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Ceremonies, rituals and traditions – as well as the fascinating combinations of flavours and unusual ingredients, the culinary customs of Asian countries also arouse great interest in Western cultures. But how are spaces for Asian eating and cooking traditions and processes designed? What kind of surroundings are these kinds of food and drinks consumed in?
This book presents the projects of Asian and European architects on both continents, ranging from tea houses and sake bars through to entire restaurants. How are architects adapting and interpreting this cuisine in our latitudes? How do they respond to the conditions and cultures in these spaces without simply simulating an Asian decor?
Enhanced with selected recipes from individual restaurants and essays on various Asian cuisines and culinary cultures, the book is also a travel guide to Europe’s many special Asiatic spaces.

domain: library


text:
Franklin v. New York City et al
OPINION & ORDER adopting 31 Report and Recommendation granting 18 MOTION to Dismiss Amended Complaint filed by Joseph Ponte, Maxsolaine Mingo, Bill De Blasio, New York City. Before the Court is the Februar y 10, 2017 Report and Recommendation of the Hon. James C. Francis, United States Magistrate Judge, recommending that the Court grant the motion to dismiss Franklin's Amended Complaint with prejudice. Dkt. 31 ("Report"). Careful review of Judge Francis's thorough and well-reasoned Report (as well as the Order to Amend) reveals no facial error in its conclusions, or indeed any error at all. The Report is, therefore, adopted in its entirety. For the r easons articulated in the Report, the Court dismisses Franklin's Complaint with prejudice. The Clerk of Court is directed to close this case. The Court directs the Clerk to mail a copy of this decision to plaintiff at the address on file. (As further set forth in this Opinion & Order.) (Signed by Judge Paul A. Engelmayer on 2/27/2017) (mro)
Disclaimer: Justia Dockets & Filings provides public litigation records from the federal appellate and district courts. These filings and docket sheets should not be considered findings of fact or liability, nor do they necessarily reflect the view of Justia.
Why Is My Information Online?

domain: law


text:
Who is Racquel Coral? The mystifying presence of this modern day media maven is one that has captivated audiences since the tender age of five. Equipped with a rapid imagination, fierce persona, and melodic voice, Racquel Coral is here to showcase her talents through the art of speaking, writing, and other variations of expression.
This online journey throughout Racquel Coral’s online portfolio will highlight her greatest works to date. These pages will guide you, the audience, on her evolution into the multi-media world and give insight as to how far she will go. From excerpts of various writing samples, to clips of her speaking and radio work, Racquel Coral will have you coming back for more.

domain: artistic


text:
A day after our epic Gingerbread House Decorating, Kari and I tried our hand at a Better Homes and Garden holiday project. We had lots of Jolly Ranchers left over - our plans to melt some down into surfboards did not come to fruition, but we still wanted to do something with them.
The advertised project seemed easy enough. Crush up jolly ranchers. Fill cookie cutters. Bake. Punch out. Attach a hook. Hang on tree as a beautiful, albeit a bit sticky, ornament.
Crushing the candies wasn't the issue - we used the Magic Bullet the year before and it worked like a charm.
The instructions said to "grease the cookie cutters or cover with foil." We couldn't quite figure out exactly what they meant by the foil comment (around every edge or just over the top?) so we applied a spritz of cooking spray with a shrug.
We did not quite fill up the snowflake shaped cutters halfway, maybe that was our first mistake. 7 minutes in the oven. The melting candy escaped the confines of the cutter. - was it a cheaply made cookie cutter that wasn't completely level or was this inevitable?
I thought they needed time to cool before we tried to punch them out, but that just hardened the candy to the cookie cutter making it nearly impossible to break them out without breaking off a snowflake node in the process.
And here we are: Greasy, sharp, super thin, blue snowflake-y things. Lovely.
There must be a way to get these to actually work. I think you need perfect timing on when to get them out of the cutter though. On our second "batch" we filled them up higher which resulted in a better thickness, but they got a bit misshapen when I impatiently punched them out.
I'm happy to get schooled in any successful attempts at melted jolly rancher ornaments! Anyone? Anyone?
PS. You are going to see a more frequent posting schedule the rest of this month - my busy weeks in early December pushed back a few posts that I wanted to still get in around the holidays! Hurrah!


Dave Lauck at D&L Sports makes the best combat revolver sight set I’ve ever seen.
I don’t mean, “for the money”, or “on the market today”, or “in their category”. I mean these are the best sights ever, at any price, on any wheel gun.
If you’re taking your safe queen to the range, the D&L Sports sights are a “nice-to-have” feature. If your life may depend on your revolver, they’re much more a “have-to-have” item.
Mr. Lauck bills these sights as being for “serious revolvers.” That’s about right. If you’re the kind of person who carries a revolver for work, especially if that work is in austere environments where you and/or the gun may get banged around a bit, these sights are for you.
There are a lot of options for the front sight on a Smith & Wesson K, L, N, or X frame revolver, especially if it’s a modern DX-style front sight. That’s because the factory S&W black ramp, left as it is, isn’t great for anything other than shooting at a piece of white paper. In dim light, or against a dark target, that factory front sight just disappears.
Like a whole lot of folks, I’m a big fan of fiber optic front sights. They provide a fine, but bright dot that grabs the eye’s attention. They’re also great because, when compared to tritium tubes, they’re quite inexpensive and are bright enough in even dim light to be useful.
That said, if you like a brass bead front sight, or those aforementioned tritium tubes, Mr. Lauck can include a front sight as well as a tube…or tubes inset into the rear sight as well. D&L can supply whatever you can imagine.
Installation of the D&L supplied DX style front sight is as simple as it could be, and as it would be for any DX style front sight. Simply push back on the factory sight and pull up to remove it. Replace it with the new fiber optic sight in the same manner. No tools are required.
The rear sight is where D&L’s level of professionalism and attention to detail really shine.
The factory S&W adjustable rear sights are ok, but they have some significant drawbacks. First, they have sharp edges and get caught on all sorts of stuff. They also tend to come loose, misadjust, and are too delicate for heavy use.
The D&L sights address all of those shortcomings, and they look great too.
These are fixed sights as they should be. The best way to make sure your sights don’t get misadjusted is to get a sight that doesn’t adjust. That means you need to know your load, the general range at which you want to zero your sights and get the appropriate height front sight to go with it. If you don’t know what that height is, contact Mr. Lauck and he’ll let you know.
The D&L rear sight is held down by three supplied Torx screws. Modern Smith & Wesson guns will already have the three holes cut into the top of the frame. Older guns may need holes drilled and tapped and if you don’t want to do this yourself, you can send your wheelgun to D&L for the work.
Mounting hardware is included with the sights. This includes a set of three pre-shortened black matching Torx head screws and a tight-fitting wrench. These screws were perfect for my revolver, filling every bit of the threads without extending beyond to scratch up the cylinder. Cutting a screw and adding a little cold bluing isn’t a big deal, but this ease of assembly is much appreciated.
Oh, D&L even included the appropriate small thread Loctite (222/Purple), though I seriously doubt a threadlocker is needed, considering the fitment of the sight.
That fit is perfect, but may require some adjustment. That’s because, according to my Brown and Sharpe calipers, the D&L Sports rear sight tongue mount is more parallel and more uniform than S&W’s factory sight channel.
The factory sight is a teeny bit undersized for this. The D&L model fills the entire channel. For me, that meant 20 passes on each side of the channel (you could choose to file the sight itself instead) with a very fine file to get the D&L sight tongue to fit in.
Once the light filing was done, all that was needed was a light tap from a mallet to seat the sight firmly inside the channel. There’s a tab on the back of the sight itself that fills the recess left by the factory sight at the rear of the sight channel.
If you wanted, you could sand down the bottom of the tongue as well to get it to fit perfectly flush with the top of the frame. Once tapped in and screwed down, that rear sight isn’t going anywhere.
There are no sharp edges to snag. The flat of the tongue curves up into the sight’s main body and that body angles back on each side to the rear. The edges of the back of the sight have been slightly rounded to both be snag resistant and to blend with the curvature of the rear of the frame.
These are tiny details that, when they’re all added up, make a huge difference.
The rounded edges and the even finish of the rear sight might make you think it’s plastic. It’s not. The whole thing is all one piece of perfectly machined steel.
Fine serrations adorn the back of the sight, eliminating any glare below the U-shaped notch. If you want a larger rear notch, and/or a square notch, just ask for one and Mr. Lauck can handle that as well. These are true custom sights.
The end result of all of this great work is that you can stop thinking about your sights. That little red dot just sits out there, naturally coming to the eye and lining up with the rear sight window. It’s absolutely perfect. It’s also surprisingly inexpensive, at only $95 for the rear.
What’s even more impressive is that D&L can do the work to do the exact same thing for your J-Frame, solving one of the major issues some of us have with one of our otherwise favorite little guns.
Lauck mills the a rear channel to install a similar rear sight, as well as adding the front sight of your choice. Considering the work done, to include the sight in and placement of the correct sights to fit your load, the $275 for this service was a real surprise.
Specifications: D&L Sports K, L, N and X Frame Sight Set
Front: DX Style Fiber Optic (many others available)
Rear: U Cut Fixed Steel
Price: $95 for the rear sight (front sight prices vary widely based on sight choice)
Rating (out of five stars):
Overall * * * * *
The. Best. Sights. Ever. The quality of the work by D&L Sports with these sights made Dave Lauck an easy choice for my next revolver project (watch this space). Now that I know these exist, I don’t think I’ll have a single S&W carry revolver without them.


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D151 series is a 15.6" ultra-thin wide-screen fanless Panel PC featuring Intel Kaby Lake ULV Core-i CPU. The distinct aluminum extrusion frame with matte black or silver finish gives the system an understated luxury and elegant look. The series also featuring a bright TFT-LCD with LED backlight display and true flat 10-point projective capacitive multi-touch front panel that's IP65 compliant, along with optional universal snap-in peripherals (MSR, Smart card reader, NFC/ RFID reader, barcode scanner, camera), making it perfect for diversified self-service and interactive signage markets including retail, hospitality, gaming, corporate, healthcare and light industrial applications.
Leider gibt es für diesen Aussteller kein deutsches Firmenprofil.
A leader in the global ICT industry, MiTAC International Corp. was founded in 1982. MiTAC developed a comprehensive range of cloud services and cloud computing products with a focus on enterprise and terminal products, as well as smart handheld devices. With its unmatched global experience and expertise, MiTAC is equipped to anticipate consumer needs and analyze industrial megatrends, while providing customers with multifaceted integrated services and organizational flexibility. In this way, MiTAC creates the most appropriate electronics products and services for its customers and evolving markets.


text:
This weekend I got a chance to actually sit and craft in my new craft room/guest room. So far I am liking the layout and it seems to be working well for me. :)
There were a ton of challenges out there for inspiration but these are the ones that I was pulled to immediately:
1. CASE This Sketch
I really thought this week's sketch over at CASE This Sketch was awesome - it took me outside of my comfort zone but was definitely fun to play with.
2. Create with Connie and Mary
This week Create with Connie and Mary had a really fun colour challenge for us - Blackberry Bliss (my favourite Stampin' Up! Colour!!), Soft Sky and Smoky Slate or Silver.
3. Friday Mashup
It's been quite some time since I've had a chance to play with this challenge and it's a really fun one!
This week's Mashup! Challenge is:
- Create a project with "Butterflies".
- Create a project using "Lace on it".
- or Mash it Up! and create a project using "Butterflies and Lace".
I've chosen to create a project with "Butterflies". If I have a chance later in the week, I'll create one with both lace and butterflies as I am in love with Stampin' Up!'s new lace ribbon in the new In Colours!
Here is my creation:
It's hard to tell but the sentiment is heat embossed in silver.
Card Recipe (all products used are Stampin' Up! products unless otherwise indicated):
Card Stock: Soft Sky, Blackberry Bliss, Whisper White
Stamp Sets: Lovely Amazing You
Inks: Soft Sky, Versamark
Tools/Techniques: Silver Embossing Powder, Heat Tool, Butterflies Thinlets, Big Shot, Stripes Decorative Mask, Sponging

domain: design


text:
Charr on Boxes
What do you do when the weather is too hot and you’re all covered in fur? You take it like a charr… and find a box to nap on.
Side story: Had a talk with a friend a while ago, and they told me that I wasn’t making progress with my art, that I should try some new things. They were right in some way, but this little comment made me feel so bad about my work that I could no longer get anything done. It all wasn’t good enough.
You know what I’ve realized since? Burn that. Yes, it’s important to keep learning and to get outside your comfort zone, but it’s not worth ruining the joy that art brings you.
This scene is nothing special. It’s just my derpy warband lying on some wooden boxes in front of a screenshot background. But I had fun making this. They’re my charr and I love them and nobody is going to stop me from making silly art with them.


text:
Towergate Financial has bought John Charcol after the brokerage went into administration earlier this week.
The national mortgage broker, which had debts of £7m in its last published accounts, was offered to Towergate on February 15 and went into administration on February 22.
Towergate says John Charcol will continue to operate as a whole-of-market mortgage broker under its own brand. The management team of John Moulton, John Garfield, Walter Avrili and Charles Wishart will remain and Towergate says it will not be making redundancies.
Towergate says John Charcol’s single-tie protection deal with Legal & General will be reass-essed “very quickly” but could not confirm if it will be severed.
John Charcol was founded in 1974 by Garfield, Wishart and Colin Studd. They sold it to Bradford & Bingley for £102.5m in 2000.
After rebranding as Charcol and unsuccessfully integrating with B&B’s Marketplace, Moulton and Advantage Capital bought back the brokerage for £10m in 2004. In 2008, the directors were forced to inject £5m into the business on top of an investment of £1.5m in 2007. At the start of 2008, John Charcol was put up for sale with a reported £50m price tag.
Towergate Financial chief executive Ian Darby, who was also a former chairman of John Charcol, says: “It is an RDR-friendly business that fits comfortably within Towergate. The deal offers a lot of cross-selling opportunities.”

domain: economics


text:
I am simultaneously proud of and annoyed by the fact the seemingly everything produced for The E82 Project has been either made or remade from scratch. From UI elements to Christmas Light Arch armatures, I’ve never met a pixel I didn’t like… To Change. Even my pavilion Line-art series, which was inspired by the original 1983 Horizons Line-Art, has out grown its inception and wouldn’t suffice when it came time for its presentation a year later.
I guess what I should do its stand/sit in a circle somewhere and say “My Name is Joshua and I’m a Perfectionist”. And even though that word might be somewhat of a turn-off to some, it’s a descriptive term that is not without justification.
Projects Bring Forth Projects
Many of the things you see at E82, have been purposefully designed for multiple uses and applications beyond their initial presentation on the site. A case in point in the MET Logo, that was originally created for use in the Inside Cover Artwork of the Wonders of Life FWSS, and later became its own Desktop Background. (And Yes, I do plan on creating one for all you Cranium Commandos out there:)
Somewhere down the line, I have always thought of taking my designs into “the fourth dimension” (time) with short films and animations of various scales to expand The Project beyond that of static art, music, and history. And thanks to After Effects its looks like “E82 Films” is fastly becoming a reality.
One such animation project will bring the Vista Series to life as part of a much larger piece in the future. As such, each of the existing editions will have to be synced together to cross-dissolved seamlessly from one composition to the next. In this case the pavilion logos themselves will be only linking element of the sequence. If I use existing resources (both freeware and commercial) nether of them will produce the desired effect. As a result, I had no choice to but re-create the set for myself (from scratch).
The 6400 Philosophy
It is often noted that of the many wonders of vector art is its resolution independence. A logo, line-art or hyper-detailed “painting” can exist as a postage stamp or a 50-story billboard without any loss of quality (aka pixilation). HOWEVER, just because this can happen does not mean that it will happen. It’s very common that when used for their maximum potential many fine details breakdown at larger sizes including misalignment, sloppy curves, excessive anchor points, open paths, and unexpanded stroking.
In all humility, the process of vectorization has become one of my sharpest skills and in the past few years, I’ve taken the process and developed it into an art form all its own. Beyond the simple act of tracing, I go much deeper to analyze relationship between shapes and lines, and often reinterpret them with mathematical precision. I call it “The 6400 Philosophy”, so named for the maximum zoom percentage one can attain in Adobe Illustrator. Put simply, it combines Resolution Independence with Consistent Continuity. And it provides for the intersection of massive scale at infinite quality.
In the world of computer graphics, Vector Art is defined as a “series of mathematical equations”. Therefore, the creation of a highly robust vector shape can best be achieved by inhering to a small set of guidelines:
- Keep the number of anchor points to a minimum.
The less of number calculations a program has to make, the better your design will be displayed.
- Utilize Continuous Bézier Curves as much as possible
This technique will ensure fluid lines, and causes less errors.
- Expand All Strokes
Strokes (or outlines) are two equations inside each other, and often don’t render correctly in the final design.
- When Dealing with Geometric Forms: Use Integers.
If a square, circle, or any other mathematical shape is required do so with easily defined numbers (Ex. An oval measuring 40pt x 56pt Not 39.76pt x 56.03pt) Again, it’s easier to calculate and will look better across platforms and media.
- Always Align & Intersect
If two paths are supposed to meet, make sure that they do. (Always keep your snapping, and guides, preferences On).
Before & After
Enough Theory, Now for Practice. I don’t mean to criticize anyone’s work, but if you examine the two available assets certain inconsistencies will begin to pop-up
Imagination, Horizons & Wonders: Unsymmetrical, The Land: Path Error, Energy: Over-complicated, Epcot: X-axis too narrow ALL: Outer Rings Inconsistent with each other.
Furthermore, all of the symbols/logos have entirely way too many anchor points, which make the designs unstable for my current and future needs. But now that I’ve cruelly, picked-apart others hard work let’s see what I’ve been able to do…
As you can see, I’ve done a considerable amount in streamlining the set, without a loss of quality, but this far from the only contribution. In adhering to the Integer Concept I’ve also taken several of them and simplified their dimensions and in many cases I needed a calculator to get there…
The Future World of Color
The final element of this new set is correctly documenting each pavilions signature color, which was obtained by color-corrected scans of the 1986 WDW/EPCOT Center Pictorial Souvenir, and each color was then “modernized” by determining the closest equivalent values for both RGB and CMYK reproduction.
What's The Point?
In the end, this “Brand New” set of EPCOT Center Logos can be used for a wide variety of applications and the relationships between them can be explored in many fresh and exciting ways. And without these I wouldn’t be able to create things like this! . . .
Although crude, this animation test is one of many such elements that will soon combine to form E82’s first “Motion Picture Style” logo and although short (at this time 38 seconds) will set the benchmark (and tone) for all future E82 Films coming in the not too distant future!


text:
For the past several decades Somali journalists have not been required to obtain licenses or abide to any regulations. Yet, this has been changing in recent years, especially in South Central Somalia. Currently, the state requires journalists in South Central Somalia not only to register but also to take on a one-year degree in journalism. And this provision is one of the specific provisions NUSOJ is working to change together with the parliament. It remains to be seen if this provision will be removed from the media bill. Furthermore, most media outlets do not have adequate editorial policies therefore it is difficult to implement the media law.
Though, as yet, there is no systematic regulation of broadcast or print media in Somalia. The government is weak and only controls small parts of the country. There are various self-governing regions with their own laws and agendas Therefore media accountability is weak and almost non-existent. There is often no recourse for news consumers to complain to individual radio stations or TV networks. There are no official ombudsmen or similar press complaints commissions you may have in other media environments.

domain: politics


text:
It's steak of the best quality, wrapped in delicious, tasty bacon. If that sounds like something they would want to cook up for a weekend lunch or for a hearty after-work dinner, then give them these filets. MoreMake Wisconsinmade.com Your Gift-Giving Source For The Holidays. Choose From Gourmet Food, Gift Baskets, Apparel & More.
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domain: food


text:
Boss Fight Books Explores the Cultural Significance of EarthBound and Others
Publisher Boss Fight Books is releasing a series of books each dedicated to an individual game--but how are the authors handling this assignment?
Great games writing can inspire readers to revaluate a classic game with newfound appreciation. Boss Fight Books, an independent publisher that recently surpassed its Kickstarter goal, aims to expand the discussion with a new series of books dedicated to diving deep into the significance of individual games.
"What if someone created a series like the 33 1/3 series but for video games?" This simple concept is the linchpin of Boss Fight Books' whole operation. But what does that mean, exactly? To find out, I tracked down series creators Gabe Durham and Ken Baumann, as well as the five other handpicked authors, to discover their approach to this intriguing assignment.
Admittedly, before learning about Boss Fight Books, I'd never heard of 33 1/3. This should surprise no one since my knowledge of music couldn't fill a paper cup. I came to find out that 33 1/3 is an ongoing series of short books dedicated to individual music albums, starting in 2003 with Dusty Springfield's Dusty in Memphis. Each book is written by a different author. Because of this, the series can vary wildly in style and substance from one book to another, ranging from heavily academic to deeply personal.
"You only get this kind of opportunity a few times--if at all--in your life to stumble upon an idea for a cultural product that doesn't exist yet."
"33 1/3 really splits the difference here," said Gabe Durham, Boss Fight's publisher and editor. "Some are very alive and filled with the excitement of music journalism, and some are very dry and academic. It can really be a bummer when you think you've bought a book on OK Computer because you love OK Computer, only to discover you've actually just bought some dude's PhD thesis that's just been rebranded a bit." In Durham's opinion, 33 1/3 is at its best when it ignites a sense of discovery within its readers by leading them down the rabbit hole.
"My favorite one I've read so far is on Pavement's Wowee Zowee by Bryan Charles. One thing [the author] did really well was he used the book to smuggle in all these extra things he wanted to talk about, including autobiographical stuff about when he was in the throes of his love for Pavement, new interviews with the band that he was able to get, and the story of his investigation and the search for these people. [The book] was an exploration of all these different topics, a hybrid of several different genres, and that was really exciting for me."
When the lightbulb went on in Durham's head to bring this style of writing to the world of video games, he was amazed someone hadn't beaten him to the punch. "To be frank, when [Durham] presented the idea of 33 1/3 but for video games, I figured it must exist already somewhere; we just haven't looked hard enough yet," admitted Ken Baumann, the series' designer and first author. "I mean, we live in the Internet age where [everything] exists already! Well, we looked, but just couldn't find a pop-culture series of books on video games."
"Later, we discovered there are academic looks into video games, but that's not at all what we're trying to do," Baumann added. "I want to be able to put my book in anybody's hands and keep them entertained throughout. The academic study is fine and will always exist, but I don't know for the most part if [those books] are really all that interesting to the general audience."
In the end, the two dared each other into this project: Durham agreed to publish the books if Baumann agreed to write the first one. Since both men are published authors, they had some idea of what they were signing up for--but any nagging reservations were quickly put to rest by the potential of this project. As Durham explained, "You only get this kind of opportunity a few times--if at all--in your life to stumble upon an idea for a cultural product that doesn't exist yet." They had to go for it.
After hearing Durham and Baumann talk about their plans for Boss Fight Books, I got the impression they knew more about what they didn't want these books to become than anything else. And, for now at least, that's fine. This first round of authors will be the trendsetters of the series, so long as they present their work in such a way that it's accessible to the average reader. No, wait, "accessible" is a bit of a nasty word in today's gaming lexicon. Let's go with "approachable" instead. These books will dive deep into their subjects, but you won't need to have poured a hundred hours into a game to enjoy its story. Boss Fight Books is not an encyclopedia, nor a reworked Wiki page.
This distinction is at the forefront of Ken Baumann's mind as he pens the first book for the series. His game: the immortal SNES role-playing game EarthBound. "There aren't that many pieces of art, ever, that are as idiosyncratic as EarthBound. I'm talking genre-wise, the tropes used, the pattern of storytelling, and the game's humor--it all feels to me completely singular. I'm approaching the game with that sort of respect--it's a masterpiece."
Similar to Bryan Charles' approach to writing about Pavement's Wowee Zowee, Baumann is tackling his topic from many different angles. These include the author's own childhood spent bonding with his older brother over EarthBound--and later reconnecting with him as adults over the same game--as well as possible influences for the game's events, including JonBenet Ramsey's murder in 1996 and the Rodney King riots of '92. "I think that it's worth presenting them all simultaneously and letting readers draw their own conclusions about what affected the game that they might not have discovered on their own," said Baumann.
"Any good essay should almost be like an event horizon: you should be drawn to stay on the edge of the book and keep reading, but also feel the draw to seek out all this research."
"Any good essay or any good nonfiction book should almost be like an event horizon: you should be drawn to stay on the edge of the book and keep reading, but also feel the draw to put down the book and go seek out all this research. My book will succeed if it inspires that level of curiosity."
While inspiring curiosity in others is certainly a noble task, it can also be an intimidating one because the desire to click one more link, read one more report, or investigate one more source can easily slip away from you. Speaking from my own experience, if you travel too far down the rabbit hole, that bottomless well of information can become an intimidating--and paralyzing--tomb. Michael Williams, author of the book on Chrono Trigger, is currently staring into the maw of his own research with trepidation.
"It's scary, because you think, 'There's so much I don't know that I will never get this project done. I have to know everything about what it is to be a digital other before I can even hope to talk about what it means to play Chrono Trigger.'" Armed with all this knowledge, the desire to transform these books into all-encompassing tomes is enticing--the only problem is those tomes already exist. They're called the Chrono Compendium or Starman.net or any of the other well-maintained community resources.
Being the final word is overrated. Gaps are good. Gaps invite questions, questions invite discussion, and discussion is at the core of what this series is trying to achieve. In his Chrono Trigger book, Williams wants to invite his readers to reflect upon issues of race, gender, and sexuality in Japanese role-playing games; disaster history in Japanese artwork; the role of party and of the avatar; and more. It's a bit of a topical grab bag, sure, but he's confident he can make it work.
"The narrative flow of Chrono Trigger is based on semi-related points of reference that skip through different times. If I can do the same thematically, by having a running thread, I can jump from one topic to the next quite easily because the game's text and structure supports this kind of narrative leaping."
While Baumann and Williams explore the deeper meanings within their selected games, another Boss Fights author, Anna Anthropy, is looking outward. Her game is an MS-DOS shareware game with simplistic, text-based graphics called ZZT. It might not sound like much, but what you might not know is that the game also includes an intuitive game editor that lets curious fans try their hand at game creation. While game mods and small, independent projects are common nowadays, having the power to build your own game was uncharted territory in 1991.
"A ZZT game is often an intensely personal portrait of someone at a specific moment in their life," Anthropy explained, "usually a kid or a teenager who is going through a lot of messy changes. These games are little glimpses into a very personal, very specific, moment. A lot of them feel like discoveries to me. They inform my understanding of these people's lives--people I haven't talked to or interacted with in any other way. It's a lot like an archaeological expedition in a lot of ways."
With every game--and every creator--she tracks down, Anthropy is able to piece together the lost history to one of gaming's earliest modding communities. Some of this information endures on the archive site ZZT.org; however, it is just one site where there used to be many. AOL, CompuServe, Prodigy--each had a ZZT following that was eventually shut down. As Anthropy describes it, a lot of her book is trying to put together a history of these communities that are gone now and have left no record.
"The book is a personal history of a game, a community, and a tool that's not just mine. I'm trying to bring in personal experiences from a lot of people--some who made stuff, some who just experienced it, but all of whom have a personal connection to the game. Reaching out across the years and connecting with the people who made these games that only I had cared about like 20 years ago has been a really heady experience."
Whether it's about the games, the developers, or the fans, each entry in the Boss Fight Books series brings with it the excitement and enthusiasm of its author. Listening to Darius Kazemi talk about the development history of Jagged Alliance 2, or to Michael Kimball pontificate on the greater cultural significance of Galaga, makes me want to revisit these games with newfound reverence. Jon Irwin, author of the book on Super Mario Bros. 2, summarizes this feeling best:
"In a lot of books I've enjoyed, the subject wasn't what drew me to it in the first place. It was the author's deep participation with that [subject]. That's the angle I'm taking…and hopefully, no matter what [the subject] is, if the author does a good job of presenting the information, it can be interesting and surprising."
Great games, whether they're AAA blockbusters that reached millions of people or fan-made efforts that touched only one person, deserve this sort of recognition. They deserve not to be forgotten or overlooked in the endless stream of new releases. As Durham puts it, "Long-form video game writing has been thriving online, but has not been given the honored space of the book. Things that [society] writes a book about are things we honor in culture--and I believe games are worthy of that kind of scrutiny."


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text:
Copenhagen, Denmark-based CEPOS (Center for Political Studies) was named one of eight finalists for this year’s prestigious Templeton Freedom Award for its Private Property Project. CEPOS President Martin Ågerup said, “It’s a great honor for us to receive this nomination. It will boost our effort to continue and expand the project. That’s important since no other research institutions pay much attention to property rights issues in Denmark.”
The project included a new website, www.ejendomsregulering.dk, that, for the first time in Denmark’s history, made it easy to review government-led expropriation of private property, particularly for the benefit of private interests, in the country’s 98 municipalities. As a result of this exposure, and CEPOS’s effective nationwide media campaign, the incidence of expropriation of private property for the benefit of private interests has dramatically declined to only one such case in a single year, according to most recent data.
In addition, CEPOS published nearly a dozen research papers on the issue and engaged with key lawmakers to educate and advise on pending reform options.
Awarded since 2004, the Templeton Freedom Award is named for the late investor and philanthropist Sir John Templeton. The award annually honors his legacy by identifying and recognizing the most exceptional and innovative contributions to the understanding of free enterprise, and the public policies that encourage prosperity, innovation and human fulfillment via free competition. The award is generously supported by Templeton Religion Trust and will be presented during Atlas Network’s Liberty Forum and Freedom Dinner gala dinner ceremony Nov. 13, 2014 in New York City. The winning organization will receive a $100,000 prize and the runners-up will receive $5,000.
The 2014 Templeton Freedom Award Finalists are:
Acton Institute: Acton University
CEPOS (Center For Political Studies): Private Property Project
Civismo: Low Taxes Campaign for Spain Campaign
Foundation For Government Accountability: Initiative to Limit Medicaid Expansion
Goldwater Institute: Education Savings Accounts
Illinois Policy Institute: Stopping an Unfair Progressive Income Tax
IPEA: One Million Youth for Mexico Campaign
Lithuanian Free Market Institute: Municipal Performance Index
The 2013 Templeton Freedom Award winner and finalists can be found here.
For media inquiries about the 2014 Templeton Freedom Award, contact Daniel Anthony.

domain: news


|Publication number||US4747659 A|
|Application number||US 06/844,317|
|Publication date||May 31, 1988|
|Filing date||Mar 26, 1986|
|Priority date||Apr 2, 1985|
|Publication number||06844317, 844317, US 4747659 A, US 4747659A, US-A-4747659, US4747659 A, US4747659A|
|Original Assignee||Seikoh Giken Co., Ltd.|
|Export Citation||BiBTeX, EndNote, RefMan|
|Patent Citations (7), Referenced by (36), Classifications (9), Legal Events (4)|
|External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, Espacenet|
This invention relates to an optical fiber connector for communication purpose, and more particularly to an optical fiber connector which can easily and precisely correct any disagreement in the optical axes of optical fiber cores respectively inserted into a pair of ferrules.
An optical fiber consists of a cylindrical core forming a path for light and a cladding fittingly and concentrically surrounding the outer periphery of the core. The core and the cladding are made of glass of different refractive index.
When an optical signal is connected with the core, the signal is reflected by the cladding due to the light refractive index difference from that of the core. Thus, the brightness of the light is not attenuated by outward diffusion, and the optical signal may be transmitted for a long distance. However, the length of a fiber is limited when the fiber is manufactured, and so many connecting portions arise even for a single circuit.
For connecting the optical fibers, the end surfaces of the fibers may be heated to a very high temperature and welded with each other, or an optical fiber connector may be used.
FIG. 1 is a sectional view showing an example of a conventional optical fiber connector. In the figure, the reference numerals 1, 1a denote optical fibers, 2, 2a denote ferrules and 3 denotes a sleeve. In the conventional optical fiber connector that is shown, a pair of optical fibers 1 and 1a to be connected with each other are beforehand bonded and fixed to the respective holes bored at the centers of ferrules 2, 2a. The end surfaces 4, 4a of the ferrules 2, 2a are polished into mirror faces and then they are forcibly inserted into the sleeve 3, so that the optical axes of the two facing optical fibers 1 and 1a precisely agree with each other.
In order to avoid any attenuation of brightness of the optical signal, the diameter of the core of the optical fiber 1 or 1a is extremely minute in size. For example, in the case of a single mode type optical fiber for long-distance use, it may be only 10 microns. Even for a multimode type optical fiber for middle- and short-distance use, 50 micron fiber has generally been used. The diameter of the cladding in either case is 125 microns.
Even with the connecting method using an optical fiber connector, loss of light at the connection cannot be avoided. The largest cause for this loss at the connection is fiber misalignment, or the positional disagreement between the centers of the pair of optical fiber cores.
FIG. 2 is an enlarged view of a section of the conventional optical fiber connector shown in FIG. 1, cut transverse to the axis of the connector of FIG. 1.
In FIG. 2, the core and the cladding of the optical fiber 1 are resepectively given by 1A and 1B. The cladding 1B is made integral with the optical fiber core 1A. When a pair of fibers 1, 1a are connected, the respective optical fibers 1, 1a are inserted into holes 5 bored in ferrules 2 and bonded thereto respectively and then they are forcibly inserted into the sleeve 3.
Causes for the positional disagreement between the centers of the optical fiber cores may be listed as follows:
(A) Causes from optical fibers
○1 Disagreement between the center of the core and the circumference of the cladding . . . 1 micron; and
○2 Disagreement caused by the error in size of the outer diameter of the cladding . . . 1 micron.
(B) Causes from ferrules
○1 Disagreement caused by an error in the size of the hole of the ferrule . . . 1 micron;
○2 Disagreement between the center of the hole of the ferrule and the outer diameter . . . 2 microns; and
○3 Disagreement between the diameters of a pair of ferrules . . . 1 micron.
There has been a possibility of disagreement of five microns in a single ferrule, and 11 microns at the maximum when a pair of ferrules are inserted into a sleeve. In the case of an optical fiber core of 10 microns, for example, the two cores would be completely displaced. And in the case of a 50 micron fiber core, the light transmitting surfaces would overlap by only 70% and the loss at the connection would reach about 2 dB, so that the desirable value of 1 dB could not be attained.
Various proposals have been made for avoiding the disagreement between the centers of the optical fiber cores.
One of such proposals is to raise the accuracy in the size of the ferrule itself. However, improving the accuracy in size would be extremely expensive, and also mass-production of such good ferrules would be difficult. Furthermore, any error inherent in the optical fibers themselves could not be curred.
One method has been proposed for solving this problem. According to it, after an optical fiber has been inserted into a ferrule, the loss at the connection is measured while the fibers are connected. Then the ferrule is rotated to find out the position of the lowest connection loss and then the position is locked, for example, with a positioning key, etc. Thus the relative phase relation between the pair of ferrules are determined. However, in view of the high precision required in manufacturing an optical fiber connector of very minute size, few grooves may at most be formed in the positioning key. It has not been easy to provide continuous adjustment with the positioning key, and precise correction could thus not be expected.
An object of this invention is to provide an optical fiber connector which enables an easy and precise correction of the disagreements between the centers of optical fiber cores mounted in a pair of ferrules.
An optical fiber connector according to the present invention is of the type in which optical fibers are inserted into a pair of ferrules which in turn are forcibly inserted into a sleeve so that the end surfaces of the optical fibers are in contact. The connector according to one embodiment of the present invention comprises a sleeve holding member which holds the sleeve, a detachable member detachably mounted to the sleeve holding member, a ferrule supporting member rotatably provided with respect to the detachable member, the ferrule being rotatable integrally with the supporting member and being movable in the axial direction with respect to the supporting member, an urging member which urges the ferrule in a direction to contact the end surface of another ferrule in the sleeve, and a locking member which locks the ferrule supporting member in a position on the detachable member. After mounting the detachable member on the sleeve holding member, the ferrule supporting member is rotated, thus enabling a continuous adjustment of the disagreement between the optical axes of the pair of optical fibers, and then the adjusted position is locked with the locking member.
An optical fiber connector according to another embodiment of the present invention may comprise a sleeve holding member which holds the sleeve; a detachable member detachably mounted to the sleeve holding member and urging the ferrule in a direction for the end surface of the ferrule to contact the end surface of another ferrule in the sleeve; a ferrule supporting member rotatably provided with respect to the detachable member and rotating integrally with the ferrule; a holding member for holding the ferrule supporting member, which allows movement of the ferrule supporting member only in its axial direction; and a locking member which locks the ferrule supporting member in position on the detachable member. After mounting the detachable member on the sleeve holding member, the ferrule supporting member is rotated and the end surfaces of the ferrules are urged together, thus enabling a continuous adjustment of the disagreement between the optical axes of the pair of optical fibers, and then the adjusted position is locked with the locking member.
FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional view of a conventional optical fiber connector.
FIG. 2 is an enlarged view of the section of the conventional optical fiber connector shown in FIG. 1.
FIG. 3 is a cross-sectional view of a first embodiment of an optical fiber connector according to the present invention.
FIGS. 4(a), 4(b) and 4(c) are perspective views of the first embodiment of the optical fiber connector according to the present invention shown in FIG. 3, FIGS. 4(a) through 4(c) being exploded views of portions of the connector.
FIGS. 5(a) and 5(b) are views for explaining the principle of correction for the optical fiber connector according to the present invention.
FIG. 6 is a cross-sectional view of a second embodiment of an optical fiber connector according to the present invention.
The preferred embodiments according to the present invention will be explained with reference to the drawings.
In FIG. 3, the upper half shows the state of a plug 11 when it is fully screwed in, and the lower half of the figure shows the state after correction of the centers of the optical fiber cores has been finished.
The optical fiber connector shown in FIGS. 3, 4(a), 4(b) and 4(c) is of a bayonet type. The same reference numerals used in the explanation of FIGS. 1 and 2 are used for indicating the identical elements in this embodiment.
The reference numeral 6 denotes a sleeve adapter. 8 is a detachable nut, 11 is a plug, 16 is a pressure spring and 17 a lock nut.
The sleeve adapter 6 holds the sleeve 3 and has a protrusion 7 to form a bayonet nail, as shown in FIG. 4(c). The detachable nut 8 is provided with a bayonet groove portion 9 and a screw portion 10, as shown in FIG. 4(b). The detachable nut 8 is mounted to the sleeve adapter 6 by engaging the protrusion 7 with the groove of portion 9 of the detachable nut 8. The plug 11 is provided with a screw portion 12, engaging means 14 and a stepped through hole 15. The screw portion 12 engages with the screw portion 10 of the detachable nut 8. The engaging means 14 engages with engaging means 13 provided in a flange portion of the ferrule 2, so that they engage with each other in the rotational direction. Engagement between 13 and 14 is made in the form of a groove and a protrusion. The ferrule 2 is inserted into the stepped through hole 15 and the pressure spring 16. The lock nut 17 locks the positions of the detachable nut 8 and the plug 11 after the correction of the disagreement of the fiber cores is made.
The actual correction by the above-mentioned members will now be explained.
At first, the plug 11 is screwed into the detachable nut 8 until the plug contacts the nut 8 and stops. At this stage, the detachable nut 8 is mounted on the sleeve adapter 6. By using a measuring machine, not shown, the plug 11 is threaded back while being rotated until the measuring machine measures the minimum connection loss between the optical fibers 1 and 1a. At this position of minimum connection loss, the detachable nut 8 and the plug 11 are locked with the lock nut 17. The connecting surface 4 of the ferrule 2 is urged by the pressure spring 16 so that it always contacts with the contact surface 4a of the ferrule 2a.
FIG. 5(a) shows the state before correction. In this figure, the center of the hole of the sleeve 3, and the centers of the optical fiber cores of the ferrules 2 and 2a, are respectively given by O, O1 and O2. Assume that the centers O1 and O2 are displaced at the points e1 and e2, respectively, with a phase lag of 180°.
FIG. 5(b) shows the state after correction. One of the ferrules has been rotated by 180° for correction. If the difference of the optical axes of the optical fiber cores is given by e, it satisfies the equation e=e1-e2. The largest rotational angle of correction is 360° and the maximum correction angle for each ferrule is 180°. When a large correction angle is required, the optical fibers might be twisted. In order to avoid this, a rough adjustment must beforehand be made after detaching the detachable nut 8 before the precise correction as mentioned above.
FIG. 6 is a cross-section of the second embodiment of the optical fiber connector according to the present invention.
In the second embodiment, the sleeve adapter 18 is engaged with a cap nut 19 by screws threaded in the respective members. Reference numeral 20 denotes a plug sleeve. The plug 11 is threaded into the plug sleeve 20. A groove 21 is provided in the sleeve adapter 18 and a protrusion 22 is provided at the end surface of the plug sleeve 20, with the groove 21 and the protrusion 22 engaging in the rotational direction. Around the outer periphery of the plug sleeve 20 is provided a flange 23, which contacts with a flange 24 provided to the cap nut 19.
The correction of disagreement of the centers according to the second embodiment of this invention will now be described.
The plug 11 is screwed all the way into the plug sleeve 20. At this stage, the sleeve 20 is mounted on the sleeve adapter 18 by the cap nut 19. By using a measuring machine, not shown, the state of connection is checked. The plug 11 is then rotated back. At the position for the minimum connection loss, checked by the measuring machine, the sleeve and the plug 11 are locked in position by the locking nut 17, so that the sleeve 20, plug 11 and the ferrule 2 are made integral at this stage. By rotating the cap nut 19, the contact surface 4 of the ferrule 2 and the surface 4a of the ferrule 2a are urged to contact with each other. The sleeve 20 moves only in the axial direction with respect to the sleeve adapter 18, its movement in the rotational direction being stopped by the engagement between the groove 21 and the protrusion 22, so that the adjusted rotational angle does not change.
As fully described heretofore, the optical fiber connector according to the present invention provides a simple structure for correction. According to the embodiments of the optical fiber connectors of this invention, the disagreement of the optical fiber cores may be corrected by rotation of the plug while the optical fibers are mounted to the sleeve adapter. Thus, the correction of the disagreement of the optical axes of a pair of optical fiber cores may be made continuously and the best value for the correction can be achieved, enabling more precise correction than any conventional stepwise correction method.
In particular, in the case of an bayonet type detachable optical fiber connector as in the first embodiment of this invention, the correction of the disagreement of the optical axes of the optical fiber cores has conventionally not been possible at all. Only the present invention can provide such a correction with the detachabel type.
|Cited Patent||Filing date||Publication date||Applicant||Title|
|US3936143 *||Aug 13, 1974||Feb 3, 1976||Aoi Sansho Kabushiki Kaisha||Optical fibre end connector|
|US4205896 *||Dec 28, 1978||Jun 3, 1980||International Telephone And Telegraph Corporation||Method and apparatus for fixing the rotational positions of eccentric elements in an optical fiber connector|
|US4398797 *||Mar 16, 1981||Aug 16, 1983||General Dynamics, Pomona Division||Eccentric fiber optic adjustable holder|
|US4553814 *||Sep 14, 1983||Nov 19, 1985||International Business Machines Corporation||Detachable fiber optic connector assembly|
|GB2020056A *||Title not available|
|JPS606909A *||Title not available|
|JPS55113009A *||Title not available|
|Citing Patent||Filing date||Publication date||Applicant||Title|
|US4803353 *||Mar 24, 1988||Feb 7, 1989||Moorehead Robert M||Light attenuation motion transducer wherein two fiber optic cables abut at the pivot axis of pivotable mounting members|
|US4822395 *||Jun 2, 1988||Apr 18, 1989||Union Carbide Corporation||Air separation process and apparatus for high argon recovery and moderate pressure nitrogen recovery|
|US4953941 *||Nov 21, 1988||Sep 4, 1990||Seikoh Giken Co., Ltd.||Optical fiber connecting device|
|US5018823 *||Aug 28, 1989||May 28, 1991||Santa Barbara Research Center||Single channel high power fiber optic connector|
|US5091990 *||Feb 15, 1991||Feb 25, 1992||Augat Communications Group||Fiber-optic connector|
|US5134677 *||Mar 18, 1991||Jul 28, 1992||Augat Communications Group||Fiber-optic connector and method of assembly|
|US5146523 *||Sep 27, 1991||Sep 8, 1992||Radiall||Alveolar connector comprising at least one connection device for fiber optics|
|US5177806 *||Dec 24, 1991||Jan 5, 1993||E. I. Du Pont De Nemours And Company||Optical fiber feedthrough|
|US5222169 *||Feb 18, 1992||Jun 22, 1993||Foxconn International, Inc.||Optical fiber connector assembly|
|US5222170 *||Aug 17, 1992||Jun 22, 1993||Bt&D Technologies Ltd.||Optical fiber device fabrication|
|US5319728 *||May 20, 1993||Jun 7, 1994||Adc Telecommunication, Inc.||High return loss fixed attenuator|
|US5553181 *||Mar 23, 1995||Sep 3, 1996||The Whitaker Corporation||Fibre optic connector and method of forming a fibre connection|
|US5852694 *||Jul 8, 1997||Dec 22, 1998||Mitsubishi Cable Industries, Ltd.||High power fiber optic connector|
|US5946436 *||Nov 18, 1997||Aug 31, 1999||Seikoh Giken Co., Ltd.||Structure of optical connector and aligning method|
|US6916120||Jan 30, 2002||Jul 12, 2005||Adc Telecommunications, Inc.||Fiber optic connector and method|
|US7147385 *||Apr 27, 2005||Dec 12, 2006||Adc Telecommunications, Inc.||Fiber optic connector and method|
|US7178988||Jul 15, 2004||Feb 20, 2007||Seikoh Giken Co., Ltd.||Optical connector plug and method for assembling same|
|US7201518||Sep 16, 2004||Apr 10, 2007||Adc Telecommunications, Inc.||Fiber optic connector and method|
|US7371082||Sep 22, 2006||May 13, 2008||Adc Telecommunications, Inc.||Fiber optic connector and method|
|US7530745||Mar 21, 2007||May 12, 2009||Adc Telecommunications, Inc.||Fiber optic connector and method|
|US7712971 *||Jun 20, 2005||May 11, 2010||Goldtel Co., Ltd.||Optical connector|
|US7891883||Apr 4, 2008||Feb 22, 2011||Adc Telecommunications, Inc.||Fiber optic connector and method|
|US20040062488 *||Sep 26, 2002||Apr 1, 2004||Charles Wood||Fiber optic adapter sleeve|
|US20050232553 *||Sep 16, 2004||Oct 20, 2005||Holmquist Marlon E||Fiber optic connector and method|
|US20050232554 *||Apr 27, 2005||Oct 20, 2005||Adc Telecommunications, Inc.||Fiber optic connector and method|
|US20070110371 *||Sep 22, 2006||May 17, 2007||Adc Telecommunications, Inc.||Fiber Optic Connector and Method|
|US20070183721 *||Mar 21, 2007||Aug 9, 2007||Adc Telecommunications, Inc.||Fiber Optic Connector and Method|
|US20070253714 *||Dec 12, 2003||Nov 1, 2007||University College London||Optical Communication System for Wireless Radio Signals|
|US20080080815 *||Jun 20, 2005||Apr 3, 2008||Lee Jae-Soo||Optical Connector|
|US20100046887 *||Sep 26, 2007||Feb 25, 2010||Zinwave Limited||Optical Fibre Transmission|
|US20100322567 *||Apr 4, 2008||Dec 23, 2010||Adc Telecommunications, Inc.||Fiber optic connector and method|
|EP0457267A2 *||May 14, 1991||Nov 21, 1991||Hirose Electric Co., Ltd.||Optical fiber connector terminal and method of making same|
|EP0457267A3 *||May 14, 1991||May 13, 1992||Hirose Electric Co., Ltd.||Optical fiber connector terminal and method of making same|
|EP0457284A2 *||May 14, 1991||Nov 21, 1991||Hirose Electric Co., Ltd.||Optical fiber connector terminal and method of making same|
|EP0457284A3 *||May 14, 1991||May 13, 1992||Hirose Electric Co., Ltd.||Optical fiber connector terminal and method of making same|
|WO2008037998A1 *||Sep 26, 2007||Apr 3, 2008||Zinwave Limited||Optical fibre transmission|
|U.S. Classification||385/67, 385/72|
|Cooperative Classification||G02B6/3851, G02B6/3874, G02B6/3843|
|European Classification||G02B6/38D10A, G02B6/38D6D8, G02B6/38D6K|
|Mar 26, 1986||AS||Assignment|
Owner name: SEIKOH GIKEN CO., LTD., 286-23, MATSUHIDAI, MATSUD
Free format text: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST.;ASSIGNOR:TAKAHASHI, MITSUO;REEL/FRAME:004533/0071
Effective date: 19860305
|Sep 27, 1991||FPAY||Fee payment|
Year of fee payment: 4
|Sep 26, 1995||FPAY||Fee payment|
Year of fee payment: 8
|Nov 29, 1999||FPAY||Fee payment|
Year of fee payment: 12


text:
Odisha Cabinet Tuesday approved a proposal to introduce an Act to regulate fishing and fishery activities in Chilika lake,the largest brackish water lagoon in Asia.
Briefing the media after the Cabinet meeting Chief Secretary A P Padhi said the Act was necessary to regulate fishery activities in a responsible and sustainable manner and to address the rights of the traditional fishermen living in and around Chilika.
The proposed Act will prohibits certain activities detrimental to the long term interest of the stakeholders like fishing in eco-sensitive areas including outer channel, use of zero net, mantle nets and net box having mesh size less than 10 MM, capture of some species of cabs, prawn and prawn below a particular size and mullet fishing during breeding seasons and aqua culture, including pen, cage and gherries culture.
The Act empowers the Chika Development Authority to grant sub-lease and to impose and take action for the contravention of the Act.
In another decision the government decided to reduce the VAT on Aviation Turbine Fuel from 5 per cent to one per cent in the Airports covered under the Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS) UDAN for RCS flights from other Airports located within the state for a period of ten years.
The reduction was made as per an agreement signed between the Civil Aviation Ministry, Odisha government and Airport Authority of India.The Cabinet also approved a proposal to include rice hullers rice mills, flour mills pulse mills in the list of ineligible enterprise and decided not to give them subsidy any further.
The state government also decided to set up a 100 seated Medical College and Teaching Hospital at Keonjhar on turnkey basis to promote medical education in the state at a cost of Rs 314.23 crore.
The cabinet approved the lowest tender of M/S TATA projects Limited for the execution of the work.The entire fund would be provided from the District Mineral Fund and the work has been targeted to be completed within two years without any price escalation.
The Odisha government also decided to promulgate an ordinance to establish a council for higher education to provide for promotion of higher education and research including university and college education at under graduate and post graduate level in the state.
The proposed Council will also promote autonomy of higher educational institutions for free pursuit of knowledge and innovation, facilitating access, inclusion and opportunities to all and to provide for an advisory mechanism of eminent peers in academia.BM


text:
Title IX Turns 50
Ann Astrup ’78 is a natural athlete, but when she was growing up in Austin, Minnesota, she never officially got to play on a team. Until her sophomore year, when her high school scheduled a handful of girls basketball games, she recalls, “I played with the boys.”
When a girls team was finally assembled, it felt like a second thought. “We had to buy our own T-shirts,” Astrup says. “Nobody came to our games.”
When Astrup got to St. Olaf, Title IX — the landmark federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools and education programs — had been around for just a few years. Yet it was starting to create more opportunities for women.
Astrup was so excited by the athletic options available for female student-athletes at St. Olaf that she signed up for three: volleyball, basketball, and softball.
“I was so glad that there were opportunities,” Astrup says. “I could finally play.”
What felt like a wonderland to athletes like Astrup in those first few years was actually far from the level playing field Title IX had promised. In the fall of 1974, there were 12 athletic teams for men at St. Olaf. There were seven for women. During that academic year, 345 men participated in athletics. Just 96 women participated. Male student athletes were courted and revered, Astrup recalls. Women had teams, but they were an afterthought, she says.
“When I look back now I see the discrepancy between what we had versus what the men had,” Astrup says. Yet Astrup and her teammates were so thrilled to finally be able to compete that the differences felt easy to ignore.
This summer marked the 50th anniversary of Title IX. Today St. Olaf offers 13 varsity sports for women — the same number as men — and there are 240 female student-athletes. Ole women athletes have won 24 individual national championships and 42 team conference championships. They work hard, compete furiously, and have an unwavering expectation that equal opportunities will be available to them.
St. Olaf Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies Diane LeBlanc, who co-authored Playing for Equality: Oral Histories of Women Leaders in the Early Years of Title IX, notes that Congress passed Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 in response to a broad range of sex-based discrimination in education. “Girls and women faced overt discrimination through such practices as denying them access to courses and programs that historically enrolled boys and men, tying financial aid to sex-based opportunities, hiring on the basis of sex, and excluding girls and women from competitive sports and athletics,” she says.
After Title IX went into effect on June 23, 1972, educational programs that received federal money had to demonstrate compliance with nondiscriminatory practices or risk losing their funding.
Contrary to popular belief, LeBlanc notes, Title IX was not created specifically to address inequality in athletics. “But once physical educators, coaches, administrators, and athletes realized its potential to create change in sports, they began tailoring implementation to specific inequalities involving girls and women in sports,” she says.
Over the last 50 years, the scope of Title IX has broadened significantly. In addition to prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex, gender identity, or sexual orientation, the law provides protection against sexual harassment, sexual violence, gender-based stereotyping, and genderbased harassment. Colleges and universities are required to have a Title IX coordinator to oversee compliance with the law and to adopt a process to respond to alleged violations, a role filled at St. Olaf by Title IX and Section 504 Coordinator Pamela McDowell.
The way that Title IX has broadened over the decades means that while earlier generations associate the law with equal opportunities in athletics, many young alumni and current students associate the work with preventing and addressing sexual misconduct on campus. LeBlanc says it’s important that all generations understand the comprehensive potential of Title IX. “Imagine the possibilities if we all understood the full depth of gender discrimination and its impact on education,” she says.
That’s a message that Olympic medalist Joey Lye drove home during a speech she gave at St. Olaf this fall as part of a celebration of 50 Years of Women in Sports. Lye paid tribute to women’s rights activist Bernice Sandler, who played an instrumental role in the creation of Title IX after being denied equal access to teaching jobs at her university, as well as the legislators — led by Edith Green, Patsy Mink, and Birch Bayh — who were key to getting Title IX signed into law.
“I have so much gratitude for those who began the fight — and I say began, because there’s still so much work to do,” Lye told the audience during her keynote address. “The more I continue to learn about the people who set the stage, the more empowered I am to continue the fight.”
CREATING AN EQUAL PLAYING FIELD
One of the early drivers for change at St. Olaf was Associate Professor Emerita of Exercise Science Chris Daymont, who worked in the college’s Athletic Department for nearly 40 years. She came to the college in 1976 with a freshly minted degree in kinesiology from New York’s Syracuse University. For an annual salary of $11,200 a year, she was hired, she recalls, “as the women’s cross country coach and indoor and outdoor track and field coach. I was an assistant basketball coach. And I taught classes, too.” Though the responsibilities were big and the pay modest, Daymont was over the moon.
“I was thrilled I had a job,” she says now. Growing up, Daymont never had the opportunity to play on a school team. She was determined to make a difference: “I wanted to make sure that women got the opportunities I never had. I went into coaching for that.”
I wanted to make sure that women got the opportunities I never had. I went into coaching for that.Associate Professor Emerita of Exercise Science Chris Daymont
Daymont, like Astrup, felt her world expand when she went to college and was eventually able to play on teams. Women’s cross country and track and field were new sports at St. Olaf, and Daymont worked hard to make it clear that the women on her teams were athletes, just like the men, and they deserved equal treatment. Having a law like Title IX to back her up — combined with Daymont’s bold stubbornness about pointing out discrepancies — eventually helped change happen.
“St. Olaf changed things,” Daymont says, recalling how getting the college to issue uniforms for female studentathletes that weren’t hand-me-downs from the men’s team or towels of the same size and quality as their male counterparts’ required some serious pestering, “Things happened, but you had to ask. As long as you were stirring the pot, things eventually got done.”
It wasn’t always easy being a trailblazer, the now-retired Daymont says. She recalls a number of negative interactions during her career, including harassment by male colleagues. Nevertheless, she persisted. “I protected my team. I coached them up, made them good. I worked hard on my teaching. I just kept doing my job,” she says.
Under Daymont’s leadership, her team shined. By 1979, St. Olaf women’s cross country was ranked second-best in the country.
Daymont considers all her Ole teams special. The early athletes were eager to be coached and be a part of a team, some for the very first time. “Years later, coaching my own daughters reaffirmed that the fight was worth the energy and effort it took to make change happen,” Daymont says. “And it is heartwarming to see the young women today honoring the past and still working to make things better for future Oles.”
What cannot be overlooked, she emphasizes, is the courage and strength of the women who showed up to practice and compete in the sports they loved no matter the obstacles or biases they faced. “It was simple. They just wanted to play. Their courage, desire, and passion forced change in an arena that was reluctant to change,” she says.
A half-century later, members of the St. Olaf women’s cross country team are still schooled on Title IX and its impact on women’s athletics. Head coach Erica Maker ’04 was a member of the team under Daymont, and she brings her former coach back each year to talk to the team about how Title IX changed the country.
“When I ask Chris to speak to the team, I want her to share it all — the highs and the lows, the triumphs and the struggles. She may not coach the women on the team now, but everything she worked for, and everything our alumni worked for, have made it possible for us to have the success we are experiencing today,” Maker says. “Now it’s our turn to be those women and continue to push for equity and opportunity, both in sports and beyond. Understanding our past lays the groundwork for helping us build an even brighter future for all.”
These talks have made an impact on current student-athletes like runner Seneca Norvell ’23, who says learning about the early trailblazers who pushed for access and equality has been empowering. “Hearing about their frustrations and fights has definitely made me feel more confident about speaking up about things,” says Norvell.
LeBlanc says St. Olaf has arrived at a different point than it sat at in the early days that Astrup and Daymont describe. Today, LeBlanc says, “No one at St. Olaf can say, ‘We have a men’s soccer team. We don’t have a women’s soccer team.’” Upholding Title IX is, in a way, more complicated now, she concludes. “It has come down to those more nuanced things that are hard to measure,” she says.
St. Olaf student-athletes like basketball standout Kay Kay Lewis ’22 are empowered to point out those nuances and advocate for things like improvements to locker rooms and additional team apparel. Basketball has provided her not only with lifelong friendships and a tight-knit community, but has helped her become a confident leader. “Everything in sports at St. Olaf has gotten better during my four years here,” she says.
Yet there’s still work to do. This summer St. Olaf Athletics evaluated how individual teams fundraise, and the department is implementing new policies to ensure equitable resources are available for all programs. Leaders are also examining ways to elevate the role of women in athletics administration at the college.
“I am proud to be a part of Ole Athletics, where I truly believe women can make a difference. We have come a long way in the 50 years since Title IX, but we have so much further to go,” says head softball coach Kayla Hatting. “And I know the impact and continued change for women can start right here at St. Olaf.”
I am proud to be a part of Ole Athletics, where I truly believe women can make a difference. We have come a long way in the 50 years since Title IX, but we have so much further to go.Head Softball Coach Kayla Hatting
Maker agrees. “The women in this department — both athletes and coaches — are leaders, not just on the field, track, or court, but in the classroom and community as well. They stand out because they are used to rising to a challenge and breaking down barriers,” she says. “Women in athletics have always been considered a necessity — at first, simply to appease the law of Title IX. Now no one can deny we are so much more than an obligation. We lead teams and shape departmental policy while balancing being wives and mothers. We win championships and accolades while earning some of the highest GPAs in the college. We were doing all these things before, but now we are demanding the respect we’ve always deserved and pushing past preconceived notions of what women are capable of. We are an extraordinary force when we are united, and are still figuring out our full potential.”
A PROCESS TO ADDRESS SEXUAL MISCONDUCT
While much of the early years of Title IX focused on equality in athletics, in the last decade attention has shifted to another powerful part of the law: the requirement that institutions respond to known incidents of sexual harassment, including sexual assault and other forms of sexual misconduct. So although the role of the college’s Title IX coordinator is to ensure compliance with all aspects of Title IX law, including gender equity among all programs and activities at the college, a significant part of the work is overseeing the process for promptly, impartially, and equitably addressing and resolving all reports of sex discrimination, sexual harassment, and sexual misconduct.
This fall St. Olaf appointed McDowell as the college’s new Title IX and Section 504 coordinator. Kari Hohn, who had served as the college’s director of Title IX and equal opportunity for the last six years, moved into a new Human Resources role at St. Olaf.
Before Hohn came to campus in 2016, the Title IX coordinator position was part-time. The role is now fulltime, per recommendations from the Title IX Working Group that was formed that year in response to student protests around the college’s handling of sexual misconduct claims. The working group recommended that the college transform the way students were supported during the grievance process, and the Title IX coordinator role was expanded to achieve that.
Hohn had previously worked in Washington, D.C., as an advocate for survivors of sexual assault and was a staff member at the Minnesota Coalition Against Sexual Assault. At St. Olaf, she knew she had her work cut out for her. “I was walking into a pretty tense community. People were very distrustful and very hurt,” she says. “A lot of those first couple of years was spent trying to demonstrate how things were different, to build up the program in a way that people could believe in.”
Hohn worked tirelessly to restore the community’s faith in the Title IX process. She significantly increased efforts to prevent violence and harassment, including establishing the Consent and Sexual Respect Initiative, and educated the community on how to report misconduct.
“Under her leadership, today we have a process that ensures a caring, consistent, fair, impartial, and lawful response for all participants,” says St. Olaf Vice President and General Counsel Carl Crosby Lehmann ’91, who had more than 20 years of experience advising colleges and universities on Title IX before he joined St. Olaf in 2016.
McDowell is ready to build on this foundation. As a key member of both the college’s Title IX Coordinated Response Team and its Bias Response Team, McDowell has worked closely with Hohn and has a deep familiarity with St. Olaf’s policies and processes. She served as the college’s conduct officer from 2009 until this year, has provided assistance to students involved in cases of sexual harassment and misconduct, and has both conducted and adjudicated investigations of sexual misconduct.
McDowell’s work is supported by a 12-member Title IX team that includes staff and administrators from across campus. St. Olaf also has an independent Title IX Advisory Group that seeks feedback on Title IX processes and policies from members of the St. Olaf community. The Advisory Group submits an annual report to the president of the college, summarizing the feedback it has received, including what is working well and what needs improvement.
The goal of this structure is to increase transparency and accountability. “The process has a lot of credibility in our community now as a result of the attention that it was given and the changes that were made,” Lehmann says.
I love how hard we’ve worked to make the Title IX Office a space for resources and education. We are grounded in wanting anyone who needs us to be able to learn about all the options and resources available so that they can make an informed decision about next steps. We’ve put a lot of time and effort into turning a law and process that has many compliance requirements into something that fits with and is accessible to our community. That is no small feat.Former Title IX Coordinator Kari Hohn
Zoe Golden ’22 signed up to help survivors of sexual misconduct and interpersonal violence during her first year on campus. She joined with others volunteering at the college’s student-run Sexual Assault Resources Network (SARN), and went on to become chair of the organization.
A child of the generation born with Title IX in place, Golden grew up confident that all students, no matter what their gender or sexual orientation, have a legal right to feel like they are safe and fairly treated on campus. In her role as a SARN advocate, she provided a non-judgmental listening ear and helpful connections to support resources both on campus and off.
“SARN is a confidential resource for students,” Golden says. “This means that whatever is said to you cannot be repeated to anyone unless it is something that is going to harm one person or other people.”
While St. Olaf offers five confidential resources (SARN, Health Services, the Counseling Center, College Pastors and Chaplains, and TimelyCare), SARN is the only student-run confidential resource.
Though SARN, founded in 1987, has a long history of supporting students, Golden said the group gained more clout and credibility in 2016. The comprehensive, easily accessible Title IX process that exists at St. Olaf today — and the culture shift that made it possible — helps Oles feel comfortable talking about sexual misconduct, Golden says. They know that the school takes these reports seriously and is committed to seeing them through to a positive and fair resolution.
“I love how hard we’ve worked to make the Title IX Office a space for resources and education. We are grounded in wanting anyone who needs us to be able to learn about all the options and resources available so that they can make an informed decision about next steps,” Hohn says, emphasizing that providing people who report misconduct with the autonomy to decide whether and how to move forward with a case is crucially important. “We’ve put a lot of time and effort into turning a law and process that has many compliance requirements into something that fits with and is accessible to our community. That is no small feat.”
WATCH A VIRTUAL CONVERSATION WITH TWO TRAILBLAZERS
Jeanne Foley ’75 and Aldra Henry Allison ’77 are part of a group of Oles whose connection to the college is so strongly tied to their pioneering role in women’s athletics that when they returned to St. Olaf for Reunion Weekend in 2019, they didn’t do so as members of their graduating classes — they did so as part of a reunion group that they simply dubbed The Trailblazers.
Watch a Women’s History Month conversation with Allison and Foley where they discuss their experiences at St. Olaf, their trailblazing role as women in male-dominated career fields, and the work that remains to fulfill the promise of Title IX.


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Former Scotland captain Al Kellock has teamed up with a number of English and Welsh rugby legends to help develop stronger local rugby clubs.
Kellock, from Bishopbriggs, and Mike Blair, another ex-Glasgow Warriors and Scotland star, have joined Welsh players Tom Shanklin and Stephen Jones and England’s Lewis Moody, Martin Corry, Neil Back and Maggie Alphonsi to form The Rugby Force.
The aim is for the team of rugby legends to offer grassroots clubs across Britain the chance to receive genuine support and advice at their Royal Bank RugbyForce weekend celebration on August 12 and 13.
Now in its fifth year, the community initiative run in partnership between Royal Bank and Scottish Rugby aims to help clubs attract new members and to become stronger and more sustainable clubs.
The rugby icons will offer their specific knowledge and expertise in the game to help their selected clubs achieve their specific development goals in two key areas.
Former Scotland and Glasgow Warriors captain Al Kellock returns to Royal Bank RugbyForce this year following his successful spell as honorary board member at Annan RFC.
Al worked with Annan RFC to develop their commercial revenue streams by running a sponsorship workshop with key committee members. Al also attended a fundraising dinner with the club which raised over £3,000 for Annan’s development fund.
Al will be providing expert business advice to a winning club, while former Scotland scrum-half and current Glasgow Warriors coach Mike Blair will be giving coaching support to develop coaching best practice to benefit the whole club’s coaching structure.
Speaking on set at the launch of Royal Bank RugbyForce, Al Kellock said: “I am delighted to be involved with Royal Bank RugbyForce again this year.
“Working with Annan RFC was an amazing experience both for myself and the club and I am very much looking forward to sharing as much commercial knowledge as possible with this year’s winning club.”
Kellock won 56 caps for Scotland between 2004 and 2013.


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The Importance of Being Earnest contains a pun, that much seems clear. Shaw said in his review of 1895 that the wordplay on Ernest/Earnest was not in fact a very good pun, and that the title as a whole was rather laboured and old-fashioned. But Shaw might have missed something. ‘Earnest’ quite likely plays on Urning, the German word for ‘homosexual’ coined in the 1860s by the sexologist Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, and a term much in vogue in the England of the 1890s. That its derivative was ‘Earnest’ is borne out in the title of a collection of homoerotic love lyrics, Love in Earnest, by John Gambril Nicholson, published in 1892 (three years before Wilde’s play). One poem in the collection, ‘Of Boys’ Names’, makes the point clear:
Old memories of the Table Round
In Percival and Lancelot dwell,
Clement and Bernard bring the sound
Of anthems in the cloister-cell,
And Leonard vies with Lionel
In stately step and kingly frame,
And Kenneth speaks of field and fell,
And Ernest sets my heart a-flame.
One name can make my pulses bound,
No peer it owns, nor parallel,
By it is Vivian’s sweetness drowned,
And Roland, full as organ-swell;
Though Frank may ring like silver bell,
And Cecil softer music claim,
They cannot work the miracle,—
’Tis Ernest sets my heart a-flame.
Cyril is lordly, Stephen crowned
With deathless wreaths of asphodel,
Oliver whispers peace profound,
Herbert takes arms his foes to quell,
Eustace with sheaves is laden well,
Christopher has a nobler fame,
And Michael storms the gates of Hell,
But Ernest sets my heart a-flame.
My little Prince, Love’s mystic spell
Lights all the letters of your name,
And you, if no one else, can tell
Why Ernest sets my heart a-flame.
Craft, Christopher: Another Kind of Love: Male Homosexual Desire in English Discourse, 1850-1920 (1994)
See a clickable index of all titles covered


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- 9 months ago
Sponsored by Olio Digital Labs and Codeship Thanks to Techdoz.ca for the loan of the Snowball Blue Mic! Hosts & Guests Stuart Clark Derek Silva Quick Hits Over 3,000 of Canada’s Indigenous Lands are now on Google Maps http://mobilesyrup.com/2017/06/21/over-3000-canadas-indigenous-lands-on-google-maps/ YouTube announces sharing videos within its native app and true full screen videos http://mobilesyrup.com/2017/06/23/youtube-announces-sharing-videos-native-app/ SpaceX launches …
Read More Read More
The post CTP Ep. 121 – Jun 26, 2017: The Cryptocurrency Ripple appeared first on Canadian Tech Podcast.


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The president of the North Dakota Long Term Care Association said all of the state’s long term care facilities are allowing COVID-19 testing.
Earlier, Gov. Doug Burgum had said at one of his COVID-19 briefings he was aware that three of those facilities were not allowing testing.
But Shelly Peterson said she thinks the issue with that was communication. She said some of the testing, for example, had been scheduled for Mother’s Day.
"We were trying to make Mother's Day really, really special in facilities, because family wasn't able to be there," Peterson said. "And to even call in our staff on Mother's Day, when they haven't had very many breaks, and haven't been able to take vacation and working overtime -- they need a break."
Peterson said in the dementia population, the nasal swabs would have been very difficult, so they were waiting for other testing protocols. But she said every one of the 218 facilities is on-board with testing.
"It's one of the key factors in trying to returning to some normalcy out there, so we can show we don't have the infection present in our facilities," Peterson said.
Task Force for visitation protocol
The North Dakota Long Term Care Association is forming a task force to work on protocols on reuniting families with residents of the long term care facilities.
Visits have been restricted because of COVID-19.
"Right now, we can't do that," Peterson said. "But there will be a time when we can reunite families with residents. We're looking forward to that."
Peterson said a protocol should be in place, so there is a safe way to do that.
Peterson said residents are missing their families, and staff are filling in where they can. And she says the families are improvising.
"Some were doing visits outside, when it's nice," Peterson said. "They wore masks and protective gear, and kept 6-foot social distance. Oh my goodness, is that tough."
Peterson said Chris Larson, a resident of a Mayville nursing home, will be chairing the task force. She said they will also be working with the state Health Department on when and how visitation will be allowed.

domain: sociology


FDA Guidance Signals Clear Support for Efforts to Increase Trial Diversity
As part of its ongoing efforts to make clinical trials more representative of the population, the FDA last week issued a final guidance on what sponsors should do to make trials more accessible and appealing to under-represented racial, ethnic, gender and age groups.
It’s an issue that has been increasingly on the front burner for industry stakeholders the past few years, and the COVID-19 pandemic has made the situation even more urgent as minority groups have proven more susceptible to the virus.
Clearly, the FDA agrees with industry that measures must be taken to increase the participation of underserved populations. While many of the recommendations the agency details in this new guidance are not new ideas, this is the first time the FDA has laid them out in a final guidance for the industry, giving trial sponsors and sites confidence that they have regulatory support for efforts to expand trial inclusion.
“Many of the recommendations have been introduced and discussed elsewhere,” says Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development (CSDD) Deputy Director Ken Getz. “Still, the FDA’s guidance signals the agency’s desire to be part of the solution; to encourage and collaborate with clinical research sponsors in improving participant demographic subgroup representation.”
Recommendations in the new guidance focus on increasing diversity by loosening trial eligibility criteria, reducing barriers to trial participation, and increasing community and patient outreach.
The agency is right to point out these ideas from the regulatory perspective, says Steve Smith, WCG Clinical’s president of patient advocacy. The guidance is the latest in the FDA’s efforts over the past decade to promote trial diversity. “It’s not letting its foot off the gas,” Smith says.
The final version of the guidance, which was released in draft form in June 2019 and drew 90 public comments, includes three new suggestions for increasing trial inclusiveness: using real-world data, such as insurance claims and electronic health records, to identify appropriately diverse populations; using online/social media recruitment strategies to reach participants who don’t have access to a traditional referral center; and using electronic informed consent to allow participants to read and sign forms remotely.
In acknowledgement of practices that have proven useful during the COVID-19 pandemic, the guidance encourages trials to reduce barriers to trial participation by modifying study visit schedules or reducing the frequency of visits, using electronic communication or digital health technology and using mobile medical professionals, such as nurses and phlebotomists, to provide trial services locally.
Community and patient outreach efforts could include incorporating advocacy groups, medical associations and other stakeholders in trial design; and fostering community engagement through focus groups, community advisory boards and community-based research.
The agency recommends reimbursing trial participants for expenses, such as for travel and lodging. Payment for participating in research may be allowed at the discretion of the trial’s IRB, such as for the participant’s time, inconvenience or discomfort.
These and other measures can help the industry move beyond some common roadblocks, which, according to the Association of Clinical Research Professionals, include lack of awareness, logistics, mistrust, lack of diversity among the research and clinical professionals, research not being conducted in the community, disconnect between researchers and the community, limited access to specialty centers that refer patients to clinical trials, minorities not being as willing to participate in research, and fear of exploitation in clinical research.
A recent study from the CSDD found that clinical trial participation among Blacks and African Americans — who make up 13.4 percent of the U.S. population — was only 5.4 percent between 2007 and 2017 (CenterWatch Weekly, Nov. 2). And statistics from the FDA’s recently released 2015-2019 Drug Trials Snapshots Report show that Blacks/African Americans made up only 7 percent of participants in FDA-regulated trials in the five-year period examined.
Although 18 percent of the U.S. population identifies as Latinx, that group represented only 7.2 percent of trial participants in the CSDD study. The group fared better in the FDA report, however, which showed it accounted for 13 percent of participants from 2015 to 2019.
To broaden trials, the guidance says, sponsors should eliminate or modify eligibility criteria that unnecessarily exclude specific populations, such as patients with organ dysfunction, comorbid conditions and disabilities. Sponsors that usually use the same criteria for phase 2 and phase 3 studies, the FDA says, could consider relaxing the restrictive criteria used in phase 2 studies, opening the door to more inclusive phase 3 criteria.
Other recommendations include using adaptive trial designs that allow for the expansion of the participant pool as the trial proceeds; characterizing drug metabolism in certain populations early in the clinical development process; and considering broader inclusion of pediatric arms early in trial planning.
The guidance also addresses recruitment challenges of rare disease trials, suggesting sponsors increase their participant pools through such efforts as re-enrolling early-phase trial participants into later-phase randomized trials. Sponsors could make rare-disease trials more attractive by establishing extension studies that guarantee the investigational treatment will be made available to all participants, including those who may have received a placebo in the main trial.
The rare disease community is also an underserved population, Smith points out, saying that before the implementation of the Orphan Drug Act in 1983, it was in the same position minority groups are now. The rare disease community has been telling the FDA for two decades that more inclusive trial criteria are needed, he says, and the effort is paying off. “It’s called regulatory flexibility, and they’re getting it,” he says.
The guidance also refers to diversity by age of participant, focusing primarily on involvement of children in nonpediatric studies, but representation of the elderly in trials outside of geriatric studies also is an issue. The agency’s snapshots report shows than only one-third of trials included participants over age 65. Many of the same barriers that block minority participation also affect older populations, the guidance says, such as access to transportation. And comorbidities in older adults could lead to their exclusion from some trials.
In general, there are no major points of controversy in the guidance, says Angela Branche, assistant professor at the University of Rochester Medical Center, but no real innovations either. “I don’t think it adds much to what has already been pretty well understood,” Branche says.
“It’s important that this guidance be specific in detailing that a particular group should not have to endure a higher proportion of the risk,” she says.
Smith agrees that there is always more that can be done. But the responsibility isn’t all on the agency’s shoulders, he points out. Increasing trial diversity requires a collaboration among the FDA, the industry, patients and biostatisticians.
Read the final guidance here: https://bit.ly/2UvxSY5.


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Annual Meeting & Celebration January 2023
Annual Meeting and Celebration
Please enjoy the slides from our January 12, 2023 where we shared our 2022 accomplishments and plans for 2022. You may also wish to download a copy of the meeting's handout. Mary Lou Wehrli was our guest speaker who talked about the historic Greene Barn and Oak Cottage.

domain: history