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This is a rather hefty fee for processing a transaction given that most credit card processors just charge around 2.5% and a small transaction fee (generally around $0.25). It’s also worth noting that it looks as if Apple will take this same cut whenever a subscriber renews a subscription, though this isn’t 100% clear yet. This new subscription plan will become mandatory starting June 30.

Steve Jobs: “Our Philosophy is Simple”

Just in case developers think they can just provide a link to their regular web-based subscription service in their apps and circumvent Apple’s system, the rules explicitly state that “publishers may no longer provide links in their apps (to a website, for example) which allow the customer to purchase content or subscriptions outside of the app.”

In the words of Apple CEO Steve Jobs: “Our philosophy is simple—when Apple brings a new subscriber to the app, Apple earns a 30 percent share; when the publisher brings an existing or new subscriber to the app, the publisher keeps 100 percent and Apple earns nothing.” That does sound fair, but in reality, chances are that the majority of new customers for subscription services will come from apps and given that developers aren’t allowed to route around the system, this 30% cut become a major issue for some publishers.

Can Publishers Afford This Without Raising Prices?

You can currently buy an annual subscription to Wired on Amazon for $10 and getting National Geographic for a year costs $15 per year. Will these magazines have to offer the same prices for the app-based versions of their products? (Or do these “promotional” prices not count?) If Hulu has to give Apple $2.40 of every $7.99 subscription it sells, can it still make a profit? Or will Apple’s move force them to raise their prices across the board?

It is, of course, a good thing that Apple is making it easier for consumers to buy subscriptions and helps publishers acquire new subscribers. Having to pay a 30% fee for these services does seem quite steep, though, especially given that Apple now owns the customer and not the publishers.

Killer 5pts

Wait a minute. At many marketplaces where freelancers sell their work, they pay even more in a commission. Seems reasonable in the light that Constant-Content takes 1/3 of the price if they sell one of my articles!

In the words of Apple CEO Steve Jobs: “Our philosophy is simple—We're greedy."

Guest 5pts

That is just plain stupid for any one to think that it is even remotely fair. Just remember no company ever pays taxes (or fees) out of its own pocket. It eventually trickles down to consumers pockets, this can only mean that the prices have to go up.

Microsoft windows has 90 % market penetration and it provides an easy way (via its browser) for users to subscribe to services. So now MS can start charging you for the subscriptions, of course they can if they wanted to but it is just simply not happening. It is not a very straight comparision but it is still valid.

Apple can't use the excuse of ease of payment or its popularity to reach into every ones pockets. They are charging for applications they sell for a price and it should end right there.

Fanboys will obviously miss this point and talk about convenience and how great this is so please let it sink in before airing any defense for apple.

VHF 5pts

This could give droid more popularity as all apps such as Netflix, hulu, etc pull out if apple store.

Apple is clearly exploiting its leading position. Lets hope android take over soon.

Unbelievable how people that don't have a clue how this works spewing the same stuff.

So anyone want to guess what Publisher's Clearing House got for the subscriptions they brought in? Anyone?

Their cut of a subscription ranged from 74 to 90 percent!!!!!!!!

Please...nothing to see here!

Leeg 5pts

Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. As a long time Apple fan boy, I hope they get slaughtered. This is a monstrosity.

You should also mention that Apple's online store is international, providing sales across borders. In addition to credit card processing, Apple handles foreign currency exchanges for publishers. And they have a ready made audience of millions of credit card consumers ready to buy with a single click.

Lady Kascha
Lady Kascha 5pts

Is Apple getting too greedy? Getting? Apple was wrapped in a blanket made of greed and arrogance at birth for crying out loud. And suckled on concentrated arrogance. Maybe some don't remember the days of the Apple 3 when Jobs charged 8-10K for that shoddy garbage while competitors were still under 3K for their own machines, and unabashedly I might add, but I remember well. For most of Apple's existence, buying their products was like buying a brand new Ferrari and being blown past by the Toyota in the next lane. And it wasn't until they replaced the Ferrari motor with a Toyota that they could even get close enough to see the taillights.

And nothing much has changed. The perception of being "cooler than everybody" is still worth 25% more, according to Steve Jobs.

Steve Larson
Steve Larson 5pts

Apple has to start asking, "at what point does the desire for profit become pure immoral greed?" I believe one day, like so many other computer companies of the past, they will collapse on their own arrogance. It's the developers that have made their products such hits. It almost seems as if Apple cannot stand to see anyone succeed but them. I can't wait for the Motorola Xoom and my HTC Thunderbolt. Part of me supports them, simply because of a desire to fight against the monopoly. Apple has some good products and they have great marketing, but what they really have is a closed environment that will not allow competitors to flourish in that system. It's a capitalist system and they have every right to do so, but, in my humble opinion, they have lost their original calling and have become just another immoral, controlling corporation. Sad to see, because they once were great for the computing world.

John Travel
John Travel 5pts

Interesting to see how this turns out. It will be bad for Apple if Sony, Amazon and Barnes/Noble left their devices, but can't see how those companies can make money on these terms.
Find out more about our free iPhone and iPad Travel Guides:

Chris McCoy
Chris McCoy 5pts

On the interwebs, Apple and Facebook are the government and the tax is 30%. Taxpayers are premium publishers and developers.

Joe 5pts

Lesseeeee, everyone is upset because Apple won't let mean ol' publications have FREE SPACE in their store??? Has anyone tried this at Macy's? Or any other store? NO? Well have they been give FREE SPACE on Amazon??? Hmmmmm. Something doesn't add up. Apple builds a store (ecosystem) using their own programmers, one their own computers, and hosts it on their own servers, takes care of all the updates and advertising... and everybody is made because they don't give it away. Am I missing something???

k-0s 5pts

Doesn't Apple already split 70/30 the profits on applications int he app store with developers? Also, Facebook already does a 70/30 split with their Facebook credits. I guess I'm not seeing the problem here. Apple is providing access to a medium, if it doesn't fit in the economic constraints of the company then don't sign up.

The CW
The CW 5pts

This is slightly less than the average brick and mortar mark-up (33%) and provides a better service (i.e. my subscription is delivered directly to my hands regardless of my location.

johnkoetsier 5pts

What do you think the newstand or grocery store takes?

Anonymous 5pts

Typo: Steve Jobs: “Out Philosophy is Simple”

should be: Steve Jobs: “Our Philosophy is Simple”

Wow that is really messed up, but what can you do about it? I mean seriously, its their deck of cards lol.


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Around the Water Trough

This forum is meant for the members of Silver Meadow Simulated Game. The horses and information in this forum are not real.
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 Hello! Im Lily Mae!

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Lily Mae

Posts : 1
Join date : 2008-08-28
Location : North east UK

PostSubject: Hello! Im Lily Mae!   Thu Aug 28, 2008 5:48 am

Hello Im Lily-Mae and im 16 years of age . My familiar other is a dappled grey arabian Mare by the name Princess Shakira, she is 15.1hh and 5 yrs old.Im a very confident rider with over 9 years of experience uner my belt; i als like to think that i am quite knowlageable about horses as i am training to be a vet. Im a affiliated showjumper with my baby and we are going to the london royal show. Very Happy i cant wait!
My aims in Silver meadows are to breed arabian sport horses and become a honourable member, as well as run my own arabian stables and be a show excutive on the game.
lily mae
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Join date : 2008-08-22
Age : 31
Location : Olinda, Hawaii USA

PostSubject: Welcome to Silver Meadow   Thu Aug 28, 2008 12:35 pm

Wow, Lily-Mae, it looks like you're going to be a great asset to the game.

Please let me or another administrative member know if/when you'd like to create a stable, association, or show. I think for right now, due to the lack of active members to start the game off with, we're going to go lax on the property requirements and such, and it seems like you'd be a perfect candidate to run an arabian association, a show association, or even a veterinary clinic (if you go for a vet clinic, be forewarned, you will have competition as Nice-Easy-Me is in the process of setting one up as well).

I'll probably add an administrative request forum where you can talk to us about your business ideas, maybe get some imput from other members. In the meantime, go check out the auction that I posted for the humane society. There's a beautiful arab there. I've also put up a small show to get the game started as well.
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PostSubject: Re: Hello! Im Lily Mae!   Thu Aug 28, 2008 3:51 pm

Hi I'm Nice-Eazy-Me if you need help getting started message me I'd be glad to help!!:p I'm one of the other Admin as well as a vet!
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Benevento East, TN Real Estate

Benevento East TN Real Estate Overview

Open Houses

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Benevento East TN Real Estate Stats

Average Price in Benevento East: $432,990  County Average: $901,341

Average Taxes in Benevento East: $2,839  County Average: $2,915

Average Cost Per Sqr Ft in Benevento East: $142  County Average: $228

Average Walkscore in Benevento East: 6  County Average: 13

Average Year Built in Benevento East: 2016  County Average: 2007

Average Days on Website in Benevento East: 25  County Average: 72

Benevento East TN Real Estate Market Health

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Listings in Benevento East

Brand new fully-finished basement in spring hill! owner's suite & guest suite 1st floor, gourmet kitchen, upgraded owner's bath, fireplace, pulte planning center, "drop zone," crown molding, central vacuum, tankless hot water heater, sunroom, deck, and more...

Stonebrook home ready now! owner's suite down & full guest suite on the 1st floor...

Mercer floor plan with guest suite on the first floor...

Bennett ranch-style home with loft+bed+bath upstairs...

Beautiful executive home w/5 inch plank hardwoods throughout...

Mercer floor plan ready in january! offering 0% interest for the first 6 months with our preferred lender on this home...

Continental floor plan. home features guest suite on the 1st floor, gourmet kitchen with built in appliances, granite countertops, upgraded owner's bath, pulte planning center, crown molding, covered lanai, side-entry garage, 4-sided brick, fully sodded yard, and more...

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Saturday, January 30, 2010

Euro Systems, Glasgow - Bad service

Euro System how they treat a charity

Last December I started working for a charity, web development and IT Support.

The website was hosted by a euro systems Govan, Glasgow.

There was problems with euro systems servers and email. AOL was rejecting our email due to their DNS settings.

So we held a meeting with euro systems.

The meeting was agreeable. They promised to sort the problems out and invoice us for to continue to host our site.

After the meeting it was impossible to get a reply to our email or return our calls.

Last Friday, 22-1-2010, I spoke to a sales person. I was told the owner was in hospital and would be back to work on Tuesday.

No phone call from the owner.

I phoned on Tuesday. Spoke to the receptionist, and asked her to get him to call me back.

Through the week I called again no luck.

On Friday we could not access our email.

Phoned Euro Systems. Sales person answered the call.

Told me that they would no longer be hosting our site. As they decided not to continue to be a re-seller. So they did not pay the bill with who they were a reseller for.

No warning. They just cut of us like that. Did not inform us , so we could have taken action and moved our site to another hosting company.

These people are just incompetent.

Make your own decisions about wether to use the services of Euro Systems.


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Monday, 18 August 2014

Fragrant Pork Belly with Thai Basil

My mini garden has been growing weeds....!!! Hubby wanted to throw away all my plants especially those inedible plants and keep those edible ones. What should I do??? I still want to keep my plants especially those herbs which I need it every now and then. At the end, we decided to keep only the edible plants and concentrate on edible garden which we think is more practical. Thai basil is in abundance and they are in fact too matured. So, what I did was to harvest all the herbs and replant them for another new batch of herbs garden.
Since Thai Basil is in abundance, I decided to fully utilize it. Hence, stewing pork belly with it is one of the many dishes I have cooked.

For your info, when I was young, I never like or would not touch pork belly. Even when I ever did eat it, I would always throw away the fat and take the lean meat. However, these few years, I don't know what has gotten into me. I LIKE pork belly especially the FAT!!! I know it's unhealthy but ah..... eat first health later... hahahaha.... The gravy is especially yummy and when mixed with rice, we can easily go for 2nd helping of rice! The recipe for this is taken from my previous posting on Stewed Pork Belly with Fried Tofu.

Ingredients :
- 1 strip of pork belly (blanched and cut)
- 1 bunch of Thai Basil
- 1/2 tbsp fermented soy bean paste/tau cheong (for frying)
- 1 1/2 tbsp fermented soy bean paste/tau cheong (to taste)
- 1 bulb of garlic (finely chopped)
- 1 thumbsized ginger (sliced and crushed)
- water (enough for stewing)

Seasonings : (to taste)
- a dash of salt
- 2 tbsp light soy sauce
- 3 tbsp caramel sauce (reduce the amount if you don't like your dish to be in dark colour)
- 1 tsp sugar

Method :
1) Heat some oil in a wok and saute garlic, ginger and 1/2 tbsp of fermented soy bean paste until aromatic.

2) Add pork belly and stir fry for a while. Mix well.

3) Add water, the remaining fermented bean paste and caramel sauce. Stir and mix well.

4) Cover and let it boil at high heat for about 5 minutes. Then, lower the heat and let it simmer until the gravy is thickened and/or the meat is cooked and tender. It takes about 30 to 45 minutes depending on the fire and pot/wok used. Add water if you want more gravy.

5) Lastly, add in Thai Basil and the remaining seasonings. Bring it to a boil again for 1 or 2 minutes.

6) Dish up and serve with steamed rice.

If you like pork belly, this is a very flavorful dish
Hope you like this homey dish. It's also great to serve it with plain bread instead of steamed rice. Do enjoy.

I am linking this to TheWeekendSocial- Recipe & DIY Link Party

To receive new updates, do LIKE SIMPLY BEAUTIFUL AND HEALTHY LIVING on FACEBOOK. Thanks for visiting my blog and leaving comments. I really appreciate all your visits and comments! Have a nice day :)

Monday, 11 August 2014

Zucchini Carrot Loaf

When I first saw Phong Hong's Zucchini bread, I told myself, wow, this is great! Why???? Well, I like zucchini and another main reason is that this recipe is healthy and so easy to make. Being so excited, I baked it the following day and I am glad that I did it without any procrastination. We like the bread/cake so much that I baked it again for a karaoke session with a group of childhood friends.
However, for this get-together, instead of a loaf, I baked it into 'cupcakes'; reason was for easy handling and besides, this is also great as party food.
The loaf is soft and moist and taste like a cake
However, the 'cupcake' is not too moist and soft and taste more like bread
Which one do you like?

Zucchine Bread
Recipe source : adapted from Phong Hong (with some minor modification)

Ingredients :
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 200g self-raising flour
- 50g sugar (due to the addition of raisins, I reduced the sugar)
- 2 eggs, lightly beaten
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1tsp ground nutmeg
- 1 cup grated zucchini
- 1 cup grated carrot
- 1 cup of mixed raisins

Method :
1. In a large bowl, mix sugar, eggs and vanilla until well combined.
2. Stir in the grated zucchini and carrot. Then followed by the oil. Mix till well blended.
3. Sift in flour 1/3 at a time over no. 2 and mix well.
4. Add raisins, cinnamon and nutmeg.  Mix well.
5. Pour batter into a lined or greased 4" x 9" x 3" loaf pan or cupcake/muffin cups.
6. Bake in a preheated oven at 160C for 40 to 45 minutes (for loaf) or 180C for 20 minutes (for muffin or cupcake cups) or until cooked; depending on individual oven temperature.
7. Let cool in pan for about 10 mins before unmoulding onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Do head over to Phong Hong's Bake for her original recipe. Do give this a try and you will love it.

The loaf tasted like fruit cake

Whereas the 'cupcakes' is more towards like bread

It tastes even better after one or two days

Do have a great week ahead and cheers :)

To receive new updates, do LIKE SIMPLY BEAUTIFUL AND HEALTHY LIVING on FACEBOOK. Thanks for visiting my blog and leaving comments. I really appreciate all your visits and comments! Have a nice day :)

Tuesday, 5 August 2014

Basic No-Knead Bread (Grant Loaf)

This basic no-knead bread is called Grant Loaf and can be made in less than 2 hours!
This is my very first home baked bread. It's very easy and fuss-free. Why I like this is that I just have to dump all the ingredients into a mixer and when the dough mixture is ready, just let it proof for about an hour and straight into the oven it goes!

After, 35 minutes or so, you have freshly baked bread ready for you.
It's so easy and simple and suitable for those busy housewives who want a quick simple bread for the family.

Basic No-Knead Bread
Recipe source : Bread Kitchen (with minor modifications in red)

Ingredients :
- 450 g wholemeal or white bread flour (high protein flour)
- 385 g lukewarm water or milk (350ml = 3 tbsp milk powder + warm water)
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp dried yeast
- 1 tsp sugar

Instructions :
1)  Add sugar and yeast into water or milk and leave it for 10 minutes for the yeast to activate.
2)  Mix the flour and salt in a bowl.
3)  Then add the activated yeast mixture into no. (2).
4)  Mix well to achieve a smooth and sticky dough.  I used electric mixer.
5)  Lightly grease a 21cm x 11cm loaf pan and pour the dough mixture in.  Spread the dough evenly.  Cover and leave in a warm place for about an hour.
6)  Once the dough starts to rise above the level of the loaf tin, bake at pre-heated oven at 200°C for 35 minutes depending on individual oven temperature.  I baked at 190°C for 40 minutes.
7)  Remove from the loaf pan and allow to cool on a wire rack.

Note :  The loaves freeze well so you can bake several at once if you have enough loaf pans.
This simple bread is suitable for those who don't have any knowledge of bread baking ~ like me
If you are not a fussy eater, overall, this bread is great with a cup of hot coffee
Have fun baking your home baked bread with your children :)

To receive new updates, do LIKE SIMPLY BEAUTIFUL AND HEALTHY LIVING on FACEBOOK. Thanks for visiting my blog and leaving comments. I really appreciate all your visits and comments! Have a nice day :)


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Monday, May 30, 2011

I Love A Man In A Unifom

There's something about a man in a uniform!  To those men and women who serve in our Armed Forces, thank you for your serves and Happy Memorial Day!

Image Via Tiny Water

Monday, May 16, 2011

Charity Shoot Out!

Jen O'Sullivan and are teaming up to offer engaged couples and wedding pros an opportunity to mix, mingle and get photo sessions from some of the top photographers in Southern California. We are bringing new and seasoned, talented photographers together with engaged couples who want engagement shots and wedding industry specialists who need an updated headshot (or you can just come and enjoy the social!) Test drive photographers with no pressure to book and all your high res files are included. The experience is unlike any other wedding or bridal event out there. Even more, all the proceeds of this event will benefit BRIDGES TO ABILITY, whose mission is to improve the lives of teens and adults with disabilities through quality vocational, educational, social and recreational programs.

GET 50% off your tickets by entering coupon code friendofjen at checkout.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Featured... Style Me Pretty

I'm so excited that one of my favorite weddings got a front page feature on one of my favorite wedding blogs, Style Me Pretty! Ashley and Drew are a fun loving, funky grooving, soul surfing couple.  Their attention to detail and style showed in every part of their wedding... Their rainbow color scheme meets retro beach meets rustic barn all blended together seamlessly.  See more of this barn fête in the gallery.
Thank you to all the amazing vendors:
Wedding Photography: Stephanie Hogue Photography / Wedding Cinematography: Hello Super 8 / Wedding Venue: Dos Pueblos Ranch / Event Design: Tricia Fountaine Design / Wedding Coordination: Annette Garcia Kerslake of Simply Natural Events / Catering & Event Rentals: Command Performance Catering / Floral Design: Nikki Lee Collins / Hair & Makeup: Fiore Beauty / Wedding Dress: Amsale / Groom’s Attire: Hugo Boss / Groom & Groomsmen Ties & Hankies: Hugo Boss / Cocktail Music: Isaiah MacMenami / DJ: Brad Robinson / Visuals: James Green / Invitation & Poster: Ello There

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

We All Scream for Ice Cream

With the weather heating up what better way to keep your guests cool with I Love Lucie's organic ice cream truck!

They use all organic, all natural ingredients and select fair trade chocolates, teas, and coffees. The ice cream and sauces are handmade specifically for your special event.  Even the serving cups and spoons are eco-friendly.  They are not only recyclable but compostable as well.  Better for you and the planet!

How great are the classic 1959 ice cream truck and vintage Italian ice cream cart?!?


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Monday, May 11, 2009

Turkey in the News

Unfortunately, Turkey has received some negative press lately. For those who are curious, the first news article is about a suicide bomber's failed attempt on main campus of Bilkent University last week (I live and teach on East Campus). The second article is about Kurdish rebels opening fire at a wedding party in Southeast Turkey.

Suicide attacks on ex-minister foiled at private university in Turkish capital
by Mustafa Oguz
Hurriyet Daily News

ANKARA – A former Turkish justice minister walked away from an attempted suicide attack unharmed when his bodyguards thwarted the bomber at a private university in Ankara, officials said.

The suspected attacker, Didem Akman, was injured as a fuse on her body exploded and she was hospitalized, former Justice Minister Hikmet Sami Turk said at a press conference Wednesday.
Another suspect, Onur Yilmaz, was caught in a bus terminal after security forces spotted him with Akman on security cameras, officials from Bilkent University said in a press conference. TV channels later reported that a third suspect was also being searched.
The assassination attempt on Turk came just he was entering the classroom at Bilkent University where he has given lectures in the law faculty since leaving the government in 2002.
"The girl came to me and said she wants to ask a question,” Turk said. “I refused as the class was about to start. I heard a small explosion just I entered the classroom.”
Turk, 74, served as justice minister between May 1999 and November 2002 in the government of late Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit. Before that, he had assumed the positions of defense minister and state minister responsible for human rights.
He said his bodyguards overpowered the attacker after she failed to detonate her explosives and drew a weapon.
The university's faculty building has been evacuated and all of the university’s entrances and exits were closed.
Bilkent officials also said the attacker entered the university using a fake identity card and said she wanted to use the library. The university’s library is open to the public.
"She entered Turkey from Bulgaria. We believe the attack was planned by an organization to protest Operation Return to Life," a security official added.
Turk was Justice Minister when Turkey launched F-type prisons. Far-leftists inmates started hunger strikes to protest isolation in the F-type prisons.
Turkey launched an operation called Return to Life to end the hunger strikes, which left two gendarmes and 12 prisoners dead.
Turk said this was the closest assassination attempt he escaped. The officials did not release information about the amount of explosives that the suspected attacker had, but Turk said that according to the information he had, if the explosives had been detonated, the faculty building might have been destroyed.
He also recalled a similar incident in 2002 when another female suspected militant attempted a suicide attack in Kartal prison while pretending to be a journalist. She also entered Turkey from Bulgaria, he added.
Earlier reports said that Turkey's Security General Directorate warned police departments in major cities against possible suicide attacks that could be launched by three bombers sent by terror organization PKK from the country's Southeast.

The second news item made international news. Friends in the U.S. heard about it before I did:

45 Killed in Attack on Engagement Party in Turkey
Masked gunmen kill 45 in attack on engagement party in Turkey, at least 6 injured
The Associated Press

ANKARA, Turkey

Masked assailants with grenades and automatic weapons attacked an engagement ceremony in southeast Turkey on Monday, killing 45 people. Two girls survived after the bodies of slain friends fell on top of them during the onslaught.

NTV television quoted Deputy Gov. Ferhat Ozen of Mardin province as saying the nighttime attack occurred in Bilge village near the city of Mardin. Some media outlets reported that a "blood feud" among families had led to the killings in a region where tribal ties and rivalries sometimes eclipse the power of the state.

Citing Ozen, NTV said the motive could be an old feud between rival groups of pro-government village guards who fight alongside Turkish troops against Kurdish rebels in the region. If that is the case, the government would come under renewed pressure to rein in the militiamen, some of whom have been linked to drug smuggling and other crimes.

Mehmet Besir Ayanoglu, the mayor of Mardin, told Turkey's Channel 24 that he spoke to two survivors, both girls, who said at least two masked men stormed a house where the ceremony took place. Other reports put the number of assailants at four.

"'They raided the house, we were in two rooms, they opened fire on everyone, they were wearing masks,'" Ayanoglu quoted the girls as saying. The girls said they lay underneath the bodies of friends until the attack was over.

Interior Minister Besir Atalay said 45 people were killed and six were wounded, and ruled out involvement of Kurdish rebels. He said he, along with the justice and agriculture ministers, would travel to the village early Tuesday.

Anatolia news agency said the attack lasted 15 minutes. All initial reports said the assault happened during a wedding, though CNN-Turk television later said it took place during an engagement ceremony.

One survivor, a 19-year-old woman, said the assailants ordered people to huddle in one room and opened fire, NTV reported. Another report said the attack occurred when people were praying at the house. Some guards responded to the attack but the assailants fled, NTV said.

Ahmet Can, a relative who took the body of his nephew to a hospital, said the site of the attack was horrifying.

"You could not believe your eyes, it is unbelievable," he told Channel 24.

The attack occurred during the ceremony for the daughter of Cemil Celebi, a former village official who was among the wounded.

An Islamic cleric who was presiding over the marriage died at a hospital, NTV said. The fate of the bride and groom was not immediately known. The attack killed an entire family, including the parents and their six children, aged between three and 12.

Ambulances took at least 17 bodies to the morgue of a hospital in Mardin, said Aytac Akgul, a local official. Hundreds of relatives of the victims gathered there, wailing. Several people offered to donate blood.

State television said soldiers surrounded the village and cut off all roads leading to it. It said there was no power there, and the village could not be reached by telephone. Journalists were barred from traveling to Bilge.

For years, Turkey has struggled over how to trim the 70,000-strong village guard force without releasing masses of trained fighters onto the streets of the southeast, where unemployment in some areas reaches 50 percent. The system is one of the few lucrative sources of employment in the region.

The military has purged thousands of village guards suspected of favoring Kurdish rebels fighting for autonomy in the southeast. Several hundred guards have also faced criminal charges that include drug and weapons smuggling.

Many rebels and guardsmen are from the same villages or clans. Most guardsmen are poor villagers, and local residents and activists say some were forced to join against their will. Others were signed up by politically powerful clan leaders allied with the state.

The conflict between Kurdish guerrillas and government forces has killed tens of thousands of people since 1984.

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News Archive

Childcare workers rally outside Dáil

Date Released: 17 February 2015

Over 500 childcare workers held a rally outside Leinster House, Dublin, at lunchtime on Tuesday (17th February) demanding better funding for the essential service they provide.

The protest was organised by the Association of Childhood Professionals (ACP), which seeks to highlight the work childcare professionals do, supporting children and families at the foundation stage of development.

Among those protesting was SIPTU member and community worker, Fintan Brunkard. He said: “The importance of the early childhood care can not be overstated but despite of that the people entrusted with caring for children at this most important stage are paid a pittance.”

He added: ‘There needs to be increased regulation in the private sector to stamp out sharp practices. In the community sector, funding must be increased to ensure workers are paid in accordance with their qualifications and the importance of their work.”

SIPTU Organiser Karen Smollen said: “Ireland needs a genuine conversation about the future of early childhood education. You cannot deliver a quality, affordable childcare without investing in skilled and committed workers.”

According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Ireland had the highest cost for childcare of any of its 34 members. A family with two children will spend 40% of their average wage on childcare costs. Despite this high cost, the average hourly wage for a fully qualified childcare worker is between €8.65 and €10.50, according to Early Childhood Ireland.

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Monday, August 18, 2014

Aug 18 2014

It was a pretty solid week! I super enjoyed it, and I will try and explain some of my favorite things.
-  Tuesday we were taking buses and had a connecting bus. We got off the one, had about 2 minutes before the other left, we were walking along the side of it, she closed the doors and started driving, so sister Eborn started smacking the side of the bus! We could NOT afford to miss it. We were even running, and then the lady stopped, and we realized all she was doing was moving forward so the bus we just got off could move forward. haha awkward.
-  We had transfers which just turned into work overs because of the time limit, so the two sister training leaders flew from Stockholm up here, and they got here Tuesday night, we took them home, then Wednesday they had to leave by 3:00. It was a little silly since they were so short, but with flights and they had to do transfers again that night, it was just how it had to happen. So I was with Sister Christensen,who is going home in like a month, but she is super super awesome. I really enjoyed getting to know her! It was so neat to see other approaches at contacting, tracting and teaching. It was super good :) The biggest thing I learned though was that I really do have the BEST trainer. Sister Christensen is super great though, and helped me understand some things better, but it also made me appreciate that sister Eborn does EVERYTHING possible. She is very courageous, and so she is getting me in great habits to ALWAYS ask for a referral, etc. it is just so sweet :) But after they went home Wednesday we had four lessons and they were terrific! It was probably the most solid day of missionary work that I've experienced. None of our lessons bailed, and the spirit was super strong in all of them!

We've taught Asaffa the one who committed to baptism three more times, we taught the P.o.S., the gospel, and a group of the commandments, including word of wisdom, Sabbath day, living prophet, etc. He is AWESOME. ah, he takes everything in, and is like, yeah okay that makes sense, I'll pray about it and I'll live it. He has questions here and there like with the revelations scripture of no other books to be added to this, but says he thinks it will come in time and wants to know if the BoM is true. :) Just super cool. I actually taught him yesterday the commandments with a member, while Sis. Eborn taught another investigator. A little nerve racking, but its okay, because they are things I know :)

Thursday was adventurous, we had zone conference in Umeå and well.. haha we had to wake up at 3:45 so we could leave by 4:30 to catch a bus to catch a train... welll we slept through the alarm that went off, and woke up at 6:10. At first a little hectic, but we were out the door in NO JOKE 4 minutes. and ran to catch a different bus, and long story short, was only an hour late by taking a 3 hr. bus trip instead :) but they moved it around so we missed the lunch with them but were there for the whole meeting! The conference was great, it was just all our missionaries in the zone and our zone leaders conducted and taught us about obedience. They also had the three greenies bear their testimonies, and then after we went and grabbed some lunch. I had my first "kebab" pizza, which was actually super good. Its the picture with the french fries and stuff on top. Super good, super interesting though :) haha

We are Speak Your Language (SYL)-ing again and it is great. We are trying to find anything that we weren't being exactly obedient with, and realized we super needed to do that. We SYL outside of the apartment and church, and each week we will add one more thing (like next week in the apartment we don't SYL) so in a few weeks it will be constant again, and it has already helped my Swedish a bunch!

Sunday was bomb. I gave a talk so that was terrifying, I had Friday and Saturday to prepare... which means like 2 hours during personal times. I was so scared to do it in Swedish, but I did it. gave a 10 minute talk, and didn't even write it all out, just did the normal bullet points with my ideas and talked about them! It was good, could have been better if I had more time.

Had Sunday dinner with our branch President Newell and his family (son of the old mission pres.) they are adorable, they have 3 little girls, and I just love them dearly! We also had Deborah (10 yr. old) and Diana (her mom) come with us to that dinner, and we taught them, and recommitted them to baptism. I am so excited for them. They are so cute :)

Couple things about a Persian family we've been teaching. Ah they are the beeestt! They are so nice, and I really like them. So two boys who are 21 and 19, their mom who I think is like 37, and uncle who is like 25. Their uncle doesn't know any Swedish, the mom speaks simple Swedish, but the boys understand. But we teach them with a translator over the phone, (she is the sweetest). We taught them the Plan of Salvation (P.o.S.), and the Restoration. We had a baptism on Saturday (the Elders, his name is Sergei) and we invited like everyone to come. The mom of the Persian family came with her son who is like 3 yrs old. And she LOVED it. She ate it up. So Sunday, their whole family came into church, even with the 12 yr. old and 3 yr old sons, and they even brought a friend! They stayed for all three hours, they were taught by two members during Sunday school, and the mom, Camella asked for one of the relief society books so she could read it in advance and so she could follow along more during relief society so she could understand more, etc. Ah! it was just so cool! It really has touched their hearts, I can SEE it. I am excited for them! They are Muslim, so it will be hard with a couple of our beliefs, but I think it is really touching their hearts and they are really pondering about it. I just have come to love them. The uncle is awesome, even though we can't really talk, we just gesture, and I feel like I get him, since I came and was in the same boat of not being able to get to know someone cause you can't talk with them, but he has helped me see that that isn't needed! He is just stellar. :)

But being a missionary is WONDERFUL!! I have some cool insights from this week that I will write home about and I super want you to share it with all the family :) It was just solid.

Thank you so much for all your love and prayers, you make me so happy! I am so grateful for all of your examples! I hope you know I love you soo soo much! Thanks for everything! :)

Love, Cassie :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE ONE AND ONLY.... ANDRE!!!! Love you so much, and hope you enjoy it :) you are getting sooo old. ;) Hope you and chels have a good day together.

Monday Aug 11 2014

 Thursday Aug 14 2014 - Pizza with Fries and Kabob

Cassie's comfort food from Grandma and Grandpa McLaughlin

Saturday Aug 16 2014 Baptism

Monday Aug 18 2014
Secret Agents haha

What a picture!!

Beautiful Sunrise

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Monday, December 9, 2013

Preachin' to Santa!

Hey, family & friends!

We got snow this week!  Wooooo!!!  Winter is finally here!  Everyone says it's colder than it normally gets here, but it really doesn't feel that bad.  Idaho's got nothin' on humid, bone-chilling New York cold.  But yes, I'm wearing my big coat, boots, and fleece-lined tights, don't worry.  And we're making the most of our hot chocolate maker.  And our car.  Going on exchanges in a walking area helps you appreciate things like motorized transportation with a heater.

This week we've been spending a lot of time finding more people to teach, and we were able to get into some houses finally that we haven't been able to in months!  We've been trying to see this woman named Venus and her family, and we finally got in to see them (side note: we are not above using the bathroom as an excuse to talk to people in their homes).  There are a lot of others with a lot of potential, so stay tuned for coming miracles!
We had zone conference on tuesday and I got to sing with my only living mission sister (aka she was trained by Sister Kuhns)!  It was super fun.  There was a talent show and a music program (which we sang in) after all the trainings from President and the assistants to the President.  And guess who the special speaker in the middle of the music program was.  None other than Wilber! He was amazing, as always.  We also got to witness him receive the priesthood yesterday.  I could not wipe the grin off my face either time we saw him!  It's so wonderful how tightly he's embraced the Gospel in his life.  As he said during his zone conference testimony, "[He's] in the Church now, and [he's] in it forever."

We had a great meeting with Kenzie about her baptism plans.  We're going to roll out a red carpet, have a fog machine, and she'll strut down in her baptism jumpsuit with her friend breakdancing behind her as she jackknifes into the font.  No, really.

How about that Christmas broadcast?  That little kid was winking at me.  Too bad I'm in a relationship with Jesus.

And finally, last night we got to help Domi and her host family decorate their Christmas tree!  It was so fun!  We got a 3-foot fake one from our neighbor which took about 30 seconds to decorate (shoutout to the ornaments Mom sent!), so it was good to get a little more decorating out of our systems.

As we've been approaching this Christmas season, we've been bringing a lot of our attention to Isaiah 9:6.  Read that verse and apply all the names of the then-coming Christ to how He demonstrated them in His life.  He, and the hope He brought with Him through His Atonement, truly are the reasons for why we celebrate.

I love you all!  Keep reading scriptures, keep praying, keep strengthening your relationship with your Father in Heaven.  He knows you and loves you, no matter if you feel you deserve it.  As our prophet Thomas S. Monson said, His love is just simply THERE.

Sister Jacobson

1.  We put the nativity on the CD player so baby Jesus could be serenaded by our singing Mormon Tabernacle Choir of angels.
2.  Even Santa needs the Gospel.
3.  Snow. (side note from NY, it was -6 in Pocatello today and in the 20's and 30's here in NY!)
4.  Here's that tag close-up you wanted! (Not quite the pose I anticipated!)

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Past Speakers

Fall 2017 Speakers

Pierre Colmez (CNRS, Université Pierre et Marie Curie)

Title: p-adic étale cohomology of the Drinfeld tower and p-adic local Langlands correspondence
Abstract: It is now classical that the l-adic étale cohomology of the Drinfeld tower, for l not p, encodes both the local Langlands and Jacquet-Langlands correspondences. I will explain that, in dimension 1, the p-adic étale cohomology of this tower encodes part of the p-adic local Langlands correspondence (this is joint work with Gabriel Dospinescu and Wieslawa Niziol).

Davesh Maulik (MIT)

Title: Gopakumar-Vafa invariants via vanishing cycles
Abstract: Given a Calabi-Yau threefold X, one can count curves on X using various approaches, for example using stable maps or ideal sheaves; for any curve class on X, this produces an infinite sequence of invariants, indexed by extra discrete data (e.g. by the domain genus of a stable map). Conjecturally, however, this sequence is determined by only a finite number of integer invariants, known as Gopakumar-Vafa invariants.

In this talk, I will propose a direct definition of these invariants via sheaves of vanishing cycles, building on earlier approaches of Kiem-Li and Hosono-Saito-Takahashi. Conjecturally, these should agree with the invariants as defined by stable maps. I will also explain how to prove the conjectural correspondence in various cases. This is joint work with Yukinobu Toda.

Wieslawa Niziol (CNRS, ENS-Lyon/IAS)

Title: Cohomology of p-adic Stein spaces
Abstract: I will discuss a comparison theorem that allows us to recover p-adic (pro-)étale cohomology of p-adic Stein spaces with semistable reduction over local rings of mixed characteristic from complexes of differential forms. Present applications include a computation of the p-adic étale cohomology of the Drinfeld half-space in any dimension and of its coverings in dimension 1. This is a joint work with Pierre Colmez and Gabriel Dospinescu.

Nicolas Templier (Cornell University)

Title: Mirror symmetry for minuscule flag varieties
Abstract: We prove cases of Rietsch mirror conjecture that the quantum connection for projective homogeneous varieties is isomorphic to the pushforward D-module attached to Berenstein-Kazhdan geometric crystals. The idea is to recognize the quantum connection as Galois and the geometric crystal as automorphic. In particular we link the purity of Berenstein-Kazhdan crystals to the Ramanujan property of certain Hecke eigensheaves. The talk will keep the prerequisite knowledge to a minimum by introducing the above concepts of “mirror” and “crystal” with the examples of CP1, projective spaces and Grassmannians. Work with Thomas Lam.

Yihang Zhu (Columbia University)

Title: Arithmetic fundamental lemma in the minuscule case
Abstract: The arithmetic Gan-Gross-Prasad conjecture generalizes the Gross-Zagier formula to Shimura varieties associated to unitary or orthogonal groups. The arithmetic fundamental lemma (AFL), formulated by Wei Zhang in the unitary case, is a key local ingredient in the relative trace formula approach towards arithmetic GGP. The AFL compares arithmetic intersection numbers on Rapoport-Zink spaces with derivatives of orbital integrals. We prove an explicit formula for the arithmetic intersection numbers in both unitary and orthogonal cases, under a minuscule assumption. In particular, our work gives a new proof of the theorem of Rapoport-Terstiege-Zhang on the AFL in the unitary case. This is joint work with Chao Li.

Spring 2017 Speakers

Benjamin Antieau (UIC)

Title: On the Brauer group of the moduli stack of elliptic curves
Abstract: Mumford proved that the Picard group of the moduli stack of elliptic curves is a finite group of order 12, generated by the Hodge bundle of the universal family of elliptic curves. After giving background on Brauer groups and on the moduli of elliptic curves, I will talk about recent work with Lennart Meier, which computes the Brauer group of the moduli stack over various arithmetic base schemes and shows in particular that the Brauer group of the integral moduli stack vanishes. This talk will focus on the concrete computational and arithmetic aspects of the proof.

Joel Kamnitzer (University of Toronto)

Title: Monodromy of Bethe vectors and crystals
Abstract: Let g be a semisimple Lie algebra. A long-standing problem is to decompose of tensor products of representations of g. One approach to this problem is the Gaudin system, which provides a family of commuting operators acting on tensor product multiplicity spaces — the eigenvectors for this Gaudin system are called Bethe vectors. The Gaudin system depends on a parameter which lives in the moduli space of genus 0 curves and we can study how the Bethe vectors change as we vary this parameter. This provides the action of the cactus group, a certain finitely-generated group analogous to the braid group. We prove that this action of this cactus group can be obtained combinatorially, through the theory of crystals.

Kai-Wen Lan (University of Minnesota)

Title: Nearby cycles of automorphic étale sheaves
Abstract: I will explain that, in many cases where integral models are available in the literature, the automorphic étale cohomology of a (possibly noncompact) Shimura variety in characteristic zero is canonically isomorphic to the cohomology of the associated nearby cycles in positive characteristics. If time permits, I will also talk about some applications or related results. (This is joint work with Stroh.)

Christian Schnell (Stony Brook University)

Title: Pluricanonical bundles and maps to abelian varieties
Abstract: Suppose we have a morphism from a smooth projective variety X to an abelian variety A (over the complex numbers). If we push forward the canonical bundle of X, we get a coherent sheaf on A with many special properties, all coming from Hodge theory. In the talk, I am going to explain what happens for pluricanonical bundles (= powers of the canonical bundle), based on joint work with Luigi Lombardi and Mihnea Popa.

Fall 2016 Speakers

Jennifer Balakrishnan (Boston University)

Title: Iterated p-adic integrals and rational points on curves
Abstract: I will discuss some new relationships between iterated p-adic line integrals (Coleman integrals), motivated by the problem of explicitly finding rational points on curves. In particular, I will describe the link between p-adic heights and double integrals and give a few classes of hyperelliptic curves where “quadratic Chabauty” gives us a finite set of p-adic points containing all rational points. I will also briefly discuss new identities between triple Coleman integrals. This is joint work with Netan Dogra.

Frank Calegari (University of Chicago)

Title: Ramanujan, K-theory, and modularity
Abstract: The Rogers-Ramanujan identity:

1 + q/(1-q) + q4/(1-q)(1-q2) + q9/(1-q)(1-q2)(1-q3) + … = 1/(1-q)(1-q4)(1-q6)(1-q9)…

says that a certain q-hypergeometric function (the left hand side) is equal to a modular form (the right hand side). To what extent can one classify all q-hypergeometric functions which are modular? We discuss this question and its relation to conjectures in knot theory and K-theory. This is joint work with Stavros Garoufalidis and Don Zagier.

George Pappas (Michigan State University)

Title: On certain moduli spaces of p-divisible groups
Abstract: We will discuss two constructions of moduli spaces of p-divisible groups with additional structures that give integral models for certain Rapoport-Zink p-adic analytic spaces. These constructions use integral models of Shimura varieties and a group theoretic version of Zink’s Witt vector displays.

Ben Webster (University of Virginia)

Title: Representation theory of symplectic singularities
Abstract: Since they were introduced about 2 decades ago, symplectic singularities have shown themselves to be a remarkable branch of algebraic geometry. They are much nicer in many ways than arbitrary singularities, but still have a lot of interesting nooks and crannies.

I’ll talk about these varieties from a representation theorist’s perspective. This might sound like a strange direction, but remember, any interesting symplectic structure is likely to be the classical limit of an equally interesting non-commutative structure, whose representation theory we can study. While this field is still in its infancy, it includes a lot of well-known examples like universal enveloping algebras and Cherednik algebras, and has led a lot of interesting places, including to categorified knot invariants and a conjectured duality between pairs of symplectic singularities. I’ll give a taste of these results and try to indicate some interesting future directions.

Spring 2016 Speakers

Alexis Bouthier (UC Berkeley)

Title: Hitchin-Frenkel-Ngô’s fibration and fundamental lemma
Abstract: The fundamental lemma for the spherical Hecke algebra is obtained by a combination of analytic results of Waldspurger and Ngô’s geometric proof of the fundamental lemma for Lie algebras. The latter makes a crucial use of Hitchin’s fibration to link orbital integrals with some counting problems on moduli spaces. In this context, we will explain that also in the group case, such a fibration exists, introduced by Frenkel and Ngô and that we can perform a geometric proof of the corresponding fundamental lemma as well as giving some new insights on the computation of transfer factors. Moreover, these new objects are expected to have other applications towards the geomtrization of the trace formula.

Michael Hill (UCLA)

Title: Modular forms, duality, and equivariant homotopy
Abstract: The Goerss-Hopkins-Miller theory of topological modular forms has introduced elliptic curves and modular forms into stable homotopy theory. Under this, natural properties of moduli spaces of elliptic curves can be translated into properties of spectra. In this talk, I’ll focus on a particular example: the C2-Galois cover “elliptic curves with a point of order 3” over “elliptic curves with a subgroup of order 3”. This connects in an interesting way to C2-equivariant homotopy, allowing a clear dictionary between the algebraic geometry and homotopy theory.

Aaron Pixton (MIT)

Title: The tautological ring of the moduli space of curves
Abstract: The tautological ring of the moduli space of smooth curves of genus g is the subring of its Chow ring generated by the kappa classes. This subring was introduced by Mumford in the 1980s in analogy with the cohomology of Grassmannians. Work of Faber and Faber-Zagier in the 1990s led to two competing conjectural descriptions of the structure of the tautological ring. After reviewing these conjectures and discussing their current status, I will state two new conjectures about the ranks of this ring.

Jacob Tsimerman (University of Toronto)

Title: Counting Abelian Varieties over Finite Fields
Abstract: (Joint with M. Lipnowski) A long standing open question is to count smooth, proper curves of genus g over a fixed finite field, at least in an asymptotic sense. At the moment, there is not even a consensus on whether the growth should be exponential or factorial. We consider the analogous question for principally polarized abelian varieties. The answer turns out to be very surprising: The number of isomorphism classes of abelian varities of dimension g grows exponenitally in g2, but the number of polarizations grows as fast as gg^2. One consequence is that most abelian varieties of dimension g over a fixed finite field are essentially powers of elliptic curves, and do not obey any sort of Cohen-Lenstra heuristics.

Fall 2015 Speakers

Pramod Achar (LSU)

Title: Modular perverse sheaves and applications in representation theory
Abstract: Perverse sheaves (with coefficients in C or Q) have been a powerful tool in representation theory for over 35 years, but modular perverse sheaves (i.e., with coefficients in a field of positive characteristic) were poorly understood and little used. In the past five or six years, that has begun to change: a slew of new tools has emerged that makes the study of modular perverse sheaves accessible, and is leading to concrete new advances in the modular representation theory of algebraic groups and related objects. I will discuss as many examples as time permits, perhaps including flag manifolds, affine Grassmannians, and nilpotent cones. Various results in this talk are joint with A. Henderson, D. Juteau, C. Mautner, S. Riche, and L. Rider.

Florian Herzig (University of Toronto)

Title: On mod p local-global compatibility for GL3(Qp)
Abstract: I will discuss the hypothetical mod p Langlands correspondence for GL3(Qp), which should associate to a 3-dimensional mod p representation of the Galois group of Qp one (or many) smooth mod p representation(s) of GL3(Qp). We focus on the expected global realisation of this correspondence in the cohomology of unitary groups of rank 3. In the special case when ρ is upper-triangular and maximally non-split, its “extension class” is classified by an invariant in Fp-bar. We will show (under suitable assumptions) that this Galois-theoretic invariant is determined by the GL3(Qp)-action on the above cohomology spaces. On the way we prove results about Serre weights and a mod p multiplicity one result. This is joint work with D. Le and S. Morra.

Wei Ho (University of Michigan)

Title: Distributions of ranks and Selmer groups of elliptic curves
Abstract: In the last several years, there has been significant theoretical progress on understanding the average rank of all elliptic curves over Q, ordered by height, led by work of Bhargava-Shankar. We will survey these results and the ideas behind them, as well as discuss generalizations in many directions (e.g., to other families of elliptic curves, higher genus curves, and higher-dimensional varieties) and some corollaries of these types of theorems. We will also describe recently collected data on ranks and Selmer groups of elliptic curves (joint work with J. Balakrishnan, N. Kaplan, S. Spicer, W. Stein, and J. Weigandt).

Brandon Levin (University of Chicago)

Title: The weight part of Serre’s conjecture
Abstract: Serre’s modularity conjecture (now a Theorem due to Khare-Wintenberger and Kisin) states that every odd irreducible two dimensional mod p representation of the absolute Galois group of Q comes from a modular form. I will begin with an overview of the Serre’s original conjecture on modular forms focusing on the weight part of the conjecture. Herzig gave a generalization of the conjecture for n-dimensional Galois representations which predicts the modularity of so-called shadow weights. After briefly describing Herzig’s conjecture, I will discuss joint work with D. Le, B. Le Hung, and S. Morra where we prove instances of this conjecture in dimension three.

Spring 2015 Speakers

Andrew Blumberg (University of Texas at Austin)

Title: K-theoretic Tate-Poitou duality and the fiber of the cyclotomic trace
Abstract: Our understanding of the algebraic K-theory of the sphere spectrum boils down to studying the fiber of the cyclotomic trace (an analogue of the Chern character) from K(S) to a topological analogue of cyclic homology. This fiber can in turn be studied in terms of the p-completion map in étale cohomology. I will explain this story and describe joint work with Mike Mandell that characterizes the fiber in terms of a kind of Poincare duality, proving a conjecture of Calegari.

Kartik Prasanna (University of Michigan)

Title: Extensions of the Gross-Zagier formula
Abstract: I will first give an introduction to the general conjectural picture relating algebraic cycles to L-functions and discuss some extensions of the Gross-Zagier formula involving p-adic L-functions. This leads naturally to the question of constructing algebraic cycles corresponding to the vanishing of Rankin-Selberg L-functions at the center of symmetry. I will also outline some new constructions of such cycles, based on work in progress with A. Ichino.

Claire Voisin (CNRS/IAS)

Title: Decomposition of the diagonal and stable birational invariants
Abstract: The Lüroth problem asks whether a unirational variety is rational. It has a negative answer starting from dimension 3 and can be attacked by various geometric approaches. For the stable Lüroth problem, where “rational” is replaced by “stably rational,” only the Artin-Mumford approach had been used up to now to solve the problem in dimension 3. Using the notion of decomposition of the diagonal, we exhibit many unirational threefolds which are not stably rational while their Artin-Mumford invariant is trivial.

Liang Xiao (University of Connecticut)

Title: Basic loci of Shimura varieties and the Tate conjecture
Abstract: We explain a global description of the basic locus of a Shimura variety (of PEL type for now), in terms of a union of families of affine Deligne-Lusztig varieties (in mixed characteristic d’après X. Zhu) parameterized by zero-dimensional Shimura varieties. Under a certain genericity condition, we show that the irreducible components of the basic locus generate all Tate classes of the special fiber of the Shimura variety, and therefore verify the Tate conjecture in this setting. This is a joint on-going project with Xinwen Zhu.

Fall 2014 Speakers

Benjamin Howard (Boston College)

Professor, Boston College
Research Interests: Number theory and arithmetic geometry
Title: Supersingular points on some orthogonal and unitary Shimura varieties
Abstract: I’ll describe the locus of supersingular points on some orthogonal and unitary Shimura varieties. This is joint work with G. Pappas.

Allen Knutson (Cornell University)

Professor, Cornell University
Rearch Interests: Algebraic geometry and algebraic combinatorics
Title: SO(3)-multiplicities of SL3(R)-representations
Abstract: Given a topological representation of a noncompact real Lie group like SL3(R), one classically constructs an algebraic replacement called a (\mathfrak g,K)-module, and from there a geometric replacement called a \mathcal{D}G/B-module, which is supported on a K-orbit closure on G/B (of which there are finitely many). I’ll recall this story in some detail.

When the K-orbit closure is smooth (and the “infinitesimal character” is integral), I’ll use equivariant localization to compute the K-multiplicities in the representation. This generalizes Blattner’s conjecture (Schmid’s theorem).

Then I’ll refine this alternating sum to a combinatorial formula, in the case of the SO(3)-multiplicities in the four types of SL(3,R)-irreps, and explain how and why the four formulae fit together.

Andrew Snowden (University of Michigan)

Assistant Professor, University of Michigan
Research Interests: Number theory, algebra/algebraic geometry
Title: Constructing elliptic curves from Galois representations
Abstract: Given an elliptic curve E over a finitely generated field K, the Tate module Vp(E) is a representation of the Galois group GK that determines E up to isogeny. It is an interesting problem to determine which representations of GK arise from this construction. I will speak on joint work with J. Tsimerman where we give a solution to this problem, excluding the case where the Galois representation is isotrivial. (The isotrivial case falls under the still-unsolved Fontaine-Mazur conjecture).

Kirsten Wickelgren (Georgia Tech)

Assistant Professor, Georgia Institute of Technology
Research Interests: Algebra, geometry, and topology
Title: A computational approach to the section conjecture
Abstract: Grothendieck’s section conjecture predicts that rational points on hyperbolic curves X over number fields k are in bijection with conjugacy classes of sections of pi_1(X) → pi_1(k). Part of this conjecture reduces to X = P1 – {0,1,infty}. Conjugacy classes of sections are pi_0 of a mapping space of étale homotopy types. We resolve the étale homotopy type of P1 – {0,1,infty} to study these sections.

Spring 2014 Speakers

Ana Caraiani (Princeton/IAS)

Veblen Research Instructor, Princeton University
NSF Postdoctoral Fellow
Reasearch Interests: Classical and p-adic Langlands programs, Shimura varieties, and arithmetic geometry
Title: Patching and p-adic local Langlands
Abstract: The p-adic local Langlands correspondence is well understood for GL2(Qp), but appears much more complicated when considering GLn(F), where either n > 2 or F is a finite extension of Qp. I will discuss joint work with Matthew Emerton, Toby Gee, David Geraghty, Vytautas Paskunas and Sug Woo Shin, in which we approach the p-adic local Langlands correspondence for GLn(F) using global methods. The key ingredient is Taylor-Wiles-Kisin patching of completed cohomology. This allows us to prove many new cases of the Breuil-Schneider conjecture. If time permits, I will also discuss joint work in progress with Matthew Emerton, Toby Gee and David Savitt concerning certain instances of local-global compatibility and relating the geometry of local Galois deformation rings to local models.

Tyler Lawson (University of Minnesota)

Associate Professor, University of Minnesota
Reasearch Interests: Algebraic topology, particularly in interactions between multiplicative structures, number theory, and arithmetic geometry
Title: Topological modular forms and level structures
Abstract: Modular forms made a surprising appearance in algebraic topology through work of Witten, and cohomological data about the moduli of elliptic curves has turned out to have a close connection to the stable homotopy groups of spheres. In this talk I’ll discuss how this connection came about through the theory of “topological modular forms,” and discuss joint work with Hill on generalizing it to include versions with level structure.

Yiannis Sakellaridis (Rutgers-Newark)

Assistant Professor, Rutgers-Newark
Research Interests: Automorphic forms, representation theory and number theory
Title: On the L-functions of affine spherical varieties
Abstract: The study of period integrals of automorphic forms suggests that one should be able to attach L-functions (or rather, L-values) to (many) affine spherical varieties, but the meaning of these L-values remains mysterious. I will discuss several different ways in which these L-values come up in local harmonic analysis. Parts of the talk will be based on ongoing joint work with Delorme and Harinck, and with Ngô.

Zhiwei Yun (Stanford University)

Assistant Professor, Stanford University
Reasearch Interests: Geometric Representation Theory
Title: Rigid local systems coming from automorphic forms
Abstract: We will give a survey of recent progress on constructing local systems over punctured projective lines using techniques from automorphic forms and geometric Langlands. Applications include solutions of particular cases of the inverse Galois problem and existence of motives with exceptional Galois groups.

Wei Zhang (Columbia University)

Associate Professor, Columbia University
Reasearch Interests: Number theory, automorphic forms and related area in algebraic geometry
Title: Selmer groups and the divisibility of Heegner points
Abstract: This talk is about the proof of Kolyvagin’s conjecture in 1991 on p-indivisibility of (derived) Heegner points over ring class fields for ordinary primes p > 3 with some ramification conditions, with some application to the arithmetic of elliptic curves.

Fall 2013 Speakers

Yifeng Liu (MIT)

C.L.E. Moore Instructor, MIT
Reasearch Interests: Number Theory, Algebraic Geometry
Title: Arithmetic of Heegner points
Abstract: In this talk, I will recall the construction of Heegner points on elliptic curves, or more generally, on Abelian varieties of GL(2)-type. These points are closely related to the arithmetic properties of the Abelian varieties from various aspects. After a brief summary of major developments in this direction, I will focus on a new work, joint with Shouwu Zhang and Wei Zhang, on the study of p-adic logarithm of Heegner points and the construction of some new p-adic L-functions of Rankin-Selberg type via the so-called universal p-adic Waldspurger periods.

Melanie Matchett Wood (University of Wisconsin-Madison)

Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison
American Institute of Mathematics Five Year Fellow
Reasearch Interests: Number Theory, Algebraic Geometry
Title: Semiample Bertini theorems over finite fields
Abstract: When a hypersurface over a finite field is chosen randomly in a large multiple of an ample linear system, Poonen estimated the probability that such a hypersurface would be smooth by showing that smoothness at various points was independent. We answer this question for linear systems that are only large in a semiample direction, e.g. curves in P1xP1 that have bidegree which is small in one component but large in the other. In these cases, smoothness at various points is no longer independent but we exactly characterize the dependence. Applications include finding the probability of smoothness of and distribution of points on curves in Hirzebruch surfaces over finite fields, a counterexample to Bertini over finite fields for embeddings into arbitrarily large projective spaces, and finding curves over finite fields with no points.

Jason Starr (Stony Brook)

Associate Professor, Stony Brook
Reasearch Interests: Algebraic geometry
Title: Rational curves and rational points over global function fields
Abstract: For a variety X over a global function field, e.g., K = Fq(t), one obstruction to existence of a K-point is the “elementary obstruction” e(X). Assuming e(X) vanishes, what “geometric” conditions guarantee existence of a K-point? Building on earlier work with A. J. de Jong and Xuhua He, and using work of H. Esnault in an essential way, Chenyang Xu and I prove that “rationally simply connected” varieties, and specializations thereof, have K-points if e(X) vanishes. Using this, we give uniform proofs and some extensions of early results of Tsen-Lang (K is C2), Brauer-Hasse-Noether (period equals index for division algebras over K) and Harder (the split case of Harder’s general proof of Serre’s “Conjecture II” for K).

Michael Thaddeus (Columbia University)

Associate Professor, Columbia University
Reasearch Interests: Algebraic Geometry
Title: Group compactifications and principal bundles on nodal curves
Abstract: Any group acts on itself on the left and right. For an algebraic group G, we may seek a compactification of G such that all GxG-orbit closures are smooth. For reductive G, such compactifications were classified by De Concini and Procesi. I will explain how such compactifications — and their generalizations in the orbifold setting — appear as moduli spaces of principal G-bundles on rational nodal curves. Then I will indicate how such compactifications may be used to study principal G-bundles on curves of higher genus.

Spring 2013 Speakers

Mark Behrens (MIT)

Associate Professor, MIT
Reasearch Interests: Algebraic topology
Title: A Lie algebra model for unstable vn-periodic homotopy
Abstract: Quillen-Sullivan rational homotopy theory encodes an unstable rational homotopy type in a commutative DGA, or equivalently, a DG Lie algebra. The former encodes the rational cohomology of the space, and the latter encodes the rational homotopy groups. I will describe an analogous theory for unstable vn-periodic homotopy, in the special case of spheres. This theory will be applied to relate unstable vn-periodic homotopy groups of spheres to the study of level structures on the Lubin-Tate formal group. This is joint work with Charles Rezk.

Tasho Kaletha (Princeton University)

Veblen Research Instructor, Princeton University and IAS member
Reasearch Interests: the Langlands program, endoscopy, p-adic representation theory, harmonic analysis
Title: Epipelagic L-packets and rectifying characters
Abstract: We will report on a construction of the local Langlands correspondence for general tamely-ramified p-adic groups and a class of wildly ramified supercuspidal Langlands parameters that have emerged in recent works of Gross-Reeder and Reeder-Yu. The ramification of these parameters introduces two new arithmetic phenomena which were not present in the case of real groups or in the case of tamely-ramified supercuspidal parameters for p-adic groups. We will discuss how these phenomena can be handled and, time permitting, we will give an indication of how the various compatibilities expected of a Langlands correspondence are proved. These include in particular Shahidi’s tempered L-packet conjecture, the Hiraga-Ichino-Ikeda formal degree conjecture, stability, endoscopic transfer, and compatibility with GLn.

Max Lieblich (University of Washington)

Associate Professor, University of Washington
Reasearch Interests: Algebraic geometry
Title: Recent progress on K3 surfaces
Abstract: There has been an explosion of work on K3 surfaces in positive characteristic over the last several years, leading to significant progress on their derived categories, the structure of their moduli, and the Tate conjecture. I will discuss some of these results and a few of the main ideas that have helped break the logjam.

Sophie Morel (Princeton University)

Professor, Princeton University
Reasearch Interests: the Langlands program
Title: Yet another application of the Arthur conjectures: the sign conjecture for Shimura varieties
Abstract: The sign conjecture is a weakening of the Künneth standard conjecture; it predicts that there exists motives representing the even and odd parts of the cohomology of a smooth proper variety. I will explain this conjecture and some of its consequences, and then show how, for Shimura varieties, it can be deduced from Arthur’s conjectures and the work of Adams-Johnson and Vogan-Zuckerman on cohomological representations. This is joint work with Junecue Suh.

Fall 2012 Speakers

Bhargav Bhatt (IAS)

Member, IAS
Reasearch Interests: Algebra/algebraic geometry
Title: p-adic derived de Rham cohomology
Abstract: A basic theorem in Hodge theory is the isomorphism between de Rham and Betti cohomology for complex manifolds; this follows directly from the Poincare lemma. The p-adic analogue of this comparison lies deeper, and was the subject of a series of extremely influential conjectures made by Fontaine in the early 80s (which have since been established by various mathematicians). In my talk, I will first discuss the geometric motivation behind Fontaine’s conjectures, and then explain a simple new proof based on general principles in derived algebraic geometry — specifically, derived de Rham cohomology — and some classical geometry with curve fibrations. This work builds on ideas of Beilinson who proved the de Rham comparison conjecture this way.

John Francis (Northwestern University)

Assistant Professor, Northwestern University
Reasearch Interests: Algebraic topology
Title: Factorization homology of topological manifolds
Abstract: Factorization homology, or the topological chiral homology of Lurie, is a homology theory for manifolds conceived as a topological analogue of the homology of Beilinson & Drinfeld’s factorization algebras. I’ll describe an axiomatic characterization of factorization homology, generalizing the Eilenberg-Steenrod axioms for usual homology. These homology theories are determined by an interesting algebraic structure, that of an n-disk algebra, examples of which arise from commutative algebra, loop spaces, configuration spaces, Hochschild cohomology, metric Lie algebras, and Poisson geometry. An appropriate action of a 3-disk algebra on an associative algebra gives rise to a knot homology theory, studied in work joint with David Ayala & Hiro Lee Tanaka. I’ll conclude with some sample classes of calculations.

Keerthi Madapusi Pera (Harvard University)

Benjamin Pierce Fellow, Harvard University
Reasearch Interests: Integral models of Shimura varieties and their compactifications, Hodge cycles on abelian varieties, Integral p-adic Hodge theory, Logarithmic Dieudonne theory
Title: The Tate conjecture for K3 surfaces over fields of odd characteristic
Abstract: The classical Kuga-Satake construction, over the complex numbers, uses Hodge theory to attach to each polarized K3 surface an abelian variety in a natural way. Deligne and Andre extended this to fields of characteristic zero, and their results can be combined with Faltings’s isogeny theorem to prove the Tate conjecture for K3 surfaces in characteristic zero. Using the theory of integral canonical models of Shimura varieties of orthogonal type, we extend the Kuga-Satake construction to odd characteristic. We can then deduce the Tate conjecture for K3s in this situation as well (with some exceptions in characteristic 3).

Jared Weinstein (Boston University)

Assistant Professor, Boston University
Reasearch Interests: Number Theory, Arithmetic Geometry, Automorphic Forms, Representation Theory
Title: Formal vector spaces
Abstract: Let K be a nonarchimedean local field with ring of integers OK. A formal OK-module is a collection of multivariate power series which behaves as if it were an OK-module. Formal OK-modules are indispensable to the study of the Galois representations of K, with Lubin-Tate theory being the most basic example. Following Faltings and Fargues-Fontaine, we introduce the notion of a formal K-vector space. The theme of the talk is that formal K-vector spaces are much simpler than formal OK-modules (as one might expect), even though one must sacrifice the Noetherian property. Our main theorem is a simple description of the Lubin-Tate tower at infinite level.


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Sunday, August 28, 2011

On Tenure: The AAUP Standards

This is the first of what I expect will be two postings on tenure. In this one I give a distilled version of the AAUP position on tenure, a position that originates with the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure agreed upon by the AAUP (American Association of University Presidents) and the Association of American Colleges (AAC, an association representing college presidents, which is now the AACU--The Association of American Colleges and Universities). These principles have subsequently endorsed by over 200 academic organizations and associations. Some of the procedures I outline come from subsequent AAUP documents, which haven't been as universally endorsed. I'll try to make clear which is which. For some readers this stuff will be old hat. But it wasn't for me (as I discovered when engaged in a rather spirited dispute with a persnickety anonymous commentator).  And the details matter.

For the purposes of these posts I am simply going to assume that the AAUP principles, which have long been the norm at respectable American universities and colleges, are the standard we should aim to uphold, though no doubt some will question this--and other institutions have undermined these principles in recent years, so SIUC would have some company, if not particularly good company, were it to go that route. A second post will discuss the current status of these principles at SIUC.

The 1940 AAUP statement defines tenure as follows.
Tenure is a means to certain ends; specifically: (1) freedom of teaching and research and of extramural activities, and (2) a sufficient degree of economic security to make the profession attractive to men and women of ability. Freedom and economic security, hence, tenure, are indispensable to the success of an institution in fulfilling its obligations to its students and to society.
Especially given the heated debate I had with anonymous, it is worth stressing that, from its very outset in the US, tenure was intended to provide economic security. It cannot be divorced from this function. When administrators say that they are not attacking tenure when they contemplate laying off tenured faculty they are talking nonsense. A professor terminated by a university is no longer tenured by that university. And as she or he was attracted to the profession in some part due to the economic security tenured promised to provide, abandonment of that promise is rather clearly unjust. Another point worth making, it seems to me, is that tenure is akin to the other sorts of job security unions in other fields fight for, though their purposes and justifications may differ to some extent.

Correlative with the rights tenure gives are certain duties: faculty "should be careful not to introduce into their teaching controversial matter which has no relation to their subject".  And even when they speak as citizens (their "extramural activities"), while they should be free from censorship, they "should at all times be accurate, should exercise appropriate restraint, should show respect for the opinions of others, and should make every effort to indicate that they are not speaking for the institution". A subsequent clarification (agreed to by the AAUP and AAC in 1970) notes that an extramural statement can only be made grounds for dismissal when it "clearly demonstrates the faculty member's unfitness for his or her position".  Failure to abide by these obligations can result in termination, following due process.

The 1940 principles appear to recognize only two criteria for termination of tenured faculty.
  • Firing for cause.  This is not defined very clearly in the 1940 document, but would seem to include: "moral turpitude", demonstrable incompetence (including that shown by reckless and irresponsible extramural statements), consistent efforts to introduce unrelated controversial matters into the classroom, and the like. I am going to assume (perhaps naively) that this rather rare sort of removal isn't what we need to worry about just now.
  • Bona fide financial exigency.
A subsequent AAUP document, Recommended Institutional Regulations on Academic Freedom & Tenure, clarifies matters.  It makes numerous suggestions for the principles that ought to safeguard tenure.  But it also adds two further justifications for dismissal of tenured faculty:
  • Program termination (when this is based on educational rather than financial considerations).
  • Physical or mental disability (subsequent to the tenure decision).
The basic principles to be followed for the financial exigency and program termination grounds are worth briefly spelling out.

Financial exigency
  1. Financial exigency is "an imminent financial crisis that threatens the survival of the institution as a whole and that cannot be alleviated by less drastic means".
  2. A "faculty body" should participate in determining whether a financial exigency is at hand, and whether all possible alternatives have been pursued.
  3. Faculty should have the "primary responsibility" for determining which programs are to be effected by terminations of tenured faculty, as this involves questions of educational policy, and should also have the "primary responsibility" for setting criteria for which individuals should be terminated, which may include seniority.
  4. The institution should make "every effort" to place the affected faculty member in another suitable position within the institution. (I take it that this means that if the faculty decide that program x must be cut, given the financial exigency, but that some or all of the faculty members involved could fill needed positions in program y, they should be placed in program y--at least instead of hiring others to fill those positions).
Program discontinuance
  1. This criterion is to be clearly distinguished from that above, and cannot be a matter of short term variations in enrollment: it must be based on the educational mission of the institution, reflecting "long range judgments that the educational mission of the institution as a whole will be enhanced by the discontinuance".  (I take it that this means that program discontinuance could be used to shift resources from one program to another, not to reduce the number of faculty overall.)
  2. This decision must be determined "primarily by the faculty as a whole".
  3. The institutions must make "every effort" to place affected faculty members in another program.
With these matters spelled out, it will be easy, I submit, to demonstrate that the terms imposed on the faculty last spring constitute a grave attack on tenure at SIUC.  But doing so will require a post on the recent history of tenure at SIUC. Stay tuned.

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