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Choosing a medical career: What influences secondary school female graduates?
Badria K Al-Dabal
Department of Family & Community Medicine, College of Medicine and Medical Sciences, King Faisal University, Dammam, Saudi Arabia
P.O. Box 1102, Dammam 31431
Objective: To assess attitudes and reasons of secondary school female students for choosing medicine as a career.
Design: A cross-sectional study with a sample of 191 female students, who responded to an administered questionnaire.
Results: The mean age of the students was 18.3 ± 0.94. The mean general average test scores for female students who applied to medicine, MLT and Nursing was 94.02%, 91.26% and 86.78% respectively. Personal interest was the main reason in 85.7% of the applicants. Only 109 students (57.1%) of the study group have any knowledge about the profession of Medicine. One hundred sixty one of the students (84.3%) expected difficulties in their studies.
Conclusion: The study showed that personal interest was the main reason behind the students' choice. A sizable proportion had no knowledge of the specialty they opted for, while more than 80% of the applicants anticipated some difficulties upon entering the Medical College. The majority of MLT applicants were not interested in nursing as a specialty. The current strategy for educating secondary school female students about Medical College programmes should be strengthened.
Keywords: Attitudes, female students, career.
Al-Dabal BK. Choosing a medical career: What influences secondary school female graduates?. J Fam Community Med 1998;5:53-9
Al-Dabal BK. Choosing a medical career: What influences secondary school female graduates?. J Fam Community Med [serial online] 1998 [cited 2021 Jan 20];5:53-9. Available from: https://www.jfcmonline.com/text.asp?1998/5/2/53/98351
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a fast developing country, that has achieved great advances in all aspects of life. Education is one of the fields where marked progress and expansion are evident. More girls are now enrolled in educational institutions than before and universities are now offering Secondary School female graduates programmes suitable for the Saudi society. [1] Medicine and Medical Sciences are amongst the choices which attract Secondary School females particularly those who had high scores at the end of their Secondary School education.
The annual intake of the four Medical Colleges in Saudi Arabia one of which is the College of Medicine in King Faisal University is approximately 600 students. [2] The admission policies in the four colleges are similar. A certain minimum percentage of the overall (general) average score and the special (scientific) average of the secondary school leaving certificate exam, constitute the first requirement for registration for the College Admission Test and interview. All applicants to the College of Medicine and Medical Sciences (CMMS) at King Faisal University (KFU) who satisfy these criteria are required to take the admission test. This test includes a written examination in Physics, Mathematics, Biology, Chemistry, English and Islamic Culture. In addition, there is the personal interview for each applicant. The admission test and interview scores are used as a second step screening for selecting candidates. [3]
In this study, an attempt is made to identify the attitudes and reasons underlying Secondary School female students' decision to enter Medical College. It is known that some of them join the Medical School without any prior awareness of or interest in the programme of study. The later group of students usually either withdraw or are dismissed from the college before completing the programme. This obviously leads to waste of the students and faculty's time, and a misuse of limited resources, which could have been more beneficial to more interested and highly motivated students. It is hoped that the findings will assist in the selection of students who will pursue the medical curriculum to a successful completion and graduate as doctors needed in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Material and Methods
This cross-sectional study included all female students who applied to join the CMMS in Dammam, in 1996. The college offers three programs leading to a Bachelor's Degree in Medicine and Surgery, in Medical Laboratory Technology (MLT), and in Nursing.
The applicants were interviewed and each of them completed a questionnaire designed to obtain the demographic and personal data as well as other variables. The latter included: the general and special subject averages, reasons for choosing one of the three programmes, expectation of possible difficulties in the course of studies, and ideas about the chosen programme. Data were analyzed on a personal computer using SPSS package. The statistical tests were X [2] -test and ANOVA.
The total number of students interviewed was 191. Of these, 132 (69.1%) had applied for medicine, 45 (23.6%) for medical laboratory technology (MLT) and the rest for nursing. The mean age was 18.3 ± 0.94. 26% of the students' fathers, and 39.8% of their mothers, respectively, were either illiterate or just able to read and write. On the other hand, 41% of students' fathers and 21.5% of their mothers, respectively, had secondary and university education. Of the fathers 8.4% had gone on to higher education. Almost the same pattern was observed with regard to primary and intermediate education. Fifty percent of the fathers of the applicants for medicine and nursing and 62.2% of the fathers of the applicants for MLT, were professionals, the overall overage being 52.9%. Unskilled labourers constituted 40.3% of all the fathers: 43.9%, 42.9%, 28.9% for Medicine, Nursing and MLT respectively. The majority of the mothers were housewives (91.1%): 90.9% of the mothers of the applicants for medicine, 95.6% of MLT and 78.5% of nursing but these differences were not statistically significant (X [2] = 3.82, P > 0.05).
The mean general average score for female students who had applied to do medicine was the highest 94.02%, followed by 91.26% for MLT and 86.78% for nursing (F=33.061), P < 0.01). The corresponding mean special averages, were 92.22, 89.50 and 82.24% (F=36.376, P < 0.01).
Eighty (41.9%) of the students had relatives working in the medical field (43.2% in medicine, 48.9% in MLT and 7.1% in nursing). A statistical significant difference was observed as regards the presence of relatives in the medical field and specialty chosen (P < 0.01). Approximately 29% of the relatives were either sisters or brothers: Of those, 21.1% and 45.5% were applicants for Medicine and MLT respectively. The rest of the relatives were either uncles, aunts or sisters-in-law.
[Table 1] depicts the reasons for choosing the specialty. Personal interest was the main reason in 85.7% of the applicants (86.4%, 86.7% and 78.6%) being for medicine, MLT and nursing respectively. The next reason with an overall rating of 69.6% was that it was a humane profession. Specialty-wise the percentages for this attribute were 78.0, 44.4 and 71.4 in the three specialties, respectively (X [2] =7.93, P<0.01). While more than 60.0% of the applicants for medicine and nursing claimed that their choice was influenced by national need, only 44.4% of the MLT applicants were of this opinion (X [2] = 6.56, P<0.05).
Table 1: Reasons for choosing the specialty
The study showed that 109 students (57.1%) had some ideas about the specialty while 82 students (42.9%) had no ideas at all. When asked about the sources of information regarding the specialty, friends and relatives ranked first for MLT and medicine applicants (60.9% and 38.0%, respectively). However, for nursing applicants, their own reading ranked first (57.1%). The proportion of applicants whose choice of specialty was motivated by university visits was only 6.4% [Table 2].
Table 2: Sources of knowledge about the specialty
[Table 3] shows the anticipated difficulties as stated by the applicants. One hundred sixty one students (84.3%) expected to have problems. The majority were nursing applicants (92.9%), followed by medicine (86.4%). Long hours of study was the most frequent single difficulty anticipated by medicine and MLT students, while mixing with males was the most important problem for nursing students. This latter difficulty was second in rank for medical and MLT students. None of the nursing applicants had considered disruption of their family life by their work, 12% of medicine and MLT applicants acknowledged would. About 10% of all applicants thought that using English as the medium of instruction was one of the difficulties they envisaged. Unexpectedly, only 6.3% of the applicants believed that the specialties require hard work.
Table 3: Difficulties anticipated by the female students
On asking MLT applicants the reasons for not choosing nursing as a specialty, 73.3% said that they were not interested in the specialty, 8.9% stated that the specialty was looked down on by the society, and 11.2% gave more than one reason.
Enrollment in the College of Medicine and Medical Sciences is considered one of the most suitable fields for Saudi girls. Students who are interested in enrolling in Colleges are required to have high scores in the Secondary School certificate examination as a prerequisite for admission. It is expected that the involvement of relatives in the medical field can influence an applicant's choice. The study confirmed this, since more than one third of the applicants had a relative in the medical field.
In the study, 85.7% of the applicants indicated that their choice of specialty was mainly influenced by personal interest. This obviously is a very important motivating factor for the candidate to complete the programme of study, despite any difficulties. Furthermore, such an interest would also help the graduate to pursue her career with dedication.
The study also showed that about one fifth of the students wanted to enter the medical college because of family pressure, interest and because it was a respectable profession. This was more so for applicants for medicine. None of the students applying for nursing stated this as a reason. This result supports the motion that enrollment in a medical faculty is fast becoming prestigious for female students and their families. This social attitude may result in forcing some students to enter medical college who have neither the aptitude nor the inclination necessary for the successful completion of the programme. [1] More than two thirds of the students chose a career in Medicine, MLT and nursing because they considered them humane professions, and this was more so for those who chose the medical specialty. This can be explained by students' awareness of the nature of this profession.
It is very important for a student to know something about the specialty she wishes to pursue as a future career in order to determine its suitability for her knowing the possible difficulties that the student might face in a particular specialty will help her to weigh her capabilities vizaviz the demands of that specialty. In this study it was found that more than one third of the students had chosen a specialty without any prior knowledge of it. This may explain why some students transfer to other, possibly less demanding, programmes of study, sometimes to a completely different area, such as architecture or computer science. [1] The main sources of knowledge for those who know something of their chosen specialty were friends and relatives. This study also showed that university visits played a minimal role (6.9%) in elucidating the requirements of a programme of study for a certain specialty to the students. Yearly visits for female students in secondary schools to learn about the specialty offered at King Faisal University are arranged. Perhaps the objectives of the visits and the way they are conducted should be revised to make them more meaningful to prospective students.
Prospective applicants to the medical college need to have a certain attitude and be highly motivated. A previous study indicated that most of the students found the programme more demanding than they had anticipated. [1] More than two thirds of the students in this study expected that there would be difficulties in the course of their study in the medical college. About one fifth of the students thought that one of the main difficulties would be the long hours of study. Integration of males and females at the work place also presented a problem since Saudi female students and their families prefer on religious and cultural grounds to study and work in a segregated environment. This finding is supported by another study which considered that segregation of sexes in the work environment is a major incentive that would attract more Saudi nationals into nursing. [4] Kassimi [5] considered that segregation of sexes was unique to Saudi Arabia, and that it could be more effectively achieved by establishing medical schools for females only.
Twenty-three (12%) of the students envisaged that entering medical college would interfere with family life in the future. In her study of the reasons for Saudi female medical students dropping out of King Abdulaziz University, Islam [1] found that marriage was the main reason for withdrawal in later years. It accounted for 16% of all female students drop-out in the fourth year. [1] In her study of the effect of medical practice in social and psychological status of female Saudi physicians, Mgrbal [6] found that about half of the female physicians in Dammam area found it hard to strike a balance between their medical career and their family responsibilities. Several others also found that female physicians suffered from a conflict between their career demands and social obligations. [7],[8],[9],[10],[11]
Using English language in teaching was considered by 10% of the students as one of the anticipated difficulties. This result supports other findings that the use of English as a medium of instruction in medical education, is one of the problems that medical students faced. [12],[13] Albar [12] found that over 70% of both medical students and residents at King Faisal University would prefer Arabic as the language of their medical education.
Students applying for MLT were asked why they did not choose nursing as a career. About three-fourths of them indicated that they were not interested in nursing, while nearly 9% of them argued that the specialty was frowned on by the society. This indicated that nursing as a career was perceived as relatively low in status in comparison to other occupational choices. In her study of the attitudes towards nursing, Jackson [4] found that reluctance to choose nursing as a career in Saudi Arabia is based on the perception of low image, along with current traditional social values of the society.
In conclusion, this study shows that personal interest was the main reason for the choice of medicine for a future career. A sizeable proportion had no knowledge of the specialty they had opted for, while more than 80% of the applicants anticipated some difficulties upon entering the medical college. University visits played a minimal role in educating students about career alternatives available at the College of Medicine and Medical Sciences. The majority of MLT applicants were not interested in the nursing specialty.
It is recommended that the current strategy for enlightening the secondary school female students about the medical college programmes should be strengthened. Every student should have enough knowledge about the college, methods of teaching and their chosen future profession, before applying to the college. The public should be educated on the importance of the different specialties and their role in the development of this country. Parents should refrain from pressurizing their daughters in their career selection. The current negative image of the nursing profession could be reversed with the help of the media in public education.
1. Islam S. Enrollment and drop-out of Saudi female medical students at King Abdulaziz University. In: Proceedings of the fourth Saudi Medical Conference. King Faisal University, 1980:390-401.
2. Medical schools and medical students (editorial). Annals of Saudi Medicine 1989; 9(1):1-2.
3. El-Mouzan MI, Lutfi AM, Absood GH. Secondary school and college admission test scores as predictors of performance of medical students in premedical subjects. Saudi Medical Journal 1991; 12(6):477-80.
4. Jackson CL, Gary R. Nursing: Attitudes, perceptions and strategies for progress in Saudi Arabia. Annals of Saudi Med 1991;1194:452-8.
5. Kassimi MA. Problems of undergraduate medical education in Saudi Arabia. Med Educ 1983; 17:233-4.
6. Mgrbal KM. The effect of medical practice on social and psychological status of Saudi female physicians at Dammam area (dissertation). King Faisal University, 1993.
7. Swerdlow AJ, Mcneilly RH, Rue ER. Women doctors in training: problems and progress. BMJ 1980; 281:754-8.
8. Myers MF. The female physician and her marriage: An overview. Am J Psychiatry 1984;1416(11): 1386-91.
9. Microys G. Women as doctors, wives and mothers. Can Fam Physician 1986; 32:339-342.
10. Schaller JG. The advancement of women in Academic Medicine - Commentary. JAMA 1990;264:1854-5.
11. Robbins L, Ronnins E, Katz SE, Geliebter B, Stern M. Achievement motivation in medical students. J Med Edu 1983;58:850-8.
12. Albar AA, Sssuhaimi AA. Attitude of medical students and postgraduate residents at King Faisal University towards teaching medicine in Arabic. Saudi Medical Journal 1996; 17(2):230-4.
13. 13. Danaraj TJ. Problems of medical education in developing countries. In: Proceedings of the fourth Medical Conference, King Faisal University, 1980:388-391.
Al-Dabal BK
© Journal of Family and Community Medicine | Published by Wolters Kluwer - Medknow


text:
Home Tennis Djokovic: "My confidence was superior to doubts"
Djokovic: "My confidence was superior to doubts"
The Serbian won his third title in the Magic Box, for the first time led by his brother Marko, and he praised Tsitsipas: "A great future awaits you"
Novak Djokovic was proclaimed champion of the Masters 1000 of Madrid for the third time in his career, after defeating Stefanos Tsitsipas by 6-3 and 6-4. "You played a great tennis this week and a great future awaits you," the Serbian told the Greek.
"It is one of the biggest tournaments in the world for players", praised the number one to the Mutua Madrid Open. I had won the Australian Open in January, but then I had not done great results. Did you think you could win the tournament eight days ago? "The confidence I have in me is bigger than the doubts", he said.
In the bench, playing the role of Marian Vadja absent in the tournament, his brother Marko was as technical. "He has played the role of coach for the first time and it is the first time we won together, it is a pride," Djokovic stressed.
In a press conference, Djokovic delved into the matter of confidence: "I feel that this victory is very good for that. I had not had consistency in Indian Wells, Miami and Monte Carlo, but on Friday I gave the size in a very close match against Thiem and I won Tsitsipas, who made a great match against Nadal and maybe was affected by the effort , because he did not move like that. This allows me to reach an important moment of the season with more confidence to give the best of myself in Rome and, above all, in Roland Garros. "
He also spoke about those upcoming tournaments:" Rome and Paris are going to be different because of the conditions that the altitude causes, less than in Madrid, the exchanges will be longer and the ball heavier, especially on hot days, so the rhythm or it will be different and more difficult. He will demand a greater physical and emotional resistance ".
About a possible duel against Nadal in Paris, Nole still sees him" a little far ":" If a match is played against Nadal in Paris it will be in the final, for that they will have to spend many things before. I'll be ready, we already played one in Australia and I did my best tennis, probably the best ever. Rafa has only lost twice in Paris, so that gives an idea of the challenge of playing there with him. It's the ultimate challenge. "
Tsitsipas:" The legs did not respond to my mind "
" I was not in the game, my legs did not respond to the mind. "2 He played with intelligence, moving all the time because he knew I was tired. It has the best reverse of the circuit. To play against the big ones you have to make the maximum effort, you have to improve in the physical aspect. I am happy for what I did in Madrid, but I feel empty ". This is how Tsitsipas expressed himself, very tired by the accumulation of games in recent days.
Djokovic: "My confidence was superior to doubts" Reviewed by LALASPORT on 5/13/2019 06:03:00 PM Rating: 5
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Series: "New" Text: Luke 21:1-4 Preacher: Brent McCrory http://nlccoe.com/Sermons/New/5-6-18%20a%20new%20look%20%40%20giving.mp3 Giving in light of the resurrection of Jesus…a "new" look at giving. What is there to say? Perhaps an important part of this new look is taking a look at the things we perceive money "does" for us.


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Impact of advanced parallel or cloud computing technologies for image guided diagnosis and therapy
Issue title: Impact of advanced parallel or cloud computing technologies for image guided diagnosis and therapy
Guest editors: Kelvin K.L. Wong, Simon Fong and Defeng Wang
Article type: Editorial
Authors: Wong, Kelvin K.L.a; * | Fong, Simonb | Wang, Defengc
Affiliations: [a] School of Medicine, Western Sydney University, Sydney, Australia | [b] Department of Computer and Information Science, University of Macau, Taipa, Macau SAR, Macau, China | [c] Department of Imaging and Interventional Radiology, Research Center for Medical Image Computing, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Correspondence: [*] Corresponding author: Kelvin Kian Loong Wong, School of Medicine, Building 30, Western Sydney University Campbelltown Campus, Narellan Rd & Gilchrist Dr, Campbelltown NSW 2560, Australia. Tel.: +61 4620 3620; E-mail: kelvin.wong@westernsydney.edu.au.
DOI: 10.3233/XST-17252
Journal: Journal of X-Ray Science and Technology, vol. 25, no. 2, pp. 187-192, 2017
Medical imaging technology has revolutionized health care for a long time. The past decade has witnessed considerable advancements in imaging techniques, developing from structural to functional or from static to dynamic, which enabled both individual- and population-based analysis. While the number of multimodality imaging-based diagnoses and procedures is increasing considerably, effective, safe, and high speed/quality imaging is important for much medical decision-making. However, it's impossible to realize these standards free from powerful computing technologies. Image processing with graphics processing unit (GPU)-based parallel computing technique is an alternative way to solve image processing problems in multimodality image diagnoses and telemedicine, which require large times of processing as well as handling large amounts of information in "acceptable time". Cloud computing has been introduced only recently but is already one of the major topics of discussion in research and clinical settings. The provision of extensive, easily accessible, and reconfigurable resources such as virtual systems, platforms, and applications with low service cost has caught the attention of many researchers and clinicians. However, it is still in its infancy in the medical imaging domain, and there is currently low market penetration within the field. This situation may change rapidly in the near future. Among the potential driving forces for the increased use of cloud computing in medical imaging are raw data management and image processing and sharing demands, all of which require high-capacity data storage and computing. With the development of high speed/quality imaging technologies, medical imaging societies have to embrace parallel and/or cloud computing technologies and use them as a powerful tool to enhance the efficiency and accuracy of multimodality imaging data analysis.
In this special issue, we invite the latest research works from both academia and practitioners to share experiences and ideas on how best we could make use of advanced parallel or cloud computing technologies and turn them into clinical applications for image-guided diagnosis and therapy. All technological solutions from all level collectively contribute to one purpose which is better health for everyone. Thus, this special issue focuses on the applications for problems in the cloud domain, covering the solution for special problems or finding the potential correlation between diseases and some factors that seem unrelated. The main goal of this special issue is to provide the overview of the current state-of-the-art advances in the process of medical diagnosis. The issue has 10 research articles dealing with a range of problems related to machine learning and data mining methods (e.g., classification, clustering) and their applications, and the integration methods of multi-modal neuroimaging data and their applications. Details of these papers are as follows.
The first two articles dealt with visualization of anatomy and their examination using medical imaging technology. The first one by Chai et al. [1] proposed a novel real-time monitoring system with accelerator using the magic finger based on binocular location and support vector machine (SVM). The system consists of three parts: a binocular system, a software which monitors the patient positioning in real-time, and a magic finger to control the treatment bed. For the binocular system, the paper proposed a novel and an efficient calibration-reconstruction method [2]. To reduce the computation for the real-time monitoring, this study applied the epipolar geometry [3] for the left and right images matching. At last, this study used the SVM to classify the monitoring results, and judged whether to control the treatment bed as the monitoring results. This work is rather practical in radiotherapy monitoring field and provides a new perspective for the precise radiotherapy.
The second article dealt with the diagnostic performance of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was contributed by Peng et al. [4]. They proposed an analysis to compare the value of MRI with clinical examination in staging of uterus cervical carcinoma (UCC), which remains the second most commonly diagnosed cancer among female patients and the effective approaches towards UCC rely heavily on the precise pre-surgical staging [5–8]. The conventional International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) system based on clinical examination is being applied worldwide for UCC staging. Yet, its performance just appears passable. The study results suggested that MRI had relatively high accuracy in evaluating UCC staging when compared with current clinical examination method based on FIGO.
The third and fourth articles investigated the feasibility of applying parallel computing to facilitate the use of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and smooth particle hydrodynamics (SPH) in modelling blood flow. One article by Qin et al. [9] presented a robust method for comparison of arterial flow velocity contours by SPH with the well-established CFD technique in computed tomography (CT) reconstructed arteries. Stenosis in arteries is the result of atherosclerosis, and is one of the most common cardiovascular problem that can lead to the malfunction of the vascular system [10–12]. The authors based their study on three-dimensional (3D) straight and curved arterial models of millimeter range with a 25% stenosis in the middle section. In addition, they studied the influence of particles number on SPH versus CFD deviation for blood flow velocity distribution. Experiments showed that, the SPH method had a big potential to be used in the virtual surgery system, such as to simulate the interaction between blood flow and the CT reconstructed vessels. Especially, those with stenosis or plaque when encountering vasculopathy, and for employing the simulation results output in clinical surgical procedures.
The article by Ko et al. [13] investigated pulsatile hemodynamics changes throughout a cardiac cycle in a Stanford Type B thoracic aortic dissection (TAD) model with the aid of CFD method. Clinically, aortic dissection (AD) is one of the most catastrophic and non-traumatic cardiovascular diseases and has a fatality rate of up to 90% when left untreated [14–16]. A patient-specific dissected aorta geometry was reconstructed from the 3D computed tomography angiography (CTA) scanning. The realistic time-dependent pulsatile boundary conditions were prescribed for the 3D patient-specific TAD model. The aortic wall was assumed to be rigid, and a no-slip boundary condition was applied at the wall while the CFD simulations were processed using the finite volume (FV) method to investigate the pulsatile hemodynamics in terms of blood flow velocity, aortic wall pressure, wall shear stress and flow vorticity. Their experiments indicated that, a high wall shear stress and strong vertical flow was observed at dissection initiation. In addition, wall shear progressed along the false lumen, which was a possible cause of blood flow between aortic wall layers. This could provide complementary information to clinicians for better understanding of the pulsatile hemodynamics and help in designing a diagnostic tool for patients with TAD.
The fifth and sixth articles focused on the study of neurology. The article by Cai et al. [17] focused on imaging application in diagnostic evaluation of the medical condition related to neurological diseases and neuroimaging. A precise lesion lateralization and neurosurgery decision-making is important in intractable epilepsy patients. Since epilepsy affects more than 65 million people worldwide, a third of whom have seizures that are resistant to anti-epileptic medications. A large proportion of these intractable patients may be amenable to surgical therapy or treatment with implantable devices under the image guidance with advances in neuroimaging and cloud computing. This has been shown to be of great help in some blastoma patients [18]. And also been shown to applicable in general epilepsy patients [19]. What's more, specifically, image guidance diagnosis has been used in frontal lobe epilepsy patients [20]. However, image guidance has never been used in a more refined and crucial areas such as the supplementary sensorimotor area (SSMA). A problem of great concern is how to provide a reliable definite lesion lateralization marker for epilepsy patients involved in supplementary sensorimotor area (SSMA). By using the combined application of image guidance diagnosis and neurophysiology (electro-semiology), the authors focused their investigation target only on the restricted epileptogenic lesions limited to pure SSMA (confirmed by comparative operative MRI and long-term follow up). Study results showed that unilateral extension and abduction posturing in upper limb was the most prominent and valuable sign for the lesion lateralization in SSMA epilepsy patients' neurosurgery decision-making. Thus, the study finding suggested that image guidance diagnosis (comparative pre- and post- operative MR images) and combined using of other modalities (such as electro-semiology) can be of great diagnostic value in the evaluation of the medical conditions related to some refractory neurological cases.
The article by Zhang et al. [21] dealt with epileptic seizure detection in electroencephalogram (EEG). As we know, epilepsy is a chronic disease, whereby the neurons in the brain discharge suddenly, and causing the brain to have a short dysfunction [22] which may result in cognitive decline, convulsion, injury or even death [23]. This article presented a method for automatic epileptic seizure detection in EEGs based on multi-fractal detrended fluctuation analysis (MF-DFA) and support vector machine (SVM). MF-DFA is a great way to extract features for analysing EEG because of its simple algorithm procedure and less parameters. The study tested the method using a public dataset [24] and the results showed that the new feature extraction method could describe signals with less features and the accuracy of the classification reached up to 99%. Thus, the classification model could achieve comparable accuracy, which means that it is effective in epileptic seizure detection.
The seventh and eighth articles reported the studies that applied a similar technology to Surface electromyography (sEMG) to improve feature extraction and classification based on parallel computing. The article by Luo et al. [25] proposed a genetic algorithm (GA) based Multi-layer Perception (MLP) multi-classification method using GPU acceleration to classify sEMG signals which can be used in the medical prosthetic field. Since traditional EMG is unstable and nonlinear, more attention has been turned to feature extraction and classification of sEMG [26, 27]. In order to select representative features from candidate features, this study used GA which could effectively optimize feature selection to reduce the number of features and the use of GA enabled less features to represent samples. In addition, the study used the trained MLP [28] classifier to predict the classes of sEMG signals. Experimental results showed that the model has higher accuracy and the feature optimization method was more effective as comparing to other existing methods. In addition, it could have practical application value in medical prosthetics and the potential to improve robustness of myoelectric pattern recognition.
The article by Wen et al. [29] presented research on the sEMG signals that are produced by clicking mouse buttons. The sEMG is often used for diagnosing patients with neuromuscular disorders [30]. The proposed method included four steps: data acquisition, sample extraction, feature extraction, and classification. In sample extraction section, a window-based data acquisition method was applied to extract signal samples from sEMG electrodes. In feature extraction step, a 2-dimensional matrix image based feature extraction method was proposed, which is different from classical methods and could transform samples to feature maps for classification. Finally, classical classification algorithms (SVM, KNN, RBF-NN) [31–33] were employed to classify these feature maps. The authors identified that, all these classifiers can classify sEMG samples effectively, and the accuracy of the SVM classifier could reach up to 100%.
The ninth article contributed by Lok et al. [34] presented research on the fast and robust brain tumor segmentation. Brain tumor is a collection of mass of abnormal cell which can be subdivided into active tumor region, necrosis region and edema [35]. Multiple medical images are required to delineate brain tumor accurately due to its heterogeneous content and intensity [36]. This study presented a novel level set method by combining region information of multiple images. A signed pressure force function based on the global statistical information of grey intensity in multiple images was used to replace the edge stopping function in the traditional geodesic active contour model [37]. In addition, a new metric model related to the direction and velocity of the contour evolution named direction term was defined for controlling the segmentation of specific tumor region, such as active tumor region or necrosis region. The new method was evaluated with clinical data by quantitative measurement. Study results demonstrated the effectiveness and robustness on segmenting homogeneously-enhanced tumor, heterogeneously-enhanced tumor, ring-enhanced tumor and non-enhanced tumor with a 2D user-defined initial contour.
Finally, the last article by Feng et al. [38] presented a three-dimensional echocardiography (3DE), which provides an important clinical assessment of left ventricular volume. Currently, data processing of traditional quantitative method requires cumbersome manual adjustment, which is time-consuming and of highly operator-dependency, which make it difficult to be widely used in the clinical practice [39, 40]. Heart Model (HM) is a newly developed automatic left ventricular volume adaptive quantitative software based on big data, which is simple and rapid for quantifying left ventricular volume and function [41]. This study evaluated the feasibility and reproducibility of HM in assessing left ventricular volume and function in patients with left atrial and left ventricular remodeling, Comparing to the traditional quantitative method, the study demonstrated that HM was feasible, required minimal analysis training and was highly reproducible and timesaving. Thus, it promises to facilitate the integration of 3D-based left-heart chamber quantification into clinical practice.
In summary, these 10 selected articles contributed by researchers with a wealth of knowledge in different neurology research and neuroimaging research fields provide readers with valuable sources of information on the recent progress in medical informatics. We hope this special issue will provide a platform for researchers, clinicians, and healthcare professionals to collaborate on some research areas with the aim of promoting medical scientific study. Also, it can be used as a valuable source of references for researchers to conduct more advanced studies in this field.
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Issue 3,4


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News Lifestyle Sport Political Education Regional
i-Spy Local
Administrators call for patience as takeover nears completion
BOLTON Wanderers are set to be taken over by the Football Ventures consortium, headed by Sharon Brittan.
Administrators have announced that they had identified a preferred new owner for the League One club.
Final offers were received from five parties before the deadline.
The successful bid met the criteria outlined by the administrators, including proof of funds for the next two years and EFL approval.
It has not yet been publicly confirmed who the new owners will be, but Paul Appleton of administrators David Rubin & Partners have released a statement which confirms progress has been made and that a full announcement will be made in the "very near future".
He said "I want to keep Bolton fans up to speed with the process in terms of revealing the preferred bidder for the club as I'm aware of the uncertainty of the situation as far as supporters are concerned.
"We are very close to finalising the Heads of Terms agreement and are working towards a completion date of next week. But, as everybody must be aware, this is a hugely important deal in the history of the club and it is vital that nothing is hurried or overlooked.
"Lawyers from all sides are fine-tuning the agreement and I would expect to be able to make a fuller statement in the very near future.
"Until then, supporters can rest assured we are doing everything in our power to ensure the future of Bolton Wanderers is secured."
Wanderers went into administration at the end of a tumultuous season which saw problems on and off the field, and culminated in relegation from the Championship.
A winding-up petition against the club over an unpaid tax bill was suspended by the High Court after the club went into administration, and an emergency food bank was set up to help out staff who had not been paid.
Bolton, who will start next season in League One with a 12-point deduction, have also released a list of the 14 players that remain contracted to the club, including goalkeeper Ben Alnwick and Northern Ireland striker Josh Magennis.
Contracted players: Ben Alnwick, Jordan Boon*, Eddie Brown*, Luca Connell, Ronan Darcy, Liam Edwards*, Connor Hall, Jason Lowe, Josh Magennis, Remi Matthews, Luke Murphy, Erhun Oztumer, Dennis Politic*, Yoan Zouma*
*denotes player yet to make a first-team appearance
2018-19 appearance makers not listed: Sammy Ameobi, Mark Beevers (joined Peterborough), Harry Brockbank, Will Buckley, Clayton Donaldson, Lloyd Dyer, Jack Earing, Jack Hobbs, Mark Little (joined Bristol Rovers), Joseph Muscatt, Craig Noone, Gary O'Neil, Pawel Olkowski, Joe Pritchard (joined Accrington), Andrew Taylor, Josh Vela, David Wheater, Marc Wilson
Departing loanees: Callum Connolly, Jonathan Grounds, Yanic Wildshut, Joe Williams
Ironman invasion makes a spectacular show
Woman jailed for four years for £440,000 online tobacco scam
Man taken to hospital after shooting in Bolton
Old pacer trains to create new community spaces
15.36 - Overcast
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Four fire engines and around 25 firefighters were called to a fire at a butcher's shop in Grand Avenue, Farringdon.
A small part of the butcher's shop was damaged by fire. Approximately 20 people were evacuated from the market. There were no reports of any injuries.
The Brigade was called at 2041 and the fire was under control at 2206. Fire crews from Dowgate, Whitechapel and Soho fire stations attended the scene.
The cause of the fire was accidental and due to a failure within a chiller unit.


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Try out the /swap command on the new server.
When a game is created, before it starts the creator can swap colors of players.
will swap red and blue, for example.
Any players swapped will need to press ready again. This is so the player can agree to the swap before the game begins.
Also, try the new /kick command!
What does the kick command do?
1v1? And 2v2 and FFA?
Lets say ur playing a FFA and there's a player u don't want in your game how do I kick him without kicking the other players?
Omg thank u so much Scott thats amazing, it works gr8!
Lol brian if a picture is worth a thousand words, whats an animation worth? Scott, will there be an update by summer?
It would be a nice enhancement if you could define colors not just swap colors. Lets say theres a 2-4 player game hosted by player1. Player1 is blue, player2 is red, and player3 is yellow. There is no way for someone to become cyan without a 4th player joining and player1 swapping.
Some players don't like to be swapped, and won't play the game if they get swapped. So when I play 2v2 with my friends, we try to get on the same team before the other players join, to avoid arguments about colors. If I host, my friend joins, and we aren't put on the same team, we have to swap after the other players join. About 30%-40% of the time, someone gets upset about the swap and won't ready up after the swap. Then I gotta cancel and remake. Sometimes my friend will join and leave a bunch of times (before someone joins and get's the color he/she wants) until the server makes him/her the color they want. That makes a good deal of unwanted grey spam.
What I'm saying is, it would be useful if you could 'swap' without another players having the color you're swapping someone to. Although, I'm not sure if that could be done without allowing people to swap to AI colors (like someone might try to swap to cyan in a co op where AI is cyan).
is there a topic or statement that completely explains the /kick command?
I don't think there's an official topic. There might be a post somewhere on the forums where one of the players explain it.
I think it's a command scott added as a joke.
I agree with what you're saying N.
No, I think he meant "another news". A minute before he made that post he made a post on this topic saying that the topic should be in news.
You should make it so all players have to press ready again after a swap, not just the two players swapped.
Lets say I'm in the "waiting for players to join" screen for a 2vs2 game. It's BRvsYC. Right now I'm blue, player2 is yellow, player3 is red, and player4 is cyan. Player3 is the hoster. All colors are ready. Player2 swaps yellow and red (player2 and player3 are swapped). Only player3 and player2 have to press ready again (actually, player3 doesn't need to because he's the hoster). Player3 can now start the game. The issue is, player4 is now teamed with a different player, and he might not agree with that. But since player4 wasn't swapped, he wasn't un-readyed. Thus, the game can start without his agreement.
That's why I think that when /swap is used, all players should be un-readyed and have to press ready again, so that everyone can agree to the setup and teams.


text:
Baby boomer women make up for lost study time and head back to university
September 27, 2017 11.02pm EDT
Dr Lesley Neale, Curtin University
Dr Lesley Neale
Adjunct Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Curtin University
Dr Lesley Neale does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Curtin University provides funding as a member of The Conversation AU.
We should encourage older women to see academic study as a fruitful, challenging way forward, regardless of age. Shutterstock
Statistics from the Department of Education and Training show a steady cohort of baby boomer postgraduates, mostly women, enrolling at university at the age of 60 or over.
"Why on earth are you doing that?" friends ask. "Aren't you a bit old? Your grandchildren will feel neglected."
An upward trend
Between 2012 and 2015, Australian universities recorded a steady stream of enrolments. The larger the university, the higher the numbers. Take Western Australia's five universities for example:
The numbers for male postgraduates were similar, occasionally slightly lower. Available figures for 2016 do not indicate appreciable changes in enrolment numbers of males or females. Both groups may include existing academic staff, but the question remains as to why baby boomers are moving towards higher academic studies rather than retirement.
Completion rates for senior researchers indicate that whatever their reasons, they are highly successful:
The old status quo
Social changes for women since the 1950s explain a lot. Women, it seems, are reaching towards long-held but unsatisfied desires for academic study.
In 1960s Australia, only 27% of university students were female. University was not a common goal for girls in that era. They were not expected to have long careers, if any at all. Acceptable options were nursing, clerical positions, teaching or hairdressing, none of which required a degree. Young married women were asked at job interviews if they intended to become pregnant, and learned to say "no" regardless of their intentions, rather than risk failing the interview.
University was not a common pathway for a girl, but marriage was. In the same time period, 45% of girls who left formal education after secondary school were married by the time they were 20. On the flip side, only 20% of those who did attend university were married by 20.
The era's unwritten rule was marry early, have children straight away. Once children arrived, returning to work was frowned upon. For example, one colleague waited until her children were over 18, then delayed her academic aspirations even longer to help care for grandchildren. "Family first," she said. She was halfway through a PhD when we met, and closer to 70 years old than 60.
Since the 1960s, the status of women and the acceptability of post-marriage careers and further social changes have made university education for young women a viable option. Baby boomers who missed out are now seizing their opportunity. Their motivation is not the apprehension of retirement and subsequent loss of identity, as is the case with older male postgraduates, but rather the lure of a new phase of life. One that was out of reach before. At university, senior women are achieving in their own right, no longer functioning as complementary bodies to men as mothers, wives, sisters or daughters.
I began postgraduate research at 63. In 2015, I was among 118 women over 60 at Western Australia's five universities who successfully completed their degrees. In Australia's most populous state, New South Wales, 373 senior women from 13 universities gained postgraduate degrees.
Studies show the intellectual, physical and emotional benefit of such challenges for older people. In 1989, UNESCO viewed academic and further education for older people as a legitimate use of higher education. In 2005 the OECD recognised the needs and aspirations of older people.
While it may still be seen as unusual for women to begin academic studies in their later years, it is not strange for women in their sixties to continue fulfilling academic careers. Academia is one place where seniors of any gender continue working until they decide to call it a day. Examples of women who do just that are easy to find: Professor of Classics at Cambridge University Mary Beard, age 62. Germaine Greer, writer and Professor at Warwick University, age 78. Curtin University's Associate Professor Liz Byrski, age 73. The list goes on.
Senior female academics' potential
We should encourage older women to see academic study as a fruitful, challenging way forward, regardless of age.
For the trailblazing cohort of older researchers, the question remains - is there a future for them after graduating? They can assure themselves that they are role-models to grandchildren, other women, and the wider community. Some become mentors, officially or unofficially, to younger postgraduates or they may take up sessional academic positions - but they can do and be so much more.
People are living longer. We are healthier and more active in our later years. We are told 50 is the new 40, so surely 60 can be the new 50. Baby boomer postgraduates want to participate long after they are 60. It is shortsighted not to see the social and economic benefits of this. To the universities who nurtured them, and awarded scholarships, these women are an untapped asset. They could easily become research pods of energy and output, supported by their alma maters, to the advantage of both.
women academics


Histoplasmosis: likely the most common disease associated with pigeons and bird contamination. Histoplasmosis is a fungal lung disease that is transmitted from pigeons to humans via dust and dander. The fungal spores would grow in a pile such as the one shown above, and then blow throughout the building. Yikes! Under damp and humid conditions, such as here in Florida, mold can grow easily. When the feather dander and dust are disturbed, such as when air flows through this duct, the spores can fly in the air, the mold can be inhaled and lodged in the lungs of the students or staff, where it can grow into a serious infection if not caught and treated.
Cryptococcosis: is another fungal disease associated with pigeon droppings, though it is actually unlikely that healthy people will become infected. Most people who contract cryptococcosis have compromised immune systems, such as HIV carriers.
Parasites: Includes the Pigeon Nest Bug and the bat bug (both related to the beg bug), soft ticks, biting lice and the pigeon flythese parasites. Though these parasites can bite and irritate, they are unlikely to transmit diseases to humans. The northern fowl mite and chicken mite are also possible in a pile of droppings like this. Although most parasites associated with bird droppings or nests die quickly after the birds leave, some may live for several weeks. Droppings, feathers, food and dead birds under a roosting area can breed flies, carpet beetles and other insects that may become a problem in the immediate area.
Cleaning: This duct should have been cleaned and decontaminated. To clean the waste and the potential fungal spores, cleanup should be done by a professional, using both powerful disinfectants and enzyme-based organic waste cleaners. If I were to do this job, I'd wear a respirator that can filter particles as small as 0.3 microns and wear a disposable biohazard suit with gloves. During the cleanup, I'd have sealed heating and cooling air ducts and shut the system down. I'd vacuum out the main bulk of droppings, but first I'd moisten the droppings with a Disinfectant to keep spores from becoming airborne and keep them wet. All the poop and nesting material would be stored in sealed plastic garbage bags 3 mil thick, and when finished and while still wearing the respirator, I'd remove the biohazard suit and place it in the plastic bag. For parasite control, the roost area should be treated with a residual insecticide appropriately labeled by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for control of fleas, ticks, mites and similar pests.


That stuff is so out of date.
Cool it man. Poppa's gonna sing!
Poppa don't sing often, but he do sing mean.
So by the time you get to the third line you've had time to think up a rhyme.
Oh there ain't no law that says the third line has to be different at all.
No, no, there ain't no law that says the third line has to be different at all.
No there ain't no law that says the third line has to be different at all.
Never borrow a mouth organ - not even from your best friend.
No, no, no, never borrow a mouth organ - not even from your best friend.
'Cos you may survive the blowing, but the sucking's gonna get you in the end. Oh yeah!


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Home > Nanotechnology Columns > UAlbany College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering > CNSE Addresses Unique Nanotechnology Challenges
Michael Fancher
Associate Professor of Nanoeconomics
UAlbany College of Nanoscale Science & Engineering
Nanoelectronics Research Initiative (NRI), a consortium of Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) member companies, to charter the Nanoelectronics Research Corporation (NERC) to develop and administer a university-based program to address the lower size limits of complementary metal-oxide semiconductors (CMOS) technology that will be reached in about 10 years.
CNSE Addresses Unique Nanotechnology Challenges
Predictions that the lower size limits of complementary metal-oxide semiconductors (CMOS) technology will be reached in about 10 years prompted the Nanoelectronics Research Initiative (NRI), a consortium of Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) member companies, to charter the Nanoelectronics Research Corporation (NERC) to develop and administer a university-based program to address this issue. A major component of this effort is the new $435 million Institute for Nanoelectronics Discovery and Exploration (INDEX). Headquartered at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE), University at Albany-State University of New York, INDEX is the result of a joint effort by SIA and the Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) to create the "Bell Labs for the 21st Century" through partnerships between the nation's premier research universities, and the world's leading semiconductor research, development, and manufacturing companies.
INDEX's mission is to develop the "holy grail" for nanoelectronic devices, exploring a variety of new nano-enabled materials, substrates, tools, processes and designs. It will play an integral role in New York State's strategy to establish an R&D - manufacturing eco-system already well underway at CNSE's Albany NanoTech Complex. With a current net asset base of $3.5 billion located within 450,000 square feet of state-of-the-art facilities, including 60,000 square feet of Class 1 capable 300mm wafer cleanrooms, the complex is home to over 1,400 scientists, researchers, engineers and technicians from many of the world's leading nanoelectronics companies, such as IBM, AMD, Qimonda, Micron, SEMATECH, Applied Materials, Tokyo Electron, ASML, Ebara, SONY, Toshiba, Freescale, Vistec Lithography and Honeywell, among many others.
Combined with the emergence of nanofabrication infrastructure on the 300mm wafer format, the convergence of nanotechnology with electronics, photonics, bioelectronics, microsystems and wireless technologies is rapidly approaching. This convergence will accelerate growth in a broad array of industries by enabling the development of pervasive tether-free computing. However, unlocking the enormous market opportunities in such diverse sectors as energy, biohealth and security will remain elusive until a common integration platform and a coherent roadmap for achieving interoperability is established.
The development of three dimensional (3-D) wafer-scale hyper-integration schemes for 300mm wafer processing is emerging as one of the key drivers in providing a common integration platform capable of integrating heterogeneous structures, materials and devices. Combined with new programs supporting the continuation of exponential growth in efficiency through nanolithography and game-changing performance improvement enabled by nanostructured materials, pervasive tether-free computing is well on its way to becoming a reality.
The development of nanolithography technology, such as Extreme UltraViolet and direct-write electron-beam, 3-D wafer-scale system-in-a-package integration, and nanostructured materials' processes such as atomic layer deposition (ALD), are some of the key technology drivers under development for integrating nanotechnology in logic and memory devices at CNSE's Albany NanoTech complex, in partnership with over 250 global industry partners. With the development of the industry supply chain for nanolithography, 3-D wafer-scale packaging and ALD processing, industry compliant approaches for integrating logic, memory, sensors, wireless and power will be soon be available, enabling pervasive tether-free computing in diverse market segments over the next three to five years.
Some of the most interesting emerging applications involve the use of technologies developed for one application in a completely new way, thus greatly expanding market potential while allowing significant leveraging of existing know-how and even supply chain infrastructure. Good examples lie in the alternative energy arena. New energy storage technologies such as high efficiency supercapacitors and ultracapacitors employ some of the same materials and processing technologies used in the semiconductor, thin film head, and display fields, such as atomic layer deposition and 3-D integration.
In much the same way, recent announcements by multi-billion dollar semiconductor suppliers such as Applied Materials and DuPont indicating forays into the photovoltaics space immediately allows tremendous possibilities for increased collaboration, learning, and cross-pollination from the semiconductor industry.
The increasing cost and related risk associated with atomic scale manufacturing requires a closer coupling between research, development and manufacturing. A new generation of institutions executing dynamic cross-industry, cross-disciplinary models is emerging, led by CNSE, that are responding to the unique challenges and opportunities created by nanotechnology. These institutions are establishing a new paradigm for state-of-the-art research, education and technology deployment that offers industry and government a highly leveraged return on its investment in projects, programs and centers.
New York State is leading the country by providing over $500 million in governmental support, combined with over $3.0 billion in matching corporate investments at CNSE, creating a Quick-Turn-Around-Time (QTAT) 200mm & 300mm wafer pilot-prototyping and workforce training capability at CNSE. New York State's investments are the critical "missing link" for commercialization by reducing the risk, cost and time to market of nanotechnology-enabled devices for our industry partners. Albany's unique IP-oriented Integration Lab Model, which supports partnerships between the College and small, medium and large-sized companies in vertically-integrated teams, enables the successful integration of multifunctional devices for low-cost, field-robust, tether-free computing applications.
In the United States, federal funding must recognize the emergence of new university-based technology, educational, and business models that concurrently support long-term "bottom-up" research, while also supporting shorter-term "top-down" development and pilot scale-up manufacturing. Funding should encourage cross-industry, cross-platform initiatives targeting convergence opportunities that leverage the shared-use nanofabrication infrastructure capable of supporting the entire continuum of nanotechnology research, development and manufacturing.
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text:
More fake Chinese police cars are spotted in Australian cities as locals fear they're trying to intimidate Hong Kong protesters - and cops STILL won't take action
More fake Chinese police cars have been spotted in major cities in Australia
Cars have a Chinese Police logo and the word 'police' written on it in Mandarin
It is suggested that these cars are being used to intimidate protesters
WA Police have said that having Chinese characters on a car is not illegal
By Mahnaz Angury For Daily Mail Australia
More fake Chinese police cars have been spotted in major cities as the number of rallies in support of Hong Kong democracy protests grows across Australia.
Police are investigating sightings of cars that have a Chinese Police logo and the word 'police' written on them in Mandarin, similar to the police cars stationed in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.
The sightings have been confirmed by authorities in South Australia and Western Australia.
It is suggested that the fake Chines police vehicles (pictured) are being used to intimidate pro-democracy protesters
Police vehicles in China (stock picture) commonly have the same markings and colour scheme, right down to the stripes on the side
It is suggested that these vehicles are being used to intimidate pro-democracy protesters.
Chinese expats are afraid their former country could be monitoring them, particularly with the ongoing protests in Hong Kong.
Moment a Aussie grandmother is 'saved' from Hong Kong... Riot cops march through Hong Kong using tear gas to stop...
'We are fearful of such Chinese authorities, as most Australians know about the protests in Hong Kong by now,' expat Ho Yan Kwan said.
'So such brazen display, whether actually real or a prank, is worrying for the Hong Konger community here in WA who has no love for China.'
Others who spotted the cars are reluctant to believe they are fake.
One Twitter user believes the Chinese police cars are in fact real
People gather in Perth for a rally calling for an end to violence in China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR)
Pictured: Hong Kong protesters outside the University of Adelaide on Friday
Some fear the Chinese police are actually being allowed to operate in Australia, pointing out the identical car decal.
Despite the fears, WA police say that replicating a car with another country's police car design is not against Australian law.
Mr Ho shared an email from a WA Police sergeant saying using Chinese markings on cars was not illegal.
'Whilst I understand your concerns, the person is not committing any WA offences by having Chinese markings on their vehicle, therefore I cannot allocate for this inquiry,' the sergeant allegedly wrote.
A Land Rover with Chinese police livery is cruising around the streets of Perth, scaring the local Chinese community
Green MP Tammy Franks told the ABC laws relating to the impersonation of foreign police cars in Australia need to be tightened.
She expressed her interest in introducing a private member's bill to 'ensure impersonating police forces is illegal in South Australia and send a clear and strong message that we stand for peaceful protest and democracy'.
In a statement this week, WA Police said that it was 'aware of this matter and is investigating'.
Fake Chinese police cars spotted in Perth and Adelaide amid pro-Hong Kong rallies - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
More Chinese Police cars spotted in Australian cities amid pro-Hong Kong protests


text:
United Nations Recognizes Yom Kippur As Official Holiday
New York, NY — December 20, 2015 … It's not a joke. The one international organization which loves to bash the Jews and their tiny democratic state – Israel – has declared Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, an official holiday.
Last Thursday the UN officially recognized Yom Kippur as an official holiday for the first time in its seventy year history. UN employees who are Jewish will have the day off and no official meetings are to take place on Yom Kippur.
The UN recognizes Christmas day and Good Friday as official religious Christian holidays and Eid al- Fitr and Eid al Adha as official Muslim holidays. Efforts for the UN to recognize Yom Kippur as an official holiday began three years ago by Ron Prosor, the former Israeli ambassador to the UN.
US Ambassador Samantha Power also played a crucial role in preventing the anti-Israel majority from blocking the resolution.
"Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the year for the Jewish people, and the U.N. should have recognized this holiday many years ago," said Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon. "Today we finally have an official place for the Jewish religion in the world's Parliament."
The holiday is a day set aside to atone for sins and reflect on the year past and the year ahead. Yom Kippur lasts 26 hours, and many Jews choose to fast for the entire time. Many Jews also don't bathe during Yom Kippur, and many abstain from cosmetics, deodorant and wearing leather shoes.
No mention was made by the U.N. that the ancient Yom Kippur ceremonies took place at the Temple in Jerusalem which is the capital of Israel.
A Facebook page was created for the promotion of making Yom Kippur an official holiday at the UN and in the US. Today, we ask that you join and share this page in our quest to have the Jewish New Year – Rosh HaShana designated as an official holiday in both the United Nations and in the US workplace.
Category: News Tags: facebook, holiday, jerusalem, jewish, jews, rosh hashana, social media, un, united nations, western wall, yom kippur
Jewish Republicans Urge Trump To Support United Jerusalem, Reject Muslim Ban
Republican Presidential hopeful Donald Trump speaks during the 2016 Republican
Jewish Coalition Presidential Candidates Forum in Washington, Dec. 3, 2015.
Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
By Morgan Winsor
Joel Leyden, 56, is by all accounts an avid Donald Trump supporter. The international media consultant and journalist, who splits his time between New York and Israel, has even started a Facebook page called "Jews 4 Trump," which has more than 7,000 likes, along with a Twitter handle that has more than 1,300 followers.
"He's done a fantastic job. The man is a marketing genius," Leyden said during a telephone interview this week.
But for Leyden and many other Jewish-Americans, the Republican presidential front-runner's recent remarks about Muslims echoes the earliest days of Nazi propaganda in 20th century Germany. The controversy could jeopardize Trump's following in the Jewish community, a small but promising voting bloc for the GOP.
"[Trump] does not have a racist bone in his body. I believe he really means well," Leyden insisted. "But he is doing some things almost in a reckless manner."
Trump has made a number of incendiary statements along the campaign trail about Hispanics and women. But Trump's campaign press release Monday "calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on" struck outrage among people of all races and religions around the world. And his refusal to call Jerusalem Israel's undivided capital at the Republican Jewish Coalition's presidential forum last week offended Jewish voters in the U.S. even further.
Several Jewish groups and leaders have spoken out against the proposed ban. Rabbi Gary Atkins, president of the Greater Hartford Rabbinical Association in Connecticut, wrote a letter Wednesday signed by 14 other members of the group condemning and rejecting Trump's call to bar entry to all Muslims as "bigoted and offensive."
For decades, the Jewish community has been a reliable voting bloc for Democrats. In recent elections, however, the Republican Party has stepped up efforts to corrode that allegiance. In the 2012 presidential election, Jewish support for the Democratic Party plunged 9 percent while support for the GOP increased by the same amount. Unless he modifies his statements on Muslims and Jerusalem, political strategists said Trump could chip away at any and all support from Jewish conservatives.
"The Republican Jews who are very involved in the political process that I know and work with – I don't know anybody that's supporting [Trump], especially after some of his comments. His statements are not consistent, I believe, with Jewish values," said Lee Cowen, a GOP political consultant. "The irony is that there are still Jews out there who will support him despite what he says."
#Jews urge #Trump to clarify remarks on #Muslim ban. Do as #Israel, respect all religions, enhance security. @realDonaldTrump @ChrisCuomo
— Jews 4 Trump (@Jews4Trump) December 8, 2015
Leyden, who has volunteered extensively for Trump's campaign in New England, has posted on the "Jews 4 Trump" Facebook page and Twitter account, urging the businessman-turned-politician to clarify his proposed ban, as well as his position on Jerusalem. Leyden also raised the issues in the "New Hampshire For Donald Trump" Facebook page, which he created specifically for Trump's campaign. The campaign on Thursday took down the New Hampshire page, which had reached nearly 10,000 likes, saying the posts questioning the remarks on Muslims and Jerusalem were "trashing Trump," Leyden said.
Leyden commended Trump for postponing this week a planned trip to Israel, which has a sizeable Muslim population, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned his proposal to ban U.S. travel for all Muslims. Trump must now retract or revise his remarks on Muslims and Jerusalem, Leyden said, otherwise the presidential hopeful will lose his vote and those of many other Jewish-Americans.
"We can't wait to embrace the guy and have a beer once he states that, one, Jerusalem is the united capital of Israel and, two, that there will be no ban of all Muslims," he said. "I think Trump is advocating for a safer and more secure United States. But you can't discriminate against a religion."
Other Jewish-Americans are taking Trump's comments less seriously. Brian Sherman, a member of the "Jews 4 Trump" Facebook group, dismissed any parallels between Trump's invective against Muslims and Adolf Hitler's hatred for Jews. Sherman, who said he has many Muslim friends, argued Trump often says things he doesn't mean or fails to clarify his statements. The California resident said he was particularly drawn to Trump because of his fiscal policies, which vow to slash taxes for the poor and the wealthy.
"From a Jewish business perspective, Trump is the one I'd say who has the most knowledge about taking $1 million and turning it into $2 billion," said Sherman, 32, a registered independent in San Dimas who tends to vote right. "But he spends too much time on nonsense than on the actual aspects of his policies. He needs a lot of damage control."
Although he also disagrees with the proposed Muslim ban, Sherman said he plans to vote for Trump if he wins the Republican nomination. Trump's positions on immigration and national security are not meant to be hateful, Sherman said, but rather aim to enhance anti-terrorism efforts.
Rabbi Bernhard Rosenberg in Edison, New Jersey, said comparing the presidential hopeful to Hitler was "ridiculous." Rosenberg recently stepped down from his congregation to build support for Trump in the Jewish community, launching his own "Rabbis for Trump" campaign.
"A lot of what [Trump] is saying is hype," Rosenberg, whose parents survived the Holocaust, told NJ.com Tuesday. "What Hitler said was reality."
Category: News Tags: discrimination, donald trump, israel, jerusalem, jewish, jews, muslim ban, muslims, netanyahu, racist, republicans, security, trump


text:
What We're Reading: Top State Stories 1/29
Stateline Editors Picks January 29, 2019
Topics: Politics and Campaigns, Business of Government, Labor , Health, Social Issues, Federal Impact, Tax & Safety Net Read time:
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KY: Kentucky secretary of state's staff searched voting records of workers and rivals
kentucky.com
An investigation by ProPublica and the Lexington Herald-Leader shows that the searches by the Kentucky secretary of state's staffers were extensive and targeted prominent state politicians, including a gubernatorial candidate who could have been her opponent in the Democratic primary.
MD: Maryland lawmakers want to open unemployment benefits to all federal workers
baltimoresun.com
Although a 35-day partial federal shutdown ended, Maryland Democrats are moving forward with emergency legislation to allow federal employees forced to work without pay during a government shutdown to collect unemployment insurance in the state.
TN: Driven by opioid crisis, more children in Tennessee living in foster care
tennessean.com
Driven largely by the opioid epidemic, the number of kids entering foster care in Tennessee has jumped by more than 10 percent in the past two years, straining the budget of the state Department of Children's Services. The agency's chief says it needs an additional $78 million to care for them.
TX: Civil rights groups warn that Texas voter citizenship check could violate federal law
texastribune.org
Lawyers with 13 organizations are demanding that Texas rescind an advisory to local election officials that they check the citizenship status of 95,000 registered voters. The groups claim the state's data is flawed and demand more information about the methodology it used.
KS: Trump incumbency has Kansas GOP considering scrapping 2020 presidential caucus
kansas.com
The Kansas caucus doesn't select the delegates to the Republican National Convention, where the party's nominee will be chosen. But it does bind the state's delegates to support particular candidates, based roughly on the percentage of rank-and-file Republicans who voted for them.
VA: In a shift, Virginia speaker backs redistricting commission
Virginia House Speaker Kirk Cox, a Republican, is backing a plan to have a bipartisan commission draw new legislative boundaries, a major shift in the yearslong fight over redistricting. Lengthy court battles over the 2011 redistricting lines have prompted the switch.
WI: Wisconsin attorney general declines to represent governor in lame-duck lawsuit
jsonline.com
Wisconsin Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul has declined to represent Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in a suit over lame-duck laws that limits their powers, saying it was a conflict of interest because one of the laws curbed Kaul's Department of Justice.
UT: Utah House speaker calls for $225 million tax cut
sltrib.com
Utah's Republican Gov. Gary Herbert has proposed a $200 million tax cut, and House Speaker Brad Wilson — also a Republican — has proposed an additional $25 million. But talk of tax cuts comes at a time when state analysts are warning of an impending recession.
CA: Lawmakers want to cut California's pot taxes to help lagging legal market
Frustrated that California's licensed marijuana industry is struggling to compete against the black market, a group of state officials is pressing to slash taxes on legal pot shops and growers.
FL: Florida governor seems open to medical marijuana
miamiherald.com
Republican Sen. Jeff Brandes, who filed a bill to repeal Florida's medical marijuana smoking ban, appears to have found a receptive ear in Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.
ND: North Dakota House passes bill requiring doctors to inform women of potential for abortion reversal
inforum.com
The North Dakota House easily passed a contentious bill requiring physicians to inform women that they could reverse drug-induced abortions, a claim opponents have said isn't supported by science.
NY: Victims of child sexual abuse are poised to win expanded protections in New York
For more than a decade, Democratic lawmakers in New York have tried to allow victims of decades-old childhood sexual abuse to seek justice — only to meet fierce opposition from powerful interests including insurance companies, private schools and religious leaders from the Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox Jewish communities.
SD: South Dakotans one step closer to carrying concealed handguns without a permit
argusleader.com
Legislation allowing people to carry concealed handguns without a permit in South Dakota, also called "constitutional carry," passed another hurdle. The House State Affairs Committee gave the bill its blessing in a 10-3 vote after hearing 90 minutes of testimony about the measure.
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text:
Q: Relative import of CJS module from an eval'ed Worker in Node? I am creating a worker from a source string like so:
import { Worker } from "worker_threads"

const w = new Worker(mySourceCode, {eval: true})

This works fine in most cases.
However, suppose I have a CommonJS module (ESM isn't supported in eval'ed workers) that I want to import into the worker scope. Since the worker doesn't have a source file on the disk, there is no way I can think of to make a relative import work. This is the error message I get if I try to relative import from the path of the source file of the parent thread:
node:internal/event_target:916
  process.nextTick(() => { throw err; });
                           ^
node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:936
  throw err;
  ^

Error: Cannot find module './c.js'
Require stack:
- /mnt/c/ME/[worker eval]
    at Function.Module._resolveFilename (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:933:15)
    at Function.Module._load (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:778:27)
    at Module.require (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:999:19)
    at require (node:internal/modules/cjs/helpers:102:18)
    at [worker eval]:3:20
    at Script.runInThisContext (node:vm:129:12)
    at Object.runInThisContext (node:vm:305:38)
    at node:internal/process/execution:76:19
    at [worker eval]-wrapper:6:22
    at evalScript (node:internal/process/execution:75:60)
Emitted 'error' event on Worker instance at:
    at Worker.[kOnErrorMessage] (node:internal/worker:289:10)
    at Worker.[kOnMessage] (node:internal/worker:300:37)
    at MessagePort.<anonymous> (node:internal/worker:201:57)
    at MessagePort.[nodejs.internal.kHybridDispatch] (node:internal/event_target:647:20)
    at MessagePort.exports.emitMessage (node:internal/per_context/messageport:23:28) {
  code: 'MODULE_NOT_FOUND',
  requireStack: [ '/mnt/c/Users/ME/[worker eval]' ]
}

Node.js v17.5.0

How can I relative import a module from a Worker?

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
package org.mycontroller.standalone.imperihome;

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;

import org.mycontroller.standalone.db.tables.SensorVariable;
import org.mycontroller.standalone.imperihome.ImperiHomeSSIUtils.DEVICE_PARM_KEY;

import lombok.AllArgsConstructor;
import lombok.Builder;
import lombok.Data;
import lombok.NoArgsConstructor;

/**
 * @author Jeeva Kandasamy (jkandasa)
 * @since 0.0.3
 */

@Data
@Builder
@NoArgsConstructor
@AllArgsConstructor
public class Device {
    private String id;
    private String name;
    private String room;
    private String type;
    private List<DeviceParam> params;

    public Device updateDeviceParm(SensorVariable sensorVariable) {
        if (params == null) {
            params = new ArrayList<DeviceParam>();
        }
        params.add(DeviceParam.builder()
                .key(DEVICE_PARM_KEY.valueOf(sensorVariable.getVariableType().name()).getText())
                .value(sensorVariable.getValue())
                .unit(sensorVariable.getUnit().length() == 0 ? null : sensorVariable.getUnit())
                //.graphable(sensorVariable.getMetricType() == METRIC_TYPE.NONE ? false : true)
                .graphable(false)
                .build());
        return this;
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Natural Law, Divine Rights, and the political theology of Carl Schmitt
Antoinette points out that property law is an innovation required by feudalism, insofar as the monarch and his lords required a means to transfer use and possession of the land to the peasantry while maintaining their fundamental sovereignty (understood by the phrase, "Every man's home is the King's castle.") She suggests that the capacity to promise is jurisprudentially and historically prior to property relations. I like this account, if only because it shows the fundamental difference between Roman juridical theory and the Anglo-European legal theory.
While I don't know much about Roman jurisprudence except what I've learned from Giorgio Agamben, I suspect that the Romans would have been primarilty interested in potencies and powers, and thus focused on the contract as the instantiation of the potent and profoundly human ability to speak for the future. The rights-discourse that liberalism favors is only possible under the auspices of the Christian God, who leases out properties like intelligence or goodness, but expects a return on his investment! Check out the parable of the talents, for instance.
The strange interplay in political philosophy between social contract theory and natural law still requires some explication, however. I think the solution has to do with the way that Hobbes and Locke posit natural rights as prior to the contract. Especially for Locke, and arguably for Hobbes, the naturalness or God-given nature of rights serves to delimit the sorts of things that a culture can contract away, and puts some common sense limits on the expected law 'n' order required in exchange for allegiance to a sovereign.
This brings up an interesting point from my earlier post, which is that the state's stabilization of the flux and flow of social life does not account for its unique decisive power. Beyond the mere reflection or correspondance of the state to the general situation, the institutions of the state develop the capacity to intervene, to create a new situation through policy dictates and legislation. Political thinkers like Hegel argue that this power to intervene reflects a corresponding power in one subsection of the people: the rich, acting together, can engage in projects that have similar decisive power. They can hire mercenaries, engage in large scale projects for the public good, keep a staff of firefighters, etc. On this account, the state takes on this role at the behest of the noble rich, basically coordinating their efforts.. Our allegiance to the sovereign or our obedience to the executive is dependent upon his continued respect for the contract we have made to provide these services. Under liberalism, we only make such contracts in order to further preserve and cultivate our property.
But I've been reading a lot of Carl Schmitt, lately, so I'm much more attuned to another element of state institutions, one that has again become obvious to us after 9/11. States can take decisions that do not meet with the approval of their constituents. Hegel thought that the monarchical executive was unavoidable, because committees and oligarchies are hamstrung by their plurality. The will is necessarily singular, even when it governs a nation-state. But Hegel thought that the executive would tend to support the rule of law, maintaining basic class divisions while attempting to preserve his own legitimacy by ruling wisely and well. Schmitt says, quite simply, "What if he doesn't?" What if the King, or the president, or the chancellor, takes up the reins of power and jerks them sharply?
Given the appropriate occasions (a fire in the Reichstag, a group of airplanes used as bombs, a war we are losing) the executive can justifiably say that we need to turn on a dime, do things drastically differently, and that there is no time for discussion and dithering and incessant chatter. "I made a decision. America will not wait to be attacked again. We will confront emerging threats before they fully materialize," could just as easily become Hitler's defense of the Night of Long Knives: "If anyone reproaches me and asks why I did not resort to the regular courts of justice, then all I can say is this: In this hour I was responsible for the fate of the German people, and thereby I became the supreme judge of the German people."
I'm not equating Bush with Hitler (though the parallels are pretty spooky), but I think it is clear that executives become more powerful under states of exception, and only the executive can declare that state of exception. This strange interruptive power will always upset the regular order of governance, and it seems to be built into the basic structure of the decision. So when Heidegger turns to eventuation, you might say that he's simply pointing to an inadequacy in the metaphysics of Being that seeks to suppress Becoming. You can't hold back the event, so why get comfortable with the world as it is when it'll inevitably change? It's not that we need to amend the executive's powers, it's that the decision regarding wartime powers and executive privileges will eventually fall to someone. It'll eventually be the swing-voter on the Supreme Court, or that one Congressman, or somebody, who actually makes the decision. It may be a moving target, but wherever it lands, that's the sovereign.
During the month of November, 2000, the sovereignty of the United States of America switched from Florida swing-voters, to Katherine Harris, to Sandra Day O'Connor! They made the decision, and the rest of us watched, and because we couldn't fathom the loss of the rule of law, and everything the state stands for and against, we went along with the decision. That's how decisions work, and all because the state isn't simply a reflection of the people, but rather constitutes the people that it reflects. Like a son who looks like his father, the people see their will reflected in the actions of the State because they have been molded by it. It's not really sufficient, then, to say that its sovereignty is simply on loan from the people.
I'm not sure I like the direction that line of thought goes.
Carl Schmitt