headset and this will cure everything." There's a lot of research that needs to be done. I'm also happy to– I don't know if you can put up a website and the link or something, but if people want to contact me, there's a form there and I'm happy to talk to anyone about any questions that they have or things like that, I'm happy to answer any.
Interviewer: Cool.
Noah: There's been a lot of interest in this.
Interviewer: Man, very exciting look into something that is just emerging and getting started. Thanks for taking the time to be with us, Noah.
Noah: Thanks.
Navigating Detox, Chronic Pain and Addiction
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PATERSON, NJ - The Passaic County Board of Chosen Freeholders and the Passaic County Film Commission have announced that the 15th annual Passaic County Film Festival will be held on Saturday, April 13.
The event which will feature a variety of short films show on the big screen will take place at the Fabian 8 Cinema in the upper level of Center City Mall, 301 Main Street, Paterson, and begin at 10:00 a.m.
79 films of up to 10 minutes in length representing several categories such as general short film; public service announcement; music video, and documentaries, all produced by high school students, university students, and independent film makers who live, attend school, or work in Passaic County were submitted for entry according to festival officials.
In addition to the films the NJ Symphony Orchestra Chamber Players will perform thanks to a grant by the PSEG Foundation, welcoming the audience as they enter the theater.
In February members of the Passaic County Film Commission judged the films and on April 10 will present several awards including a grand prize for the best film of the festival and the "Shooting Star" award presented by the North Jersey Federal Credit Union.
Festival goers will receive a free parking voucher for the underground parking garage at Center City Mall.


The front lines of climate change run through the rapidly warming Arctic. The changes taking place on this faraway, frozen island will be felt much closer to home, wherever you live. From the top of the world, meet the scientists looking for clues of what to expect from a warming world.
Like a bowling ball on a skating rink, the black geodesic sphere of the East Greenland Ice-Core Project's communal living space stands out against the endless white nothingness of the Greenland ice sheet.
But the real action at East GRIP is under the surface. Researchers are drilling through more than 2.5 kilometers of ice, down to the bedrock below. The ice is sliding fast — for a glacier — toward the sea. Scientists here want to know why. The answer may hold clues to the future of the world's coastal cities.
The answers are a matter of growing urgency. The seas are rising faster. And the same processes at work on Greenland's glaciers at the top of the world could send vast sections of Antarctica's ice sheet into the sea as well, raising ocean levels even further.
The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet. Scientists studying the rapid changes gather in the small Greenland town of Kangerlussuaq, a former U.S. military base built during World War II. Through the Cold War, this outpost supplied remote radar sites watching for a nuclear attack coming over the pole.
These days, military transport planes fly scientists and their equipment across 1,000 kilometers of Arctic ice to East GRIP. They make research possible here and at other far-flung scientific outposts on the vast Greenland ice sheet.
Departing from Kangerlussuaq, VOA visited East GRIP and other remote corners of Greenland with the 109th Airlift Wing of the U.S. Air National Guard for a firsthand look at science in action at the leading edge of climate change.
Scientists are drilling through more than two-and-a-half kilometers of ice, searching for clues about the causes and consequences of climate change.
Cargo planes on skis were used to build remote radar sites to watch for Soviet bombers. Now they support far-flung science.
Steve Baragona is an award-winning multimedia journalist covering science, environment and health. He spent eight years in molecular biology and infectious disease research before deciding that writing about science was more fun than doing it.


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Throughout the year, our students work on a variety of different projects that help them engage with the world around them, think creatively and solve problems resourcefully. Here you'll find a selection of some student work that reflects these values.
Throughout the year, children work independently and collaboratively as they engage with and investigate their world, think creatively, and solve problems resourcefully. Here you'll find a selection of student work that reflects these values.
Our investigations curriculum is grounded in our commitment to exploring questions and areas of interest that emerge from the children's play, work, and interactions with each other and with teachers. In order to keep our curricula emergent, after an initial question and/or topic of interest is identified, we develop long-term investigations that can last for months and are continuously propelled by a cycle of exploration, questioning, and experimentation.


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Beautiful 3/2/2 on 1.92 acres built in 2008 with 3,154 sq ft heated within just 5 minutes of THE VILLAGES! Gorgeous property that has a long and circular driveway. No homes behind it as it backs up to the beautiful WATER OAKS GOLF COURSE. From the moment you enter the custom front door with glass side lites, you will notice the stunning custom kitchen with stainless steel appliances which is sure to pass any cook's checklist. This home is a split floor plan which has both tile and laminate floors throughout. Enjoy the spacious feel with the open concept and volume ceilings. As you enter the 21 ft x 14 ft Master Bedroom, you will fall in love with the enormous 15 x 6 1/2 closet— yes I said FIFTEEN FOOT CLOSET—-and the smaller 6 x 5 closet. The master bath comes with a jetted tub, 4 1/2 x 4 1/2 shower and dual sinks. There are some one of a kind features in this home like: RV hook up off extra parking pad, the Florida Room under heat and air is 42 feet long x 15 ft wide and the screened lania is 45 ft x 12 ft. Plenty of space for a pool. Inside Laundry. Electric garage screen which is great getting a nice breeze while working in the large garage. To top it off there is a large tree house/ storage building on stilts!
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No, not that Malcolm… the original one. Malcolm Fraser has again put our current (and some former) political leaders to shame on the question of asylum-seekers, and on the place of religion in Australia. Is it too late for a political comeback?
Too late. The politicians are in the race to the bottom but they are following a large number of voters. That is the part hard to swallow. On the whole , Aussies are over indulged materialists (me included) and many of them just don't want to share or play well with others. We are secular and selfish.