text:
What is KCNH1
Funded Research
Our first-ever KCNH1 patient/professional conference on January 14th, 2023 was a tremendous success! We had a world-class line-up of dedicated doctors, researchers, and patient advocates, and it was amazing to see so many people come together from all over the world to help our kids. We recruited numerous new scientist and families, and were able to get over 100 people from 14 different countries to attend! Many of the researchers were offering to share models and collaborate on projects, and we couldn't be more excited about the results that this increased collaboration and engagement will bring. Looking forward to building on this momentum throughout 2023!!
If you missed out on this milestone event, you can access the recording of the full conference here, or watch individual presentations by clicking on the hyperlinks below. Please note that two of the presentations were not recorded due to the sharing of pre-published research.
KCNH1 Family and Scientific Summit 2023 Agenda
(All times PST)
Session 1, Background and Clinical Picture
8:00 Intro, Cure KCNH1 Foundation Progress Update - Michaelle Jinnette, MA, LMFT
8:15 Path to Clinical Trials - Wendy Chung, MD, PhD
8:30 Laying the Foundation: Genetics 101 for KCNH1 - Stephanie Telesca, MS, CGC
8:45 Clinical Presentation of KCNH1-Related Disorders - Tracy Gertler, MD, PhD
8:55 Break
Session 2, Current Research Projects
9:00 Family Stories
9:10 KCNH1 Treatment Roadmap - Ethan Perlstein, PhD
9:25 Open Questions After 30 Years of Research on KCNH1 - Luis Pardo, MD, PhD
9:40 High Throughput Functional Evaluation of KCNH1 Variants - Al George, MD
Session 3, Future Directions
10:00 Family Stories
10:10 KCNH1 in Human Pathogenesis - Viviana Caputo, PhD
10:25 Mouse Models for KCNH1 - Jennifer Kearney, PhD
10:35 Patient Data, Natural History, and Endpoints - Terry Jo Bichell, PhD, MPH
10:50-11 Closing Remarks - Effie Parks
11-12, Researcher Roundtable Discussion, Moderated by Al George
Terry Jo Bichell, PhD, MPH
Terry Jo Bichell worked as a documentary filmmaker in the early days of videotape, then became a public health nurse-midwife after filming a difficult birth in West Africa. When her youngest child, Lou, was diagnosed with Angelman syndrome, she switched from midwifery to clinical research on Angelman syndrome. Eventually, she went back to school to earn a PhD in neuroscience from Vanderbilt University in an effort to find treatments for her son. Along the way, she studied gene-environment interactions in Huntington disease as well as circadian aspects of Angelman syndrome and was a columnist for HDBuzz. After graduating, she was the Founding Director of the Angelman Biomarkers and Outcome Measures Alliance until 2018. Dr. Bichell founded a new non-profit in 2019, COMBINEDBrain (Consortium for Outcome Measures and Biomarkers for Neurodevelopmental Disorders), to assist other rare and ultra-rare neurogenetic disorders with clinical trial preparations.
Viviana Caputo, PhD
Dr. Caputo is a biologist with a PhD in Medical Genetics. Currently, she is an associate professor of Medical Genetics at the Department of Experimental Medicine at Sapienza University of Rome. As a human molecular geneticist, in the last ten years she has been studying the molecular bases of human rare genetic diseases. Her work focuses on the use of both in silico and in vitro approaches to discover new genes implicated in human diseases and to characterize the pathogenic mechanisms underlying rare disorders. She has performed several studies to identify pathogenic variants through Next Generation Sequencing approaches and to define altered molecular and cell mechanisms in cell models. In 2015, she contributed to identifying KCNH1 as the gene causing a neurodevelopmental phenotype and since, has been studying cell processes that are perturbed by the KCNH1 pathogenic
variants.
Wendy Chung, MD, PhD
Dr. Wendy Chung is an ABMG board-certified clinical and molecular geneticist with 20 years of experience in human genetic research of monogenic and complex traits. She has extensive experience mapping and cloning genes in humans, and describing the clinical characteristics and natural history of novel genetic conditions and characterizing the spectrum of disease, and developing tailored care and treatments for rare genetic diseases. Dr. Chung leads the Precision Medicine Resource in the Irving Institute at Columbia University. She has authored over 300 peer-reviewed papers and 50 reviews and chapters in medical texts. She was the recipient of the American Academy of Pediatrics Young Investigator Award, the Medical Achievement Award from Bonei Olam, the New York Academy Medal for Distinguished Contributions in Biomedical Science, and the Rare Impact Award from the National Organization of Rare Disorders. Dr. Chung is renowned for her teaching and mentoring and received Columbia University's highest teaching award, the Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching. She led the pilot newborn screening study of spinal muscular atrophy in NY which helped lead to the nationwide adoption of this test in newborns. She was the original plaintiff in the Supreme Court case that overturned the ability to patent genes and served on the Institute of Medicine Committee on Genetic Testing. Dr. Chung enjoys the challenges of genetics as a rapidly changing field of medicine and strives to facilitate the integration of genetic medicine into all areas of health care in a medically, scientifically, and ethically sound, accessible, and cost-effective manner. She received her B.A. in biochemistry and economics from Cornell University, her M.D. from Cornell University Medical College, and her Ph.D. from Rockefeller University in genetics.
Alfred George, MD
Dr. George is the Alfred Newton Richards Professor and Chair of the Department of Pharmacology, and Director of the Center for Pharmacogenomics at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. He has been a pioneer in elucidating the genetics and pathogenesis of channelopathies with a focus on genetic disorders caused by voltage-gated ion channel mutations associated with disorders of membrane excitability including epilepsy. He currently directs the NINDS-funded Channelopathy-associated Epilepsy Research Center without Walls.
Tracy Gertler, MD, PhD
Dr. Gertler completed her undergraduate degree in molecular biology and neuroscience at Princeton University, her medical school degree at Northwestern University Feinberg school of medicine, her graduate degree studying neuromodulation in altered dopamingeric states in the basal ganglia at Northwestern University in the lab of Dr. D. James Surmeier, and her pediatrics/child neurology residency at Lurie Children's Hospital in Chicago. The goal of her basic science research is to understand the mechanisms by which genetic ion channel variants identified in patients with early-onset epilepsy translate to altered channel biophysics when isolated in an expression system, to abnormal intrinsic neuronal excitability when studied in patient-derived neurons (made from induced pluripotent stem cell lines), and to circuit-level disruption resulting in epileptogenesis in transgenic animal models. This three-pronged approach shares a common pathophysiologic protein, and is intended to identify new therapeutic targets by complementary ion channel, neuronal, and synaptic modulation.
Jennifer Kearney, PhD
Dr. Kearney received her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from The University of Michigan in 1997. She remained at The University of Michigan for postdoctoral training in Genetics and joined the faculty in 2002 as a Research Investigator in Human Genetics. In 2007, she moved to Vanderbilt University to join the Division of Genetic Medicine and the Institute for Integrative Genomics. In July of 2014, Dr. Kearney joined the Department of Pharmacology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Her research program is focused on identifying genetic factors that contribute to childhood epilepsies and neurodevelopmental disorders. To understand how genetic variations contribute to the underlying pathophysiology, her laboratory develops and uses mouse models for genomic, transcriptomic, physiological, and pharmacological studies. The overarching goal is to translate this knowledge into better treatments for childhood epilepsy syndromes.
Luis Pardo, MD, PhD
Luis A. Pardo leads a research group on ion channels in cancer at the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences in Göttingen, Germany. His group studies the biophysical properties of potassium channels and their roles in controlling crucial cellular functions such as proliferation or migration, with particular attention to those leading to malignant transformation and tumor progression. The main target of his research has been the channel encoded by KCNH1; he studies the properties and functions of this potassium channel in health and disease and looks for possible therapeutic interventions against excessive or extemporary functions of the channel. Luis Pardo graduated as MD from the University of Oviedo, Spain, where he also obtained his Ph.D. Since then, he has investigated ion channels at the same university and different Max-Planck Institutes in Germany.
Effie Parks
Effie Parks was born in the magical land of Montana, where she was raised with her 12 loving siblings. After moving to Washington and marrying her husband, they were blessed with the birth of their son, Ford Canon Parks. When Effie learned that Ford had been born with an extremely rare genetic condition – CTNNB1 syndrome – she dove into the world of advocacy. Now, she is the host of her own podcast, Once Upon a Gene, where she speaks to others about their journey through life with rare disease. Since the launch of the podcast, Once Upon A Gene was awarded "Best In Show Podcast" by WEGO Health. Podcast Magazine recognized Effie as one of the 40 Under 40 Podcasters and she has been nominated for two Champion of Hope awards from Global Genes. Her mission is to learn, lift voices of the community, connect people to resources and to leave this world better than she found it for others in the rare disease world.
Ethan Perlstein, PhD
Ethan Perlstein is the founder and CEO of Perlara PBC, the first biotech Public Benefit Corporation, which is on a mission to accelerate the discovery of cures for rare genetic diseases. Ethan is also cofounder and CEO of Maggie's Pearl, a clinical-stage joint venture of Perlara and a rare disease family that is currently sponsoring a Phase 3 drug repurposing study at Mayo Clinic. Over the course of the last decade, first as a graduate student at Harvard University in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology with PhD advisor Professor Stuart Schreiber and then as an independent postdoctoral fellow at the Lewis-Sigler Institute at Princeton University, Dr. Ethan Perlstein developed an approach to studying old drugs and discovering new drugs in model organisms called evolutionary pharmacology.
Stephanie Telesca, MS, CGC
Stephanie Telesca received her Masters of Human Genetics from Sarah Lawrence College in 2013 and is an American board certified genetic counselor. She has worked at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, Canada since 2016. Since entering the field of genetic counseling, she has primarily focused on preconception and prenatal genetics. She is involved in the supervision of medical students, genetic counseling students, and fellows through the OBGYN department. Stephanie has a passion for advocating for her patients and supporting their own advocacy through didactic discussions regarding their medical care. In 2021 Stephanie's daughter was born and later diagnosed with an ultra-rare genetic condition, KCNC1-related disorder, and Stephanie subsequently started The KCNC1 Foundation. The foundation aims at supporting the development of treatments/a cure for all children impacted by KCNC1-related disorders through funding science.
We're always looking for support for our mission.
info@curekcnh1.org
CURE KCNH1 FOUNDATION is a registered nonprofit organization, EIN# 87-2041980


Turn any laptop or desktop PC into a wireless controller for MeshGuard monitors with this wireless solution. Using either an RS 232 serial or Ethernet port, the RAEMesh Reader transmits wireless sensor data to a PC running ProRAE Guardian software. Designed for indoor use in non-hazardous environments, the RAEMesh Reader also has an optional outdoor antenna and 30-foot cable to extend signal range.


text:
<?php

namespace SilverStripe\Admin;

use SilverStripe\CMS\Controllers\CMSMain;
use SilverStripe\Control\HTTPRequest;
use SilverStripe\Control\HTTPResponse;
use SilverStripe\Core\Convert;
use SilverStripe\Core\Injector\Injector;
use SilverStripe\Forms\FieldList;
use SilverStripe\Forms\Form;
use SilverStripe\Forms\GridField\GridField;
use SilverStripe\Forms\GridField\GridFieldConfig_RecordEditor;
use SilverStripe\Forms\GridField\GridFieldDataColumns;
use SilverStripe\Forms\GridField\GridFieldDetailForm;
use SilverStripe\Forms\GridField\GridFieldExportButton;
use SilverStripe\Forms\GridField\GridFieldImportButton;
use SilverStripe\Forms\GridField\GridFieldPageCount;
use SilverStripe\Forms\HiddenField;
use SilverStripe\Forms\LiteralField;
use SilverStripe\Forms\Tab;
use SilverStripe\Forms\TabSet;
use SilverStripe\Security\Group;
use SilverStripe\Security\Member;
use SilverStripe\Security\Permission;
use SilverStripe\Security\PermissionProvider;
use SilverStripe\Security\PermissionRole;
use SilverStripe\View\ArrayData;
use SilverStripe\View\Requirements;

/**
 * Security section of the CMS
 */
class SecurityAdmin extends LeftAndMain implements PermissionProvider
{

    private static $url_segment = 'security';

    private static $url_rule = '/$Action/$ID/$OtherID';

    private static $menu_title = 'Security';

    private static $tree_class = Group::class;

    private static $subitem_class = Member::class;

    private static $required_permission_codes = 'CMS_ACCESS_SecurityAdmin';

    private static $menu_icon_class = 'font-icon-torsos-all';

    private static $allowed_actions = [
        'EditForm',
        'MemberImportForm',
        'memberimport',
        'GroupImportForm',
        'groupimport',
        'groups',
        'users',
        'roles'
    ];

    /**
     * Shortcut action for setting the correct active tab.
     *
     * @param HTTPRequest $request
     * @return HTTPResponse
     */
    public function users($request)
    {
        return $this->index($request);
    }

    /**
     * Shortcut action for setting the correct active tab.
     *
     * @param HTTPRequest $request
     * @return HTTPResponse
     */
    public function groups($request)
    {
        return $this->index($request);
    }

    /**
     * Shortcut action for setting the correct active tab.
     *
     * @param HTTPRequest $request
     * @return HTTPResponse
     */
    public function roles($request)
    {
        return $this->index($request);
    }

    public function getEditForm($id = null, $fields = null)
    {
        // Build gridfield configs
        $memberListConfig = GridFieldConfig_RecordEditor::create()
            ->addComponent(Injector::inst()->createWithArgs(GridFieldExportButton::class, ['buttons-before-left']));
        $groupListConfig = GridFieldConfig_RecordEditor::create()
            ->addComponent(Injector::inst()->createWithArgs(GridFieldExportButton::class, ['buttons-before-left']));

        /** @var GridFieldDetailForm $detailForm */
        $detailForm = $memberListConfig->getComponentByType(GridFieldDetailForm::class);
        $memberValidator = Member::singleton()->getValidator();
        $detailForm->setValidator($memberValidator);

        /** @var GridFieldPageCount $groupPaginator */
        $groupListConfig->removeComponentsByType(GridFieldPageCount::class);
        $groupListConfig->addComponent(Injector::inst()->createWithArgs(GridFieldPageCount::class, ['buttons-before-right']));

        // Add import capabilities. Limit to admin since the import logic can affect assigned permissions
        if (Permission::check('ADMIN')) {
            // @todo when grid field is converted to react use the react component
            $memberListConfig->addComponent(
                GridFieldImportButton::create('buttons-before-left')
                    ->setImportIframe($this->Link('memberimport'))
                    ->setModalTitle(_t(__CLASS__ . '.IMPORTUSERS', 'Import users'))
            );
            $groupListConfig->addComponent(
                GridFieldImportButton::create('buttons-before-left')
                    ->setImportIframe($this->Link('groupimport'))
                    ->setModalTitle(_t(__CLASS__ . '.IMPORTGROUPS', 'Import groups'))
            );
        }

        // Build gridfield
        $memberList = GridField::create(
            'Members',
            false,
            Member::get(),
            $memberListConfig
        )->addExtraClass("members_grid");

        // Build group fields
        $groupList = GridField::create(
            'Groups',
            false,
            Group::get(),
            $groupListConfig
        );
        /** @var GridFieldDataColumns $columns */
        $columns = $groupList->getConfig()->getComponentByType(GridFieldDataColumns::class);
        $columns->setDisplayFields([
            'Breadcrumbs' => Group::singleton()->fieldLabel('Title')
        ]);
        $columns->setFieldFormatting([
            'Breadcrumbs' => function ($val, $item) {
                /** @var Group $item */
                return Convert::raw2xml($item->getBreadcrumbs(' > '));
            }
        ]);

        $fields = FieldList::create(
            TabSet::create(
                'Root',
                Tab::create(
                    'Users',
                    _t(__CLASS__ . '.Users', 'Users'),
                    LiteralField::create(
                        'MembersCautionText',
                        sprintf(
                            '
%s
',
                            _t(
                                __CLASS__ . '.MemberListCaution',
                                'Caution: Removing members from this list will remove them from all groups and the database'
                            )
                        )
                    ),
                    $memberList
                ),
                Tab::create(
                    'Groups',
                    Group::singleton()->i18n_plural_name(),
                    $groupList
                )
            )->setTemplate('SilverStripe\\Forms\\CMSTabSet'),
            // necessary for tree node selection in LeftAndMain.EditForm.js
            new HiddenField('ID', false, 0)
        );

        // Add roles editing interface
        $rolesTab = null;
        if (Permission::check('APPLY_ROLES')) {
            $rolesField = GridField::create(
                'Roles',
                false,
                PermissionRole::get(),
                GridFieldConfig_RecordEditor::create()
            );

            $rolesTab = $fields->findOrMakeTab('Root.Roles', _t(__CLASS__ . '.TABROLES', 'Roles'));
            $rolesTab->push($rolesField);
        }

        // Build replacement form
        $form = Form::create(
            $this,
            'EditForm',
            $fields,
            new FieldList()
        )->setHTMLID('Form_EditForm');
        $form->addExtraClass('cms-edit-form fill-height');
        $form->setTemplate($this->getTemplatesWithSuffix('_EditForm'));
        $form->addExtraClass('ss-tabset cms-tabset ' . $this->BaseCSSClasses());
        $form->setAttribute('data-pjax-fragment', 'CurrentForm');

        $this->extend('updateEditForm', $form);

        return $form;
    }

    public function memberimport()
    {
        Requirements::clear();
        Requirements::javascript('silverstripe/admin: client/dist/js/vendor.js');
        Requirements::javascript('silverstripe/admin: client/dist/js/MemberImportForm.js');
        Requirements::css('silverstripe/admin: client/dist/styles/bundle.css');

        return $this->renderWith('BlankPage', [
            'Form' => $this->MemberImportForm()->forTemplate(),
            'Content' => ' '
        ]);
    }

    /**
     * @see SecurityAdmin_MemberImportForm
     *
     * @return Form
     */
    public function MemberImportForm()
    {
        if (!Permission::check('ADMIN')) {
            return null;
        }

        /** @var Group $group */
        $group = $this->currentPage();
        $form = new MemberImportForm($this, __FUNCTION__);
        $form->setGroup($group);

        return $form;
    }

    public function groupimport()
    {
        Requirements::clear();
        Requirements::javascript('silverstripe/admin: client/dist/js/vendor.js');
        Requirements::javascript('silverstripe/admin: client/dist/js/MemberImportForm.js');
        Requirements::css('silverstripe/admin: client/dist/styles/bundle.css');

        return $this->renderWith('BlankPage', [
            'Content' => ' ',
            'Form' => $this->GroupImportForm()->forTemplate()
        ]);
    }

    /**
     * @see SecurityAdmin_MemberImportForm
     *
     * @skipUpgrade
     * @return Form
     */
    public function GroupImportForm()
    {
        if (!Permission::check('ADMIN')) {
            return null;
        }

        return new GroupImportForm($this, __FUNCTION__);
    }

    /**
     * Disable GridFieldDetailForm backlinks for this view, as its
     */
    public function Backlink()
    {
        return false;
    }

    public function Breadcrumbs($unlinked = false)
    {
        $crumbs = parent::Breadcrumbs($unlinked);

        // Name root breadcrumb based on which record is edited,
        // which can only be determined by looking for the fieldname of the GridField.
        // Note: Titles should be same titles as tabs in RootForm().
        $params = $this->getRequest()->allParams();
        if (isset($params['FieldName'])) {
            // TODO FieldName param gets overwritten by nested GridFields,
            // so shows "Members" rather than "Groups" for the following URL:
            // admin/security/EditForm/field/Groups/item/2/ItemEditForm/field/Members/item/1/edit
            $firstCrumb = $crumbs->shift();
            if ($params['FieldName'] == 'Groups') {
                $crumbs->unshift(new ArrayData([
                    'Title' => Group::singleton()->i18n_plural_name(),
                    'Link' => $this->Link('groups')
                ]));
            } elseif ($params['FieldName'] == 'Users') {
                $crumbs->unshift(new ArrayData([
                    'Title' => _t(__CLASS__ . '.Users', 'Users'),
                    'Link' => $this->Link('users')
                ]));
            } elseif ($params['FieldName'] == 'Roles') {
                $crumbs->unshift(new ArrayData([
                    'Title' => _t(__CLASS__ . '.TABROLES', 'Roles'),
                    'Link' => $this->Link('roles')
                ]));
            }
            $crumbs->unshift($firstCrumb);
        }

        return $crumbs;
    }

    public function providePermissions()
    {
        $title = $this->menu_title();
        return [
            "CMS_ACCESS_SecurityAdmin" => [
                'name' => _t(
                    CMSMain::class . '.ACCESS',
                    "Access to '{title}' section",
                    ['title' => $title]
                ),
                'category' => _t(Permission::class . '.CMS_ACCESS_CATEGORY', 'CMS Access'),
                'help' => _t(
                    __CLASS__ . '.ACCESS_HELP',
                    'Allow viewing, adding and editing users, as well as assigning permissions and roles to them.'
                ),
            ],
            'EDIT_PERMISSIONS' => [
                'name' => _t(__CLASS__ . '.EDITPERMISSIONS', 'Manage permissions for groups'),
                'category' => _t(
                    Permission::class . '.PERMISSIONS_CATEGORY',
                    'Roles and access permissions'
                ),
                'help' => _t(
                    __CLASS__ . '.EDITPERMISSIONS_HELP',
                    'Ability to edit Permissions and IP Addresses for a group.'
                    . ' Requires the "Access to \'Security\' section" permission.'
                ),
                'sort' => 0,
            ],
            'APPLY_ROLES' => [
                'name' => _t(__CLASS__ . '.APPLY_ROLES', 'Apply roles to groups'),
                'category' => _t(
                    Permission::class . '.PERMISSIONS_CATEGORY',
                    'Roles and access permissions'
                ),
                'help' => _t(
                    __CLASS__ . '.APPLY_ROLES_HELP',
                    'Ability to edit the roles assigned to a group.'
                    . ' Requires the "Access to \'Users\' section" permission.'
                ),
                'sort' => 0,
            ],
        ];
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


…each volume change. The Multistepper works on the air displacement principle. It's easy to use, by attaching, filling and priming the module and dialing the selected volume. Tip injector ensures safe, simple tip disposal. Tips hold up to 1,250 µL and are available sterile or non-sterile.


text:
Councils are taking the lead on climate change: This is how businesses should respond
By Emma Watson
Businesses need to adapt to increased council regulation and growing pressure from local communities and develop a suitable sustainability programme for strategic advantage. Over the past year, more than half of all councils in the UK have declared a climate emergency and this trend is likely to continue.
Councils are vital in the fight against climate change, as they have the local knowledge and relationships with local communities to facilitate quick climate action.
Councils declare a 'climate emergency'
Last year, Bristol and Manchester became the first local authorities to declare a climate emergency. Since then over 200 councils have followed their stead and on May 1st the government announced to commit to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. In July 2019, the Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn called on councils to take the lead in cutting carbon and warned that climate change will not be dealt with "from above by people sitting in offices in Whitehall and Westminster alone". Local government and local communities are vital. Councils are vital in the fight against climate change, as they have the local knowledge and relationships with local communities to facilitate quick climate action. This is crucial as cities, responsible for 80% of the UK's carbon emissions, need to respond much faster. The pressure to act is coming from more than just the science, people are demanding action from their local councils across areas such as transport, energy, waste, and housing.
Figure 1. Timeline of council climate action from October 2018 to August 2019
Nottingham has ambitiously set a carbon neutral target for 2028, and every new council building will have solar panels.
Climate action so far
Many councils have made a public announcement and declared a 'climate emergency'. But what does this actually mean? Most of their pledges and aims vary widely. Some councils have set a 2030 target – 20 years ahead of the central government's 2050 target. While many others haven't set a target at all (figure 2). Stroud, for example, has had a big focus on global warming since the 1990s, and was, in 2015, the first local authority in Europe to go carbon neutral. Nottingham has ambitiously set a carbon neutral target for 2028, and every new council building will have solar panels. On the contrary, Manchester explicitly excludes flight emissions from its carbon management plan, while the council has a part share in the airport. Cumbria council even approved a new coalmine. Amongst all this confusion there is growing pressure from local communities, interest groups, and activists which is increasingly placing more emphasis on businesses setting meaningful and stretching climate targets.
Figure 2. (a) Councils which have declared a climate emergency. Red shades are to distinguish the council from each other and do not indicate the council's ambition.
Figure 2. (b) Climate targets by councils that have declared a climate emergency. Blue indicates a 2030 net zero target, green Data is a 2050 net zero target and yellow indicates that no target is set. Data is derived from https://www.climateemergency.uk/blog/list-of-councils/and is last updated on 15 July 2019.
Given the range in the council's ambitions, how should business respond?
The uncertainty surrounding local, regional and national approaches to setting specific climate targets, along with the growing council pressure to act can cause confusion for businesses with nationwide operations. In order to gain clarity and reduce confusion, here are some simple steps to take.
1. Engage internal stakeholders to build the case for change – Internal stakeholder engagement is essential in transforming your climate targets into a powerful response. Engage and educate employees to create a sustainable culture in your business. This will help to build a strong business case for change. Define the company's long-term purpose, make sustainability visible inside the company and create sustainable practices with employees.
2. Review what your competitors, clients, and suppliers are doing – Reviewing the sustainability baseline performance is essential before setting your sustainability strategy. Know what your competitors are doing, and what your clients are expecting. Map your supply chain by identifying how your suppliers are performing.
3. Set your vision – Designing an ambitious vision on sustainability that is suitable for the needs and requirements of your business is challenging as there are a lot of pathways to choose from. Think about where your business wants to be in the long-term future. Is it most important to you to halve your emissions, be the most carbon-efficient business in your sector or to be aligned with the Paris Agreement?
4. Consider aligning with a respected and established framework such as the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) – With so many options on the table, and with multiple councils opting for different strategies, aligning with a well-respected and scientifically robust framework such as the SBTi will enable you to cut through the noise and follow a well-established methodology.
5. Set targets and build your strategy by assessing your emissions scopes and understand the ability and feasibility to reduce or offset emissions – Understanding of the source of your emissions (scope 1,2 or 3) is the essential first step in reducing them. Ideally, businesses should aim to include all scopes in their strategy, but scope 3 emissions may need to be assessed in more depth to understand your ability to exert control. Understanding the areas that you can impact is pivotal in setting the initial scope of a boundary.
6. Launch your commitment and monitor your progress – Ensure you have the right infrastructure in place to monitor and report your progress. Are you collecting the right data, and do you trust your numbers? Are you getting various requests for data?
Setting a strategy is the start of the journey, the real hard work is enacting, enabling and mobilising your business to enable it to successfully operate in an uncertain future.
As more councils declare emergencies and set different targets, having an established strategy and a "one version of the trust" data set will ensure your business can respond to ad-hoc requests, whilst still pursuing a credible reduction goal. Setting a strategy is the start of the journey, the real hard work is enacting, enabling and mobilising your business to enable it to successfully operate in an uncertain future. Contact us if you would like to know more about setting a credible strategy, collecting and reporting data, or optimising your assets. With the right level of ambition and Carbon Intelligence, you can ensure your business is at the forefront of the climate movement. Please email info@carbon.ci for more information or to have a chat with one of our experts.
Carbon Intelligence partners with GeSI on a Climate Scenario Analysis Framework aligned to the TCFD recommendations
Climate Scenario Analysis Framework...
Carbon Intelligence & WBCSD collaborate on new energy strategy guidelines
WBCSD launched a new guideline...
Announcement: Our science-based target has been approved!
Our proposed emissions target
Net Zero: The Guide for Business
"It's about matching your strategy to your ambition". What is your organisation's level of ambition?

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


NHS workers who provide mental health care for thousands of people have been recognised for their efforts.
A glittering awards ceremony shone a spotlight on nurses, doctors, occupational therapists and many other staff at Sussex Partnership NHS Trust.
This year the annual event recognised more than 13 individuals and team winners who had all gone above and beyond in providing first class services and care for the people they look after.
More than 500 people were at the ceremony at the Pavilion Theatre in Worthing.
Trust chief executive Sam Allen said: "Every single day our staff go above and beyond to provide outstanding care for the people we serve.
"These are challenging times for all of the NHS – and mental health services particularly – with a level of demand we have never known before.
"That's why events like our Positive Practice Awards are so important.
"They give us a chance to celebrate all the good that is happening day in and day out across NHS mental health and learning disability services.
"It really was a night to remember.
"The event was paid for through external sponsorship and was a chance to thank our staff for everything they do to help us continue improving services for patients, service users and families.
"I felt truly humbled at the awards, as I always do when I'm out and about across the trust meeting our dedicated staff.
"We are fortunate to have such talented and committed people working at Sussex Partnership and in the NHS.
All of the awards are around valuing, appreciating and respecting each other.
Winners were recognised for their contributions to improving patient care.
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It was it was given to Lucinda Walsh for her work developing autism care.


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text:
Map of Mumbai- India
Mumbai is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India and the ninth most populous agglomeration in the world, with an estimated city population of 18.4 million. Along with the neighbouring regions of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, it is one of the most populous urban regions in the world and the second most populous metropolitan area in India, with a population of 20.7 million as of 2011. Mumbai lies on the west coast of India and has a deep natural harbour. In 2008, Mumbai was named an alpha world city. It is also the wealthiest city in India, and has the highest GDP of any city in South, West, or Central Asia. Mumbai has the highest number of billionaires and millionaires among all cities in India.
The seven islands that came to constitute Mumbai were home to communities of fishing colonies. For centuries, the islands were under the control of successive indigenous empires before being ceded to the Portuguese and subsequently to the British East India Company when in 1661 King Charles II married the Portuguese Catherine of Braganza, and as part of her dowry Charles received the ports of Tangier and seven islands of Bombay. During the mid-18th century, Bombay was reshaped by the Hornby Vellard project, which undertook reclamation of the area between the seven islands from the sea. Along with construction of major roads and railways, the reclamation project, completed in 1845, transformed Bombay into a major seaport on the Arabian Sea. Bombay in the 19th century was characterised by economic and educational development. During the early 20th century it became a strong base for the Indian independence movement. Upon India's independence in 1947 the city was incorporated into Bombay State. In 1960, following the Samyukta Maharashtra movement, a new state of Maharashtra was created with Bombay as the capital.
Mumbai is the financial, commercial and entertainment capital of India. It is also one of the world's top ten centres of commerce in terms of global financial flow,generating 6.16% of India's GDP and accounting for 25% of industrial output, 70% of maritime trade in India (Mumbai Port Trust and JNPT), and 70% of capital transactions to India's economy. The city houses important financial institutions such as the Reserve Bank of India, the Bombay Stock Exchange, the National Stock Exchange of India, the SEBI and the corporate headquarters of numerous Indian companies and multinational corporations. It is also home to some of India's premier scientific and nuclear institutes like BARC, NPCL, IREL, TIFR, AERB, AECI, and the Department of Atomic Energy. The city also houses India's Hindi (Bollywood) and Marathi film and television industry. Mumbai's business opportunities, as well as its potential to offer a higher standard of living, attract migrants from all over India, making the city a melting pot of many communities and cultures.
How Many People Live in Mumbai?
Mumbai, also called Bombay, is the capital city of the state of Maharashtra in India, and it's the most populous city in India. As the 4th most populous city in the world and one of the populous urban regions in the world, Mumbai has a metro population of about 20.7 million in 2016.
Mumbai's urban population is estimated to be over 22 million, and the densely populated city is one of the largest in India in terms of population, trade activity and business. The metropolitan area has experienced an explosion in growth over the past 20 years, a common occurrence with metropolitan areas in India.
The official languages of India are English and Hindi and most people understand at least some of either language, or a blend of both known as "Hinglish". Marathi is also the official language of the Mumbai and the state of Maharashtra, and is spoken widely in the city.
The Indian monetary unit is the Rupee (Rs. or INR), which can be divided into 100 Paise.
Mumbai consists of two distinct regions: Mumbai City district and Mumbai Suburban district, which form two separate revenue districts of Maharashtra. The city district region is also commonly referred to as the Island City or South Mumbai. The total area of Mumbai is 603.4 km2 (233 sq mi). Of this, the island city spans 67.79 km2 (26 sq mi), while the suburban district spans 370 km2 (143 sq mi), together accounting for 437.71 km2 (169 sq mi) under the administration of Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM). The remaining areas belong to various Defence establishments, the Mumbai Port Trust, the Atomic Energy Commission and the Borivali National Park, which are out of the jurisdiction of the MCGM. The Mumbai Metropolitan Region which includes portions of Thane, Palghar and Raigad districts in addition to Greater Mumbai, covers an area of 4,355 km2 (1681.5 sq mi).
Mumbai lies at the mouth of the Ulhas River on the western coast of India, in the coastal region known as the Konkan. It sits on Salsette Island (Sashti Island), which it partially shares with the Thane district. Mumbai is bounded by the Arabian Sea to the west. Many parts of the city lie just above sea level, with elevations ranging from 10 m (33 ft) to 15 m (49 ft); the city has an average elevation of 14 m (46 ft). Northern Mumbai (Salsette) is hilly, and the highest point in the city is 450 m (1,476 ft) at Salsette in the Powai–Kanheri ranges. The Sanjay Gandhi National Park (Borivali National Park) is located partly in the Mumbai suburban district, and partly in the Thane district, and it extends over an area of 103.09 km2 (39.80 sq mi).
Apart from the Bhatsa Dam, there are six major lakes that supply water to the city: Vihar, Lower Vaitarna, Upper Vaitarna, Tulsi, Tansa and Powai. Tulsi Lake and Vihar Lake are located in Borivili National Park, within the city's limits. The supply from Powai Lake, also within the city limits, is used only for agricultural and industrial purposes. Three small rivers, the Dahisar River, Poinsar (or Poisar) and Ohiwara (or Oshiwara) originate within the park, while the polluted Mithi River originates from Tulsi Lake and gathers water overflowing from Vihar and Powai Lakes. The coastline of the city is indented with numerous creeks and bays, stretching from the Thane creek on the eastern to Madh Marve on the western front. The eastern coast of Salsette Island is covered with large mangrove swamps, rich in biodiversity, while the western coast is mostly sandy and rocky.
Soil cover in the city region is predominantly sandy due to its proximity to the sea. In the suburbs, the soil cover is largely alluvial and loamy. The underlying rock of the region is composed of black Deccan basalt flows, and their acidic and basic variants dating back to the late Cretaceous and early Eocene eras. Mumbai sits on a seismically active zone owing to the presence of 23 fault lines in the vicinity.The area is classified as a Seismic Zone III region, which means an earthquake of up to magnitude 6.5 on the Richter magnitude scale may be expected.
Mumbai has a tropical climate, specifically a tropical wet and dry climate (Aw) under the Köppen climate classification, with seven months of dryness and peak of rains in July.The cooler season from December to February is followed by the summer season from March to June. The period from June to about the end of September constitutes the south-west monsoon season, and October and November form the post-monsoon season.
Between June and September, the south west monsoon rains lash the city. Pre-monsoon showers are received in May. Occasionally, north-east monsoon showers occur in October and November. The maximum annual rainfall ever recorded was 3,452 mm (136 in) for 1954. The highest rainfall recorded in a single day was 944 mm (37 in) on 26 July 2005. The average total annual rainfall is 2,146.6 mm (85 in) for the Island City, and 2,457 mm (97 in) for the suburbs.
The average annual temperature is 27.2 °C (81 °F), and the average annual precipitation is 2,167 mm (85 in). In the Island City, the average maximum temperature is 31.2 °C (88 °F), while the average minimum temperature is 23.7 °C (75 °F). In the suburbs, the daily mean maximum temperature range from 29.1 °C (84 °F) to 33.3 °C (92 °F), while the daily mean minimum temperature ranges from 16.3 °C (61 °F) to 26.2 °C (79 °F). The record high is 42.2 °C (108 °F) set on 14 April 1952, and the record low is 7.4 °C (45 °F) set on 27 January 1962.
Mumbai's culture is a blend of traditional festivals, food, music, and theatres. The city offers a cosmopolitan and diverse lifestyle with a variety of food, entertainment, and night life, available in a form and abundance comparable to that in other world capitals. Mumbai's history as a major trading centre has led to a diverse range of cultures, religions, and cuisines coexisting in the city. This unique blend of cultures is due to the migration of people from all over India since the British period.
Mumbai is the birthplace of Indian cinema—Dadasaheb Phalke laid the foundations with silent movies followed by Marathi talkies—and the oldest film broadcast took place in the early 20th century. Mumbai also has a large number of cinema halls that feature Bollywood, Marathi and Hollywood movies. The Mumbai International Film Festival and the award ceremony of the Filmfare Awards, the oldest and prominent film awards given for Hindi film industry in India, are held in Mumbai. Despite most of the professional theatre groups that formed during the British Raj having disbanded by the 1950s, Mumbai has developed a thriving "theatre movement" tradition in Marathi, Hindi, English, and other regional languages.
Main article: Public transport in Mumbai
Public transport systems in Mumbai include the Mumbai Suburban Railway, Monorail, Metro, Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) buses, black-and-yellow meter taxis, auto rickshaws and ferries. Suburban railway and BEST bus services together accounted for about 88% of the passenger traffic in 2008. Auto rickshaws are allowed to operate only in the suburban areas of Mumbai, while taxis are allowed to operate throughout Mumbai, but generally operate in South Mumbai. Taxis and rickshaws in Mumbai are required by law to run on compressed natural gas (CNG),[208] and are a convenient, economical, and easily available means of transport.
The Mumbai Suburban Railway, popularly referred to as Locals forms the backbone of the city's transport system. It is operated by the Central Railway and Western Railway zones of the Indian Railways. Mumbai's suburban rail systems carried a total of 6.3 million passengers every day in 2007. Trains are overcrowded during peak hours, with nine-car trains of rated capacity 1,700 passengers, actually carrying around 4,500 passengers at peak hours.The Mumbai rail network is spread at an expanse of 319 route kilometres. 191 rakes (train-sets) of 9 car and 12 car composition are utilised to run a total of 2,226 train services in the city.
The Mumbai Monorail and Mumbai Metro have been built and are being extended in phases to relieve overcrowding on the existing network. The Monorail opened in early February 2014.The first line of the Mumbai Metro opened in early June 2014.
Mumbai is the headquarters of two zones of the Indian Railways: the Central Railway (CR) headquartered at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (formerly Victoria Terminus), and the Western Railway (WR) headquartered at Churchgate. Mumbai is also well connected to most parts of India by the Indian Railways. Long-distance trains originate from Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, Dadar, Lokmanya Tilak Terminus, Mumbai Central, Bandra Terminus, Andheri and Borivali.
Mumbai's bus services carried over 5.5 million passengers per day in 2008, which dropped to 2.8 million in 2015. Public buses run by BEST cover almost all parts of the metropolis, as well as parts of Navi Mumbai, Mira-Bhayandar and Thane. The BEST operates a total of 4,608 buses with CCTV cameras installed, ferrying 4.5 million passengers daily over 390 routes. Its fleet consists of single-decker, double-decker, vestibule, low-floor, disabled-friendly, air-conditioned and Euro III compliant diesel and compressed natural gas powered buses. BEST introduced air-conditioned buses in 1998. BEST buses are red in colour, based originally on the Routemaster buses of London. Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC, also known as ST) buses provide intercity transport connecting Mumbai with other towns and cities of Maharashtra and nearby states. The Navi Mumbai Municipal Transport (NMMT) and Thane Municipal Transport (TMT) also operate their buses in Mumbai, connecting various nodes of Navi Mumbai and Thane to parts of Mumbai.
Buses are generally favoured for commuting short to medium distances, while train fares are more economical for longer distance commutes.
The Mumbai Darshan is a tourist bus service which explores numerous tourist attractions in Mumbai. Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) lanes have been planned throughout Mumbai. Though 88% of the city's commuters travel by public transport, Mumbai still continues to struggle with traffic congestion. Mumbai's transport system has been categorised as one of the most congested in the world.
Water transport in Mumbai consists of ferries, hovercrafts and catamarans. Services are provided by both government agencies as well as private partners. Hovercraft services plied briefly in the late 1990s between the Gateway of India and CBD Belapur in Navi Mumbai. They were subsequently scrapped due to lack of adequate infrastructure.
Mumbai is served by National Highway 3, National Highway 4, National Highway 8, National Highway 17 and National Highway 222 of India's National Highways system. The Mumbai-Pune Expressway was the first expressway built in India. The Eastern Freeway was opened in 2013. The Mumbai Nashik Expressway, Mumbai-Vadodara Expressway, are under construction. The Bandra-Worli Sea Link bridge, along with Mahim Causeway, links the island city to the western suburbs. The three major road arteries of the city are the Eastern Express Highway from Sion to Thane, the Sion Panvel Expressway from Sion to Panvel and the Western Express Highway from Bandra to Dahisar. Mumbai has approximately 1,900 km (1,181 mi) of roads.There are five tolled entry points to the city by road.
Mumbai had about 721,000 private vehicles as of March 2014, 56,459 black and yellow taxis as of 2005, and 106,000 auto rickshaws, as of May 2013.
The Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (formerly Sahar International Airport) is the main aviation hub in the city and the second busiest airport in India in terms of passenger traffic. It handled 36.6 million passengers and 694,300 tonnes of cargo during FY 2014–2015. An upgrade plan was initiated in 2006, targeted at increasing the capacity of the airport to handle up to 40 million passengers annually and the new terminal T2 was opened in February 2014.
The proposed Navi Mumbai International Airport to be built in the Kopra-Panvel area has been sanctioned by the Indian Government and will help relieve the increasing traffic burden on the existing airport.
The Juhu Aerodrome was India's first airport, and now hosts the Bombay Flying Club and a heliport operated by state-owned Pawan Hans.
Mumbai is served by two major ports, Mumbai Port Trust and Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, which lies just across the creek in Navi Mumbai. Mumbai Port has one of the best natural harbours in the world, and has extensive wet and dry dock accommodation facilities. Jawaharlal Nehru Port, commissioned on 26 May 1989, is the busiest and most modern major port in India. It handles 55–60% of the country's total containerised cargo. Ferries from Ferry Wharf in Mazagaon allow access to islands near the city.
The city is also the headquarters of the Western Naval Command, and also an important base for the Indian Navy.


text:
package org.elasticsearch.xpack.security.authc.ldap;

import com.unboundid.ldap.sdk.Attribute;
import com.unboundid.ldap.sdk.Filter;
import com.unboundid.ldap.sdk.LDAPInterface;
import com.unboundid.ldap.sdk.SearchRequest;
import com.unboundid.ldap.sdk.SearchResultEntry;
import com.unboundid.ldap.sdk.SearchScope;
import org.apache.logging.log4j.Logger;
import org.elasticsearch.action.ActionListener;
import org.elasticsearch.common.settings.Settings;
import org.elasticsearch.common.unit.TimeValue;
import org.elasticsearch.xpack.core.security.authc.ldap.support.LdapSearchScope;
import org.elasticsearch.xpack.security.authc.ldap.support.LdapSession.GroupsResolver;

import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.Collection;
import java.util.Collections;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.stream.Collectors;

import static org.elasticsearch.xpack.core.security.authc.ldap.ActiveDirectorySessionFactorySettings.AD_DOMAIN_NAME_SETTING;
import static org.elasticsearch.xpack.security.authc.ldap.ActiveDirectorySessionFactory.buildDnFromDomain;
import static org.elasticsearch.xpack.security.authc.ldap.support.LdapUtils.OBJECT_CLASS_PRESENCE_FILTER;
import static org.elasticsearch.xpack.security.authc.ldap.support.LdapUtils.search;
import static org.elasticsearch.xpack.security.authc.ldap.support.LdapUtils.searchForEntry;
import static org.elasticsearch.xpack.core.security.authc.ldap.support.SessionFactorySettings.IGNORE_REFERRAL_ERRORS_SETTING;
import static org.elasticsearch.xpack.security.authc.ldap.ActiveDirectorySIDUtil.convertToString;

class ActiveDirectoryGroupsResolver implements GroupsResolver {

    private static final String TOKEN_GROUPS = "tokenGroups";
    private final String baseDn;
    private final LdapSearchScope scope;
    private final boolean ignoreReferralErrors;

    ActiveDirectoryGroupsResolver(Settings settings) {
        this.baseDn = settings.get("group_search.base_dn", buildDnFromDomain(settings.get(AD_DOMAIN_NAME_SETTING)));
        this.scope = LdapSearchScope.resolve(settings.get("group_search.scope"), LdapSearchScope.SUB_TREE);
        this.ignoreReferralErrors = IGNORE_REFERRAL_ERRORS_SETTING.get(settings);
    }

    @Override
    public void resolve(LDAPInterface connection, String userDn, TimeValue timeout, Logger logger, Collection<Attribute> attributes,
                        ActionListener<List<String>> listener) {
        buildGroupQuery(connection, userDn, timeout,
                ignoreReferralErrors, ActionListener.wrap((filter) -> {
                    if (filter == null) {
                        listener.onResponse(Collections.emptyList());
                    } else {
                        logger.debug("group SID to DN [{}] search filter: [{}]", userDn, filter);
                        search(connection, baseDn, scope.scope(), filter,
                                Math.toIntExact(timeout.seconds()), ignoreReferralErrors,
                                ActionListener.wrap((results) -> {
                                            List<String> groups = results.stream()
                                                    .map(SearchResultEntry::getDN)
                                                    .collect(Collectors.toList());
                                            listener.onResponse(Collections.unmodifiableList(groups));
                                        },
                                        listener::onFailure),
                                SearchRequest.NO_ATTRIBUTES);
                    }
                }, listener::onFailure));
    }

    @Override
    public String[] attributes() {
        // we have to return null since the tokenGroups attribute is computed and can only be retrieved using a BASE level search
        return null;
    }

    static void buildGroupQuery(LDAPInterface connection, String userDn, TimeValue timeout,
                                boolean ignoreReferralErrors, ActionListener<Filter> listener) {
        searchForEntry(connection, userDn, SearchScope.BASE, OBJECT_CLASS_PRESENCE_FILTER,
                Math.toIntExact(timeout.seconds()), ignoreReferralErrors,
                ActionListener.wrap((entry) -> {
                    if (entry == null || entry.hasAttribute(TOKEN_GROUPS) == false) {
                        listener.onResponse(null);
                    } else {
                        final byte[][] tokenGroupSIDBytes = entry.getAttributeValueByteArrays(TOKEN_GROUPS);
                        List<Filter> orFilters = Arrays.stream(tokenGroupSIDBytes)
                                .map((sidBytes) -> Filter.createEqualityFilter("objectSid", convertToString(sidBytes)))
                                .collect(Collectors.toList());
                        listener.onResponse(Filter.createORFilter(orFilters));
                    }
                }, listener::onFailure),
                TOKEN_GROUPS);
    }

}


text:
Small world: nanotechNanotechnology
Big nanotech: towards post-industrial manufacturing
Atomically precise manufacturing (APM) could transform the material basis of human civilisation
'An APM system amounts to a factory in a box.' Photograph: Nick Suydam/Alamy
Eric Drexler
Mon 14 Oct 2013 02.00 EDT
What if nanotechnology could deliver on its original promise – not only new, useful, nanoscale products, but a new, transformative production technology able to displace industrial production technologies and bring radical improvements in production cost, scope, and resource efficiency?
What if we could raise the global material standard of living above that of today's richest nations, while reducing impacts on Earth's environment? What if we could manage a more rapid transition to zero net carbon emissions, and (yet more challenging) could afford to build the systems that would be required to capture, compress, and remove a trillion or so tonnes of industrial-era CO2 from the atmosphere?
The technology in question is "high-throughput atomically precise manufacturing" (APM), a prospect that will develop from technologies that will emerge from progress in atomically precise fabrication – progress with ongoing and surprising achievements today.
More concretely, one can think of APM as 3D printing perfected: a factory-in-a-box technology based on what, by analogy with 3D printers, could be called "nanofabbers".
APM-based production technologies will bond molecules together to make larger and larger components, ultimately delivering products that range from computer chips to aircraft to photovoltaics and household goods. The principles of physics show that nanoscale machinery can direct bonding by guiding the motion of molecules (and then larger components), and the principles of engineering indicate that these nanoscale machines can and should resemble the machines found in factories today: built of gears and bearings, motors and conveyor belts – smaller, different in detail, and yet guiding similar motions in similar ways.
Why pay attention to a future technology?
Transformative economic and environmental prospects give reason to take a close look at APM-level technologies, and all the more so because there's reason to think the prospects are real.
For a suitably stodgy and weighty piece of evidence, in one of its many dust-gathering studies, the US National Academy of Sciences looked at the feasibility of APM and called for pursuing its development. For a document with less institutional weight but more technical detail, add to the stack the MIT doctoral dissertation (mine) that first explored the physics and engineering of APM. For another, add a technology roadmap for APM developed in conjunction with several of the US National Laboratories. (I mention these credentialed, technical documents to distinguish APM technologies from a clinging miasma of popularised mythologies – Star Trek replicators, nanomagicbots and the like.)
The potential of APM matters for our future because it is an aspect of the potential of 21st-century technologies. It's past time for a discussion of APM that begins with an understanding of what the technology is, its physical basis, and how it could transform the material basis of human civilisation.
Perhaps the most surprising fact about APM is this: that it can be understood today, both in outline and in sufficient scientific detail to fathom its basic capabilities. This understanding is based on exploratory engineering, a game in which the rules require shunning unknowns, relying only on known science and engineering principles, a game of exploring potential technologies that can be designed and analysed within those rules. In other words, the rules require that the numbers can be checked, as they have been.
In the mid-20th century, exploratory engineering established that liquid-fueled rockets could reach the moon. To achieve this required an immense amount of further, more detailed engineering, but the numbers left no room for doubt that the moon was within reach. Much the same is true today of APM.
If the basic physical facts are so well established, why has the concept of APM-level technology been controversial? This is also understandable, but the story involves a tangle of science and fiction linked with money, press coverage, Washington politics and sheer confusion. For now, however, I'd like to set the confusion aside and outline the concept itself.
What kind of technology?
An APM system amounts to a factory in a box, but a kind of factory with extraordinary capabilities. To understand the potential of this kind of factory, consider the following comparison: APM strongly parallels today's leading nanotechnology: the nanoelectronic technology that powers the information revolution. Today's nanotechnology of digital electronics uses intricate arrays of high-frequency, nanoscale electronic devices to move bits and bytes from place to place and put them together to make precise patterns of information – perhaps an image displayed on a tablet computer.
Tomorrow's nanotechnology of atomically precise manufacturing will use intricate arrays of high-frequency, nanoscale mechanical devices to move atoms and molecules from place to place and put them together to make precise patterns of matter – perhaps an actual, physical tablet computer.
Nanoelectronic information technologies can put a computer in a desktop box; Nanomechanical APM technologies can put a factory in a desktop box. Digital electronics provides a general-purpose technology in the world of information products; atomically precise manufacturing will provide a general-purpose technology in the world of physical products, somewhat like 3D printing, but able to do much, much more.
What does "general purpose" mean here? Consider the digital analogy again: patterns of bits and bytes can form a virtually infinite range of images made from a limited range of pixels; patterns of atoms and molecules can likewise form a virtually infinite range of physical products made from a large yet limited range of materials.
In 3D printing technology, fabbers cross over to making physical products, building with bits of material in place of pixels. APM-based production systems (nanofabbers?) will work with a wider range of materials and ultimate precision: the range of potential APM products includes not only devices like tablet computers with a billion processor cores and good battery life, but also lightweight ultrastrong structures for aircraft, engines for high-performance zero-emission vehicles, and rolls of solar photovoltaic cells flexible and tough enough use in resurfacing a road.
Questions and more questions…
Prospects for atomically precise manufacturing raise many questions, as I know from giving talks on the subject to both technical and general audiences. I've outlined answers to only the most basic questions above – questions that are directly linked to the physics and engineering of APM-based production. Here are some further and broader questions:
What does APM have to do with the rest of nanotechnology?
What is the state of relevant research, and what's next?
When can we expect to see applications?
What are the potential benefits and risks?
What are the points of leverage today?
I'll explore some of these questions in later posts on this blog.
Eric Drexler, often called "the father of nanotechnology", is at the Oxford Martin Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology, University of Oxford. His most recent book is Radical Abundance: How a Revolution in Nanotechnology Will Change Civilization
Small world: nanotech
Carbon capture and storage (CCS)


text:
May 27, 2010, noon
A defensive experiment: How the Times of London and the Times in New York diverge on paid content
By Jason Fry @jasoncfry May 27, 2010, noon
When Rupert Murdoch arrived at The Wall Street Journal, the word on the executive floor was that WSJ.com would soon become an entirely free site. After Murdoch was given a look at the numbers by the business side, the subscriptions remained.
Remembering that, I figured Murdoch's talk of a draconian, all-or-nothing paywalls for The Times of London and The Sunday Times was saber-rattling aimed at the likes of Google, Microsoft and his own competitors. This would be the Journal experience in reverse, I assumed: News Corp. would talk up an absolutist paywall locking its content away from casual visitors and automated spiders alike, but then look at its own property's success with a relatively porous, search- and link-friendly paywall and implement a more-nuanced approach.
But I was wrong. (And Alan Rusbridger, you were right.) As Tim Bradshaw writes for the Financial Times' techblog, when the paywalls go up on the Times and the Sunday Times in a few weeks, all but the homepages will become invisible unless you pay £1 a day or £2 a week. There won't be a meter like the FT's or the one The New York Times plans to implement next year. You'll be in or out. (And News International's Paul Hayes has a pungent prediction about his own fate if too many people choose "out.")
Sneak peek in Wapping
Bradshaw was part of a group of journalists and bloggers News International invited to a sneak peek (as was the BBC's Rory Cellan-Jones), and he writes that "some members of the Times team seemed as keen to know what we thought of the plans as we were to see them." And indeed, some of the comments made to Bradshaw read as simultaneously hopeful and a tad defensive. Assistant editor Tom Whitwell praised his publication's spare, print-like look (which I agree is elegant and quite readable) and said that the Times would throw fewer stories at people than most sites, which he portrayed as a better alternative than "Google News showing you 4,000 versions of the same thing." (Apples to oranges, as Google News is for searching, not browsing the news.)
Comment editor Danny Finkelstein, for his part, seemed unconcerned by the possibility that his articles will no longer be part of the online conversation, retorting that news organizations without a paywall "won't go viral, they will go out of business" and adding that "we are trying to make people pay for the journalism…I want my employer to be paid for the intellectual property they are paying me for." When a Twitter correspondent called the redesign very nice but said he wouldn't be paying for it, Finkelstein responded: "Sorry to hear that. Our alternative is???"
Well, a number of things — including alternatives that seem far more promising for attracting new readers, keeping news organizations and writers like Finkelstein from being sidelined, and that aren't such big gambles on traffic and ad dollars. The Times could emulate the Journal's own model, setting up a relatively porous paywall that has retained subscribers (and thereby boosted ad revenues) while allowing Journal content to be discovered and read through search and shared through email, blogs, and social media. Or the Times could opt for a metered model like that of the FT, in which readers can see a certain number of articles per month for free, after which they're asked to subscribe. That model zeroes in on a news organization's most-frequent visitors — who one would assume would be the most-loyal, engaged members of its audience — and asks them to pay. (Disclosure: Perhaps because of my WSJ.com DNA, I've long advocated or at least not opposed paywalls and meters, and I now consult for Journalism Online.)
Closed vs. open
Where the Times U.K.'s model is closed, the Times U.S.'s model seems as open as possible. All Things D's Peter Kafka notes that the Times' meter won't count links from third-party sites such as blogs. (Well, as a Times spokeswoman notes in a comment, actually they will — but if you're over the limit you can still read a story via an outside link. Which would seem to indicate they won't.) As Kafka notes, it's a bit confusing, but the aim is that bloggers won't be deterred from linking to the Times and readers won't be trained not to follow such links.
Can that system be gamed? Of course — just as people can bypass the Journal's paywall by searching for headlines in Google. But worrying about gaming is looking at paid content from the absolutist point of view: Everybody pays and maybe we make some exceptions. The metered model starts from a very different place: Figure out who's most likely to pay, try to convert them, and don't worry about the people who won't pay anyway.
Between iPad apps and the renewed interest in subscriptions, metered models, and paywalls, the next 12 months are going to see a lot of ferment and experimentation in paid content. That experimentation is a good thing for the news industry, and there's no reason an absolutist paywall shouldn't be one of those experiments. (Particularly since News Corp. can pay for it out of a sliver of "Avatar" royalties.) But there are experiments designed to explore possible successes, and experiments designed to confirm probable failures. The Times U.K.'s paywall seems likely to be one of the latter.
POSTED May 27, 2010, noon
Danny Finkelstein
metered model
Tim Bradshaw
Times of London
Times U.K.
Fry, Jason. "A defensive experiment: How the Times of London and the Times in New York diverge on paid content." Nieman Journalism Lab. Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard, 27 May. 2010. Web. 18 Jan. 2020.
Fry, J. (2010, May. 27). A defensive experiment: How the Times of London and the Times in New York diverge on paid content. Nieman Journalism Lab. Retrieved January 18, 2020, from https://www.niemanlab.org/2010/05/a-defensive-experiment-how-the-times-of-london-and-the-times-in-new-york-diverge-on-paid-content/
Fry, Jason. "A defensive experiment: How the Times of London and the Times in New York diverge on paid content." Nieman Journalism Lab. Last modified May 27, 2010. Accessed January 18, 2020. https://www.niemanlab.org/2010/05/a-defensive-experiment-how-the-times-of-london-and-the-times-in-new-york-diverge-on-paid-content/.
| url = https://www.niemanlab.org/2010/05/a-defensive-experiment-how-the-times-of-london-and-the-times-in-new-york-diverge-on-paid-content/
| title = A defensive experiment: How the Times of London and the Times in New York diverge on paid content
| last = Fry
| first = Jason
| date = 27 May 2010
| ref = {{harvid|Fry|2010}}


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Stevens, Ebenezer, 1751-1823 (x) ›
Manhattan (New York, N.Y.)--Photographs (x) ›
Displaying (1 - 24 of 2,072)
"A Beauty in Slumber" [woman with badminton racket on the roof of Richard Hudnut Salon, Fifth Avenue, New York City].
"A Motorman's View Down Broadway" [New York City streetcar].
"Aisles of Steel" [view of Wall Street looking west toward Trinity Church from near Broad Street].
"Along the Wall" [Riverside Park, New York City].
"Any rooftop, sentinals beckoning the call for home entertainment" [antennas on unidentified rooftop].
"Broadway on a Bleak Winter Night" [view looking north from Broadway near 45th Street, New York City].
"Broadway on a Winter Night" [looking south from 51st Street, New York City].
"Cheery Morning" [View of pedestrians, newsstands, and Bryant Park from stairs of elevated railway at Sixth Avenue and 42nd Street].
"City of Contrasts" [photomontage showing people in the street and Manhattan skyline].
"Ghetto" [street vendors with pushcarts], Lower East Side, New York City.
"Glory of Commerce" sculpture over Grand Central Terminal entrance.
"Going Up" [aerial view of Empire State Building during construction from northeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 34th Street, New York City].
"Lunch hour in New York" [men in Bryant Park behind New York Public Library main branch].
"Manhattan from the Queensboro Bridge" tear sheet from The Architectural Forum.
"Metal Age Moderne" [Photomontage of Chrysler Building, Empire State Building, and Waldorf Astoria towers with details of metalwork on other buildings in New York City].
"Modernistic view" of Empire State Building, perspective from from 34th or 35th Street, New York City.
"New York Labors!" [artisan working at building on West Street].
"Nickel a shine on the street" [overhead view of shoe-shiner and customer].
"Opening Night" [photomontage of crowd outside theater with photographer's flash bulb and camera lens].
"Rooftops of New York" [aerial view of buildings and East River from 45th Street between Second and Third Avenues, New York City.]
"Sailing time" [partial view of SS Leviathan].
"Ship Ahoy!" [people on nautically themed rooftop deck] London Terrace, West 23rd Street, New York City.
"Spring" [Bryant Park behind New York Public Library main branch].
New York (N.Y.)--Photographs (475) + -
Washington Heights--New York (N.Y.)--Photographs (173) + -
Harlem (New York, N.Y.)--Photographs (121) + -
Central Park (New York, N.Y.)--Photographs (74) + -
Inwood--New York (N.Y.)--Photographs (74) + -
New York (N.Y.)--Buildings, structures, etc.--Photographs (47) + -
Morningside Heights (New York, N.Y.)--Photographs (7) + -
Springs--New York (State)--New York--Photographs (4) + -
Water, Underground--New York (State)--New York--Photographs (4) + -
Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.)--Photographs (2) + -
New York (N.Y)--Buildings, structures, etc.--Photographs (2) + -
Wells--New York (State)--New York--Photographs (2) + -
Springs--New York (State)--New York--Photographs (476) + -
Water, Underground--New York (State)--New York--Photographs (444) + -
Wells--New York (State)--New York--Photographs (386) + -
Skyscrapers--Photographs (230) + -
Streetscapes--Photographs (222) + -
Commercial buildings--Photographs (175) + -
Motion picture theaters--Photographs (111) + -
Hotels--Photographs (77) + -
Theaters--Photographs (76) + -
Children--New York (State)--New York--Photographs (67) + -
Skylines--Photographs (67) + -
Cityscapes--Photographs (58) + -
Show-windows--Photographs (53) + -
Street vendors--Photographs (52) + -
Public parks--Photographs (47) + -
Building construction--Photographs (38) + -
Men--New York (State)--New York--Photographs (37) + -
Clothing stores--Photographs (36) + -
storefronts (36) + -
Hand pumps--New York (State)--New York--Photographs (35) + -
Photographic prints (1883) + -
Negatives (photographic) (187) + -
Glass negatives (182) + -
Composite photographs (43) + -
Acetate film (5) + -


The Empowerment and Equity Opportunities for Excellence in Science (EMEQ) scheme is aimed at providing research support to researchers belonging to the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe in undertaking research in frontier areas of science and engineering.
The applicant should be an Indian National.
Should be an active researcher belonging to the Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe category working on regular basis in an academic institutions/national lab or any other recognized R&D institutions in the field of Science and Engineering.
The applicant should hold Ph.D. degree in Science or Engineering or M.D. / M.S. / M.D.S. / M.V.Sc. degree.
The applicant should have at least four years of service remaining before superannuation as on the date of submission of the proposal.
Researchers/Scientists who have ongoing project under EMEQ scheme as on the date of submission of the proposal are not eligible to apply.
Funding is provided up to a maximum of Rs. 50.0 lakh (excluding overhead charges).
The research grant will cover equipment, manpower, consumables, travel and contingency. Overheadswill be provided as per prevailing norms of SERB.
Duration of the project shall be for a maximum of three years.
Proposals submitted need to be original and plagiarism in any form will not be acceptable. All submitted proposals would be subjected to a third-party similarity check and proposals are liable to be rejected if found plagiarised. Any text taken verbatim from other source needs to be identified using quotation marks and proper reference. Applicants are requested to pre-check their proposals for plagiarism before uploading to avoid any serious repercussions at a later stage.
SERB has adopted Scientific Social Responsibility (SSR) Policy to imbibe a culture of social commitment among SERB Grantees. The policy intends to effectively utilize scientific infrastructure and expertise of SERB grantees to benefit other S&T stakeholders especially the less-endowed researchers and the society. SERB Grantees need to undertake some SSR activities during their project period. SSR activities need to be chosen during submission process. Depending on the activities chosen additional budget would be provided under separate head to carry out the chosen activities.
The selection will be based on the recommendations of a Task Force Committee that will be constituted by the Board. If desired by the Committee, the applicants may be called for personal discussion.
After log-in, applicants are required to fill all the mandatory fields in Profile Detail section under User Profile, which includes Bio data, photo, Institute Address, etc.
Some of the details of your proposal like Project Title (max 500 characters), Project summary (max 3000 characters), Keywords (max 6), Objectives of project (max 1500 characters), Expected output and outcome of the proposal (max 1500 characters), Budget (Manpower,Consumables,Travel, Equipment, Contingency, Overheads ) have to be entered at the time of proposal submission.
Q1: Can I apply for EMEQ Opportunities after my superannuation in academic institutions/national labs or any other recognized R&D institutions in the field of Science and Engineering?
A1: No.The applicant should have at least four years of service remaining before superannuation as on the date of submission of the proposal.
Q2: I am working abroad as post-doc, and I want to return to India. I intend to apply for EMEQ. But I have not yet finalized my place of work. Am I eligible to apply under the scheme?
A2: No. The applicant should be an active researcher belonging to the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe category working on regular basis in academic institutions/national labs or any other recognized R&D institutions in the field of Science and Engineering.
Q3: Can I apply for a project under EMEQ scheme when I am already implementing another project (such as EMR) of SERB?
Q4: Can I apply for a project under EMEQ scheme when I am already implementing another project within the same scheme in SERB?
A4: No. Researchers/Scientists who are running an ongoing project under this program as on the date of submission of the proposal, are not eligible to apply.
Q5: Is there any specific time-line for applying proposals under this scheme?
Q6: What is the maximum amount of the grant the Board will fund?
A6: The funding is provided up to a maximum of Rs. 50.0 lakh (excluding overhead charges) for a period not exceeding three years. The budget should be proposed based on the requirement for the successful implementation of the project. The final decision regarding the budget will be made by the Task Force Committee.
Q7: Can I have a Co-PI in EMEQ project?
Q8: I belong to OBC category. Can I apply under EMEQ Scheme?
A8: No. This scheme is specially meant to support scientists belonging to the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe only.
Q9: If I am from the SC/ST category, am I eligible to apply only in EMEQ and not in EMR scheme?
A9: You are eligible to apply in both the schemes provided the proposals are distinctly different.
Q10: Does the Board have any priority areas for funding under EMEQ scheme?
A10: No. The Board funds all the areas of Science and Engineering without discriminating any discipline. Research proposals outside the normal activities of such institutions (i.e. National R&D Programs, Programs in newly emerging and front-line areas of research etc.) will be preferred. Further, proposals involving purely survey-oriented work and routine studies will not be normally considered.The proposal will be funded if it has novelty and the investigator has the competence to execute the project.
Q11: Does the Board allow to travel abroad under EMEQ scheme?
A11: International travel is not supported under the EMEQ project.
Q12: Do I need to provide any special document/certificates for project involving Recombinant DNA work or experiments with human/animal material or Earth science under this grant?
Projects which involve Recombinant DNA work should be examined and certified by Institutional Biosafety Committee.
Projects, which are clinically oriented or projects, which involve experiments with human and/or animal material, should be examined and certified by Institutional Ethics Committee.
Proposals in the area of Earth Sciences should contain the geological map of the region to be studied.
Q13: Does SERB discriminate Project Investigators working in Private Universities/Institutions in funding?
A13: No. SERB does not discriminate Project Investigators working in Private Universities/Institutions. Funding decisions are made based on merit of the proposal, competence of the Investigator(s), and the infrastructure available in the implementing institution, and not on the category of institutions the Investigator is working.


Carved Dog Head, Wholesale Various ... Tags: Guardian Dogs | Figure Of A Korean Dog | Chinese Guardian Lions ... Alibaba.com offers 206 carved dog head products.
Lion Statues manufacturers & suppliers. ... Hand Carved Marble Lion Statue for Garden or Home Decoration ... Chinese Guardian Lions Stone Statue.


text:
Att_survey_2019_Rotator
Fewer people believe "business behaves ethically" IBE Business Ethics Survey finds
A report by the Institute of Business Ethics - 'Attitudes of the British Public to Business Ethics 2019' - highlights a fall in those who regard business as behaving ethically. While the majority of those asked believe business does behave very or fairly ethically, this has fallen from 62% to 57% in the last 12 months.
The same top three issues raised as concerns by the public in 2018 remain the same in 2019; tax avoidance (33%), executive pay (29%) and environmental responsibility (28%) - the latter identified as a top three concern for the second year in a row.
Almost one in five (18%) members of public believe businesses need to address their work-home balance practices with experts maintaining a healthy balance is vital to protect employee wellbeing.
The long-term trends in this report show businesses are actively addressing public concerns and acknowledging their responsibilities to act ethically; since 2003 there has been a 10% increase in those who believe businesses behave ethically and a 7% drop in those who believe they act unethically. This year's data, highlighting a 5% drop, shows that work never ends, especially with a continued focus on issues such as those concerning the environment, mental health and the use of data.
Public relations is a business critical function that should be at the front and centre of delivering this work by communicating change, building trust and improving public perception through an organisations social purpose and a focus on relationships.
CIPR President, Emma Leech Found.Chart.PR FCIPR
Download the report.
About the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR)
Founded in 1948, the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) is the Royal Chartered professional body for public relations practitioners in the UK and overseas. The CIPR is the largest membership organisation for PR practitioners outside of North America. By size of turnover and number of individually registered members, we are the leading representative body for the PR profession and industry in Europe.


text:
LPIXEL's Technology
Patents, Papers, Conferences
LPixel Receives Marketing Certification in Japan for the New Function of EIRL basic
Tokyo, Japan – January 21, 2019 – LPixel Inc., a leader in image analysis and processing in life science and medical research, announced today that it has secured the Japanese Marketing Certification for the addition of the new function for EIRL basic (certification number: 230AGBZX00107000), in accordance with the Act on Securing Quality, Efficacy and Safety of Products Including Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices (Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Law).
Following the Marketing Certification of the brain measurement functionalities issued last October, this addition will enable healthcare professionals extract and measure the volume of white matter hyperintensity of brain MRI. LPixel will prepare for the expansion of the nationwide deployment of EIRL basic for the coming spring.
■About EIRL
EIRL is the collective name given to LPixel's AI medical image diagnostic support technology. LPixel aims to provide solutions that enable a faster and more accurate diagnosis by implementing its unique algorithms to analyze medical big data, such as brain and breast MRI, chest X-rays, colonoscopy and pathology.
About LPixel
Founded in March 2014, LPixel is a University of Tokyo spin-off that hones its expertise in life science image analysis. LPixel unifies artificial intelligence and its image analysis technologies to develop and provide advanced software for researchers and professionals in the life science industry, including the medical, pharmaceutical and agricultural sectors. LPixel is currently working in collaboration with the University of Tokyo, the National Cancer Center Japan and other research institutions to further the development of its AI-powered medical diagnosis technology. For more information, please visit https://lpixel.net/en/.
LPixel Inc.
TEL:03-6259-1713 Email:pr@lpixel.net
Cutting-Edge Technologies that Lead Future Medical Diagnosis
EIRL analyzes a wide range of medical data to provide an accurate and efficient diagnosis. EIRL aims to be the closest partner to all doctors, and serve as another powerful set of eyes to provide top quality medical care.
AI Accelerating
Phase R&D
IMACEL, an image analysis AI, helps to solve various issues in the drug discovery process.
Life science and AI experts support successful AI implementation.
A Third Career Option for Researchers
6F, Otemachi Building, 1-6-1, Otemachi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, 100-0004, Japan


text:
<<< exhibitions featured artists work&text about
Are Blytt,Grey I, 2011, oil on paper, framed
ARE BLYTT
Erasure is as much the construction of a surface as it is the removal. The truth of this statement has never been made more apparent than in Robert Rauschenberg's Erased de Kooning Drawing (1953). It is one of few contemporary works that resonates with exacting authority and where material and concept are inextricably entwined. It was a moment that Rauschenberg referred to as 'poetry', and a moment that all other commentaries could only describe as gesture, protest, irreverence and vandalism. It marks time as material truth.
In turn, the work of Are Blytt does not strive for the immaterial but instead to articulate the material, and it chooses objects and design as its means. Set against the fast moving speed of the present Blytt's work revels in moments of pause and intermission, and in objects and articulations that are intimate, personal, close at hand and recurring. He is fanatical to sustained 'absorbing' activities of reading, listening to music and watching film, and to the design and origin of these creative abstracts. He is drawn to objects that can be picked up and handled, books, manuscripts and till receipts, and to objects that implicitly contain, carry or suppose narrative. He is further drawn to the peripheries and exteriors of these objects, to their covers, cases, and acted upon surfaces, and to the graphics, images and hastily scrawled notes that mark and mar them. These superfluous scribblings are disclosures of fleeting thought, calculations or reminders, symbols that disconnect from the world as the moment of their manufacture or reiteration passes, and which in their displacement simply become numeric and typographic abstractions.
It is these disconnected marks and articulations that Blytt replicated in earlier works such as 950 (2009) and 15/100 (2009), often enlarging their scale, and paying over-exacting attention to their transcription (as purposeful conceit) far beyond merit or worth. In these works Blytt presented a complete and partial encounter with an object, dramatising it through closely cropped frames that not only displaced its already displaced subject but further offset the structural frame of the works (as paintings) with iterations of time, speed and sequence that more readily draw inference from photography, cinema and film.
Film has played a central role in the latest body of work produced by Blytt, an ongoing series based on Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon (1975), a film that charts the life journey of the fictional Barry Lyndon from a social position of little, that of broken Irish gentry, to something, that of English aristocracy, and back to little, that of destitute outcast. Blytt's attachment to Kubrick's film is both curious and revealing. Barry Lyndon is lesser known amongst Kubrick's films and appears on the surface markedly different from those that most readily define the director. Yet it defines Kubrick's principal of using natural light and contains like many of his films a moral code that is exposed through a linear circularity of life odyssey (in this case that of Barry Lyndon). Kubrick's film is also built on conceit and this plays to the advantage of Blytt. It is a film based on a novel, that of William Thackeray's The Luck of Barry Lyndon (1844), which itself was first and foremost not a novel but a serialised story written for magazine publication. Added to this Thackeray's text was written with contradictions and inaccuracies specifically designed to undermine (in the eyes of the reader) its central character, Barry Lyndon. In Thackeray's novel Barry Lyndon is for this purpose the (unreliable) narrator of his own story. As final twist and conceit Thackeray's novel (while fictional) is based on truth, on tales that circulated around the life of a known English-Irish rogue, Andrew Robinson Stoney (1747-1810), who like the character of Barry Lyndon married dubiously into the high social class of the Landed Gentry. Barry Lyndon is an abstraction prior to Blytt's intervention.
The Abstraction of Barry Lyndon (2011) is the first of a series of works by Blytt to draw reference from Kubrick's film and to test its truths and half-truths. It is a set of four small-scale works that chart the narrative cycle of the life of Barry Lyndon using the narrational text plates that appear at the beginning and the end of Kubrick's film. By marking these peripheral points Blytt constructs in shorthand, through speed, synopsis and abstract, a stand-in and substitutive narrative that describes in literal terms (without visual abstract) the story of Barry Lyndon.
In contrast to this shorthand speed there is a very real slowness and meticulousness of making that is manifestly present within Blytt's works. Such a mapping and invoking of objects draws curious parallel with the narrative of Funes, the protagonist of Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges' story, Funes, His Memory (1954). Following an accident Ireneo Funes, a young and ill-educated Uruguayan boy, acquires the exacting ability to recall everything. His memory is faultless and unlimited, he retains every detail of every moment that passes, and as such there is no erasure to his memory only accumulation. Through this Funes finds himself inextricably linked to the present. Every moment proposes a new set of relations that by virtue of their difference require new language and new description. Within Borges' story time emerges as the mechanism through which objects take form, ' ...he [Funes] was disturbed by the fact that a dog at three-fourteen (seen in profile) should have the same name as the dog at three-fifteen (seen from the front). ' Blytt appears sensitive to the fragility that underlies Funes' condition, aware that what is seen or understood in one moment is different (except when considered as abstract) from what is seen and understood in another. Blytt therefore adopts positions of summary, of abstract, as structural forms of reduction that are themselves additive (enabling of narrative) rather than as they might logically appear (restrictive of it) through reduction and replication. Funes' only point of release is his attempt to slow his engagement with the world down, and by so doing limit the paralysing overload that his awareness and memory of everything causes him. Blytt likewise attempts to slow things down, but not as a way to be alleviated from the networks of the modern world and the images it contains, but as a way to fetishise abstraction and extract supposed truths from surrogate objects and latent memories.
Blytt's use of the title The Abstraction of Barry Lyndon is a playful paradox, descriptive and literal in two senses, both prior to and post his involvement. This literalness to wordplay is matched by the directness of Blytt's approach to the work. In the work Blytt isolates the text plates (titles) from Kubrick's film, printing these onto paper before transforming them back to the blankness of the original paper. The Abstraction of Barry Lyndon is a formal exercise but it is also a metaphorical one, replicating the cyclical but linear trajectory of the life of the protagonist in the returning palimpsest of the paper. But as Blytt's work implies the match is never perfect, the memory and the mapping can only function as approximations and partial accounts, and unlike Funes there is no perfect memory that renders logic and reason void, and 'blankness' blank. It is here that marks that appear as erasures, obliterations, obstructions or smudges, are instead more accurately depositories of material accumulated around, and parasitic to, articulations of concrete surface, image and object. Here time becomes the determinate of form, and as such the material depositories of Blytt's action marks the constant flicker and changing aspect of that which is observed and considered stable, like the variance of the dog that Funes watches. These are the slippages of image outwards and sideways from themselves, the scars and residues that are persistent, active and resident.
The Barry Lyndon works like much of Blytt's output are deceptively empty in their appearance. Blytt utilises pictorial emptiness not as an end in itself but as play to provoke, mask and destablise the structural conceits that he brings to the works through their manufacture. He contests the idea that the 'barely visible' instinctively informs the contemplation of nothingness, resisting transcendental theology by resolutely grounding his work in the material world, in objects and narratives, and more so in those of fictive, partial and flawed relation. By building conceit upon conceit and setting these against others, most readily those of erasure (as an amassing of material) and labour (as that of protracted manufacture), Blytt ensures that he constructs an unstable, unsettling and uncertain ground for the work. The works hover in contrivance offering only the barest of bones as narrative guidance. Through this Blytt entices a stretching of language that tests the linguistic and material properties of abstraction, proposing belief and alchemy of the kind where light cast through a prism splits into colour.
Added to this Blytt's works are largely moderate and intimate in size, they resist perceptual encounter, and remain instead reciprocal in scale to the objects from which they emerge. And even where Blytt's works tend toward unambiguous emptiness, as monochromatic articulations, in works such as Die Jahreszeiten/Abstraktionen des Henle Verlags (2010), they are not fully relinquished to Suprematist will, but instead are retained and held back (grounded to the world) if only by their titles. Die Jahreszeiten/Abstraktionen des Henle Verlags (2010) is a series of four canvases that colour match through saturated fabric the iconic branded grey-blue colour of the Henle classical musical scores. These are the most complete orchestrations of original musical text, and while as saturated or mechanised monochromes the works might suggest a refusal to paint, a refusal to break or mark the picture plane, they also affirm a fundamental truth of painting, that of surface and interface.
Blytt's newest works Skin (2011) extend from this and propose wordplay of a different order, matching linguistic duality with material doubling. These are canvases in which material linen (both dyed and bleached) is stretched in literalness and synthesis of both canvas and skin (as informed by their title). The dyed and bleached processes of the works manufacture compound its wordplay and conceit by drawing it into the colour range, visual appearance and surface opacity of light skin tone. Skin is a curious measure to preoccupy Blytt as it returns a different aspect and cogency of surface than that which has predominated his works to date, that of receipts, book covers and manuscripts. The precise musing of this latest synthesis of material is yet to be disclosed but it may not be so far removed from the bodily that it implies. From something romantic or deeply personal, as throughout his works Blytt retains a fundamental and strict attachment to the real world, to the objects that surround and captivate him, and to the people and things that he connects with, even when these are bound in memories, musical scores or abstracted lyrical affiliations.
This poetic leads Blytt's works in places to reach out and to breach the boundaries and physical borders that mark and retain them. The four fragments that make up The Abstraction of Barry Lyndon (2010) are for example presented not on the wall but instead propped on the floor. But what is the cloth trapped under the framed drawing if not an aspect or glimpse of the dematerialized canvas that the work is not (as drawing), and at the same time the scarf, the garter or personal keepsake passed between lovers (marking period and class within British and European society in the time of Barry Lyndon). Such keepsakes are reiterations and triggers (of time spent and words spoken), an embodiment of sentiment or abstracted thought (that of love), transformed into object. Blytt's works appear to reverse such transformation, extracting sentiment from objects and offering this as depository, a new type of mark and a new description. It is a watchful erasure that amasses in its connection to all things present and material.
Charles Danby 2011
Charles Danby, 2011