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Can serum L-lactate, D-lactate, creatine kinase and I-FABP be used as diagnostic markers in critically ill patients suspected for bowel ischemia
Peter HJ van der Voort1,4,
Berit Westra1,
Jos PJ Wester1,
Rob J Bosman1,
Ilse van Stijn1,
Inez-Anne Haagen2,
Ference J Loupatty2,3 &
Saskia Rijkenberg1
The prognostic value of biochemical tests in critically ill patients with multiple organ failure and suspected bowel ischemia is unknown.
In a prospective observational cohort study intensive care patients were included when the attending intensivist considered intestinal ischemia in the diagnostic workup at any time during intensive care stay. Patients were only included once. When enrolment was ended each patient was classified as 'proven intestinal ischemia', 'ischemia likely', 'ischemia unlikely' or 'no intestinal ischemia'. Proven intestinal ischemia was defined as the gross disturbance of blood flow in the bowel, regardless of extent and grade. Classification was based on reports from the operating surgeon, pathology department, endoscopy reports and CT-scan. Lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), creatine kinase (CK), alanine aminotransferase (ALAT), L-lactate were available for the attending physician. D-lactate and intestinal fatty acid binding protein (I-FABP) were analysed later in a batch. I-FABP was only measured in patients with proven ischemia or no ischemia.
For 44 of the 120 included patients definite diagnostic studies were available. 23/44 patients (52%) had proven intestinal ischemia as confirmed by surgery, colonoscopy, autopsy and/or histopathological findings. LDH in these patients was 285 U/l (217–785) vs 287 U/l (189–836) in no-ischemia; p = 0.72. CK was 226 U/l in patients with proven ischemia (126–2145) vs 347 U/l (50–1427), p = 0.88. ALAT was 53 U/l (18–300) vs 34 U/l (14–34), p-0,56. D-lactate 0.41 mmol/l (0.11-0.75) vs 0.56 mmol/l (0.27-0.77), p = 0.46. L-lactate 3.5 mmol/l (2.2-8.4) vs 2.6 mmol/l (1.7-3.9), p = 0.09. I-FABP 2872 pg/ml (229–4340) vs 1020 pg/ml (239–5324), p = 0.98. Patient groups proven and likely ischemia together compared to unlikely and no-ischemia together showed significant higher L-lactate (p = 0.001) and higher D-lactate (p = 0.003).
Measurement of LDH, CK, and ALAT did not discriminate critically ill patients with proven intestinal ischemia from those with definite diagnosis no-ischemia. However, L-lactate and D-lactate levels were higher in patients with proven or likely ischemia and need further study just as I-FABP.
Critically ill patients occasionally develop ischemia in the splanchnic region. The incidence of clinically relevant ischemia is only known in cardiac surgery patients [1, 2]. The aetiology is diverse but usually mesenteric ischemia is categorized as obstructive or non-obstructive ischemia. The obstructive form is caused by a thrombus or embolus in one of the mesenteric arteries or veins. The non-occlusive mesenteric ischemia (NOMI) develops due to low flow, usually as a result of severe shock [3]. An ischemic bowel may also develop after aortic surgery due to either thrombi or low flow state. In all cases, both the small and the large bowel may be affected. Whatever the aetiology, it is difficult to diagnose intestinal ischemia because of the non-specific clinical signs [4]. Biochemical markers are often used in the diagnostic workup. The use of L-lactate is ubiquitous despite its low sensitivity and specificity [5]. D-lactate, the stereoisomer of the human L-lactate, may be a more specific marker [6, 7]. D-lactate is strictly a product of bacterial fermentation in the gastrointestinal tract including Escherichia coli, Lactobacillus species, Klebsiella, and Bacteriodes species [7]. During intestinal ischemia permeability increases due to decreased mucosal integrity and D-lactate may diffuse into the portal circulation [6, 7]. It has been shown that serum D-lactate levels may be an early indicator for the detection of intestinal ischemia [7, 8]. A study by Assadian et al. showed elevated D-lactate levels in patients with histologically proven ischemic colitis after open aortic reconstruction. More recently, intestinal fatty acid binding protein I-FABP, has gained attention. I-FABP is a small (15-kD) protein within the cytoplasm of mature enterocytes located at the tips of the villi of the small bowel [9]. The concentration is undetectable in normal situations [10–13]. Ischemic damage of the villi leads to release of this protein into the circulation. It has therefore been promoted as a promising new serological marker for intestinal ischemia in animals [11, 14, 15] and humans [16–18].
Prospective studies to the diagnostic value of these serum markers in the specific setting of the intensive care are absent. Hence, the present study is performed to test the prognostic value of biochemical tests in critically ill patients with multiple organ failure and suspected bowel ischemia.
Study objective and design
The objective of this prospective observational cohort study is to determine the predictive value of D-lactate, I-FABP and other more common serological markers of ischemia (L-lactate, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), creatine kinase (CK) and alanine aminotransferase (ALAT)) in intensive care patients suspected to have intestinal ischemia. The results of L-lactate, LDH, CK and ALAT were readily available for the attending clinician. D-lactate and I-FABP were stored and measured later in one batch at the end of the study. D-lactate levels were additionally measured in a group of healthy volunteers to determine reference levels. At the start, this study did not fall under the Dutch research legislation (WMO) because of its observational character, despite the blood sampling. In virtually all patients a blood sample drawn for other measurements could be used for this study, which limited the number of extra blood sampling. An informal consultation of the local ethic and scientific review board (Medical Ethical Committee on research, Onze Lieve Vrouwe Gasthuis, Amsterdam, The Netherlands) was performed confirming that at that time informed consent was not needed. However, the Dutch ethical committee on research (CCMO) changed their policy concerning blood sampling in 2013, after completion of the study.
The ICU where the study was performed is a closed format highest-level mixed medical, surgical and cardiac surgery department with 20 beds in a teaching hospital.
Patients and sample collection
Over a 24-month period intensive care patients were included when the attending intensivist considered intestinal ischemia in the diagnostic workup. This consideration may have risen on admission or at any moment during intensive care stay. Intestinal ischemia was considered when physical examination and observation of bowel function might be congruent with ischemia. Exclusion criteria other than age below 18 were not defined. As soon as the consideration of intestinal ischemia was raised, a single blood sample of 4 ml was taken to determine serological data.
From each patient only the first blood sample was used in the analysis. Repeated samples were excluded.
Baseline data of all admitted patients in the ICU are recorded in a structured and uniform way in the Patient Data Management System (Metavision®, Tel Aviv, Israel). Data from included patients were retrieved from this database including sex, age, the diagnosis at admission, mortality at the ICU and severity of illness. The Acute Physiologic and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE) IV and SOFA scores determined illness severity. Validated data from pathological studies, endoscopy, radiological studies and laparotomies were collected from the hospital information system xCare® (McKesson, Nieuwegein, The Netherlands).
Patient classification
Patients were classified as 'proven intestinal ischemia' , 'ischemia likely' , 'ischemia unlikely' or 'no intestinal ischemia'. Classification was based on reports from the operating surgeon, pathology department, endoscopy reports and CT-scan. All available study results were independently analysed by 2 researchers (B.W and P.V.) and categorization was made without prior knowledge of serological markers including plasma D-lactate and I-FABP levels. In case of disagreement between the two researchers consensus was reached by reviewing the data together. Proven intestinal ischemia was defined as the gross disturbance of blood flow in the bowel, regardless of extent and grade. Terms used by pathologist or surgeon like 'necrotic changes' , 'ischemic colitis' , 'transmural ischemia' , 'ischemic changes in the resected tissue' , were considered decisive.
Lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), creatine kinase (CK), alanine aminotransferase (ALAT) and L-lactate were analysed according to instructions of the manufacturer (Roche diagnostics systems, Basel, Switzerland).
The remaining blood of the blood samples were stored in −80°C and analysed for D-lactate and I-FABP in one run after closure of the study inclusion.
D-lactate concentration was spectrophotometrically measured in heparin-plasma. To this end, heparinized blood was centrifuged at 3200 rpm for 10 min in a clinical centrifuge. 500 μL of plasma was deproteinized with 50 μL perchloric acid, mixed on a Vortex for 20 s, and kept on ice for 10 min. Next, the denatured protein solution was centrifuged at 3200 rpm for 10 min. To 350 μL of the supernatant 20 μL KOH was added, mixed for 20 s and kept on ice for 10 min. After centrifugation for 10 min the neutralized-protein-free plasma (NPFP) was used for analysis according to Herrera and co-workers [19]. In brief, D-lactate is oxidized to pyruvate by NAD+ in the presence of the D-lactate dehydrogenase. Then pyruvate is enzymatically converted by D-alanine aminotransferase (D-ALT) to D-alanine and 2-oxoglutarate. The latter reaction shifts the equilibrium to the formation of NADH. The amount of NADH formed during the reaction is stoichiometric to the amount of D-lactate in the sample, and it is measured by the increase in absorbance at 340 nm.
The assay mixture contained, in a final volume of 1000 μL: 111 mmol/L glycylglycine pH 10.0, 111 mmol/L glutamate, 4.65 mmol/L NAD+, 11.6 U/mL D-alanine aminotransferase and 50 μL heparin-plasma. After a preincubation of 30 s, the reaction was started by addition of D-LDH. The production of NADH was followed in time (10s, 100 s and 200 s) on a Shimadzu spectrophotometer at 340 nm using a molar extinction coefficient of 6300 L/mol/cm. A sample blank to correct the non-specific NAD+ transformation was processed using the same analytical conditions as for the analysis of D-lactate but without adding the enzyme D-LDH and was subtracted on all samples.
Literature has shown that D-lactate concentrations will decrease with increasing activities of L-LDH. Indeed, an activity of LDH greater than 1500 IU/L will result in a more than 10% deviation. Hence, in plasma of patients with an LDH activity >1500 the LDH was removed. A reagent blank to compensate for the small, but continuous, non-enzymatic transformation of NAD+at alkaline pH was performed in every run and was subtracted from the calibrators, QCs and samples.
Intestinal fatty acid binding protein (I-FABP) was measured in plasma using a commercially available enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) (Hycult Biotechnology b.v., Uden, The Netherlands). The wells of the EIA plate were coated with the monospecific polyclonal antibody (10 μg/ml). First, the samples were diluted twice. To this end, 150 μL diluent buffer was added to 150 μL sample. Next, 100 μL of the standard solution and 100 μL of the diluted sample were added to the plate and incubated for 60 min at 20 C. This was done in duplo. After incubation, 100 μL of the conjugate tracer was added and incubated for 60 min. Next 100 μL of the conjugate Streptavidin-peroxidase was added and incubated for another 60 min. The wells were washed three times with washing buffer (10 mL washing buffer with 390 mL aqua mill) after each incubation. Finally, the reaction was started by adding 100 μL of the tetramethylbenzidine (TMB) substrate (x) every 15 sec to each strip and incubated for another 20 min, and stopped by the addition of citric acid (x) every 15 sec to each strip (and mixed between). The absorbance at 450 nm was measured spectrophotometrically. A standard curve is obtained by plotting the absorbance (linear) versus the corresponding concentrations of the human I-FABP standards (log). The human I-FABP concentrations of samples, which are run concurrently with the standards, were determined from the standard curve.
Continuous variables such as CK, LDH, ALAT, I-FABP, D-lactate and L-lactate were expressed as median and interquartile range (IQR) because of their skewed distribution. The comparison of groups was performed with the Mann–Whitney U-test or the Kruskal-Wallis test were appropriate. Data is shown as absolute numbers and percentage (%). Differences in proportions were evaluated using the Fisher exact test for nominal variables. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value were calculated according to standard methods. ROC analysis with 95% confidence interval (CI) was performed for the best performing marker, L-lactate, with a positive diagnosis of ischemia tested against the L-lactate level. P-values less than 0.05 were considered statistically significant. Analyses were performed using the statistical software SPSS version 18.0 (SPSS Inc, Chicago, Illinois, USA).
The study was performed over a period of 24 months. In the study period 2988 patients were admitted to the ICU. 138 samples were collected. 18 samples were duplicate samples of the same patient and therefore excluded for analysis. Baseline characteristics of the 120 included patients are shown in Table 1. The most common diagnosis on admission (39%) in patients with proven intestinal ischemia was other surgery, which included intra-thoracic vascular and heart valve surgery.Figure 1 shows the flow chart for included patients. For 44 of the 120 included patients definite diagnostic studies were available. For the other 76 patients a definite diagnosis could not be made. For the 44 patients with a definite diagnosis, 23 patients (52%) had the diagnosis bowel ischemia confirmed by surgery (n = 20), colonoscopy (n = 2), CT scan (n = 1), autopsy (n = 3) and/or histopathological findings (n = 10). The other 21 patients (48%) underwent surgery (n = 17) and/or autopsy (n = 5) but did not have signs of intestinal ischemia.
Table 1 Baseline characteristics of included patients
Flowchart of included patients.
20 patients with intestinal ischemia underwent laparotomy, which confirmed ischemia and underwent subsequent surgical resection (87%), while 17 patients without intestinal ischemia also had abdominal surgery (76%).
D-lactate
D-lactate levels were measured in all patients and in healthy controls. The results are shown in Table 2 and Figure 2. A significant difference between healthy controls and patients with proven or no intestinal ischemia was found (p = 0.023 and p = 0.001, respectively). However, there was no difference between patients with proven compared to no intestinal ischemia (p = 0.46). When all groups were taken into account, no statistical difference was found between groups (p = 0.099). The combined group proven and likely ischemia together compared to unlikely and no-ischemia together showed D-lactate levels of 0.79 (IQR 0.49-1.16) versus 0.65 (IQR 0.37-0.94); p = 0.003.
Table 2 Results of D-lactate, I-FABP, L-lactate and ALAT, CK, LDH levels
Boxplots of I-FABP and D-lactate in patients with and without intestinal ischemia.
I-FABP
I-FABP was only measured in the groups proven and no intestinal ischemia. Patients with intestinal ischemia (Figure 2) showed a non-significantly higher median I-FABP level compared to those without intestinal ischemia (2872 vs 1020 pg/ml, p = 0.98).
CK, LDH and ALAT
ALAT, CK and LDH levels were measured in all patients and data is shown in Table 2 and Figure 3. No significant differences were shown between separate groups. When all groups were taken into account, no statistical difference was found between groups (p = 0.43 for ALAT, p = 0.53 for CK and p = 0.20 for LDH). The combined groups proven and likely ischemia together compared to unlikely and no-ischemia together showed CK levels of 258 (IQR 156–1024) versus 562 (IQR 129–1686); p = 0.51. The combined groups proven and likely ischemia together compared to unlikely and no-ischemia together showed LDH levels of 350 (IQR 225–785) versus 399 (IQR 243–751); p = 0.52. The combined groups proven and likely ischemia together compared to unlikely and no-ischemia together showed ALAT levels of 61 (IQR 18–390) versus 70 (IQR 25–204); p = 0.77.
Boxplots of L-lactate, CK, LDH and ALAT in patients with and without intestinal ischemia.
L-lactate
When all groups were taken into account, a statistical significant difference was found between groups (p = 0.001). However, between individual groups a statistical significant difference was present only in the comparison between ischemia likely and unlikely (p = 0.002). The median L-lactate levels in patients with proven and no ischemia were 3.5 mmol/L (2.2-8.4) and 2.6 mmol/L (1.7-3.9), respectively (p = 0.09). The combined groups proven and likely together compared to unlikely and no-ischemia together showed L-lactate levels of 3.9 (IQR 2.4-7.4) versus 1.9 (IQR 1.3-3.2); p = 0.001.We determined the best cut-off point to differentiate patients with proven ischemia and no intestinal ischemia by using the sum of maximum sensitivity and specificity. In a ROC-analysis (Figure 4) showed an area under curve of 0.65 (95%CI 0.49-0.81, p = 0.09). Using a cut-off point of 2.2 mmol/L the sensitivity was 78% and the specificity was 48%.
ROC curve of L-lactate to detect intestinal ischemia.
The diagnostic process concerning intestinal ischemic in critically ill patients on the intensive care unit is challenging. The present study of prospectively collected biochemical markers shows that these data would, in retrospect, not have helped the clinician to make the diagnosis more easily when only patients with proven ischemia and no ischemia were taken into account. The most common biochemical marker, L-lactate, was in general higher in patients with compared to patients without a definite diagnosis of intestinal ischemia but it could not discriminate between these patients sufficiently in the clinical setting. Combined group of proven and likely ischemia did show higher L-lactate compared to patients unlikely or no ischemia. Unsuccessful discrimination was the case for creatine kinase, lactate dehydrogenase and ALAT. In addition, we studied D-lactate and I-FABP as they were recently linked to high diagnostic accuracy in patients in the emergency ward and in-hospital [6, 20, 21]. D-lactate is exclusively produced by the indigenous bowel flora. An ischemic mucosa may lead to translocation of D-lactate that can be measured in plasma. Indeed, compared to healthy controls, D-lactate levels were elevated. However, in critically ill patients with and without proven intestinal ischemia serum D-lactate levels were equally elevated but the combined group proven and likely ischemia had a significantly higher D-lactate. I-FABP has recently become available and is specifically released by ischemic mucosa. The range of I-FABP levels was broad in patients with and without definite bowel ischemia. As renal function has not been proven to be a factor determining the level of these biomarkers we did not take this into account.
Clinical symptoms have a low diagnostic power to detect NOMI [4]. In the intensive care setting symptoms like inability of enteral feeding may suggest an ischemic bowel but often occur in the absence of ischemia as well and there is a lack of relevant clinical studies in the critically ill. In additional to clinical symptoms, now the serological markers appear to have a low discriminating power in the diagnostic process of intestinal ischemia as well. This may be explained by several reasons. First, the test characteristics of a diagnostic test are determined by the population were it is tested. Most serological tests that are used in the intensive care have been developed for in-hospital patients in general or specific populations (for instance patients after vascular surgery) and have not been tested in critically ill patients in particular. The present cohort of patients was even a subset of critically ill patients as they were selected for their suspected splanchnic ischemia. The severity of illness, illustrated by the APACHE IV system, is high. In this specific population marginal splanchnic perfusion might be highly prevalent, which is suggested by the high L-lactate and the high I-FABP in all patients. For the same reason, the results of the present study cannot be extrapolated to non-critically ill patients. Second, it is likely that some patients in whom a definite diagnosis could not be made did have intestinal ischemia. The sample size of this study is relatively small and it might be argued that a larger trial is still needed to determine the exact value of the biochemical markers, which may be particularly true for L-lactate, D-lactate and I-FABP.
Our results match with the study from Block et al. [22] although their population was different. They found that in patients who presented with an acute abdomen, lactate and I-FABP did not discriminate between ischemia or no ischemia. The majority of their patients had obstructive mesenteric ischemia where most critically ill patients have NOMI due to low flow. Block et al. found D-dimer discriminating for ischemia [22]. As most of critically ill patients with organ failure and central lines have an increased D-dimer, we did not take that into account. Poeze et al. [6] studied D-lactate in patients after aortic aneurysm repair with and without ischemic complications. D-lactate discriminated adequately between these two groups. We could not confirm this finding as in our subsets of patients with aortic aneurysm repair a significant difference in any of the markers was not present. Assadian et al., in concordance with our study, did not find different D-lactate levels in ischemic patients compared to non-ischemic patients [8]. Collange et al. could not find an elevated D-lactate level perioperative [23]. Thuijls et al. found in a study in emergency room and in-hospital patients with acute abdomen and suspected for intestinal ischemia that plasma I-FABP was significantly higher in patients with ischemia compared to patients without ischemia [20]. In our patient population of critically ill patients this was not the case. It is likely to be explained by the mucosal ischemia, which is highly prevalent in severely ill patients. In addition, we did not measure I-FABP in the likely and unlikely groups. The same group of researchers found for I-FABP a sensitivity of 100% and a specificity of 98% for patients who developed intestinal necrosis after aortic surgery [21]. In our subset of patients we could not confirm this finding. There is some discussion concerning the use of the different I-FABP ELISA in humans but it remains speculative what the results would have been when using a different test [24].
Several limitations of the study need discussion. A 'golden standard' for the diagnosis of bowel ischemia is lacking for 76 out of 120 patients. An unknown proportion of these patients will have suffered from an ischemic bowel. However, these patients did not have surgery or autopsy to confirm the diagnosis. As a consequence, bias may have occurred. In addition, some patients may have had temporarily ischemia, which resolved without surgery. There is an interaction between mortality and the categorization of patients. Bowel ischemia is associated with a higher mortality, which may lead to autopsy and autopsy is a major tool to detect proven ischemia. As a result, autopsy has predominantly been performed in patients with definite ischemia or no ischemia. The mortality in both groups ischemia likely or unlikely is lower (Table 2) and, as a consequence, autopsy is less frequently performed. When we combine proven and likely ischemia and compare this new group with a combined group unlikely and no ischemia then L-lactate and D-lactate were significantly different between these two groups (Table 2). Some of these patients probably had temporarily ischemia but did not die because of an ischemic bowel and autopsy did not take place. Above considerations make clear that, unavoidably, the study suffers from some extend of selection as only 44 patients had a definite diagnosis. Nevertheless, this study is the first and largest that determined in a clinical setting the usefulness of biochemical markers in the diagnostic process of intestinal ischemia. We conclude that it is unlikely that biochemical results of, CK, LDH, and ALAT can lead the physician in clinical decision making concerning critically ill patients with suspected intestinal ischemia. For L-lactate, D-lactate and I-FABP more studies are needed.
It is unlikely that biochemical results of, CK, LDH, and ALAT can lead the physician in clinical decision making concerning critically ill patients with suspected intestinal ischemia. For L-lactate, D-lactate and I-FABP more studies are needed.
• Intestinal ischemia in the critically ill patient is difficult to diagnose
• Biochemical tests are frequently used in the diagnostic workup in patients with suspected intestinal ischemia
• A L-lactate serum level of 2.2 mmol/l shows a sensitivity of 78% and specificity of 48% and a ROC value of 0.65
• LDH, ALAT and CK could not discriminate between patient with and without an ischemic bowel
• The specific markers L-lactate, D-lactate and I-FABP may be useful in case of intestinal ischemia in critically ill patients but more studies are needed.
PV and SR have an academic degree in clinical epidemiology.
NOMI:
Non-occlusive mesenteric ischemia
LDH:
ALAT:
Alanine transaminase
CK:
Creatinekinase
I-FABP:
Intestinal fatty acid binding protein
ICU:
APACHE:
SOFA:
KOH:
NPFP:
Neutralized-protein-free plasma
NAD+:
Aldehyde dehydrogenase
NADH:
D-ALT:
D-alanine aminotransferase
ELISA:
TMB:
Tetramethylbenzidine
ROC:
Receiver operating characteristics
Confidence interval.
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The pre-publication history for this paper can be accessed here:http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2253/14/111/prepub
Department of Intensive Care Medicine, Onze Lieve Vrouwe Gasthuis, P.O. Box 95500, 1090 HM, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Peter HJ van der Voort, Berit Westra, Jos PJ Wester, Rob J Bosman, Ilse van Stijn & Saskia Rijkenberg
Department of Clinical Chemistry, Onze Lieve Vrouwe Gasthuis, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Inez-Anne Haagen & Ference J Loupatty
Department of Clinical Chemistry, Reinier de Graaf Gasthuis, Delft, The Netherlands
Ference J Loupatty
TIAS business school of Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands
Peter HJ van der Voort
Berit Westra
Jos PJ Wester
Rob J Bosman
Ilse van Stijn
Inez-Anne Haagen
Saskia Rijkenberg
Correspondence to Peter HJ van der Voort.
The authors declare that none of them have financial or non-financial competing interests whatsoever.
PV has made contributions to conception and design, in analysis of data and in drafting the manuscript. BW carried out the laboratory assays and drafted the manuscript. JW, drafted the manuscript and included patients. IS drafted the manuscript and included patients. RB drafted the manuscript. FL carried out the laboratory assays. IH participated in the laboratory assays and in drafting the manuscript. SR contributed to the statistical analysis and to drafting the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
van der Voort, P.H., Westra, B., Wester, J.P. et al. Can serum L-lactate, D-lactate, creatine kinase and I-FABP be used as diagnostic markers in critically ill patients suspected for bowel ischemia. BMC Anesthesiol 14, 111 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2253-14-111
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2253-14-111
Creatine kinase


text:
Q: Active Qt - add member to Outlook distribution list I'm trying to use Active Qt to modify a distribution list in Outlook. I'm able to access it and list all of its members with the following code:
QAxObject* outlook = new QAxObject("Outlook.Application");
QAxObject* session = outlook->querySubObject("Session");
QAxObject* contactsFolder = session->querySubObject("GetDefaultFolder(olFolderContacts)");
QAxObject* distList = contactsFolder->querySubObject("Items(QString)", "My contact list");

int memberCount = distList->property("MemberCount").toInt();
QAxObject* member;

for (int i = 1; i <= memberCount; i++) {
    member = distList->querySubObject("GetMember(int)", i);
    qDebug() << member->property("Name").toString() << "     "
             << member->property("Address").toString();
    delete member;
}

But when I'm trying to add a member to the list:
QAxObject* newQaxMember = session->querySubObject("CreateRecipient(QString)", "Name LastName");
IDispatch* newMember = 0;
newQaxMember->queryInterface(QUuid("00020400-0000-0000-C000-000000000046"), (void**)&newMember);
distList->querySubObject("AddMember(IDispatch*)", QVariant::fromValue(newMember));

I'm getting an error:

QAxBase::querySubObject: AddMember(IDispatch*): Error calling function or property in  ({0006103C-0000-0000-C000-000000000046})

When I use dynamicCall() method instead of querySubObject(), there's no error, but also no new member appear on the list in Outlook.
What am I doing wrong?

A: You're right @Eugene Astafiev, it was necessary to call Resolve() method after creating a recipient. Moreover, the Save() method should be called right after adding the recipient.
Finally I have resolved the problem this way:
QAxObject* outlookApplication = new QAxObject("Outlook.Application");
QAxObject* session = outlookApplication->querySubObject("Session");
QAxObject* contactsFolder = session->querySubObject("GetDefaultFolder(olFolderContacts)");
QAxObject* distList = contactsFolder->querySubObject("Items(QString)", "My contact list");

QAxObject* newQaxMember = session->querySubObject("CreateRecipient(QString)", person.getAddress());
bool memberResolved = newQaxMember->dynamicCall("Resolve()").toBool();

if (memberResolved) {
    distList->dynamicCall("AddMember(Recipient)", newQaxMember->asVariant());
    distList->dynamicCall("Save()");
}

A: Use the Resolve method right after a new recipient is created. The method attempts to resolve a Recipient object against the Address Book. And if the recipient is resolved (see the corresponding property) you may call the DistListItem.AddMember method to add a new member to the distribution list in Outlook. Here is how it looks in VBA:
Sub AddNewMember()
 'Adds a member to a new distribution list
 Dim objItem As Outlook.DistListItem
 Dim objMail As Outlook.MailItem
 Dim objRcpnt As Outlook.Recipient
 Set objMail = Application.CreateItem(olMailItem)
 Set objItem = Application.CreateItem(olDistributionListItem)
 'Create recipient for distlist
 Set objRcpnt = Application.Session.CreateRecipient("Eugene Astafiev")
 objRcpnt.Resolve
 objItem.AddMember objRcpnt

 'Add note to list and display
 objItem.DLName = "Northwest Sales Manager"
 objItem.Body = "Regional Sales Manager - NorthWest"
 objItem.Save
 objItem.Display
End Sub

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


The Rotary Club of Middleton boasts its own elite co-ed softball team. We meet every Monday evening at 6:30 pm during the summer months at the Rotary Park. *This league has been temporarily on hold while the ball fields are being fixed.
Every year, the Rotary Club gets together for several "work parties" to clean up the overgrowth at Riverside Park. Here is a photo of some of our workers from May 13, 2013.
All proceeds of this three year project are going towards a new Splash Park in Middleton for families to enjoy for years to come.


text:
Dr Del Naidoo
About Del
Dr Del Naidoo is registered with the Health Professions Council of South Africa Practitioner Psychologist (HPCSA) as a psychologist. He completed his doctoral training in Counselling Psychology at City, University of London in the United Kingdom.
He has worked with people who, having experienced a wide range of personal difficulties, have sought support from Del. Past roles have seen him work in South Africa, the UK and other European countries in the corporate sector, the National Health Service (NHS), NGO's, higher education and independent practice. His work has included working with individuals, couples and families across various cultural backgrounds, ages and abilities including children, adolescents, and adults.
Del's experience has seen him work across various settings with the following:
stress, anxiety or depression
relationship difficulties
adjustment and major life-change issues
motivational problems
self-esteem difficulties
race or identity issues
bereavement issues
substance misuse and addictions difficulties
sex or sexuality difficulties
career or vocational changes including redundancy and retirement
middle-aged and later-life transitions
parental and familial separations
relationship breakdown or divorce adjustment
step-families or blended families
children and adolescents' adjustment or behavioural difficulties
difficulties related to fostering or adoption
Ongoing professional development ensures that Del remains updated with developments within the fields relevant for his therapeutic work. Of current particular interest to him is evidence-based work such as Mindfulness practice to promote general health, well-being and reduce anxiety; working with client trauma and supporting healthcare professionals in their work within the helping professions.
In addition to training within the psychology field Del has a business background and has worked within the private sector in the telecoms, risk and finance industries. His business and information/communication technology qualifications give him insight into the corporate world and bolsters his experience of working within the public sector and voluntary both within statutory and non-statutory environments.
del@mindsightful.com
Medicross, The Berg
Gordon Road, Bergbron, Northcliff, Johannesburg
Weekday afternoons
Copyright Dr Del Naidoo

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Tommy Keith (b. 1993) is currently based in Toronto, ON where he makes photographs and works as a camera assistant in film. He completed a BFA in Film Production from Concordia University in 2016 and was awarded the Muse Entertainment Enterprises Scholarship in 2015. In 2017 he was named a Magenta Foundation Flash Forward Emerging Photographer and his work has been exhibited and published internationally.
Success Strategies is a series of pictures made in southern Ontario and features members of my family in their places of work and their home. My mother and father run a real estate sales coaching business together, and with this project I am interested in exploring how my family and I operate within this pursuit of continual self-improvement. Having been around self- improvement groups and business improvement videos since a young age, these pictures are, at times, both poking fun at this mindset as well as having a genuine interest in this lifestyle, which I think represents a respectable and admirable endeavour.
While I am primarily focused on my parents, I have included a few other characters in this work, such as myself and some of my siblings. Having being conceived by means of a sperm donation clinic, starting in high school I slowly began meeting and connecting with other brothers and sisters who share the same donor as I do. This surprise connection with other half-siblings is a unique success in its own right, as we are finding each other solely through the internet. By incorporating myself, my half-siblings and my parents into this project, I am interested in creating an alternative version of what success may look like.


text:
class c2_exercise_2 : c2_color_triangle
{
private:
	typedef c2_color_triangle super;
	GLchar *fragmentSource();
public:
	void run();
};

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
From STEM to STEM-N: Building the Future
September 15, 2016 Chad Berry 8 Mins Read
By Chad Berry, academic vice president and dean of the faculty
Higher education appears to be in the midst of great change. The last ten years have seen the decline of public support for public higher education through tax revenues, the rise (and fall) of MOOCS (Massive Online Open Courses) in particular, along with the proliferation of online programs in general, the criticism of for-profit higher education providers, and, even more recently, the questioning of whether the cost of higher education still provides value. Amid such change, though, there is still a great deal of continuity. Students continue to attend college, graduate students continue to choose a career in higher education through pursuit of a terminal degree, and private and public higher education continues to sustain itself despite all these challenges.
Flexible teaching spaces encourage student-to-student interactions that enhance learning.
Berea College has largely been immune from many of the most vexing challenges; the College is blessed with an endowment that continues to provide a high-quality education. Students continue to seek out Berea for the promise it provides, typified by a residential educational experience with close faculty-student and staff-student face-to-face relationships with high expectations, even higher levels of support, and powerful mentoring. And the College has long integrated deep learning in the sciences and nursing in a predominantly liberal arts setting with very successful graduates in the sciences and nursing going on to do great things for society.
The planning work of faculty and staff in the natural sciences, mathematics, and nursing around the kind of learning spaces that will continue to inspire, challenge, and prepare the next generations of students in the natural sciences and health professions has taken place within this context of change and continuity. The new Margaret A. Cargill Natural Sciences and Health Building is the result of this deep thinking and careful planning.
Quite simply, Berea's existing science building is well past its prime. Its shallow floor plan with a central hall make classrooms long and narrow, inhibiting flexibility. Its laboratories and the building piers in each room limit sight lines and interaction. It is a very old structure, and mechanical, engineering, and plumbing challenges make it expensive to operate and difficult to keep comfortably heated and cooled in a sustainable manner. The Hafer-Gibson Nursing Building is also outdated and rather inflexible given its peculiar shape and design. Berea faculty and students, in typical fashion, have made the best of outdated buildings, and students' academic and professional success has been in spite of such buildings, not because of them.
In the last two decades, science and nursing education in particular have changed rather dramatically, especially focusing on seeking to educate more students in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields and in nursing. (At Berea, we sometimes inclusively call this STEM-N to include nursing.) Politicians, researchers, CEOs, healthcare leaders, and many others all agree the U.S. must continue to fix the "leakage" of students in the STEM-N pipeline, which describes the attrition that occurs as students who think they want to major in the sciences or nursing eventually become discouraged and move on to another major. Why do we need more STEM-N students? The answers run the gamut from national security concerns to healthcare crises as the population ages and as nursing shortages intensify.
Much of the attention on ensuring more students are attracted to STEM-N involves not just how students are taught, but where. Over a decade or more, natural sciences and nursing buildings have continued to evolve in alignment with latest pedagogical concerns, approaches, and developments. Berea College is the beneficiary of such building planning and design elsewhere, and the new Cargill building represents the collective learning of such work nationally. Several features of the Cargill building reflect the cumulative thinking of design approaches, as faculty and staff and administrators have visited at least a half dozen or more recent buildings across the country.
While the exterior of the building is designed to be iconic and to reflect the campus's predominant architecture of the Georgian Revival—in keeping, for example, with Draper, Frost, and even the existing Hall Science Building—the inside of the building is very modern. For example, the interior of the building makes extensive use of transparent glass walls to appeal to students by letting in light and also inspiring and demystifying what occurs in classrooms and, particularly, labs. STEM-N buildings of yesterday, conversely, have solid interior walls and doors that blocked out any view into the room, making the act of "doing science" or "practicing nursing" quite stealthy and even befuddling to new students who might either be passing through a building or taking a general studies class in a building.
Such a transparent concept, often referred to as "science (and, in this case, nursing) on display," is intentionally designed to inspire students who have not yet chosen a major; seeing students inside the building working with their peers on problem-based learning in classrooms, labs, or high-fidelity nursing simulation spaces seeks to transmit a "you-can-do-this-too" message. For this reason, most introductory courses and laboratories are intentionally placed in the central glass-walled stack that runs from the bottom floor up through the fourth. Even on he exterior, the building's 17 group study spaces are visible day and night, conveying a rich academic learning culture to those walking near the building. All of these features are meant to inspire STEM-N students but also all students, who use the building. In this way, the new Cargill Building is meant to serve all of Berea's students since all students have a general education requirement in science and in quantitative reasoning.
Dr. Matthew Saderholm '92 works closely with students in all his classes. Dr. Matthew Saderholm '92 works closely with students in all his classes.
Second, classrooms overall are designed to be very flexible and effective as changes continue to occur in the pedagogy of learning spaces. Faculty and staff in the sciences, mathematics, and nursing programs were continually cognizant that they were designing a building for future students and colleagues rather than for themselves and for today's students. So interior walls, lab spaces, and classrooms can rather easily be refined two decades from now as the need may arise. And while you may have taken introductory science and nursing courses in large, tiered classrooms, today's classrooms, we know from published research, are more effective in smaller and more personable—and hence, more supportive—learning environments. So classroom sizes vary from 16 to 30 seats for the most part, and even the furnishings are intentionally designed to be flexible, easily transformed from a row format of students to groups of four students engaged in a learning activity and working together for its resolution. There continues to be a large tiered space that will seat approximately 100, but even this space is designed with flexibility in mind—seamlessly moving from a guest lecture to a planetarium show to an evening movie screening available to the entire campus. Research done both at Berea and elsewhere prove that spaces that accommodate active—rather than passive—learning, and learning that is student—rather than teacher—centered are more efficacious in fostering deep learning.
Nursing classes offer students the chance to put ideas learned in the classroom to practical use while developing crucial interpersonal skills.
Third, the building has intentionally considered the growth in the number of students attracted to STEM-N as a result of the new learning environment. On average, new buildings promote an increase of 25 percent in students majoring in STEM-N, so the building design committee had to keep this in mind. Noteworthy here are the student project spaces for biology that will allow students to mount and conduct an experiment throughout a semester rather than having to take it down and set it up again, as is currently the case, because of a lack of space. And the building deliberately incorporates classroom and lab spaces for geology to return to the building, along with courses in archaeology. Finally, the building seeks to inspire not just current Berea students but also local students in K-12 schools through its Discovery Center, which can flexibly host and educate students on field trips to the new Cargill building.
Finally, the building is designed to be the home of all academic programs in Division I at the College: biology, chemistry, mathematics, nursing, and physics. There are great interdisciplinary and inter-professional opportunities for integrating programs and faculty together. Nursing students, especially, stand to gain a great deal from being near math faculty, for example, or just down the hall from the anatomy and physiology lab. Current nursing students have noted their excitement at being integrated in a building that includes relevant disciplines to nursing.
So in this new learning space, there is a great deal of change incorporated in how Berea will prepare its next generations of students in STEM-N. There will be new scientific equipment, new laboratory technology, new digital learning opportunities, and state-of-the-art high-fidelity mannequins onto which nursing faculty can simulate health situations and emergencies for nursing clinical teaching. And for many years to come, it will strengthen the place of science and nursing in Berea's predominant liberal arts context, helping to challenge and inspire students to respond to the challenges of our century.
Author Chad Berry
Science and the Great Commitments
A Chance to Compete
Beyond the Lecture: Teaching Science in the 21st Century


text:
The Joy of Lists (Part 2)
Ranking the Unrankable
A West Philadelphia Christmas Carol
Social Notes from All Over
Playing Hookey Again
The War on Krampus
This Glittercomixatti Life . . .
My Guardian Tortoise
A Houseboat on Titan
You'll Believe A Dragon Can Fly
Wassail! Wassail!
A Smoking Bishop for the Workhouse Boy
Unpublished and Doing Better Than You Think
Esprit d'Escalier
And At The Very Last Minute . . .
Jeff Millar in Alternate Reality
City Root Revisited
This Glitterati Life . . .
Pop-up Chicken
The video above was a commercial for Banco Sabadell and, given that it's been seen over eight and a half million times on Youtube, it's entirely possible that you're already familiar with it. But what the heck. Beethoven never grows old.
And . . .
Marianne pointed out that "The Dog Said Hello" made it onto Locus Online's shortlist of the best stories of the Twenty-First Century. Which, given that the century is only thirteen years old, was easier to make it onto than the Twentieth Century shortlist. Just check out its first ten stories:
Arthur C. Clarke, "The Nine Billion Names of God" (1953)
Ursula K. Le Guin, "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" (1973)
Harlan Ellison, "'Repent, Harlequin!' said the Ticktockman" (1965)
Harlan Ellison, "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" (1967)
Arthur C. Clarke, "The Star" (1955)
Ray Bradbury, "A Sound of Thunder" (1952)
Robert A. Heinlein, "All You Zombies— "(1959)
William Gibson, "Johnny Mnemonic" (1981)
James, Jr. Tiptree, "The Screwfly Solution" (1977)
Shirley Jackson, "The Lottery" (1948)
That's a terrific lineup. Personally, I'd substitute "Burning Chrome" for "Johnny Mnemonic," but that might just be because the movie version was so brain-searingly bad that it's left me traumatized.
Here's the Twenty-First Century shortlist, courtesy of Tor.com. The original posting had me tied with Ursula K. Le Guin. Me! Le Guin! Dead even! I bet you can imagine how elated that makes me feel.
Ted Chiang, "Exhalation" (2008)
Margo Lanagan, "Singing My Sister Down" (2004)
Neil Gaiman, "How to Talk to Girls at Parties" (2006)
Peter Watts, "The Things" (2010)
Michael Swanwick, "The Dog Said Bow-Wow" (2001)
Ursula K. Le Guin, "The Bones of the Earth" (2001)
Kij Johnson, "26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss"
Daniel Abraham, "The Cambist and Lord Iron" (2007)
Kij Johnson, "Spar" (2009)
Alastair Reynolds, "Zima Blue" (2005)
The list can be found here.
The very, very, very long list, for those who really want to wonk out, can be found here.
Over at Locus Online, they had a poll to decide the fifty best science fiction novels and fifty best fantasy novels of the Twentieth Century, and I managed to squeak on -- just barely. The Iron Dragon's Daughter placed 46th on the fantasy list.
Which is very pleasant for me because it gives me the opportunity to explore the inherent flaw in such (admittedly fun to read, argue with, and/or have a book on) lists.
Let's start with my own work. Is it really better than Antoine de Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince, which ranked 49th? It's go more words, certainly, and more ideas. But it's a safe bet that my book has had a lesser effect on world culture. Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, is probably longer than my novel, and has become a part of the Canon, insofar as we have one anymore, and it was only 48th.
Up at the top of the list, nobody could argue against The Lord of Rings, which essentially created the fantasy genre, placing first. And I certainly have no problem with George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones in number two place. But The Hobbit at number three? Even Tolkien himself had a few harsh words for its and-what-do-you-think-Bilbo-did-then? style. (He said his children hated it.)
As for newly-minted Grand Master Gene Wolfe's masterpiece The Book of the New Sun placing eighteenth on the fantasy list . . . The work is science fiction, as witness its also placing twenty-fourth (still criminally low) on the SF list.
But when you except those few books which belong somewhere near the absolute top of any such list, what you're left with is a terrific demonstration of the impossibility of ranking books as if they were Olympic runners or apple pies in the county fair. Is Anne McCaffrey's Dragonflight (41 and, once again, science fiction) just a smidge better than George Orwell's Animal Farm, ranked 42? Or are we comparing lemurs and monkey wrenches? Jack Vance's The Dying Earth (19 and yet another science fiction novel) is of vast importance to both science fiction and fantasy. But is it really better than the book in twentieth place, Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita? Having walked in Woland's footprints in Moscow, I'm perhaps too much of a partisan to say.
It's all neon donuts and Western waterways, hawks and heartbreaks, movies and meatballs -- how can you measure such disparate works against each other?
You can't. But it's a lot of fun to try.
So I applaud Locus Online for this enterprise. And if you want to have even more fun, try this: Make up a list of ten excluded books that should have made each list. You'll find it's harder than it sounds to narrow your list down to such a small number.
You can see the lists (and methodology) here.
Above: Detail from the brilliant wraparound cover Geoff Taylor did for the Millenium edition of my book. Not only a great cover but an independent work of fantasy. If only I could have peered into the future and seen it, I would have incorporated a couple of details into the text.
Last night I went to a friend's house in West Philadelphia to see Josh Hitchens put on his one-man performance of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol in a Victorian-era living room, before a gas fire in the hearth.
That's luxury.
Hitchens did a bang-up job with a lively and convincing performance. And of course the source material is bulletproof. I've seen it performed by any number of actors, animate and inanimate, including the Muppets and Mr. Magoo, and it always (to a greater or lesser degree) works. That's an amazing accomplishment.
My own traditional Christmas story is far less known. But it has the advantage of being true. I call it...
The Parable of the Creche
When first I came to Roxborough, a third of a century ago, the creche was already a tradition of long standing. Every year it appeared in Gorgas Park during the Christmas season. It wasn't all that big -- maybe seven feet at its tip -- and it wasn't very fancy. The figures of Joseph and Mary, the Christ Child, and the animals were a couple of feet high at best, and there were sheets of Plexiglas over the front of the wooden construction to keep people from walking off with them. But it was loved.
It was a common sight to see people standing in front of the creche, admiring it. Sometimes they'd brought their small children to see it for the first time. It provided a welcome touch of seasonality and community to the park.
Alas, Gorgas Park was publicly owned, and it was only a matter of time before somebody complained that the creche violated the principle of the separation of church and state. When the complaint finally came, the creche was taken out of the park and put into storage.
People were upset of course. Nobody liked seeing a beloved tradition disappear. There was a certain amount of grumbling and disgruntlement.
So the kind people of Leverington Presbyterian Church, located just across the street from the park, stepped in. They adopted the creche and put it up on the yard in front of their church, where it could be seen by all.
But did this make us happy? It did not. The creche was just not the same, located in front of a church. It seemed lessened, in a strange way, made into a prop for the Presbyterians.
I was in a local tappie, shortly after the adoption, and heard one of the barflies holding forth on this very subject:
"The god-damned Christians," he said, "have hijacked Christmas!"
And while I'm on the subject . . .
Merry Christmas to all and on Earth peace to those of good will! For those who celebrate other holidays (or none at all), my very best wishes. Happiness for everybody, as the Strugatskys put it, free, and no exceptions!
Above: This photo is actually of Josh Hitchens performing his one-man version of Dracula. But theater is theater and I'm rapidly becoming a fan of Hitchens.
It's been a busy weekend. Saturday morning, Marianne and I went to Chinatown have dim sum with friends -- father, mother, son, and grandson. Then it was off to Brooklyn for a Christmas party. Today, we spent tidying up in preparation for unanticipated Christmas gifts. Then, in an hour or so, we're off to West Philly for a one-man production of A Christmas Carol, presented in the living room of friends.
Pictured above: Marianne and superstar editor Ellen Datlow in Brooklyn.
I should have spent the day writing and I should have posted a blog hours ago and I should have been a good boy . . . But I wasn't. I lured Marianne to the Philadelphia Museum of Art (interior of the Great Hall above) where we once again were knocked out by Joseph Cornell's art. Then we went down to the Oyster House on Sansom Street for fresh shucked oysters accompanied by a glass of white wine (Marianne) and a martini (me). Then it was off to the Pen & Pencil club for conversation with Tom Purdom, Jamie O'Boyle and other wits and dignitaries.
So you guys get short shrift today, and I apologize for that. But, damn!, do I live a great life or what?
And I wish the same for you.
Immediately above: Marianne and I toast your good health in the Oyster House, while in the background far to the left, all unnoticed, a patron waves frantically for help as he is eaten by lobsters.
Here you go, proof positive that there's a war on Christmas -- and it's being fought by Christians. How else to explain the shameful sanitizing of the ancient Solstice season by removing pretty much all reference to Santa's dark Other -- Krampus? Particularly when there appears to be not one but hundreds of him?
Seriously, though, a Krampus parade would be a fine addition to the winter holidays.
Posted by Michael Swanwick at 6:46 AM 1 comment:
On Sunday, I went to the first Locust Moon Comics Festival at the Rotunda in West Philly. It was everything such a small, regional indie event should be: a little seedy, a little needy, a lot aspirational. I don't have a lot of comix cred to my name but I've hung out some with graphic artists, have the mandatory box or three of undergrounds in the attic crawlspace, and will admit to being influenced by the old B&W monthlies, Eerie and Creepy. So I like to check in on the scene every now and again, just to see if I can learn something.
Now that I'm beginning to grow Old, I can't help but feel protective toward all these talented (and semi-talented and in some cases hemi-demi-semi-talented) young people. I wanted to warn them about what a difficult road they were on, and how hard the artistic life can be, even for those who succeed at it. But then I reflected on how utterly without talent I appeared to be when I was their age, and how a good, Dutch Uncle-ish lecture could have prevented me from ever becoming a a writer. So I stayed my tongue.
God bless 'em all. They were to a man and woman (a surprising and heartening percentage of the introverted young artists were female), brave and noble. I bought a few comics, which I later read with pleasure, and I look forward to dropping by the event again next year.
Posted by Michael Swanwick at 8:07 PM 1 comment:
Inexplicably, I spent all day today running around shopping. I don't how the folks out in the burbs manage it, or why they seem to enjoy it so much.
The Italian Market is always fun, though.
Above: Marianne in the Market.
Look what Marianne bought for me over the weekend! A Chinese tortoise. Marianne says it will stay in my office until the next Darger & Surplus novel is done.
The only question I have is: Exactly what does the tortoise mean?
There are a number of readers here who know a lot about China, so I'm asking this publicly: What the heck?
Knowledgeable responses are welcomed.
Posted by Michael Swanwick at 12:32 PM 4 comments:
Pop quiz. What's the largest sea on Titan?
Why, Kraken Mare, of course.
Now the Cassini probe has discovered the largest river to date on the second-largest moon in the solar system (Ganymede is largest; our own Moon is number five), and it flows into Kraken Mare. The surface of Titan is so cold that water-ice is as hard as granite. So, by the best analyses, the seas and rivers are made up of ethane and methane.
Titan, which you all know is the largest moon of Saturn, presents a particularly difficult problem in mapping because it has a murky atmosphere in which all kinds of interesting chemical reactions are going on, so none of its surface is visible from above. All the mapping has to be done by radar.
The common reportage is comparing this new discovery to the River Nile, which is silly when you consider that the new river is somewhere between 200 and 250 miles long, while the Nile extend over four thousand miles. But it's still a terrific discovery, especially when you're as old as I am.
When I was a kid, all the solar moons other than our own were mysterious and blurry spots on photographic plates. Very little was known about any of them, other than that they were there. Now, there are maps of many of them.
I'm particularly interested in news from Titan because ten years ago I wrote a story set there which went on to win a Hugo Award. It was called "Slow Life" and was based on dozens and dozens of NASA technical papers which I downloaded from the Web and read and internalized until they told me a story. The presence of ethane-methane lakes and seas was purely speculative at the time, and I took a chance on them existing because I could have a better story if they did. So I really lucked out there.
Looking at that grainy radar photo above, though, I feel my imagination stirring. Had it existed when I wrote "Slow Life," I would almost certainly have had a scene set on a raft on that river. I would have drawn a large map and named every tributary, twist, and cove of it. I would have sent my astronaut on a perilous journey to the north, into Kraken Mare, there to make some strange discovery. I would have sent my mind to live there for a few months. And I would have written a very different story than the one I did.
That story is out there to be written. There's a flood of great new information still pouring in and being made available to all the world for free by NASA, and God bless them for that. I'm not likely to return to Titan because then I'd be competing with myself. But if you're a new or gonnabe writer, why not give the possibility some thought? SF editors love hard SF because it's popular and because they get so little of it.
Feel free to write a better story than mine. I won't mind. The next Hugo could be yours.
You can read about the (still unnamed) river here .
Okay, this is, on the face of it, an astonishing hack. This is not wire work and not CGI. The dragon is really flying. But how? pause for a minute and try to figure it out. I'll confess I had to look it up, though once the trick is revealed it seems obvious.
Here's a tip: The flight took place at night.
Gizmodo has the explanation. Click here to find out.
And long ago and near away . . .
In 1976, four individuals convened for a conversation on ARPANET. They were, implausibly enough, puppeteer Jim Henson, painter Sidney Nolan, conceptual artist Yoko Ono, and philosopher Ayn Rand.
You can find this unlikely and unintentionally hilarious dialogue here.
UPDATE: Alerted by one of this blog's readers (see below), I discovered that the above conversation was a hoax -- or, as its creators would have it, an art installation -- by Bassam El Baroni, Jeremy Beaudry and Nav Haq.
I apologize for helping to spread misinformation. And shame on me for falling for it.
There are roughly . . . No, wait, let me get the exact number. Ah! There are precisely a kajillion recipes for Wassail available on the Internet. Here's one:
Wassail Punch
3 pints brown ail
half pound white sugar
1 teaspoon mixed spices (cinnamon or allspice, nutmeg, mace)
7 roasted crabapples
1 pint hard cider
3 lemon slices
Roast the apples for 35 minutes at 400 degrees. Place them at the bottom of the serving bowl and dust with spices. Then put the beer, cider, sugar, and cloves in a large pan and heat (but do no boil) on the stove, stirring until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is quite hot. Pour the mixture into the serving bowl, float the lemon rings, and serve.
I got this recipe at the Drinking With Dickens event on Monday. It's worth mentioning that there are nonalcoholic wassail recipes that are every bit as festive. And, as you can guess, the recipe can be adapted to taste.
And speaking of hot festive drinks . . .
My own favorite Yuletide drink is mulled wine, not for its flavor (though that is excellent) but because we mull the wine the old-fashioned way: By placing a poker in the wood stove until its end is red-hot, and then plunging the hot iron into the drink.
What a terrific moment that is! The wine bubbles and boils and a great hiss of steam shoots out. If you can't be merry after that, there's no hope for you.
Last night I went to the Drinking With Dickens event at the Dark Horse Tavern in Society Hill, Philadelphia. This was the kind of pleasant eccentricity I live in the city for. There were a few brief readings and several pleasant toasts. Cups of smoking bishop and wassail were quaffed. And carolers (shown above in a photo taken by Don Lafferty) sang era-appropriate holiday songs.
Mostly, though, people chatted and enjoyed each other's company. It was, I trust, the sort of evening that the workhouse boy who made good would have enjoyed.
And because you're curious . . .
Here's the recipe for smoking bishop:
6 Seville oranges
1/4 pound sugar
1 bottle dry red wine
1 bottle port
Bake the oranges in the oven until pale brown and then place in a warmed earthenware bowl with five cloves pricked into each. Add sugar. Pour in the dry red wine, but not the port. Cover and leave in a warm place for about a day. Squeeze the oranges into the wine and pour it through a sieve. Add the port and heat but do not boil. Serve in warmed goblets. Drink hot.
Above: My thanks to Don for letting me post his photo.


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Q: How to filter a pandas dataframe after groupby and mean Does anyone know off the top of their head how to filter after grouping a dataframe and applying the mean function?
I'd like to be able to get the hours and counts for days 0, 5, 6.

A: As your groups are independent, filter before aggregation, else you compute the mean of the unwanted groups uselessly.
df[df['day'].isin([0, 5, 6])].groupby(['day', 'hour']).mean().round(2)


Woo Woo tells the story of a young girl named Louise and an injured veteran in the summer of 1961. After WWI, Woo Woo can only mutter the words, 'woo woo,' and the neighborhood children play games that mock his condition. Louise asks her older sister Eileen about Woo Woo's past. After Eileen fabricates a story about what happened to Woo Woo, Louise finds herself terrified of the injured veteran. However, when Louise confronts her fears she discovers they are not so different after all.


The porcelain pieces you are about to see in the Silver Ridge catalog represent my best effort over 30 years to become one of America's favorite potters. They have a contemporary style, with colors that not only match your kitchen or sofa but grab your heart as well. These pieces are meant to endure through the ages. They are fully functional, which means they go in the microwave and dishwasher. Please USE them. The rims are solid and rounded so they stand up to getting tossed around in the dishwasher or used by your kids. If they are not dropped, these pots should last for centuries and be used by your great grandchildren.
The textured items reflect the rural landscape and lifestyle of the community of Pulltight where I live. The wavy lines are the creek that runs through the property. The straight lines are the fields where corn grows in the summer and the deer and turkey live in the winter. The round bumps are the trees and bushes that make up much of the forested landscape. The square textures are the deer stands in the forest. You may also find a spider web or two.
My work has gained a wide following throughout the United States. It can be found in fine galleries, gift shops and boutiques as well as in the kitchen cabinets of homes everywhere.
I hope that you, too, will become a collector and user of these striking contemporary craft works. Please visit one of the many fine galleries listed under Gallery Placements. They carry a wide assortment of my pottery and can also special order any piece you see on this website. It is not practical for me to ship individual pieces. But if you are ever in the vicinity of the Silver Ridge Studio-- located in the Tennessee foothills of the Cumberland Plateau--please feel free to give me a call and schedule a visit. I am always looking for an excuse to sit on the front porch and share a glass of tea.
Copyright © 2003-2015 - Silver Ridge Pottery.


3 bedroom, 1 bathroom ranch in enfield! property is being sold as-is, where-is. no inspection contingency or access to property allowed. property may be occupied. please note, it is unlawful to trespass on this property. do not disturb tenant.
This real estate listing for sale at 32 Saint Thomas St has 3 bedrooms, 1 bathrooms, and was built in 1961. It is located in the Enfield, CT area with the 06082 zip code. For more info about the property at 32 Saint Thomas St, Enfield, CT 06082 or if you would like to schedule a showing, please contact the listing agent above.


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NASA to Reveal New Alien Planet Findings Today: How to Watch Live
By Miriam Kramer
This artist's illustration represents the variety of planets being detected by NASA's Kepler spacecraft. Scientists now say that one in six stars hosts an Earth-size planet. (Image credit: C. Pulliam & D. Aguilar (CfA))
NASA will unveil new discoveries made by its planet-hunting Kepler space telescope today (April 18).
Scientists will reveal the findings during a news conference at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., at 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT) Thursday. The announcement will also be streamed live.
You can watch the announcement live on SPACE.com, courtesy of NASA TV.
"Kepler is the first NASA mission capable of finding Earth-size planets in or near the habitable zone, which is the range of distance from a star where the surface temperature of an orbiting planet might be suitable for liquid water," NASA officials said in a statement. "Launched in 2009, the Kepler space telescope is detecting planets and planet candidates with a wide range of sizes and orbital distances to help us better understand our place in the galaxy."
According to NASA's announcement, Thursday's press briefing will include presentations from the following scientists:
Paul Hertz, astrophysics director, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Roger Hunter, Kepler project manager, Ames Research Center
William Borucki, Kepler science principal investigator, Ames Research Center
Thomas Barclay, Kepler scientist, Bay Area Environmental Research Institute, Sonoma, Calif.
Lisa Kaltenegger, research group leader, Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany, and research associate, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Mass.
Members of the public can ask questions using the Twitter hashtag, #AskNASA.
The $600 million Kepler spacecraft has flagged more than 2,700 potential planets since its launch. Just 115 or so have been confirmed to date by follow-up observations, but mission scientists estimate that more than 90 percent will turn out to be the real deal.
Follow Miriam Kramer on Twitter and Google+. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Google+. Original article on SPACE.com.
Miriam Kramer joined Space.com as a Staff Writer in December 2012. Since then, she has floated in weightlessness on a zero-gravity flight, felt the pull of 4-Gs in a trainer aircraft and watched rockets soar into space from Florida and Virginia. She also served as Space.com's lead space entertainment reporter, and enjoys all aspects of space news, astronomy and commercial spaceflight. Miriam has also presented space stories during live interviews with Fox News and other TV and radio outlets. She originally hails from Knoxville, Tennessee where she and her family would take trips to dark spots on the outskirts of town to watch meteor showers every year. She loves to travel and one day hopes to see the northern lights in person. Miriam is currently a space reporter with Axios, writing the Axios Space newsletter. You can follow Miriam on Twitter.


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U-17 World Cup: Brenner da Silva double helps Brazil trump New Zealand in friendly
While Brazil are moving to Kochi for their group games, New Zealand will remain in Mumbai to take on England in another practice game...
Two good goals from Brenner da Silva helped Brazil U-17s to a 2-1 friendly win over New Zealand U-17 ahead of the FIFA U17 World Cup in a practice game on Thursday.
All the goals in the match were scored in the second half with Brenner netting early in the period and midway through it and the Kiwis reducing the margin through a penalty converted by captain Max Mata at the end of the game.
An early leg injury to defender Wesley proved a blessing in disguise for the South American champions as his replacement, Marcos Antonio, started to galvanise the team immediately after stepping onto the field.
The short-statured Antonio showed splendid ball control and balance and moved the ball around with vision, but lack of sharpness up front kept the score-sheet blank till half time.
Antonio also unleashed two long-range efforts, the second of which sailed inches over the crossbar, after hoodwinking three defenders with deft body feints and dribbling skill.
The Kiwis had one good look at the rival goal but forward Charles Spragg, left unmarked, shot the ball wide of the left post from just outside the box.
Brazil made a couple of substitutions early in the second half which resulted in better cohesion in their ranks.
A delightful passing bout between second-half substitutes Alan de Souza and Victor Bobsin resulted in Brenner uncorking a short-range angular left-footed shot to beat rival goalie Jacob Clark.
With Alan spraying passes left, right and centre from the midfield, Brazil started toying with the Kiwis. Brenner again found the mark for his second goal of the match, midway through the second half.
New Zealand got a consolation goal late in the match through a penalty award converted by their captain Mata.
The Brazilians only worry appeared to be the energy-sapping heat which seemed to affect a few players and a somewhat unsure defence which came under some pressure from the Kiwis but held on till the end when it conceded a penalty.
The two teams also indulged in a spot-kick duel after the game which too was won by the Brazilians 5-4.
While Brazil are moving to Kochi for their group games, New Zealand will remain in Mumbai to take on England in another practice game at the Mumbai Football Arena in Andheri.
New Zealand are to play all their preliminary group games at the DY Patil Stadium in neighbouring Navi Mumbai.


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Ben Who? Jen Garner & Boyfriend John Miller Still 'Going Strong'
Source: Shutterstock (2); MEGA
Aug. 2 2019, Updated 9:57 a.m. ET
Jennifer Garner has clearly left her failed marriage with Ben Affleck behind!
RadarOnline.com can reveal that the actress and John Miller, her boyfriend of well over a year, "are going strong."
"Jen finally found a true partner who is the complete opposite of Ben," a source revealed, explaining, "John gives her ideas and supports her. He likes to give his opinion and be a part of her life."
As Radar previously reported, Garner, 47, and 46-year-old Affleck have actually benefitted from her new relationship, which a source credited as having a positive influence on Affleck as he helps raise his and Garner's kids — Violet, 13, Seraphina, 10, and 7-year-old Samuel.
"Ben's a better parent now, and he has no problems with John and totally trusts him," an insider previously noted, explaining, "He has seen him interact with the children."
"Ben and Jen are playing happy family at last, only this time they aren't acting," the insider added.
And Garner no longer has to put on a brave face and go it alone anymore.
"Now Jen isn't carrying all the burdens of life and family responsibilities by herself," the source told Radar.
"When she was married to Ben she felt lonely," continued the source. "Even when she wanted to buy a car Jen did it all and had no help from Ben, but John wants to be there, even for the little life decisions."


Tech Reviewer – Should Photos Be The New Passwords?
You are here: Home » Computers » Should Photos Be The New Passwords?
With cyber-security breaches and hacking become more common, as well as needing a mixture of letters and numbers to form an apparently "strong" password, are character-based passwords really cutting it anymore?
A new app called uSig–short for unique signature–offers users of mobile and tablet devices the option of selecting a photo as a password. According to the uSig website, most people access one or two (most likely even more) secure websites every day, which amounts to 7 billion logins daily. This can include logging in on company accounts to access emails, files and purchases–the most important and therefore vulnerable file types.
The option of using a photo as a password is quicker and easier than using a character-based password. This means that the frustration that comes with having to remember a long and complicated password will completely disappear.
So should all websites convert to photo instead of character-based passwords? Well not just yet, uSig is still in the testing stages. However it is a good idea, I'm actually surprised that it has taken this long for this idea to emerge. Mobile devices are being used more than computers now, every mobile phone comes with a camera of increasingly better quality and because of this, people are taking more and more photos and sharing them instantly. If technology has to evolve, so should the way we access it.
Like with anything, there are the pros and the cons. One pro, other than the aforementioned obvious, is that using a photo as a password could put off hackers and current hacking techniques, like keystroke logging would be useless. The cons would be that someone looking over your shoulder could easily remember or take note of the photo you are using as a password. Similarly if you share a photo on social media and just happen to use it as your password, anyone could easily right click and save a copy of the photo and use it to hack into your accounts. However as the app and the idea itself is still being tested, these cons could easily be rectified.
Only time will tell if photos will become the new passwords, but if they do, I won't be surprised.
You can find a video with more information on uSig here.


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Tysk hiphop började under 1980-talet. Den var då en ren undergroundrörelse som var mycket politisk och musikalisk rå med artister som Cora E. och Advanced Chemistry. Först genom Die Fantastischen Vier och Rödelheim Hartreim Projekt blev den tyska hiphopen och rappen något för hitlistorna. Även om Die Fantastischen Vier något föraktfullt kallats "poprappare" har deras musik gjort att en bredare publik i Tyskland hittat till hiphop på tyska. Ett centrum för den tyska hiphopen har Hamburg varit med artister som Fettes Brot, Absolute Beginner, Dynamite Deluxe, Samy Deluxe och 5 Sterne Deluxe. Dessa hiphopare låg bakom de flesta hits när hiphopen slog igenom på hitlistorna i Tyskland kring 2000.

Östtysk hiphop
Även i Östtyskland etablerade sig hiphopkulturen i slutet av 1980-talet, med en liten undergroundscen. Gruppen Electric Beat Crew slog igenom på svartklubbar i Östberlin, som enda östtyska hiphopgrupp som rappade på engelska, men upplöstes strax efter Berlinmurens fall.

Litteratur
 Sascha Verlan, Hannes Loh: 20 Jahre HipHop in Deutschland. Hannibal Verlag, Höfen 2002

Källor
Tyskspråkiga Wikipedias artikel

Världshiphop
Hiphop

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Though I can't remember the name of the town or ruins I was going to visit, the journey is imprinted in my memory.
This was my first time travelling alone, rough going, negotiating local buses and staying in the most basic hovels hostels.
I dressed carefully in clothes I imagined would preserve my modesty and allow me to roam Turkey unnoticed. I don't suppose my flowing hippy skirts and baggy tops fooled anyone.
I was travelling alone, not only a single white female in a Muslim country but a very young (early twenties) and naive one. My survival strategy was to keep moving, concentrate on seeing the sights and keep my bedroom door locked at night.
There were no other travelers on my route so it was lonely at times, occasionally scary for someone who's been frequently flashed at, but not unpleasant. Though the food was revolting, the company non-existent and the bedding grey and bobbled, I enjoyed the adventure, the sense of really doing something different and new.
As well as seeing the most famous tourist attractions in Turkey like the Blue Mosque in Istanbul and the ruins of Ephesus I planned to visit obscure landmarks that few tourists visited.
So somewhere on the West coast of Turkey, possibly around Canakkale, I had an overnight stop to visit what could possibly have been the Doric Temple of Athena built in 530 BC.
Whatever the name of the ruin it was perched on top of a mountain outside town not served by public transport. But I had young, strong legs and nothing else to do so I planned to walk there.
But I underestimated both the distance and the temperature.
The trip out of town to the base of the mountain took me long enough and as I started following the road up the foot of the mountain the summer heat began to rise. Soon I was puffed out and sweating, ready to give up on my mission and go back to my room for a rest.
So when I heard a vehicle behind me I knew what to do. No stranger to hitchiking and well aware that it could be a silly travel mistake I didn't care. It was me against the mountain and the mountain was winning. I'd come a long way to see that ruin and it was ruining me. Now I could see a way to win.
I looked behind me and stuck my thumb out at the Turkish fire truck that was coming towards me. At first it seemed as if the firefighters weren't going to stop but they ground to a halt a few hundred meters up the road.
I ran towards them and approached the passenger door. The firefighting driver and his sidekick peered out. They were dressed in full firefighting uniform with big boots and black hats.
"Please can you give me a ride to the top?" I asked politely.
They nodded enthusiastically and jerked their head towards the back of the fire truck. Confused I looked back.
The firefighters didn't speak English and I could only say a few words in Turkish. There weren't any other doors in the firetruck so I wasn't sure where I was supposed to sit.
The sun crept higher and they motioned again towards the back of the truck, miming that I should climb on the back and hang on.
Having been a huge fan of Trumpton, a popular British children's TV show about firefighters from the seventies I suddenly realised what they wanted me to do. They wanted me to stand on the back of the truck and hang onto the pole while they drove up the mountain.
What fun, what an adventure! It was a dream come true until we set off.
But first I positioned my too big feet on the back step on the left of the firetruck and held onto the metal pole with both hands. Then I gave a smile and nod to the passenger who was watching me in the wing mirror.
These guys were trained professional, brave firefighters no less, who saved people's lives. I was grateful to experience the kindness of strangers. I felt safe with them. That as my first mistake.
My second mistake was to stand on the left of the truck on the outside of the road because we were soon careering up a mountain pass at speed with me dangling over the edge.
I hung on for dear life, my hands sweating profusely and slipping against the metal, palms slick with the lethal combination of heat and terror. Right next to me the mountain fell away precipitously. If I fell off the firetruck I'd fall right down the mountain.
My face was etched with concentration and fear as I struggled to stay on. Walking in the hot sun would have been so much easier.
Meanwhile the firefighter passenger watched me happily in the side mirror, laughing in mirth. I silently cursed them and their cruel tricks disguised as kindness. Then I cursed myself for my laziness and wished I'd walked.
When finally we reached the top and the firetruck ground to a halt I stepped off gingerly, wiping my hands on my skirt and ready to kiss the ground such was my relief at having survived the journey.
I thanked the firefighters politely, even though they'd given me the most terrifying journey of my life, and wandered round the ruins aimlessly, barely noticing the view or the ancient ruins. I was alive and that was all that really mattered.
When I'd fully recovered I waited until the firetruck left and found someone else to give me a lift back down. As long as I was in a car and not dangling off the side of a vehicle I figured I'd be safe.
It wasn't fun at the time but hhitchhiking a ride on the back of a firetruck hanging on to the fireman's pole makes a funny travel story. They probably don't even let firemen ride like that in most countries.
But I did it. I hitched a lift on a Turkish firetruck and hung onto the fireman's pole for dear life. It's a unique travel memory and the kind of crazy experience that makes me want to travel more.
I needed a good laugh this morning. Those mean firemen. Next time you really must remember to hop on the other side of the truck.
Yikes! That sounds so scary, Annabel. I love how you treated them politely in the end, despite it all. Glad you survived.
Hahaha, you poor sausage. I hope they'd have rescued you if you'd dropped off. Excellent exercise for the arm muscles!


The Cool Breather decanter is a patent-pending carafe that does for white wine what has long been considered an absolute must-do for red wine.
This revolutionary innovation from Menu aerates and opens up the wine, accelerating the aroma experience and upgrading the taste sensation in one swift process.
An integrated re-usable cooling stick in the carafe keeps the aerated white wine fresh and cool.


GatewayRedbirds.com • View topic - Would anyone notice if I put a lot of posts here?
Would anyone notice if I put a lot of posts here?
Post subject: Re: Would anyone notice if I put a lot of posts here?
There is a special corner in woods, on the north side of an eastern Pennsylvania mountain, not too steep, but just easy enough to navigate without exerting too much energy, depending on age, of course. I say "corner" because an old overgrown, abandoned power line runs south to north along one side and and underground pipe line runs west to east on the other. This narrow trail leads into the woods where any number of deer trails cross the underground line and lead me to that special spot of which I speak. Deer trails that have been used by generations of deer for possibly hundreds of years. I have only visited there since 1969. There is a little group of white birch in a section of that corner of the woods, surrounded by tall grasses. About four different stands of white birch, with three or four trunks bending slightly up and outwards with bark peeling. I have often wondered if the Indians that lived in these woods a long time ago used birch like these to build their canoes. There are many pretty spots in the woods to visit, to hunt, to think and to just enjoy nature. But this little stand of white birch, with criss-crossing deer trails, is the prettiest spot I have found. It's quiet. Occasionally a nuthatch flitters by and sits close to me. It gives me much pleasure to be there.
Sounds like a great spot; it is nice to find places like that and pretend like you are the only one who knows about them. Maybe in fact you are. Robert Frost is a favorite; and his Birches poem is a favorite among favorites.
Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening is the one that I am most familiar with which is one of his most famous also. That spot that I spoke of is no secret, but it is especially nice there on a snowy day.
Speaking of snow, I see that St. Louis is expecting 5 to 7 inches of snow this weekend.
That's what I heard... I'm in Ohio and they're talking 6-8 here. Always the week after the holidays when we get the snow.
It's a secret place that only you CIA folk are authorized to visit. I know your tricks.
He had many good ones. Mending Wall is another favorite. Everyone knows The Road Not Taken.
This is still a very good place to put things. I highly recommend it.
If the secrets thread were actually a secret, it would be this thread.


Vehicle decals are essentially large stickers. Decals are usually the most inexpensive way to brand a vehicle. Decals will however not receive as much attention as a full or partial vehicle wrap. A simple decal installation would usually consist of a company logo, website and phone number. A more complex installation can include various graphics as shown in the example to the right. Car decals, window decals, truck decals and trailer decals all fall under the decal category and use very similar types of vinyl.
If the objective of a company is to identify its fleet, then decals are a great option. Decals are the easiest way to begin branding a fleet and are great for when vising sites where company branding must be present to identify the vehicle, (i.e. construction sites, etc.). If the objective is to promote a brand or product and put it in front of as many people as possible then a full or partial vehicle wraps would be a better solution.
A simple car decal option which includes a company logo, website and phone number can range from $200 to $400 depending on the size of the decals. More complex decal graphics can cost $500+ as seen in the image to the right.
The cost of vehicle decal graphics depends of the size of the decals, the type of vinyl used, the complexity of the graphics and the difficulty of installation. The next section talks a little bit about the different types of vinyl used to create decals. The complexity of graphics refers to their size and detail. Square and rectangular graphics is easily cut and installed on the vehicle, while a graphic such as the grass in the picture to the right (complex decal) would take a significantly longer time to cut and apply to a vehicle because of its fine detail. The installation also has a minor influence on the cost of the vinyl decals. This is because it is fairly easy to install graphics on a flat surface compared to an area which might have obstruction( i.e. door handles, window trim, etc.).
There are many different types of vinyl which can be used to create and install decals on any number of vehicles. Different manufacturing process are used to make different type of vinyl. depending on the process used to create a specific type of vinyl it can only be used for specific applications. All vinyl has a shelf life that can range from 1 to 15 years. The longer it is designed to last the more expensive it is. Below is a short list of a few popular types of vinyl which are used in creating vehicle decals.
Reflective vinyl for example is great at getting attention at night. It reflects the light back from other vehicles illuminating your decals. Similar to an ambulance. The list below names a few different type of vinyls available.
Standard Vinyl – Refers to the most commonly used vinyl which comes in a variety of colors and can last anywhere from 1 to 15 years.
Reflective Vinyl – Refers to vinyl which reflects light similar as you would see on emergency or safety vehicles. There are a variety of types and grade of reflective vinyl some of which are specifically designed for emergency vehicle decals.
Translucent Vinyl – Refers to vinyl which allows light to pass through it but can not be seen through. Comes in a large variety of colors.
Perforated Vinyl – perforated vinyl has holes in it which allows people to see out of a window but people looking in will see only the graphics printed on the other side. This is great for store fronts as it allows people to see outside while letting light come through and allowing for advertisements to be placed in the windows.
Chrome/Carbon Fiber/Textured Vinyl – very popular in create high impact and elegant graphics.
Magnetic signs and decals for vehicles are great for when advertising all the time is an issue. Many people with home based business or subcontractors use magnetic decals to promote their business when needed. They are easily installed and removed over and over again.


Media and Investor Relations | Quantiam Technologies Inc.
Quantiam is a Canadian corporation founded in 1998. It is a Canadian-controlled Private Corporation (CCPC) governed by a Unanimous Shareholder Agreement with approximately 22 Canadian investors. Quantiam targets to provide its shareholders with liquidity events every two years to adjust their holdings, as provided by its growth oppportunities. Quantiam further contemplates a public offering in 2022/2023.
Interested investors are welcome to contact Steve Petrone for upcoming opportunities for investment.


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The Great Mike (1944)
By admin / Aug 8, 2013 / no comments
Synopsis: Story of a boy and his horse. Mike is the horse and is owned by Speck and his best friend Jimmy, together they have a paper route, on which they deliver papers to customers via a wagon pulled by Mike. Recenlty a horse track has been built in the area and attracts horse breeder and racer Colonel Whiteny (Pierre Watkin). He takes out a subscription for delivery and meets Mike and Speck & Jimmy. Clever Jimmy talks both the Colonel and Speck into taking on the Colonel's pure bred race horses at the track with comedic results.
Director: Wallace Fox
Starring: Stuart Erwin, Robert 'Buzz' Henry, Carl 'Alfalfa' Switzer
That Gang of Mine (1940)
Palooka (1934)
The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933)
Sitting on the Moon (1936)
In Old Santa Fe (1934)
Two Dollar Bettor (1951)
Atlantic Flight (1937)
Hometown Story (1951)
Nothing Sacred (1937)
The Curious Adventures of Mr Wonderbird (1952)
The Joe Louis Story (1953)
Napoleon (1955)
Three Guys Named Mike (1951)
Mr and Mrs. North: Million Dollar Coffin (1953)
Bonanza: The Mission (1960)
Bonanza: Feet of Clay (1960)
Bonanza: The Last Viking (1960)
Bonanza: The Mill (1960)
Bonanza: Death At Dawn (1960)
Bonanza: Silent Thunder (1960)
Bonanza: Breed of Violence (1960)
Bonanza: Day of Reckoning (1960)
Bonanza: The Badge Without Honor (1960)
Bonanza: The Fear Merchants (1960)
Bonanza: The Courtship (1960)
Bonanza: The Avenger (1960)
Bonanza: The Ape (1960)
Bonanza: The Hopefuls (1960)