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Barcelona star's €193m release clause could be met by European giants
April 4th 2016, 12:09
Neymar's agent Wagner Ribeiro has suggested that Paris Saint-Germain are capable of meeting Barcelona's €193m release clause for the Brazilian ace.
According to L'Equipe, PSG have decided to make the Barcelona man their top transfer target this summer, despite the fact that Neymar has two years remaining on his current deal and is seemingly happy in Spain.
While contract negotiations are expected at the end of the season, it appears as though PSG are ready to pounce should their be any issues between the two parties.
Unsurprisingly, Ribeiro has revealed that the Ligue 1 champions have the financial power to meet the demands of both Barca and Neymar.
"What I can confirm to you is that Neymar has a contract with Barca until 2018," Ribeiro told L'Equipe. "He feels good in Barcelona, he's liked over there and he's playing for the best team in the world.
"It's no small feat to impose yourself at such an enormous club. But the prospect of living in a city like Paris and to play for a club like PSG — that's also a dream for every player. We'll see in two years, when he will be at the end of his contract."
However, when pressed on the matter and asked whether or not both he and his client would consider an offer prior to the contract expiring, Ribeiro seemed open to offers.
"That means that if PSG show an interest in Neymar, we can discuss it.
"A contract can also be terminated provided that the release clause is paid. It's huge: €193m. But I don't think that might be an insurmountable problem for PSG."
It would seem illogical for Neymar to leave Barcelona on various levels, given his rising stardom with the Catalan giants as well as the fact that he is playing alongside the likes of Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez and winning almost every trophy available.
However, there is a case to argue that if he wants to become the focal point of a team, then he will have to leave for a new project where he will be given the freedom to be the main outlet in attack without Messi in the same line-up.
The 24-year-old has scored 27 goals and provided 23 assists in 39 appearances in all competitions this season, and so there is evidently a system and chemistry that continues to work at the Camp Nou.
Nevertheless, with Zlatan Ibrahimovic set to leave Paris at the end of the season when his contract expires, Neymar could become the star attraction in the French capital with money clearly not a concern.
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Neuropoly
The Neural Correlates of Romantic Love
Published on May 1, 2011 May 1, 2011 by djLeave a comment
For the most part, fMRI studies attempt to localize cognitive processes to specific regions in the brain. Popular media often introduce these studies with headlines that tout the discovery of "the brain region" for memory, language, empathy, moral reasoning, loving weiner schnitzel and so on.
These headlines can be terribly misleading, as they're often misinterpreted to suggest a specific brain region is dedicated to a single function, when, in fact, any given function maps on to a network of regions (forming a circuit), while any given region is part of multiple circuits subserving many functions. Similar faux pas can be found in descriptions of the functions associated with genes, e.g. "The gene for (fill in the blank)."
A few years back, the NY Times ran an infamous piece featuring the work of a neuromarketing company. In a horrible experiment fit for The Onion, participants lay in the scanner while looking at pictures of then presidential candidates. Subjects showed increased amygdala activation to pictures of Mitt Romney, which researchers interpreted as a sign of anxiety.
But after watching Romney speak on video, the amygdala activity died down, which researchers said showed that voters' anxiety had decreased.
Meanwhile subjects' anterior cingulates lit up to pictures of Hillary Clinton.
Here's how researchers interpreted this neural activity:
Emotions about Hillary Clinton are mixed. Voters who rated Mrs. Clinton unfavorably on their questionnaire appeared not entirely comfortable with their assessment. When viewing images of her, these voters exhibited significant activity in the anterior cingulate cortex, an emotional center of the brain that is aroused when a person feels compelled to act in two different ways but must choose one. It looked as if they were battling unacknowledged impulses to like Mrs. Clinton.
The Times article about the "research" was quickly and roundly criticized by prominent neuroscientists, 17 of whom quickly responded with a signed letter to the editor, which the Times ran a couple of days later:
"This Is Your Brain on Politics" (Op-Ed, Nov. 11) used the results of a brain imaging study to draw conclusions about the current state of the American electorate. The article claimed that it is possible to directly read the minds of potential voters by looking at their brain activity while they viewed presidential candidates.
For example, activity in the amygdala in response to viewing one candidate was argued to reflect "anxiety" about the candidate, whereas activity in other areas was argued to indicate "feeling connected." While such reasoning appears compelling on its face, it is scientifically unfounded.
As cognitive neuroscientists who use the same brain imaging technology, we know that it is not possible to definitively determine whether a person is anxious or feeling connected simply by looking at activity in a particular brain region. This is so because brain regions are typically engaged by many mental states, and thus a one-to-one mapping between a brain region and a mental state is not possible.As cognitive neuroscientists, we are very excited about the potential use of brain imaging techniques to better understand the psychology of political decisions. But we are distressed by the publication of research in the press that has not undergone peer review, and that uses flawed reasoning to draw unfounded conclusions about topics as important as the presidential election.
Adam Aron, Ph.D., University of California, San Diego
David Badre, Ph.D., Brown University
Matthew Brett, M.D., University of Cambridge
John Cacioppo, Ph.D., University of Chicago
Chris Chambers, Ph.D., University College London
Roshan Cools, Ph.D., Radboud University, Netherlands
Steve Engel, Ph.D., University of Minnesota
Mark D'Esposito, M.D., University of California, Berkeley
Chris Frith, Ph.D., University College London
Eddie Harmon-Jones, Ph.D., Texas A&M University
John Jonides, Ph.D., University of Michigan
Brian Knutson, Ph.D., Stanford University
Liz Phelps, Ph.D., New York University
Russell Poldrack, Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles
Tor Wager, Ph.D., Columbia University
Anthony Wagner, Ph.D., Stanford University
Piotr Winkielman, Ph.D., University of California, San Diego
Undoubtedly, fewer people saw that letter than saw the original article, which was much more prominently displayed.
(By the above study's logic, looking at a picture of Donald Trump should elicit activity in the anterior insula, a region often associated with disgust responses)
It's unfortunate that the study received such a prominent platform for distribution because people, especially non scientists, can be heavily influenced by articles with pictures of brains or technical sounding neuro language. One study, which I've written about on the blog, found that people were much more likely to believe a nonsensical article if it had meaningless neuroscience language in it than if it didn't. As the average lay person doesn't possess the technical skills to distinguish between valid and invalid fMRI studies, it's up to the scientific community to police itself, which it does a pretty good job of through the peer review process.
This next study I'll talk about demonstrates some of the challenges inherent to mapping localized neural activity onto unseen mental processes; in this case, the subjective experience of intense, romantic long-term love.
Aaron and colleagues previously published a study that presented neural correlates of intense romantic love (2005). In brief, the study reported that regions in the reward circuit of the brain were activated in response to pictures of a lover (versus a close friend). In the current study, they wanted to explore if these findings could be extended to long-term married couples (couples together for more than 20+ years who report still being madly in love).
Participants lay in the scanner and were repeatedly presented with pictures from four different categories: their partner, a close friend, and both a highly familiar and low-familiar neutral acquaintance. They were instructed to think about "experiences with each stimulus person (that were) nonsexual in nature."
The fMRI data was analyzed via subtraction, a common fMRI analysis method in which one condition is compared to another to see if any differences fall out. The contrast of interest was between the partner and the close friend. In a cognitive process sense, the only difference thought to exist between perceiving these two individuals was thought to be the subject's romantic love for one and not for the other. So if neural activity in the close friend condition is subtracted from activity in the partner condition, whatever is left over should represent the neural substrate of romantic love.
Researchers found activation in the ventral tegmental area, substantia nigra and nucleus accumbens (and the hippocampus, which corresponded with reported sex frequency, but the effect seems to be driven largely by two outliers, one of whom reported they have sex almost every day).
The activity does suggest a classic reward response and replicates previous findings. However, the big question isn't whether there is a response, but rather what's driving it?
A valid fMRI study doesn't only rely on the integrity or analysis of the fMRI data, but, also, and perhaps more importantly, on the experimental design. In order to attribute increased activation in one condition versus the other to a specific cognitive function, one must be confident they have created conditions that have cleanly isolated the independent variable of interest (romantic love). The ventral tegmental area and other regions in the basal ganglia have been repeatedly shown to encode reward value – that is, they respond to things that give us hedonic pleasure, such as food, drugs, sex or receiving money. Past work has shown that intense romantic love is associated with activity in the those regions (Aaron 2005). In the current study, activity in some neural regions previously associated with maternal pair bonding was shown (substantia nigra, for one). The authors hypothesized that neural correlates for romantic long-term love should encompass those associated with both intense romantic love and maternal pair bonding.
But this analysis is dependent on long-term, romantic love being the only difference between conditions that would explain the differences in brain activity. And that may not entirely be the case.
Alternative Explanations
Just to refresh, the major dependent measure of interest was neural activity, especially of reward circuitry, while subjects looked at pictures of their long-term partner versus a close friend. One additional difference between these conditions (beyond romantic love) is that romantic partners are probably more familiar and closer to participants than close friends. This is a shortcoming acknowledged by the authors.
This difference suggests a causal chain of cognitive operations that could offer alternative explanations for some of the data seen in this study. First, It's been shown that we prefer things that are familiar to us (the "mere exposure" effect, Zajonc, 1968). Second, we're able to process familiar things (or people) much more fluently compared to the less familiar (Reber). Third, fluency processing has been associated with judgments of aesthetic appreciation such that the more fluently we can process something, the more beautiful or attractive we're likely to rate it (Alter). Although the objective attractiveness of the photos was controlled for via a group of independent raters, the participants were likely much more subjective in their judgments and perhaps found their partners more attractive than an objective viewer might. Viewing attractive faces has been shown to elicit strong neural activity, particularly in the reward circuitry (NaCC and OFC).
Furthermore, it has been posited that people incorporate close others into their psychological construct of self. Recent studies (deGreck 2008) showed that regions active in a reward task, such as the bilateral ventral striatum, and the ventral tegmental area (VTA), are also involved in differentiating between high and low personal relevance.It seems that we find thinking about ourselves pretty damn rewarding! (We're all at least a little bit narcissistic). To the extent that someone has been incorporated into our self concept, thinking about that person, or looking at their picture as in this study, could be correlated with responses in reward regions of the brain in part because they activate thoughts of ourselves.
Both the familiarity –> processing fluency –> attractiveness model and self relevant thinking are plausible alternative explanations for at least some of the neural correlates found in this paper.
One other potential area of concern is that there is no way of knowing that participants weren't thinking about sex with their partners, even though they were told not to. This might be especially difficult to achieve, especially for the two outliers who reported almost daily sex. Regions active during sexual arousal include R. amygdala, hypothalamus, hippocampus, midbrain, mOFC and nucleus accumbens, many of which were found to be active in this study.
The neural activity measured here may very well reflect some aspect of individuals' love for their partners. But there seem to be other possible explanations for some of the data. I suppose that's why people call the study of consciousness, of which subjective experiences such as romantic love are a subset, the "hard problem."
Acevedo BP, Aron A, Fisher HE, & Brown LL (2011). Neural correlates of long-term intense romantic love. Social cognitive and affective neuroscience PMID: 21208991
Aron, A., Fisher, H., Mashek, D., Strong, G., Li, H., Brown, L. (2005). Reward, motivation and emotion systems associated with early-stage intense romantic love. Journal of Neurophysiology, 93, 327–37.
DEGRECK, M., ROTTE, M., PAUS, R., MORITZ, D., THIEMANN, R., PROESCH, U., BRUER, U., MOERTH, S., TEMPELMANN, C., & BOGERTS, B. (2008). Is our self based on reward? Self-relatedness recruits neural activity in the reward system NeuroImage, 39 (4), 2066-2075 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2007.11.006
Alter, A., & Oppenheimer, D. (2008). Easy on the mind, easy on the wallet: The roles of familiarity and processing fluency in valuation judgments Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 15 (5), 985-990 DOI: 10.3758/PBR.15.5.985
Peskin, M., & Newell, F. (2004). Familiarity breeds attraction: Effects of exposure on the attractiveness of typical and distinctive faces Perception, 33 (2), 147-157 DOI: 10.1068/p5028
Reber, R., Schwarz, N., & Winkielman, P. (2004). Processing Fluency and Aesthetic Pleasure: Is Beauty in the Perceiver's Processing Experience? Personality and Social Psychology Review, 8 (4), 364-382 DOI: 10.1207/s15327957pspr0804_3
Categories fMRI, Human, neuroscience, psychology, Social Psychology•Tags donald trump, fMRI, hillary clinton, mitt romney, neural correlates, romantic love
Published on April 26, 2011 April 29, 2011 by djLeave a comment
Research has shown that people's names influence what professions they choose to enter; for example, men named Dennis are overrepresented among dentists and men named Raymond are overrepresented among doctors who specialize in radiology.
I wonder if guilt about his name is what drove the third author below to study the ill effects of cigarette smoking …
Categories Uncategorized•Tags funny, significance of names
Unconscious priming studies (for adults only)
Published on April 25, 2011 December 31, 2011 by djLeave a comment
The last few years have seen a calvacade of studies demonstrating that unexpected elements in the environment can unconsciously prime attitudes, beliefs and behaviors.
Just a few recent examples:
1. People are more likely to judge a person as "warmer" just after holding a warm (compared to a cold) cup (Williams & Bargh 2008a):
2. Job candidates whose resumes were seen on a heavy (versus light) clipboard were rated as better qualified for a job (Ackerman 2010)
3. The hotter the temperature is in a room or outside, the more likely people are to believe in global warming (Li 2011)
4. Working on a jigsaw puzzle with rough (versus smooth) pieces made people rate a subsequent personal encounter as "less smooth" (Ackerman 2010)
Based on the abundance of findings, there seems to be a robust market in unconscious priming.
Why do we see these kinds of effects? Yale psychologist and implicit cognition guru John Bargh said "… these (kinds of) demonstrations suggest a cognitive architecture in which social psychological concepts metaphorically related to physical-sensory concepts … are grounded in those physical concepts, such that activation of the physical version also activates (primes) the more abstract psychological concept." What he's describing is essentially conceptual metaphor theory, which originated with George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in the early 1980s. The theory suggests that cognition is largely based on metaphoric thinking, whereby the structure and logical protocols of one domain guides or structures thinking in another.
Aside from their theoretical contributions, these kinds of studies also provide a certain entertainment value in that they demonstrate associations between a given stimuli and an attitude or behavior that confounds our expectations.
A new study from University of New Mexico researchers presents yet another priming effect that can be added to the ever growing list. But this one ain't for the kiddies.
In a nutshell: The study showed that the smell of poop, er, uh, fecal matter, (delivered in the form of a spray from a bottle of "Liquid Ass," a novelty odor liquid) made participants more likely to report their intentions to use condoms in the near future. In other words, the smell of feces motivated safe sex attitudes. Although unpleasant to describe and probably even more so to have carried out, it does fit theoretically with a literature showing that pathogen avoidance/visceral disgust response can function as a mechanism to elicit unexpected effects on seemingly unrelated behaviors and attitudes. I recently discussed a study that looked at the flip side of the same coin. In this study, priming concerns about cleanliness made participants more likely to condemn a slightly immoral sex act and more likely to report conservative political attitudes (Subjects in the experimental condition were standing next to a soap dispenser).
While credit certainly has to be given for being able to work "Liquid Ass" into an experiment, I'm not sure that the researchers have shown pathogen-avoidance concern is the mechanism motivating subjects' change in attitude.
For one, sufficient control questionnaires don't seem to have been employed, asking participants to report attitudes in domains other than those in which pathogen avoidance plays a role. Perhaps the nasty scent mediated a more general shift in risk taking or impulsivity. Furthermore, self report is notoriously unreliable at predicting behavior; that is, participants' answers might in part reflect self presentation concerns as much as shifts in attitude that would result in behavioral change. Finally, it's possible that the general unpleasantness of the stimuli caused the shift in attitude and not it's viscerally disgusting nature. One possible control could be an additional condition with an unpleasant, non-pathogen avoidance related stimuli from a different domain (e.g., an unpleasant noise).
Although it would be interesting to see if the effects would still hold up to these slight modifications, I don't think I would want to be the one to run it…
Anderson ML (2010). Neural reuse: a fundamental organizational principle of the brain. The Behavioral and brain sciences, 33 (4) PMID: 20964882
Tybur JM, Bryan AD, Magnan RE, & Hooper AE (2011). Smells like safe sex: olfactory pathogen primes increase intentions to use condoms. Psychological science : a journal of the American Psychological Society / APS, 22 (4), 478-80 PMID: 21350181
Ackerman, J., Nocera, C., & Bargh, J. (2010). Incidental Haptic Sensations Influence Social Judgments and Decisions Science, 328 (5986), 1712-1715 DOI: 10.1126/science.1189993
Li Y, Johnson EJ, & Zaval L (2011). Local warming: daily temperature change influences belief in global warming. Psychological science : a journal of the American Psychological Society / APS, 22 (4), 454-9 PMID: 21372325
Categories Human, psychology, Social Psychology•Tags safe sex, unconscious priming, visceral disgust
Scientists and journalists convene to discuss blogs and whatnot
A couple of nights back, I attended a panel discussion at Rockefeller University in NYC, organized by SONYC and sponsored by Nature. Entitled Courting Controversy : how to successfully engage an online audience with complex or controversial topics, The meeting consisted of a three person panel, a climate scientist, a pediatric clinician and a former science journalist, addressing a crowd full of journalists and scientists. I won't give a full review but just a couple of quick points.
One question that emerged from the meeting was whether or not the role of scientist bloggers and/or science journalists should be to educate their readers. The consensus that emerged from the panel seemed to be that education should not be a goal. One panelist, Gavin Schmidt, a climate researcher at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and a driving force behind the RealClimate blog, made mention of how scientists live in the space between the known and the unknown, and that in order to really understand discoveries that emerge from this space in a given field, one would need an extensive background education, e.g. the kind of background that one receives when doing a PhD. This kind of education, Schmidt said takes many thousands of hours and can't very well be accomplished through reading blogs or articles in mainstream media.
While this is certainly true, I'm not sure that science writers are not educating their readers. It's perhaps a question of how you define "educate". It might be defined as an act by which one is, "qualified or trained for a particular calling, practice, or trade." By that definition, any given piece of science writing would certainly not qualify. But, education can also be defined, more simply, as the act of providing something of informational value. Science writers certainly do that. And to the extent that a person's opinion is influenced by information they've consumed, whatever the format, then I think we can say some educating has taken place.
One other point that stuck with me was made by David Ropeik, a former journalist who runs the blog, On Risk. He made the point that negative messages carry much more weight than positive messages. Not a new observation, to be sure, but it's good to be reminded that to participate in the news/information space is to be in competition for reader's eyeballs. How one frames their message is probably as important as the message itself. The "competition" probably has less scruples than you. Negative sells. One ignores this maxim at their own peril.
There was some good vigorous discussion in the latter part of the event and the whole thing should be online soon.
Categories blogging, journalism•Tags blog, journalism, meet-up, science writing, SONYC
The case of the man who couldn't find the beat
Published on April 21, 2011 April 4, 2016 by dj5 Comments
The ability to dance to music comes naturally to most members of the human species, and even exists in some species of bird, most famously a cockatoo and YouTube celebrity named Snowball.
But it doesn't come naturally to everyone.
Researchers from McGill University and the University of Montreal (Phillips-Silver, 2011) have recently published a case study of a student named Matthieu, who not only can't dance to the beat, but also can't tell when someone else is dancing asyncronously, although he can dance in time if he is able to watch someone else doing it.
"Mathieu was discovered through a recruitment of subjects
who felt they could not keep the beat in music, such as in clapping
in time at a concert or dancing in a club. Mathieu was the
only clear-cut case among volunteers who reported these problems.
Despite a lifelong love of music and dancing, and musical
training including lessons over several years in various instruments,
voice, dance and choreography, Mathieu complained that
he was unable to find the beat in music. Participation in music
and dance activities, while pleasurable, had been difficult for
Experimenters put Matthieu and a group of control subjects through a series of tests in which they danced to various types of music. Measurements were gathered by way of a Wii controller (which contains a accelerometer) that was strapped to the trunk of each subject's body and was able to track and quantify their movements. They also had participants tap their hands to the beat, while not dancing. Finally, they watched videos of someone else dancing (increasingly out of sync) to some Merengue music, and were to asked to identify if the person dancing in the videos was in sync with the music or not.
See the videos here.
Matthieu couldn't tap a beat in time and the style of music didn't seem to matter; across numerous styles of music, he couldn't dance in sync with the groove.*
*He was able to sync himself somewhat to a techno beat, which is basically a glorified metronome but nonetheless slightly more complex.
However, he had no problem locking his movements to the beat of a metronome and could bounce with a consistent tempo without music, while showing normal levels of pitch and tonal perception. He demonstrated normal intelligence, presented no history of neurological or psychiatric disorders and showed so signs of obvious cognitive deficits. It seems Matthieu's deficit is specific to perceiving the underlying pulse in a piece of music and moving his body to it. In other words, he's got beat (rhythm) deafness.
Scientists have been aware of the condition for quite a while.
In an Australian Medical Journal from 1890, a surgeon from the Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital in Melbourne described a case of rhythm deafness in a 27-yr. old farmer named W.M.:
(Unlike Matthieu, the farmer's deficit was much less selective; he also suffered from tone deafness and had severely reduced pain sensitivity)
More recently, Oliver Sacks touched upon rhythm blindness in his book Musiciophilia:
Google and PubMed searches find numerous casual references to "rhythm deafness", but this does seem to be the first well documented case in the scientific literature. So, if its been talked about for so long but documented so infrequently, how rare is it?
Lead author Jessica Phillips-Silver suggested that it might be as rare as tone deafness, which affects about 4 to 5% of the population. If that's the case, it could be a real challenge locating enough participants to conduct an fMRI study, which would help reveal the neural regions implicated in the condition. But the research team is confident, in part due to ample press coverage of the paper, that they'll find more subjects.
So, what might an fMRI study reveal about the condition?
A 2005 study (Brown) examining the neural substrates of dance points to one possibility. In this study, subjects lay in a PET scanner and danced a tango with their legs only, both accompanied by music and free form (without music).
Participants in the dancing-to-music condition showed BOLD activation suggesting that audio-motor entrainment might be mediated through a connection between subcortical auditory areas and the cerebellum. This would make sense give that one of the primary functions of the cerebellum is to coordinate motor actions, particularly precision and accurate timing, by receiving input from the sensory system and integrating those incoming signals to execute fine tuned motor activity.
The authors suggest that the deficit might be primarily perceptual and point to the fact that he failed on a task which did not require body movement, nor does not have any basic motor impairments They also suggest that basal ganglia connections between auditory and motor cortices could play a role, particularly the dorsal auditory pathway leading to the dorsal premotor cortex. Silver and colleagues already have some neuroimaging work underway with Matthieu.
As for future directions, Silver-Phillips said that her group will be looking at exactly what level of musical complexity is required for Matthieu's beat deafness to emerge. They're also interested in exploring whether there is any sign of entrainment occurring on a neuronal level, even in the face of the behavioral deficit. In other words, maybe his neurons are dancing to the beat even if he's not.
Phillips-Silver J, Toiviainen P, Gosselin N, Piché O, Nozaradan S, Palmer C, & Peretz I (2011). Born to dance but beat deaf: A new form of congenital amusia. Neuropsychologia, 49 (5), 961-9 PMID: 21316375
Brown, S. (2005). The Neural Basis of Human Dance Cerebral Cortex, 16 (8), 1157-1167 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhj057
Categories Cognition, fMRI, Human, Music•Tags beat deafness, congenital amusia, McGill, Music cognition, Peretz, rhythm deafness
Smoking makes impulsive teen rats even more impulsive
Published on April 18, 2011 September 1, 2015 by dj2 Comments
It's one of the truisms of human life that teenagers often do silly, stupid and/or dangerous things. We certainly don't need science to tell us that. One reason this seems to be the case is that, on average, teens have trouble optimally weighing risk vs. reward. I'm not excluding myself from this characterization. In fact, I sometimes marvel that I survived my teen years intact, if at all.
One stupid thing I and many of my friends did as teenagers was to try smoking.
There are no rational arguments in favor of smoking. Yet, according to one study, most adult smokers start before age 19 and 70% of all adolescents report trying a cigarette at least once. Messages directed to adolescents and teens against smoking often fall on deaf ears. In addition to subpar decision making skills, many teens hold the advice of their elders in low regard and are apt to pick up a cigarette as an act of defiance or as a show of their burgeoning adulthood. Hollywood films certainly contribute to the smoking mythology through their noble portrayals of troubled, rebellious or misunderstood teens reaching for smokes when the chips are down.
Although the health risks associated with smoking are widely known, a recent Nature Neuroscience study has provided even more reasons for teens to avoid smoking. Researchers from the Netherlands found that in adolescent rats, exposure to smoking led to increased and long lasting impulsiveness and impaired measures of attention in adulthood. In contrast, adult animals exposed to similar levels of nicotine did not show these long term effects. So, the impulsiveness that might lead a teen to try smoking could be increased by the very product of that impulsiveness, creating a vicious feedback cycle. Nasty business.
What's the molecular mechanism? A proteomic analysis of 297 different mPFC proteins in adolescent rats who had exposure to smoking showed that levels of mGLuR2 was downregulated. mGluR2 is a metabotropic glutamatergic receptor that sits on the presynaptic side of synapses in the mPFC, a brain region important for cognitive control and attention. Adolescent nicotine exposure resulted in decreased mGLuR2 signaling and reduced plasticity in the mPFC. This was shown to be directly related to attentional deficits by a rescue experiment in which a glutamate agonist was injected into the mPFC in vivo. The agonist restored attentional performance to normal levels but didn't affect impulsiveness.
In sum, the adolescent brain is more susceptible to the consequences of smoking via alteration of synaptic mGluR2 protein levels. It's known that nicotine exerts its initial effects on the brain through nicotinic acetylcholine receptor activation and this study suggests that adolescents are uniquely vulnerable to increased activation of these receptors.
The researchers acknowledge that the sequence of molecular events is unknown, but speculate that "…mGluR2 levels following nicotine exposure at the end of adolescence compensate for nicotine's actions and inhibit neurotransmitter release." One caveat to keep in mind is that it's unknown the extent to which this effect would be replicated in humans. Another important point is that in this experiment, nicotine was dissolved in solution and administered subcutaneously. Cigarettes contain many other carcinogens and toxins to which adolescents could be particularly vulnerable, so the long-term cognitive effects of cigarette smoking could extend far beyond those uncovered in this study, which looked just at nicotine.
The takeaway message is definitely clear: Parents, do everything you can to keep your kids from smoking!*
*I'm an advocate for making the sale of tobacco and tobacco related products illegal. Tobacco offers no clear benefits to society, with the exception of a few thousand jobs and the enrichment of a couple handfuls of business executives, while incurring great economic costs to the nation as a whole. Although nicotine has shown some cognitive benefits to individuals in certain disease states, all in all its mostly detrimental. (I'm a member of that most annoyingly vociferous group of anti-smoking activists: ex-smokers. Maybe we're so adamant because we know how hard it is to quit!) That long-term cognitive deficits are now being shown to accrue in cigarette smoking teens is hopefully another nail in the coffin of the tobacco industry and smoking culture in general, which will perhaps be looked back upon as a sign of the special ignorance of our times.
Counotte DS, Goriounova NA, Li KW, Loos M, van der Schors RC, Schetters D, Schoffelmeer AN, Smit AB, Mansvelder HD, Pattij T, & Spijker S (2011). Lasting synaptic changes underlie attention deficits caused by nicotine exposure during adolescence. Nature neuroscience, 14 (4), 417-9 PMID: 21336271
Categories neuroscience•Tags cigarettes, cognitive deficit, glutamate, MGluR, nicotine, quit smoking, teens
Regard thyself and put down the smoke stick
As many a former smoker will probably attest, quitting cigarettes ranks high in the hard-to-kick category. I made several unsuccessful attempts before finally kicking the habit after a 10 year pack-a-day run. Ultimately what worked for me was to go cold turkey, but there were perhaps other alternatives which I might have tried. In a paper from Nature Neuroscience, researchers from University of Michigan provided participants with interventions involving individually tailored messages* designed to encourage quitting and found that participants' brain activity while listening to the messages predicted how likely they would be to successfully quit smoking.
*Tailored messages are statements about an individuals' issues and thoughts about quitting smoking, derived from pre-screen interviews with them. e.g., "You are worried that when angry or frustrated, you may light up".
Here's the premise: Anti-smoking messages custom made for an individual can be more effective than generic ones, but only if said individual processes those messages in a self directed manner. Past research has shown a specific set of neural regions – primarily the mPFC and precuneus/posterior cingulate – to be associated with self referential thinking. Therefore, researchers hypothesized, activity in these brain regions while processing tailored anti-smoking messages might predict the likelihood of quitting.
The experiment was carried out over three days with a follow-up visit four months later.
Day 1: 91 participants completed a health assessment, demographic questionnaire and a psychosocial characteristics scale related to quitting smoking. Responses were then used to create smoking cessation messages tailored to each individual.
Day 2: Participants went into scanner and performed 2 fMRI tasks: The first task had participants listen to anti-smoking messages of three different types: personally tailored anti-smoking, non-tailored anti-smoking and neutral.
Here are some examples of what they heard:
Tailored messages
A concern you have is being tempted to smoke when around other smokers.
Something else that you feel will tempt you after you quit is because of a craving.
You are worried that when angry or frustrated, you may light up.
Untailored messages
Some people are tempted to smoke to control their weight or hunger.
Smokers also light up when they need to concentrate.
Certain moods or feelings, places, and things you do can make you want to smoke.
Neutral messages
Oil was formed from the remains of animals and plants that lived millions of years ago.
Sighted in the Pacific Ocean, the world's tallest sea wave was 112 feet.
Wind is simple air in motion. It is caused by the uneven heating of the earth's surface by the sun.
Then, participants completed a self appraisal task to identify brain regions active during self relevant thought processes. In this task, participants saw adjectives appear on the screen and had to either rate how much the adjective described them or whether the adjective was positive or negative.
Day 3: Participants completed a web-based smoking cessation program and were instructed to quit smoking. (They were given a supply of nicotine patches to get themselves started)
Experimenters checked in with subjects four months later to see if they were abstaining from smoking. Out of 87 who participated in the smoking cessation program, 45 were not smoking, while 42 were still (or had quit briefly and restarted) smoking.
Subjects were given a surprise memory test for the anti-smoking messages they'd received four months prior and remembered self relevant, tailored messages most well. However, their memory performance was not related to whether they successfully quit smoking.
As for the fMRI data, experimenters used a mask of tailored vs. untailored message conditions AND self-appraisal to identify the region common to both processes. This seems like a mild case of double dipping, no? That is, finding a brain region that responds to the condition of interest (in this case, voxels more active in tailored vs. untailored conditions) and then using the same data to test the hypothesis. Ideally, the ROI would be obtained independently of the main task.
A blow by blow on the different contrasts of interest:
1. Researchers looked at brain regions more active during tailored vs. untailored messages and found differential activation in the regions below.
There are, I think, some problems here; mainly, that the task differences for processing tailored vs non-tailored statements may extend beyond self relevant thinking to (1) memory processes employed in processing either category of stimuli; that is, episodic (tailored) vs. semantic (non-tailored), (2) cognitive effort, (3) elicitation of visual vs. non-visual memory, (4) processing fluency and (5) affect or reward responses. Thus, the difference in brain activation found in this task might reflect something other than just self referential processing.
2. The localizer task (used to isolate neural areas involved in self appraisal) had participants process adjectives either by relating them to self or by judging their affective value. This suggests an alternative explanation for the categorical contrast in that it isn't specific to self per se, but really more specific to people vs. non-people. A more widely used version of this task has participants process adjectives with regards to self or an other. As a further control, a third condition is often included in which participants identify whether words are in upper case or lower case. The contrast applied is (self – control) – (other – control). It's not clear why the researchers chose the task they did, which seems significantly noisier.
Here's the contrast from the present study:
And here's a contrast from another study (Jenkins 2010) that looked at three different types of self-referential processing.
Although roughly similar, the current study shows cortical midline activation seems to be much more dorsal than that found in Jenkins (2010). Using an ROI derived from this localizer task to correlate neural activity in tailored vs. untailored statements with quitting led to a non-significant result (from supplementary materials). This could explain why the researchers used the composite mask to define the ROI.
3. Again, the primary ROI was defined as a composite of overlapping regions between the self reference task AND the tailored vs. untailored statements task, which was used to compare neural activity with quitting behavior. They found that activity in these regions – which included dmPFC, precuneus and angular gyrus – during tailored smoking cessation messages predicted the likelihood of successfully abstaining from smoking. dmPFC and precuneus activation also individually predicted smoking cessation success, although angular gyrus did not.
This study provides clear evidence that participants processed tailored vs. non-tailored messages about smoking differently, and that this difference corresponded to their ability to stop smoking. However,
(1) neither task effectively isolates self referential processing,
(2) the region of activation was much more dorsal than that usually found in this literature (Northoff & Bermpohl, 2004; Schneider et al.,2008; Uddin, Iacoboni, Lange, & Keenan, 2007; Gillihan & Farah, 2005),
(3) an independently obtained ROI yielded insignificant results and
(4) mPFC and precuneus subserve an untold number of cognitive processes beyond self reflection.
Therefore, it seems a bit of a stretch to claim the neural activation found in this study is indicative of self referential processing.
Chua HF, Ho SS, Jasinska AJ, Polk TA, Welsh RC, Liberzon I, & Strecher VJ (2011). Self-related neural response to tailored smoking-cessation messages predicts quitting. Nature neuroscience, 14 (4), 426-7 PMID: 21358641
Jenkins AC, & Mitchell JP (2010). Medial prefrontal cortex subserves diverse forms of self-reflection. Social neuroscience, 1-8 PMID: 20711940
Northoff, G. (2005). Emotional-cognitive integration, the self, and cortical midline structures Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 28 (02) DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X05400047
Gillihan, S., & Farah, M. (2005). Is Self Special? A Critical Review of Evidence From Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience. Psychological Bulletin, 131 (1), 76-97 DOI: 10.1037/0033-2909.131.1.76
SCHNEIDER, F., BERMPOHL, F., HEINZEL, A., ROTTE, M., WALTER, M., TEMPELMANN, C., WIEBKING, C., DOBROWOLNY, H., HEINZE, H., & NORTHOFF, G. (2008). The resting brain and our self: Self-relatedness modulates resting state neural activity in cortical midline structures Neuroscience, 157 (1), 120-131 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2008.08.014
UDDIN, L., IACOBONI, M., LANGE, C., & KEENAN, J. (2007). The self and social cognition: the role of cortical midline structures and mirror neurons Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 11 (4), 153-157 DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2007.01.001
Categories Cognition, fMRI, Human, neuroscience, psychology•Tags cigarette, cingulate, fMRI, intervention, mPFC, precuneus, quit smoking
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Student Life and Wellbeing
NHS Health Services
International Family Network
Driving in the UK
Exploring Scotland and the UK
Healthcare in the UK
Healthcare in the UK is mainly provided through the National Health Service (NHS). Please refer to the section relevant to you below for further information.
NHS Coronavirus vaccinations for students
Students who are living and studying in the UK will be able to access the NHS Coronavirus vaccination programme.
To be invited by the NHS for Coronavirus vaccination please:
Complete Registration as a student at University of Glasgow, and
Register with a GP in the UK
You can see information here on the NHS Covid-19 vaccination programme in Scotland and more Covid-19 vaccination information on the Student Information Scotland webpages.
NHS Health Care
You can find information on who is eligible to access healthcare from the NHS and what sort of health services you can access on the Scottish NHS Inform webpages and the Guide to NHS Health Care in Scotland .
UK study visa holders
See NHS treatment for overseas students in the UK for the NHS services and treatment you can access.
"Student" visa holders
If you hold a Student visa of more than 6 months in length, you are required to pay towards the costs of accessing NHS healthcare for the full duration of their visa.
This is called the Immigration Healthcare Surcharge (IHS) - it is paid as part of the Student visa application process.
The IHS fee is calculated based on the total length of your visa. You can find out more about the IHS, including how much you will need to pay, and on the Scottish NHS Inform and gov.uk webpages.
"Student" visa holders (where visa is less than 6 months long)
You do not have to pay the IHS as part of applying for your visa, however it is recommended that you apply for health insurance that will cover the costs of any NHS or private healthcare you access while you are living in the UK. See the UKCISA webpages for further information on getting private health insurance.
"Standard Visitor" visa holders (for study of a period of 6 months or less)
EU Settlement Scheme status holders
Please see the UKVI webpages for details of your rights when living in the UK under valid pre-settled or settled status, including access to NHS health care in the UK and the NHS Inform webpages for details of NHS services and treatment you can access.
EU / EEA and Swiss nationals without EU Settlement Scheme status
Currently, EEA nationals have a right to free NHS treatment under European Law. However, you will need to apply to the EU Settlement Scheme to be able to continue living in the UK and access NHS health care free of charge.
Please see the NHS Inform webpages for people coming to Scotland to study to see what NHS services and treatment you can access.
EHIC holders
If you currently hold a European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) you will need to apply to the EU Settlement Scheme and receive either pre-settled or settled status to continue accessing NHS health care for free.
Comprehensive Sickness Insurance (CSI)
If you currently hold Comprehensive Health Insurance and you are an EU, EEA or Swiss national, you will need to apply to the EU Settlement Scheme and receive either pre-settled or settled status to continue accessing NHS health care for free. See the UKCISA website for more details on CSI.
Registering with a GP (doctor)
In Scotland, doctors are also referred to as "General Practitioners" or as a "GP". They work in medical surgeries, medical practices or health centres and a GP will be the first point of contact for your health needs.
If your GP advises you that you need to see another health professional (for example a specialist in a hospital or someone in a specialist service) they will organise the referral for you.
International Students should initially contact the GP in relation to health conditions, including those they already have a diagnosis for (or where they are seeking a diagnosis), including mental health issues, in the first instance.
How to register with a GP
You should register with a General Practitioner (GP) as soon as possible after you arrive in Scotland and have completed Registration and Enrolment as a University of Glasgow student. Please do not wait until you are unwell as this may delay treatment.
You will need to provide proof of your student status, your passport/national identity card and your BRP (if relevant) in order to register.
If you are an EU/EEA or Swiss student, you should also show your evidence of:
pre-settled or settled status or
EHIC or Comprehensive Health Insurance (if registering before 30 June 2021)
To find your local GP, select 'GP practices' from the dropdown menu in the Services Directory section of the Scottish NHS Inform webpage and enter the postcode of your term-time UK address. You may then wish to contact the GP practice by phone to ask if their registration processes are currently online due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
If your doctor issues you with a prescription for an item of medicine, you will need to collect the item from a chemist. There is no charge for prescriptions in Scotland.
Registering with a dentist
When making your first appointment with a dentist, you should first of all check that he/she will accept you as a patient under the National Health Service. Otherwise, you may be treated as a private patient, which will cost more than the usual NHS charge.
You must be registered with a doctor before being entitled to be treated by a dentist under the NHS. Take the contact details (address and telephone number) of your GP surgery when you go to register with the dentist.
NHS dentistry is not free of charge, however is cheaper than accessing a private dentistry. See the NHS Inform webpages for details of prices for NHS dental treatment.
See the NHS Inform webpages to find your local NHS dentist and their information on receiving NHS dental treatment in Scotland.
Please see the NHS Inform webpages for information on the different services you can access for eye and sight health care and here to find your nearest opticians in Glasgow.
NHS 24 and Out of Hours Care
NHS 24 phone service - 111
NHS 24 is a telephone advice and triage service that covers the out of hours period when your GP surgery is closed and you are too ill to wait until it re-opens. You can access this service 24 hours a day, 365 days per year. You will speak to a suitable health professional who will talk to you about your symptoms and tell you what you need to do; such as treating yourself at home or going to see a doctor.
You can contact the NHS 24 phone service by dialing 111. This is a free service.
NHS 24 online resources
NHS 24 provides a number of online tools and resources to help you manage your health and find health services in your area through the NHS inform website.
NHS Pharmacy First - minor illnesses
NHS Pharmacy First Scotland is an NHS service provided by your local community pharmacy. You can access this is you are registered with a GP in Scotland.
If you have a minor illness, a pharmacy is the first place you should go for advice. You do not usually need an appointment and you can go to any pharmacy.
Accident & Emergency / Out of Hours Care:
You can check your nearest Accident and Emergency location on the NHS Inform webpages.


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The increase in the power company bill does not equate with regard to an increase in salary and families are facing an issue in increased personal price ranges. Other expenses may have to get cut of the budget, regarding example entertainment, because many industries have been effected then they pass the costs down for the working year. Hotel and travel, and Concert Tickets have all increased in price because also hinge on gas and electricity.
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I finally visited the podiatrist last week. The visit made me quite embarrassed, because the doctor didn't tell me anything I didn't know already... But maybe it was being so embarrassed that made me actually start taking more drastic measures. For instance, going to work wearing my running shoes (podiatrist looked at them and gave me a look that said 'if you're wearing these, wtf are you still having trouble?'), and tying half of a pair of orthotic inserts I'd purchased after seeing my GP several months ago (then never used, because they didn't seem any different from the ones already in my running shoes) to the foot with the heel pain. After one weekend, it feels incredibly different. That and the cortisone shot.
", "url": "https://jume.livejournal.com/620775.html", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "http://snowy-day.net/stuff/others/dolphin-adultcoloringbook-a.jpg" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Meeko Nari and Jume", "image": "https://l-userpic.livejournal.com/124637444/426731" }, "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Journal jume", "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://jume.livejournal.com", "contentUrl": "https://l-userpic.livejournal.com/124637444/426731" } } }
jume —
Meeko Nari and Jume ( jume) wrote,
Meeko Nari and Jume
jume
Mood: free
Music: - http://listen.uark.edu:8830/
half a thought
I'm leaning up against a baseball glove.
We had our first company softball game on Friday, and while I had believed I had brought my old glove when I moved out here, searching the apartment did not yield it up, so I bought a new one the night of and my pinky could tell it hadn't been broken in yet.
Since our next game is next Friday, and I'm waiting for an order of neatsfoot oil to come in, I'm just trying to break it in any way I can, which at this moment means leaning against it while sitting on the couch. It seem to be helping.
We one our game. 25 to one in fact. But for most of us not having played in a decade, and the team as a whole having never practiced together minus playing catch about half an hour before the game, I think we did decently enough!
I also got the last component back on my bike so I can resume riding it. I had taken the cable off to put a cable stop on, made a silly mistake in trying to trim the housing without having first removed the cable, and needed to get a new cable afterwards. But now it's in, I think it's more or less in the right adjustment; I just need to ride harden it.
I have been daydreaming more and more often about moving out to a little farmstead in Europe. Probably due to sunneschii's photographs and articles like this.


text:
Drunk Flies and Stoned Dolphins: A Trip Through the World of Animal Intoxication
From the cup of coffee that jumpstarts the day to dangerously addictive drugs, the recreational use of plants with psychoactive properties has a long history among humans.
But, as with many things, it turns out that other animals got there first.
From parrots to primates, consuming medicinal chemicals is an instinctive behavior that helps countless organisms fight infection and treat disease. But the similarities don't end there: Like us, many creatures also consume substances that have no apparent benefit . . . except for inducing intoxication. In fact, animals have been using drugs for recreational purposes since prehistoric times. We may even have animals to thank for the idea--legend says that coffee was discovered by observing the behavior of goats that had eaten it.
In his previous book, Strange Survivors, author and biologist Oné R. Pagán introduced readers to some of the truly bizarre strategies animals use to survive in the cutthroat world of natural selection. Now, in Drunk Flies and Stoned Dolphins, he sheds light on the surprising cravings they indulge when it's time to unwind.
In this book, you'll get an eye-opening glimpse into the mind-altering behavior of the non-human members of the animal kingdom, spanning insects to elephants--including the dolphin species that apparently likes to pass around an intoxicating pufferfish as if they were sharing a joint.
Combining fascinating science with humor and enthusiasm, Pagán's latest is full of the kind of unforgettable stories and odd facts that you'll find yourself repeating to everyone you meet. From fruit fly happy hour to the evolutionary reasons behind nature's drugs, Drunk Flies and Stoned Dolphins takes you on a trip through the colorful world of animal intoxication--and along the way, explores what this science reveals about the surprising connections between all the world's creatures.
Author: One R. Pagan
Publisher: Benbella Books
Dr. Oné R. Pagán is a husband and a father, as well as a biology professor, scientist, blogger, and author. He is in absolute awe of the natural world, especially the fact that it can be understood through science and mathematics. He spends quite a bit of his time explaining science to family, students, and essentially anyone within earshot. He also loves learning about nature firsthand through his scientific research. He has published original work in various scientific journals including the International Journal of Developmental Biology, Neuroscience Letters, Toxicon, Neurochemical Research, and Pharmacology, Biochemistry, and Behavior among others. He holds an undergraduate degree in Natural Sciences and a Master's degree in Biochemistry, both from the University of Puerto Rico, and a Doctorate in Pharmacology with an emphasis in neurobiology, from Cornell University.


text:
Robber who held up Maghull bookies with a potato peeler jailed for five years
A ROBBER who held up a bookies with a potato peeler was jailed for five years.
Gary McGain, 29, hid the peeler in a sock so it looked like a gun and pointed it at a cashier's head.
He hit the same bookmakers twice in two months and confronted the same two staff members.
McGain, of Aintree Lane, Aintree, was described as a gambling addict who robbed the shop to pay a loan shark.
Liverpool crown court heard he first struck at Coral, in Liverpool Road North, Maghull, on April 9. Prosecutor Iain Criddle said: "He appeared to be carrying what was believed to be a handgun. It was half covered by a sock.
"He was given £550 in cash and ran off."
Describing the second hit, on June 5, Mr Criddle said he fled with £665 but staff followed him.
They spotted him throw something into a bush, which turned out to be the sock and peeler, covered in his DNA. The matching sock was found in his girlfriend's car.
Desmond Lennon, defending, said he had a gambling habit and got in debt with a loan shark.
McGain pleaded guilty to two charges of robbery and two of carrying an imitation handgun.


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Mahane Yehuda Police Station
Category » Pre-State Israel
The Cairo Conference
Dunam
General Allenby Enters Jerusalem
Footage of General Allenby Entering Jerusalem. December 11, 1917.
"The Innocents Abroad" by Mark Twain, Excerpts
Jewish Claim to Land of Israel
Origins of Name "Palestine"
Origins of Palestinian Arabs
The Tobiansky Affair
Partition Plan
Truman Administration
Arab-Jewish Relations
The Arab Revolt
Arab Riots of the 1920s
The Arabic Name of the Jewish State
Arabs in Palestine
Assassination of of Count Bernadotte
Assassination of Hayim Arlosoroff
Berit Shalom
Hadassah Convoy Massacre
Hebron Massacre
Pre-State Peace Efforts
War of Israeli Independence
Ottoman & British Rule
Atlit Prison Break
The British Mandate
Central Prison Jerusalem Photos
Jewish Underground Fighters Executed by the British
The British Mandate Prepares for War
During World War I
Jewish Immigration to Palestine
The Mahane Yehuda Police Station
Nebi Samwil Photos
The Safed City Police Station
Special Session of GA on Palestine
Under Ottoman Rule
Ottoman Rule
British White Papers
Feisal-Frankfurter Correspondence
The Hussein-McMahon Correspondence
Eleanor Roosevelt: My Round-the-World Adventures
Martin Buber's Open Letter to Gandhi
Robert Kennedy's Reports from Palestine
Roosevelt-King Saud Correspondence
Speech: The Jewish Homeland and the Palestine Mandate
Statement by UK Foreign Secretary Bevin
U.S. Proposes Temporary Trusteeship
The Weizmann-Faisal Agreement
Zionist Organization Statement on Palestine
Ruth Aliav (Kluger)
Arthur Balfour
Theodor Herzl
Haj Amin al-Husseini
Ze'ev (Vladimir) Jabotinsky
Herbert Samuel
High Commissioners for Palestine
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The Balfour Declaration
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Building a Jewish Army
The Altalena Affair
Evolution of Jewish Defense in Palestine
Jewish Brigade Group
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Va'ad Leumi
Table of Contents|British Mandate|Zionism
The Mahane Yehuda Police Station is a historic two-story building located at 107 Jaffa Road in Jerusalem, Israel. Constructed in stages during the nineteenth century, it was built to house the British Consul-General of Jerusalem, Noel Temple Moore, and his family, and was home to other British consuls until World War I. In 1920, when the British mandatory government went into effect, the house was converted into a police station. Following the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, the Jerusalem District lost and found department was added to the police station.
The building is noted for the two stone lions mounted on pillars that originally flanked the entrance in the wall surrounding the property. During infrastructure work for the construction of the Jerusalem Light Rail, the wall and front garden were removed to accommodate the widening of the street and sidewalk. The lion pillars were moved next to the building's entrance, which is now accessed directly from the sidewalk.
The building was constructed in stages during the nineteenth century to be used as a residence for the British Consul-General of Jerusalem, Noel Temple Moore, and his family; Moore served in this official capacity from 1863 to 1890. At the time of its construction, it was the westernmost building on Jaffa Road from the direction of the Old City. The site, on the south side of the street, was chosen because it was adjacent to a Turkish guardtower which could offer protection to the solitary house. Later British consuls and their families also lived here until World War I.
The neighborhood of Mahane Yehuda was established nearby, on the north side of Jaffa Road, in 1887. In 1920, when the British mandatory government went into effect, the house was converted into the Mahane Yehuda Police Station. Following the establishment of the state of Israel, the lost and found department for the Jerusalem District was added to the station; this department functions to this day.
During the 1936–39 Arab revolt in Palestine, the police station served as a weapons depot for Haganah soldiers defending the city. Patai describes how in 1939, after joining the Haganah, he and his friend were assigned to guard duty in the Mamilla Cemetery:
Once a week in the evening we went to the Mahane Yehuda police station, where each of us was given a rifle, ammunition, and some sort of makeshift uniform, and then, thus equipped, marched to a house facing the Mamilla Cemetery, through which Arab attackers were known to have sneaked into the Jewish part of Jerusalem. We climbed up the stairs to the flat roof of the three-story building and stood, or rather sat, watch there until 2 o'clock in the morning, when we were replaced by another two men. We went back to the police station, returned our gear, and went home to sleep. Throughout the months we performed this duty we never saw a suspicious movement, and, of course, never fired a single round.
The stone house has two stories. The interiors are spacious, with vaulted ceilings and six rooms on each floor. The second-floor balconies have decorative ironwork.
To the rear of the building was a large garden planted with fruit trees and ornamental plants. This area was used for entertaining friends and acquaintances of the house's occupants. A stable for horses and donkeys was located next to the garden. The garden in the front of the house was smaller and enclosed by a stone wall. A pillar was placed on either side of the entrance in the wall, and atop each pillar was a stone lion.
The sculptor of the lions is unknown. Some believe they were sculpted by Simcha Yanover, who produced the similar-looking lions mounted on pillars in front of the Mashiach Borochoff House further east on Jaffa Road. Others aver that the statues were imported by a Bulgarian Jewish family who rented this residence. As the family name was Aryeh (Hebrew for "lion"), they chose these statues to memorialize themselves. Alternately, the family could have been Marranos from Spain named Leone, or relatives of an Austrian royal family whose symbol was the lion.
Source: Mahane Yehuda Police Station, Wikipedia.


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Don't just send a boring holiday card this year, send a personalized card, with a picture of you and your family on high quality paper that makes your friends jealous.


text:
Subject: The Snapchat IPO Just Raised More Interest with This Huge Number
URL: http://mney.co/25zAPoN
The Snapchat IPO Just Raised More Interest with This Huge Number
By Diane Alter, Contributing Writer, Money Morning • June 2, 2016
The popular messaging app Snapchat just disclosed how popular it really is, and the news has big implications for the Snapchat IPO.
In this Snapchat news released today, there's one number creating all the Snapchat buzz among investors. It shows just how massive the app's growth has been…
This Number Will Raise More Investor Interest in the Snapchat IPO
According to a report from Bloomberg today (Thursday, June 2), Snapchat's daily active user count is currently at 150 million. That's up from 110 million in December.
In just four years, Snapchat's number of daily active users (DAUs) has sped past many older social media titans. The young mobile messaging app's DAUs have surpassed that of the decade-old social media platform Twitter Inc. (NYSE: TWTR). According to analysts, Twitter has fewer than 140 million active daily users.
Once the second-largest social network behind Facebook Inc. (Nasdaq: FB), Twitter continues to fade among other short-messaging services. It currently lags behind Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp – and now Snapchat.
Although Twitter doesn't disclose daily user count, its latest earnings report shows it had 310 million monthly active users (MAUs) in Q1. It also noted that roughly 44% of MAUs are active daily in the service's leading 20 markets. That suggests a daily active user tally of 136 million.
Twitter and other platforms are losing users to Snapchat thanks to the entertaining way Snapchat lets people communicate.
You see, Snapchat's free mobile app allows users to send videos, photos, and messages that disappear after a few seconds. It also allows users to access its imaging software and do things like swap faces with someone else, morph into cute puppies, and wear other filters.
Snapchat also lures users to return to the app often with features such as "Snapstreak." Snapstreak tallies the number of successive days users have been interacting with their closest friends.
The company's innovation has been praised by tech entrepreneurs. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said at the Re/code technology conference this week that messaging on Snapchat is "very modern," while also admitting Twitter can be confusing at times.
Snapchat's milestone of surpassing Twitter's number of DAUs has stoked more excitement about the upcoming Snapchat IPO.
But one of the big questions now is when the Snapchat IPO date will be…
Will the Snapchat IPO Happen in 2016?
Evan Spiegel, Snapchat's 25-year-old co-founder and CEO, said back in May 2015 that the company is already making plans to go public.
"We need to IPO," Spiegel said on May 24, 2015. "We have a plan to do that."
Despite not giving a time frame for the initial public offering, Spiegel made clear he's in no hurry to take his company public. He's worried about a bursting tech bubble and getting caught up in the rout. After all, the massive valuations of tech startups have been a major concern and account for an absence of tech IPOs in 2016.
The Snapchat IPO's recent funding round is also fueling speculation – and doubts about whether the firm is worth the funding. The company just completed a $1.8 billion funding round on May 26. It's currently valued at $16 billion, making it the seventh highest-valued startup in the world.
Despite the negative sentiment toward tech startups, there's a fresh sign that a Snapchat IPO is in the works…
On May 23, Snapchat's regulatory filing revealed the company added IPO specialist Stan Meresman to its board.
Meresman is a financial expert who works with tech CEOs on the IPO process. He advises them on what they need to do to scale for growth and operate as a publicly traded company.
According to his personal website, Meresman has steered four companies through successful IPOs. They include LinkedIn Corp. (NYSE: LNKD), Zynga Inc. (Nasdaq: ZNGA), Riverbed Technology Inc. (Nasdaq: RVBD), and Polycom Inc. (Nasdaq: PLCM). He was also the CFO at chipmaker Cypress Semiconductor Corp. (Nasdaq: CY) during its IPO.
The Bottom Line: Snapchat is experiencing incredible growth right now. The new report today shows Snapchat's daily active user count has surpassed that of 10-year-old Twitter. This update has caused more investors to ask when the Snapchat IPO date will roll around. After the company released a filing showing an IPO specialist on the payroll, it's clear Spiegel is ramping up plans to launch the Snapchat IPO.
Continue following Money Morning for more updates on the Snapchat IPO date and price throughout 2016.
Follow us on Twitter @moneymorning and like us on Facebook.
Cheers to This "Boozy" IPO… Jose Cuervo, the world's largest tequila company, announced this week that it's planning to go public. Here's everything you need to know about the tequila titan – and how you can make money once it hits the market next quarter…
CNN Money: Snapchat Planning for IPO
Business Insider: Snapchat Quietly Adds an IPO Specialist to Its Board
Bloomberg: Snapchat Passes Twitter in Daily Usage


The program invites aspiring entrepreneurs residing in the MENA region to submit their ideas for the 'next big thing' in travel technology.
As the MENA travel industry continues to outpace worldwide growth trends, Amadeus are engaging with the region's thriving start-up community in the launch of its first ever Travel Tech Challenge. The program invites aspiring entrepreneurs residing in the MENA region to submit their ideas for the 'next big thing' in travel technology – either an original concept or a product that could shape the future of travel.
Today the future of travel is increasingly dependent on the innovation, energy and creativity fuelled by the start-up community. Yet many entrepreneurs know that breaking into the travel industry can be an intimating and complex journey.
Open to anyone living in the MENA region, the Travel Tech Challenge will see ambitious individuals and teams come together for the chance to get even closer to their creative vision. This includes a significant cash reward, exclusive access to a global network of travel players, as well as connectivity to the award-winning Amadeus APIs and technology designed to enhance and enrich startups with the right tools to see their ideas lift off.
The Middle East travel industry has many of the right ingredients to benefit from technological breakthroughs, according to PwC, with digitization anticipated to affect the entire value chain of the travel and tourism industry from influencing traveling decisions to collecting feedback and improving the delivery of products and services.
The sky really is the limit for creative concepts in the Travel Tech Challenge. Entrants' ideas need only to be relevant to the travel sphere, be it to support travel agents, airlines, airports, hotels, individual travelers, or something completely new that hasn't even been thought of yet. The quality and potential of the idea is a key criterion for the competition. Amadeus does not necessarily expect entrants to have the skills and abilities to develop the technology themselves, but rather a plan for how their idea can transform the travel sector.
Entries are to be submitted as a 3-minute video through the competition website www.traveltechchallenge.me. The competition officially opens on September 20 and will run until October 20, 2017. After careful review, a set of five finalists will be invited to pitch their idea to a judging panel in Dubai, UAE, after which a winning idea will be chosen.
Today Amadeus is committed to pursuing and developing the most advanced technological solutions for clients to make the travel experience seamless from start to finish for everyone involved. Aside from the latest Travel Tech Challenge and on a global level, Amadeus has previously been praised for its investment of more than $3.8 billion in research-and-development in the period from 2004 to 2014.
Amadeus is a leading transaction processor and provider of advanced technology solutions forthe global travel and tourism industry.
Customer groups include travel providers (e.g airlines, hotels, rail, car rental, ferries, etc.),travel sellers (travel agencies and websites), and travel buyers (corporations and individualtravellers).
The group operates a transaction-based business model and processed more than 670 millionbillable travel transactions in 2009.
Amadeus has central sites in Madrid (corporate headquarters and marketing), Nice(development) and Erding (Operations – data processing centre) and regional offices in Miami,Buenos Aires, Bangkok and Dubai. At a market level, Amadeus maintains customer operationsthrough 72 local Amadeus Commercial Organisations covering 195 countries.
Amadeus is listed on the Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao and Valencia stock exchanges and tradesunder the symbol "AMS.MC". For the year ended 31 December 2009, the company reportedrevenues of EUR 2,461 million and EBITDA of EUR 894 million. The Amadeus group employsover 10,200 employees worldwide, with 123 nationalities represented at the central offices.


text:
package joptsimple.examples;

import joptsimple.OptionParser;
import joptsimple.OptionSet;
import org.junit.Test;

import static java.util.Collections.*;
import static org.junit.Assert.*;

public class UnrecognizedOptionsAllowedTest {
    @Test
    public void acceptsLongOptions() {
        OptionParser parser = new OptionParser();
        parser.allowsUnrecognizedOptions();
        parser.accepts( "f" );

        OptionSet options = parser.parse( "-f", "-d" );

        assertTrue( options.has( "f" ) );
        assertFalse( options.has( "d" ) );
        assertEquals( singletonList( "-d" ), options.nonOptionArguments() );
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Empathy Inc. - Movie Review
on Monday, 23 September 2019 13:27
Damn. Who hasn't been flat broke before? I dare say every single one of us has, at some point in our adult lives, been without money before. In a way, the struggle humanizes us; makes us a bit more responsible. Hopefully, it doesn't dehumanize us as we, through the struggle presented before us, somehow manage to find a way to bounce back.
But what if the bounce back isn't exactly what it presents itself to be? And what if lessons aren't learned? Even when the reality seems so damn FOR SURE, shit still happens and, if the fates play us out like the lead character in Empathy Inc., it's possible we won't even know the danger we are in until it is too late.
"fires up your imagination and then scares the pants right off of you with its far-reaching consequences"
Answering these questions is where an independent feature film like Empathy Inc., directed by Yedidya Gorsetman and written by Mark Leidner, can really earn its stripes. This black-and-white feature is blunt and brutal science fiction with no holds barred. Prepare to get weird.
Trust me, Empathy Inc. is especially the film to haunt your skull for days on end thanks to its topics and its treatment of its main character who discovers that virtual reality can be murder on the soul.
As the film begins, fast-talker Joel (Zack Robidas) is having a very bad no good day. Knee deep in the hoopla surrounding Silicon Valley, the tech company he has been going to bat for (as its main financer) is discovered to be a complete and total bust. Built on false data, the company he is involved in goes belly up. With nowhere else to turn, he and his wife, Jessica (Kasthy Searle), are forced to leave the town and move in with her super conservative and judgmental mother (Charmaine Reedy) and father (Fenton Lawless) in order to reboot and start again.{googleads}
Unfortunately, Joel hasn't learned much of a lessen when it comes to smartly investing in start-up ventures. When an old friend, Nicolaus (Eric Berryman), approaches him with a product that inventor Lester (Jay Klaitz) has programmed, Joel just can't resist the gamble. But he's learned to at least check out the product and so his journey into XVR begins.
XVR lets the wealthy experience poverty; the depressed experience total abandonment, and so on. It's supposed to heal the country by allowing people to slip into other lives and see how the other half lives. These scenes inside the machine are smartly directed and add a sense of confusion and dread to the overall movie.
Once inside, Joel sees how empathy works. He immediately makes changes in how he talks to other people, being kinder and more understanding. Of course, he is still digging for gold; his targets this time are his wife's parents. If he can get them to invest in XVR with their retirement and their savings, then he can see how XVR can change the country.
But there are risks to everything. EVERYTHING. This includes XVR and Joel's involvement with the invention. The consequences are damn shocking and so too are the methods of the inventor/programmer responsible for the machine.
Operating like an episode of Twilight Zone, Empathy Inc. fires up your imagination and then scares the pants right off of you with its far-reaching consequences. This is solid science fiction with a solid pay-off that will have you revisiting this film for all the right reasons.
Empathy Inc. is produced by Dark Star Pictures. It is now in theaters in select cities and will be available everywhere on VOD September 24.
Home Video Distributor:
Available on Blu-ray
Screen Formats:
Discs:
Region Encoding:
{googleads}
MPAA Rating: Unrated.
Director: Yedidya Gorsetman
Writer: Mark Leidner
Cast: Zack Robidas, Kathy Searle, Jay Klaitz
Genre: Sci-fi | thriller
Tagline: WARNING: Being someone else may result in dizziness, nausea, flashbacks, hallucinations, and permanent loss of self. Enjoy responsibly.
Memorable Movie Quote: "If you had the inside track on the next big thing, how much do you think you could scrape together?"
Theatrical Distributor: Dark Star Pictures
DVD/Blu-ray Release Date: No details available.
Synopsis: Yedidya Gorsetman's sci-fi thriller tells of an investor in a VR startup discovers that the reality the company provides isn't virtual.
Range Runners - Movie Review
Homewrecker - Movie Review
Same Boat - Movie Review
A Perfect Host - Movie Review
Goalie - Movie Review
You are here: Home In Theaters / VOD Empathy Inc. - Movie Review


Cancellation up to January 16th 2019 : 25% refund of the agreed sponsorship fee.
Thereafter, sponsorship fees are 100% non-refundable.
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text:
Q: Concatenating Pandas dataframe obtained through pd.dummies doesn't work This might be appropriate for a github issue, a bug maybe?, but I first wanted to make sure I am not doing something wrong.
I have a dataframe comprised of y, 2 indipendent variables and an offset (i am fitting a Poisson regression)
df_Data_clim_monthly_0

        var1        offset      var2        y        month
1236    141.858643  27.862616   0.149570    0.000000    1
1237    143.881744  25.166234   0.304853    0.000000    2
1238    130.819931  27.862616   0.385182    0.000000    3
1239    121.556984  26.963822   0.790843    0.135135    4
1240    100.683868  27.862616   1.604284    0.243243    5
1241    56.976879   26.963822   1.440580    0.135135    6
1242    41.691605   27.862616   1.474398    0.108108    7
1243    39.375465   27.862616   1.377272    0.243243    8
1244    37.733364   26.963822   2.826061    0.486486    9
1245    62.874672   27.862616   1.225250    0.055556    10
1246    106.758812  26.963822   0.456604    0.054054    11
1247    138.216904  27.862616   0.161243    0.030303    12
1440    75.941811   27.862616   1.041132    0.000000    1
1441    76.770737   25.166234   1.234092    0.058824    2
1442    69.535652   27.862616   1.594425    0.054054    3
1443    51.365620   26.963822   2.005312    0.000000    4
1444    32.005558   27.862616   3.069238    0.054054    5
1445    23.987453   26.963822   6.779000    0.108108    6
1446    15.179461   27.862616   5.729475    0.135135    7
1447    16.316160   27.862616   6.272911    0.081081    8
1448    21.942101   26.963822   5.712628    0.027027    9
1449    37.506062   27.862616   2.465134    0.055556    10
1450    51.930992   26.963822   1.180570    0.027027    11
1451    64.261795   27.862616   0.834773    0.000000    12

the index doesn't start from 0 because it was cropped from a larger dataset.
I want to introduce an interactive term for the month - to see if seasonality is significant in my fit, I need a dummy variable, that represents the change from JFM, AMJ, JAS, OND.
In order I do (maybe not elegantly but it works):
df_months3 = deepcopy(df_Data_clim_monthly_0.month)
df_months3[(df_months3==2)|(df_months3==3)]=1
df_months3[(df_months3==5)|(df_months3==6)]=4
df_months3[(df_months3==8)|(df_months3==9)]=7
df_months3[(df_months3==11)|(df_months3==12)]=10

and then
df_dummies3 = pd.get_dummies(df_months3,prefix='month')

if I print df_dummies3.head(), looks great
      month_1  month_4  month_7  month_10
1236        1        0        0         0
1237        1        0        0         0
1238        1        0        0         0
1239        0        1        0         0
1240        0        1        0         0

I then multiply the dummy variables with a series (I want to use only the interactive terms in my regression)
df_dummies3var1  = df_dummies3.mul(df_Data_clim_monthly_0['var1'], axis=0)
df_dummies3var2  = df_dummies3.mul(df_Data_clim_monthly_0['var2'], axis=0)

Rename the indexes to avoid columns with same labels:
df_dummies3var2 = df_dummies3var2.rename(index=str,
         columns={"month_1": "var2_month1", "month_4": "var2_month4","month_7": "var2_month7", "month_10": "var2_month10"})

df_dummies3var1 = df_dummies3var1.rename(index=str,
         columns={"month_1": "var1_month1", "month_4": "var1_month4", "month_7": "var1_month7", "month_10": "var1_month10"})

Things look right, if I print the head()
      var2_month1  var2_month4  var2_month7  var2_month10
1236     0.149570     0.000000          0.0           0.0
1237     0.304853     0.000000          0.0           0.0
1238     0.385182     0.000000          0.0           0.0
1239     0.000000     0.790843          0.0           0.0
1240     0.000000     1.604284          0.0           0.0
      var1_month1  var1_month4  var1_month7  var1_month10
1236   141.858643     0.000000          0.0           0.0
1237   143.881744     0.000000          0.0           0.0
1238   130.819931     0.000000          0.0           0.0
1239     0.000000   121.556984          0.0           0.0
1240     0.000000   100.683868          0.0           0.0

I concatenate these two:
df_dummies3tot = pd.concat([df_dummies3var1, df_dummies3var2], axis=1)

This works. I have a 8 column dataframe. (hard to copy and paste the head of this dataframe)
     var1_month1  var1_month4  var1_month7  var1_month10  var2_month1  \
1236   141.858643     0.000000          0.0           0.0     0.149570
1237   143.881744     0.000000          0.0           0.0     0.304853
1238   130.819931     0.000000          0.0           0.0     0.385182
1239     0.000000   121.556984          0.0           0.0     0.000000
1240     0.000000   100.683868          0.0           0.0     0.000000

      var2_month4  var2_month7  var2_month10
1236     0.000000          0.0           0.0
1237     0.000000          0.0           0.0
1238     0.000000          0.0           0.0
1239     0.790843          0.0           0.0
1240     1.604284          0.0           0.0

Now I want to concatenate the variable dataframe and this one, I want it to be in the same dataframe to pass it to smf.poisson.
They have the same index and the same number of rows.
But if I do
dftot = pd.concat([df_Data_clim_monthly_0[['var1','offset','var2','y']],
        df_dummies3tot],axis=1)

dftot has the correct amount of columns (12), but double the number of rows, and essentially the concatenation has put the two dataframe one of top of each other and filled the rows with nan.
print dftot.head()
           var1     offset   var2       y          var1_month1  var1_month4  \
1236  141.858643  27.862616  0.149570   0.000000          NaN          NaN
1237  143.881744  25.166234  0.304853   0.000000          NaN          NaN
1238  130.819931  27.862616  0.385182   0.000000          NaN          NaN
1239  121.556984  26.963822  0.790843   0.135135          NaN          NaN
1240  100.683868  27.862616  1.604284   0.243243          NaN          NaN

      var1_month7  var1_month10  var2_month1  var2_month4  var2_month7  \
1236          NaN           NaN          NaN          NaN          NaN
1237          NaN           NaN          NaN          NaN          NaN
1238          NaN           NaN          NaN          NaN          NaN
1239          NaN           NaN          NaN          NaN          NaN
1240          NaN           NaN          NaN          NaN          NaN

      var2_month10
1236           NaN
1237           NaN
1238           NaN
1239           NaN
1240           NaN

print dftot.tail()
      var1      offset  var2        y     var1_month1  var1_month4  \
9995    NaN     NaN      NaN        NaN     0.000000     0.000000
9996    NaN     NaN      NaN        NaN   168.764008     0.000000
9997    NaN     NaN      NaN        NaN   170.622360     0.000000
9998    NaN     NaN      NaN        NaN   147.312576     0.000000
9999    NaN     NaN      NaN        NaN     0.000000   115.417694

      var1_month7  var1_month10  var2_month1  var2_month4  var2_month7  \
9995          0.0    157.737946     0.000000     0.000000          0.0
9996          0.0      0.000000     0.287053     0.000000          0.0
9997          0.0      0.000000     0.357397     0.000000          0.0
9998          0.0      0.000000     0.753133     0.000000          0.0
9999          0.0      0.000000     0.000000     1.374954          0.0

      var2_month10
9995      0.200327
9996      0.000000
9997      0.000000
9998      0.000000
9999      0.000000

Is it something obvious that I am doing wrong, or this is some sort of a bug?

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Storage capacity, performance and high safety. The first three things we think of when it comes to the Volkswagen Sharan. Great for the family and economical too this makes for another Volkswagen all rounder! Test drive the Sharan today and see how capable it really is!


Mike Hourigan is a refreshingly unique keynote speaker, change management expert and author who helps empower top companies and associations to navigate constant change with real-world wisdom. A veteran leadership consultant and productivity expert, Mike is consistently sought after and hired by the top companies in the U.S., including McDonald's, Harley-Davidson, Disney, GE, Marriott, Aetna, ExxonMobil and Kaiser Permanente.
Decades of corporate experience have allowed Mike to develop a completely fresh approach to safety, team building, sales management and customer service training. With a style that engages listeners in a way that's meaningful to them and their company culture, Mike rarely gives his audiences a moment between laughs.
A former member of the management teams of Cargill Inc. and Olympus Corporation, Mike has offered over 1,300 audiences the benefit of his real-world corporate experience. A seasoned author, his books include "Riding the Waves without Getting Wet: A Journey to Leadership," and "Motivational Selling." As one of the top keynote speakers in the United States, Mike has developed a comprehensive roster of speeches that address the key issues that affect companies most. From the growing need for Millennial soft skills training and interpersonal communications, to the subtle nuances of conducting business in a global economy, Mike Hourigan continues to the lead the industry in dynamic presentations that direct executives and entire companies toward real, lasting change.
Audiences say his honest humor and exuberance for life find a way of impacting everyone and leaving them with a willingness to confront the important issues - and laugh at the less important ones.