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Illustration by Celia Jacobs

You Can Rescue Medical Breakthroughs from the Valley of Death

Halo Cures, a crowdfunding startup, will usher new drugs and devices through the rockiest stage of development.

When Kevin Leland’s boss donated $500,000 to research in immunotherapy for gastric cancer, Leland wondered how he could do something as meaningful. The problem, though, was that he had nowhere near as much money as his boss, who was Eric Lefkofsky, the billionaire co-founder of Groupon. How, Leland wondered, could people like him substantially advance biomedical breakthroughs — especially if he wanted to fund cures for something in particular, rather than general causes like cancer or heart disease?

Leland came up with his answer a few years later. It’s a tiny startup called Halo Cures, which he launched in 2016. He describes it as a curated crowdfunding platform for new drugs and medical devices. It aims to raise money for specific, vetted projects that need only a relatively modest infusion of cash to bring them through a period known as the “valley of death,” when funding for product development can be scarce.

“We are connecting people,” Leland says, “who care about a particular disease or condition with the most promising research targeting that disease or condition.”

Leland, 38, conceived of the idea while living in Atlanta and working as the marketing director for a financial-technology company. To start Halo Cures, he moved to San Francisco with one piece of luggage and shared a room with a young polyamorous woman in a “community house” that accommodated roughly 40 other people. He soon upgraded — to a mattress on the floor of a closet in a two-bedroom apartment where eight other people lived.

It will all have been worthwhile if Halo can close the chasm between basic biomedical research and the creation of real therapies for patients.

“Halo is certainly the most interesting thing that I’ve seen in a while,” says Karthik Gopalakrishnan, associate director of life sciences at Duke University’s office of licensing and ventures.

Many things create the valley of death. Because basic research garners more prestige and career prospects, graduate students and postdocs eschew translational research — a field that’s necessary to develop a drug or device. There’s also a knowledge gap, as fewer of today’s researchers are also clinical doctors than in past decades.

Sometimes, Leland says, a fledgling project doesn’t need that much money to get it through the valley. For example, once researchers have identified a molecule as a promising drug, they may only need $200,000 to develop it to the point that a pharmaceutical company will take a chance on it and fund clinical trials. It’s this latter stage that’s the most expensive part of biomedical research, costing millions of dollars before approval from the Food and Drug Administration. Halo’s goal isn’t necessarily to fund a project all the way through — just to help it become more attractive for major investors.

However, even with Halo’s help, an investment in a new drug would entail considerable risk. A drug that reaches the clinical phase of development still has only a 10 percent chance of success, says Michael Kurilla, the director of the clinical innovation division at the NIH’s National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences. For its part, the center is trying to bridge the valley of death by providing funding and training through its Clinical and Translational Science Awards.

Because they tend to be cheaper to develop than drugs, devices may benefit more from crowdfunding. Indeed, Halo’s first campaign, which kicked off last month, is raising money for a surgical device developed by Philip Frykman, a surgeon at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He believes the device gives surgeons a better way to fix a rare birth defect that leaves babies with a malformed rectum. He’s used the instrument in other countries, but to bring it to the U.S. he needs $500,000 for further testing and FDA approval. He’s raised more than $100,000 through Halo so far.

Halo’s not alone in trying some version of crowdfunding for medical innovation. RedCrow, co-founded by former Talking Heads keyboardist and guitarist Jerry Harrison, is connecting investors with startups in health and medicine. There also are crowdfunding platforms for scientific research, such as Experiment and Consano, launched by a cancer survivor, Molly Lindquist.

But unlike many other platforms, Halo will help promising projects with their marketing — Leland’s area of expertise — to shepherd them across the valley of death. Eventually, he wants to assemble small committees of experts to vet the projects. For now, he’s trying to partner with technology transfer offices at research institutions, relying on their expertise, credibility, and name recognition.

Halo is a for-profit company, charging an 8 percent fee on the money raised. But eventually, Leland hopes to eliminate the fee and grab a stake in whatever therapies or devices become successful. The company would act like a venture capital firm, except that the funding would come from donors — with no expectation of a return — instead of investors. Halo would, essentially, profit from people’s generosity.

This electrical stimulator was developed by pediatric surgeon Philip Frykman and anesthesiologist Keith Kimble for surgeries on infants with malformed rectums. Donors who pledge money on Halo Cures will be funding trials needed for the device to be approved in the U.S. (Photo courtesy of Philip Frykman)

That may seem exploitative, but Leland is confident that donors won’t mind: they want to cure a disease, not make money. “Because it’s been proven out in other spaces, I think it’s less of a leap to say that it can work for biotech as well,” he says. After all, people are plenty willing to give to companies like Oculus Rift, the virtual-reality developer that arose on Kickstarter and later was sold to Facebook for $2 billion.

The exact business model could still change, as Halo is brand-new. Leland is the only full-time employee, sometimes working out of another startup’s cramped office above a cannabis dispensary in San Francisco. His challenge, Gopalakrishnan says, will be to reach enough donors and build credibility and trust.

But if Halo works, research can surely benefit. There are always more worthy projects than available funding, Gopalakrishnan says: “Science is a beast. You can always keep feeding it money.”

Go Deeper


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Guest Wi-Fi is no longer a nice-to-have, but as essential to guest experience as clean sheets and a bathroom. In providing this service, however, many hotels are exposing themselves to cyber attack. In a recent engagement, Net Consulting’s team discovered a misconfiguration in a client’s guest Wi-Fi network that enabled us to access their main network and, consequently, control their access doors. With the hotel industry in the spotlight more than ever before, now’s the time to make sure you’re secure.

Data collection is of paramount importance in the hotel industry. The race is on to provide a fully personalised experience that keeps customers coming back, time and time again. More than name, credit card information and address, hotels now want to know which coffee shops their guests buy from, where they like to visit when they’re in town and what music they listen to.

Understanding a customer fully is only possible through the analysis of vast quantities of data, which is becoming easier to collect due to digital transformation and the emergence of hospitality-specific tech. Apps and chatbots gather data seamlessly through customer’s devices, quickly building a digital profile that can be used to deliver an improved experience.

According to research by Samsung, 9/10 guests will expect hotel experiences to be personalised by 2020. Guests are driving this change, flocking towards online services that offer personalised recommendations and reviews, such as as AirBnB and Hotels face no choice other than to modernise, exploiting new technology to ensure that their guests get the service they’re accustomed to elsewhere.

Old dog, new tricks

Digitalisation is certain, but the transition poses a unique set of problems. Digital keys, smart room sensors and guest Wi-Fi are all access points through which a cyber-attack could be launched. As the industry transitions towards full digitalisation, more and more of these access points are being added to legacy systems and being managed by under-trained staff that become weak points.

Each of these points of vulnerability could provide access to a global network holding rich information on vast numbers of hotel guests. With the rewards of exploit so high, it’s no surprise that the news has been filled with recent headlines of hotel chains being breached. The Marriott International attack made headlines most recently, with financial costs estimated to be an eye-watering half a billion US dollars, before considering the damage to reputation which may never be recovered.

Wi-Fi-ght it?

Though it maybe be large hotel chains making the news, the risks of digitalisation are shared across the industry. Smaller and independent hotels might not yet have embraced smartphone enabled room access or invested in bespoke apps, but the demand for access to the internet is universal. Wi-Fi access, that underpins and enables digitalisation, is now a basic requirement.

During a recent Net Consulting engagement, we were able to gain control of a client’s electronically controlled access doors through a misconfigured guest Wi-Fi.

If misconfigured or outdated, guest Wi-Fi networks can leave the door open to attackers and the consequences can be severe. During a recent Net Consulting engagement, we were able to gain control of a client’s electronically controlled access doors through a misconfigured guest Wi-Fi. We were able to contain and repair the incident before any damage could be done, but the consequences of a malicious attacker gaining similar access could have been severe.

Digitalisation teething problems are affecting businesses in every field across the world, and increased publicity only makes further attacks more likely. Hotel owners are already in the spotlight, so the time to act is right now. Accept that a breach is likely and take the necessary precautions. Get a pen test. Update your infrastructure. Train your staff.

If you need an independent opinion, get in touch.

Sign up for ‘NCL Insights’

Your trusted source for innovation, technology insights, and market trend analysis.

Why Choose NCL?

For over a decade, we’ve developed a strong reputation amongst our customers and partners for consistently delivering services which help businesses perform optimally and securely. This is why the relationships we’ve developed over the years have become long-standing and deeply trusted.

We’re very proud to have provided continuous IT support to the MoD for over 12 years. This length of service is a testament to the trust the MoD place in our people to deliver results, time and time again. Today, we provide situational awareness of the MoD’s globally-deployed application performance while assisting in troubleshooting issues and collaborating with other delivery partners to solve problems faster.

The lessons we’ve learned in Defence are applied to our engagements with customers in the enterprise sector too, ensuring robust network and cyber management for medium to large scale organisations. We use our long-standing experience in end-to-end performance management as a foundation for all of our services, so we can better define a customer’s complete requirements and deliver a more effective solution, whatever the field of technology. Offering market-leading technology and trusted managed services from ‘Floodlight’ - our own UK sovereign SOC, we work closely with customers in Driving Digital Vigilance across industry sectors.

NCL ‘Industry Insights’ Monthly Newsletter

The NCL monthly newsletter will provide a concise roundup of all the need to know information for IT teams and leaders.

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'Enterprises must address engineer training to make NetOps a success'

04 August 2021

Nearly two-thirds of organisations have hired dedicated network automation engineers to transition to network operations (NetOps), yet only one-third of network teams have undertaken industry training courses to achieve this goal, reveals new research by network specialist Opengear.

Polling network managers, network architects and network engineers in the UK, US, France and Germany, the research suggests there is a lack of upskilling and in-house training when it comes NetOps deployment and management and that organisations must do more to make NetOps a success. It also revealed that more thanhalf (53%) of respondents have had to study NetOps in their own personal time.

Meanwhile,44% of respondents said they had to learn how to program in programming languages like Python, yet just 26% claimed they had to retrain to obtain new certifications. With regards to recognising NetOps' growing importance, more than two-thirds (67%) of survey respondents said the emergence of NetOps had added value to their role and made their work more rewarding


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Stanley Global Collections Initiative

The Stanley Global Collections Initiative on Neuropsychiatric Genetics in African Populations (NeuroGAP), consists of two scientific research projects, a training component (Global Initiative for Neuropsychiatric Genetics Education in Research – GINGER), and an ethics component (NeuroGenE). One of the scientific research teams investigates the genetics of schizophrenia and bipolar disorders (NeuroGAP-Psychosis), whilst the other investigates the genetics of childhood neurodevelopmental disorders (NeuroDEV). The three components that comprise the Stanley Global Collections Initiative – scientific research, training, ethics – work in tandem and are mainly funded by the Stanley Centre for Psychiatric Research at Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.

NeuroGenE has appointed local ethics experts at each site where the scientific research projects are collecting genetic data. The local ethics experts consult with the Principal Investigator on each site to provide practical advice on the ethics of neuropsychiatric genetics, alongside offering support to the wider scientific research teams. These experts form part of our ethics working group.

Our collaboration with GINGER promotes capacity building in bioethics research. We run the ethics modules on the Initiative’s two-year Research Fellow training programme, as well as providing introductory research courses in the ethics of neuropsychiatric genetics.

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Many of us are tightening our belts these days, walking a fine line between what we can do ourselves and what absolutely must be outsourced.

Digital content marketing is one part of practice management that has a lot of bootstrapping potential. Recently, we shared tips on finding professional images for your website and social media.

This week, we take on writing your own medical website content. You can always hire a professional medical writer to explain conditions and treatments and write a weekly blog. These kinds of writers specialize in conveying complex medical information into lay-friendly prose. Many physicians are good at this too, but not everyone is Atul Gawande.

Science (medical and otherwise) can be hard for people to read.

“Most people assume that its difficulties are born out of necessity, out of the extreme complexity of scientific concepts, data and analysis,” write George D. Gopen and Judith A. Swan in their seminal 1990 paper, The Science of Scientific Writing. “We argue here that complexity of thought need not lead to impenetrability of expression.”

Gopen and Swan offer several principles based on the science of “how readers read,” taken from fields like psychology, rhetoric, and linguistics. Readers, they say, have certain expectations and derive much meaning from the structure of writing, especially sentence construction.

Based on the expectations of readers, they recommend the following principles in scientific writing:

  • Follow a grammatical subject as soon as possible with its verb.
  • Place the person or thing whose “story” a sentence is telling at the beginning of the sentence.
  • Introduce just one new idea per sentence.
  • Provide context for your reader before asking that reader to consider anything new.

Gopen and Swan place special emphasis on context.

“In our experience, the misplacement of old and new information turns out to be the No. 1 problem in American professional writing today,” they write.

Their remedy for this has come to be called the “Known-New Contract.” This is an agreement between you (the writer and science expert) and the reader that you will not introduce a complicated new piece of information without first providing them something known to give it context and meaning.

For example, if you want your lay reader to understand something about the cerebellum, first give them some context regarding the basic parts of the brain.

Gopen and Swan give many more examples in their paper. You can also get a more concise review of this concept in this free download from Carnegie Mellon University and this free download from the Writing Center at the University of Colorado.

Whichever resource you choose to review, getting a good grip on these writing principles will help you produce quality and understandable scientific writing. An engaged reader will be attracted to your practice, while you may lose a confused reader in the shuffle.

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Features: The Willowz

(photo by Olivia Malone)

The Willowz: Driving Rock Music That Makes an Impression

By David Chiu

How resonant is the music of California rock band the Willowz?  A fan, who recently attended a Willowz gig in Los Angeles, had the lyrics of their song, “Making Certain,” tattooed on his chest!

“I was in shock,” says Willowz singer, guitarist and co-founder Richie James Follin. “It was a large tattoo.”

Adds fellow Willowz bassist and co-founder Jessica Reynoza: “I met that dude. Pretty awesome. It reminded me of that Slayer album where ‘slayer’ is carved into someone’s arm. I got a friend who has the word ‘poop’ tattooed on her butt, so I wasn’t shocked if that is what your asking.”

That fan’s unusual but touching gesture confirms the effect that the group’s music has on him and perhaps others. You can hear that on their latest album, Everyone, which pays homage to rock’s past: the Rolling Stones, Iggy and the Stooges, and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers are some examples. It’s traditional rock in one sense and yet it also has some contemporary credibility that will appeal to indie music fans. Follin’s emotive vocals and an arsenal of bombastic drums, urgent bass and shimmering guitar mark the bold sound. (Also, the entire album clocks just less than 30 minutes). Continue reading “Features: The Willowz”


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New Arrival Pineapple shaped earrings High-quality Hand Beaded Drop Earring Wholesale ZA Jewelry Accessories For Women

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Purpose: Christmas Gift
Type: Pineapple earrings

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New Arrival Pineapple shaped earrings High-quality Hand Beaded Drop Earring Wholesale ZA Jewelry Accessories For Women

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JP Morgan Launches Pre-IPO Trading

JP Morgan

JP Morgan is creating a brand-new trading group . . .

100% focused on helping clients BUY Pre-IPOs including Airbnb, SpaceX and Palantir.

Go here to discover the next Pre-IPO for 839% profits.

JP Morgan clients are demanding access to the most profitable Pre-IPO stocks.

These billionaires and hedge funds have seen the value of private stocks jump. For example . . .

Airbnb saw its value multiply by 20 times – from $1.3 billion in 2011 to over $26 billion today.

JP Morgan plans to launch a new trading group to focus on trading Pre-IPOs.

Traders will help clients secure shares of private companies months or even years before an IPO. This will allow JP Morgan clients to buy shares at a cheaper private market price.

“Many of our clients are looking at this as the next frontier,” explained JP Morgan’s head of equities trading.

JP Morgan is the first Wall Street firm to create a dedicated Pre-IPO trading group.

Unfortunately, the firm will only offer services to “institutional clients.” This means JP Morgan is ONLY going to help clients including hedge funds, pension funds and sovereign wealth funds.

JP Morgan clients with +$1 million accounts will NOT be allowed to participate in these deals.

Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have helped wealthy clients buy Pre-IPOs for the last decade.

The IPO Boom of 2020

The market for IPOs is booming.

There have already been 112 IPOs in 2020. And another 143 private companies have filed to go public – and they’re waiting for approval.

The average new company has seen shares jump 43.9% from the IPO price.

This strong showing is encouraging investors to BUY shares of these deals – before they go public.

For the last decade, venture capital and private equity firms pumped billions into private technology stocks.

Today, there are 494 privately held companies that are venture-backed and valued at more than $1 billion.

The five most valuable private companies are:

  • Airbnb:  $26 billion
  • Stripe:  $36 billion
  • SpaceX:  $46 billion
  • Didi Chuxing:  $56 billion
  • ByteDance:  $140 billion

Go here to discover the secret to BUYING these Pre-IPOs.

The Next Pre-IPO for 839% Profits

I’m expecting the IPO boom will continue for two to three years. And that means numerous opportunities to profit from new companies going public.

Most investors WAIT until these new IPOs start to trade. And they’ll BUY shares after they pop 50% in the first day of trading.

Others will try get shares at the official IPO price. But these shares are only available to clients at big banks like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan. And only folks with +$10 million accounts will get shares.

That’s why I’m thrilled to share . . .

The billionaire’s Pre-IPO secret for grabbing shares – BEFORE a company files to go public.

My #1 Pre-IPO is a company that I call “the next Tesla Motors.” And shares could surge 839% after the stock goes public.

Go here ASAP for your pre-IPO instructions.

Yours in Wealth,

Ian Wyatt

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Honey Ricotta, Strawberries, Beets, Balsamic & Mint

Sandwich Build

1 Newly Weds Foods English muffin, toasted or grilled
½ cup ricotta cheese spread
3 strawberries, thinly sliced
2 roasted beets, thinly sliced
2 teaspoons balsamic glaze
1 mint sprig

Ricotta Cheese Spread

1 cup ricotta cheese
2 tablespoons honey
2 teaspoon orange zest
¼ teaspoon sea salt
Fresh herbs (mint, basil, thyme, or lavender), chopped

  • Place all ingredients for ricotta cheese spread into a mixing bowl. Using a rubber spatula, mix all ingredients together until well blended.
  • Stir in fresh herbs.
  • Set aside in cooler until ready to use.
  • Spread ¼ cup of ricotta cheese spread over top of one half of English muffin.
  • Place 5 slices of strawberries and 4 slices of beets in an alternating circular pattern on top of ricotta cheese spread.
  • Drizzle about 1 tsp of balsamic glaze in a zig zag pattern over top of sandwich.
  • Use remaining ingredients to repeat the process for the second half of English muffin.

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Culinary Videos

Cookin’ with Claire

Join Newly Weds Foods Senior Corporate Chef Claire Olsen every month as she puts a spin on the flavors & tastes of traditional foods as well as showcases some unique and inspirational product concepts.

January 2021 – National Soup Month & National Crock Pot Month – Chicken Noodle Soup

March 2021 – National Sauce Month with Special Guests Chef Jamie Bosworth from Jigsaw Foods & Chef Herny Sudira from Mullins Food Products

April 2021 – National Garlic Month

May 2021 – Edible Flowers

June 2021 – Picnic Favorites with a Newly Weds Foods Twist

Juy 2021 – National Hot Dog Month – Hot Dogs from Around the Globe

August 2021 – National Sandwich Month


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From “The People’s Choice” Award in Interior Design to Gaming and Gardening, Northwesterners Can See All the Latest for the Home at Seattle Home Show 2

728 Days ago

Presented by Kitchen Plus

SEATTLE, Sept. 30, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- From gaming to gardening, home improvement ideas to top trends in interior design, Northwesterners can see all the latest for the home when Seattle Home Show 2, the fall version of the oldest and largest consumer home show in the nation, opens its doors October 12 and 13 at CenturyLink Field Event Center.

Everything from the latest products and services for the exterior and interior of the home, to home improvement seminars, free art and antiques appraisals, cooking demos and more will be under one roof when this annual housing extravaganza celebrates its 21st annual run.

“Whether you are a homeowner or renter, live in a house, condo or apartment, there are a host of ideas, products and fun activities for you at Seattle Home Show 2,” said Mike Kalian, executive director of the Seattle Home Show.  “From the latest in landscaping to the shopping for the latest products for the home, Seattle Home Show 2 has it all for you in a single, one-stop shopping fun-filled atmosphere.”

Brand-new to Seattle Home Show 2 is “The People’s Choice” award for the best in interior design, where the public has the chance to see and vote for their favorite design created by the Northern Pacific Chapter of the International Interior Design Association (IIDA) community.  More than 70 entries representing the best in both residential and commercial interior design by interior designers from Washington, Idaho, Alaska, Alberta and British Columbia will be in the People’s Choice display.  The winner will be revealed October 21 as part of the IIDA’s annual awards competition at McCaw Hall.

Also new to Seattle Home Show 2 is LanFest, a two-day “Bring Your Own Computer” (BYOC) gaming event for gamers of all ages to raise money for charity.  Computer enthusiasts of all ages will bring their personal computers and connect with other gamers to compete in different tournaments, both competitive and casual, beginning at 9am on Saturday morning and ending at 6pm on Sunday.

Other highlights at this year’s show include:

  • Outdoor Living Area with Wine and Beer Garden, created by Malone’s Landscaping, featuring the latest in outdoor living and landscaping with a fall focus.  Included are a modern patio cover, outdoor porcelain tile, both a fire and water feature, as well as wine and beer garden with live music.
  • Free art and antiques appraisals by star appraiser Dr. Lori of History Channel's “The Curse of Oak Island,” Discovery Channel's “Auction Kings “and FOX Business Network's “Strange Inheritance” (Saturday October 12 at 11 am, 2 pm and 5 pm; Sunday October 13 at 11 am and 2 pm).  One item per show time but show visitors can attend multiple shows with additional items
  • Cooking demos by well-known local chefs
  • Daily “Meet the Experts” seminars on both interior and exterior home improvement, brought to you by Innovative Kitchen & Bath
  • A one-year subscription to Better Homes & Gardens Magazine with a ticket purchase

Plenty of parking will be available at CenturyLink Field Event Center Parking Garage and T-Mobile Park Parking Garage.  Vehicles with four or more occupants can take advantage of “Four or More Park Free™” in designated lots, courtesy of RSVP.  Park for $5.00 with E-ticket purchase.

About Seattle Home Show 2
Seattle Home Show 2 takes place Saturday, October 12 and Sunday, October 13.  Hours are Saturday 10 AM – 8 PM and Sunday 10 AM – 6 PM.   Admission is $13.00 Adults, $9.00 Seniors (60+) and Military, $3.00 Juniors (7-15), under 7 free.  E-tickets are available for purchase online at www.SeattleHomeShow.com and E-ticket purchasers receive $5 parking for Seattle Home Show at CenturyLink Field Parking Garage and T-Mobile Park Parking Garage.  E-tickets are brought to you by BECU and Aqua Quip. “Too much to see, come back for free.™”  Show visitors can register to return a second day for free.  ID required.

Seattle Home Show 2 is sponsored by the Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties and The Seattle Times.  Toyota Official Show Vehicle.

Media contact:  Belinda Young, 206-932-3145, byoung@bypr.com

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New York Ups Pressure on Banks, Fintechs to Diversify Boards (2)

July 29, 2021, 4:41 PM; Updated: July 29, 2021, 9:46 PM

New York’s financial regulator is pressing banks, fintech lenders, and crypto companies operating in the state to bring more women and minorities onto their boards.

The Department of Financial Services expects the financial firms it supervises to make “diversity of their leadership a business priority and integrate it into their corporate governance,” the agency’s Superintendent Linda Lacewell said Thursday in a guidance letter.

The agency plans to collect and release statistics on female and minority board directors and senior management—rather than mandate quotas—to nudge the financial services industry to diversify, according to the letter.

The reporting requirement will apply ...

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Michael McElroy (left) and Xiping Xu are involved in a collaboration known as the China Project, the Interfaculty Initiative that focuses on China’s energy use and environmental policies. Staff photo by Kris Snibbe.

Anyone who has ever visited Beijing in winter knows that air pollution is one of the citys biggest problems. Homes, schools, offices all heat with coal  which also is the major source of electrical energy. The result is a pall of black soot that settles into peoples lungs and bronchial tubes, and produces an annual epidemic of respiratory disease. The problem is repeated in many of Chinas industrial areas and population centers.

In the past, Chinese policy-makers have given only a modicum of attention to this issue. In a nation undergoing rapid development, it was believed that to divert funds away from industry or to force enterprises to clean up their emissions would only hold back progress. Such a policy, it was widely thought, would not be in the countrys best long-term interests, regardless of the health gains that might be made.

But what if it were possible to calculate the economic costs of air pollution? If Chinese officials knew how much their country was paying for air pollution in terms of days lost from work, hospitalizations, etc., wouldnt they be more motivated to do something about the problem?

This was the thinking of scholars involved in a large-scale interdisciplinary collaboration known as the China Project, which has been going on for approximately eight years. The China Project is part of the University Committee on Environment (UCE), which in turn is one of 10 Interfaculty Initiatives. These are programs that were identified in a University-wide planning effort to address areas that are important to society and can be explored only through collaboration across faculties.

The other nine initiatives are Health Policy, the Harvard Childrens Initiative, Mind/Brain/Behavior Initiative, the University Center for Ethics and the Professions, the Asia Center, the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, the Native American Program, the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations, and the Center for International Development.

The China Project is a multidisciplinary research program on China’s energy use and environmental policies, and the role of these issues in Sino-American relations. The program explores integrated policy responses to greenhouse gas emissions by the world’s two leading national sources, the United States and China, and to the two issues of immediate concern to China: local and regional air pollution.

The team comprises more than 50 professors, researchers, and policy-makers at Harvard and in China. They cover a wide range of disciplines including atmospheric science, public health, engineering, economics, public policy, law, political science, anthropology, and business.

The program is co-chaired at Harvard by Michael McElroy, the Gilbert Butler Professor of Environmental Studies, and Xiping Xu, associate professor of occupational epidemiology in the Faculty of Public Health.

“One of the basic principles of the project was that we would work with China in a constructive way, not just blame them. That way, we would have a real impact,” Xu said.

In order to achieve the constructive results the team hoped for, an interdisciplinary approach proved to be a necessity. This requirement was especially true of the health evaluation project, the study that would provide a monetary figure for the health damage done by air pollution.

The first step in this study was to evaluate Chinas energy use and determine the quantity of air pollution produced by the burning of coal and other fossil fuels. Next, atmospheric scientists modeled the transport of these pollutants to understand where they ended up.

A study of the health impacts of these pollutants was the next step, followed by a survey, which sought to evaluate as accurately as possible the monetary value that the society placed on good health. Preliminary results of the health evaluation study show that the economic impact of air pollution works out to about 10 percent of gross national product, a figure that Xu thinks will help the Chinese to make more informed decisions about controlling atmospheric emissions. “I think they will see that controlling air pollution is actually a good investment.”

The response of Chinese officials to the health evaluation study and to the China Project in general has proved that the collaborative approach is working. Song Jian, a state counselor and chairman of the State Science and Technology Commission, came to Harvard in 1994 and expressed interest and support for the

“Having the backing of a state counselor was an enormous attention-grabber,” said Chris Nielsen, UCE executive director. “It infused our Chinese partners with a great deal of enthusiasm.”

More recently, at a workshop held this past January in conjunction with Tsinghua University in Beijing, Xie Zhenghua, the head of the Chinese Environmental Protection Agency, expressed enthusiasm for the project.

“He told us, I need to be briefed on this study as it progresses,” Nielsen said.

Navigating Aging

From the swirling gases of the atmosphere to the mysterious electrochemical processes of the brain may seem like an abrupt step, but here, too, the key to solving complex and urgent problems has proven to be research that cuts across interdisciplinary boundaries.

Mind/Brain/Behavior Initiative (MBB) brings together such divergent scholars as psychologists, molecular biologists, computer scientists, statisticians, animal behaviorists, and architects to investigate the effect of aging on the brains navigational skills. According to Neurology Professor Kenneth Kosik, a member of the working group on the aging brain, such diversity is typical of MBBs approach.

“Mind/Brain/Behavior is truly multidisciplinary in nature. Almost by necessity you must bring in people with very diverse expertise,” Kosik said.

The group began about a year ago. Pooling their expertise, the participants realized that in studying the problem of navigation they could bring together studies of both animals and humans, a strategy that promised to shed light on both.

A great deal of data had already been gathered on how animals find their way to food, how they migrate, reach spawning grounds, etc. Researchers wondered how aging might affect these abilities and how that process might compare with dementia in aging humans and the loss of ability to navigate in once-familiar environments.

“We wanted to find out what is the cellular basis for the aging phenomenon that affects navigational skills as we age,” Kosik said.

Kosik is studying how learning affects gene expression, or the “turning on” of genes. He hopes this research will reveal an actual genetic signature for memory, which will then allow him to explore how memory is affected by aging on the molecular level.

Working with him on this research is Assistant Professor of Psychology Mark Baxter. As a psychologist, Baxter has conducted research on learning in animals, but he has never had the opportunity to explore learning from the perspective of neurology and molecular biology. Participating in MBB has given him that opportunity.

“I would never have known about this work if not for MBB,” Baxter said. “Its had a significant impact on the way I think. Because of my association with Ken Kosik, Im working in the lab on the neuromechanisms of age-related cognitive decline. I was interested in gene expression, but I never had the opportunity to do it because I didnt know the methodology.”

The members of the working group credit MBB with having the foresight to provide the funding that helped this unusual collaboration get off the ground. Now the group is applying for a larger grant from National Institutes of Health that will allow them to pursue the research further. Kosik believes that this cross-disciplinary research will lead to insights that would not have been obtainable any other way.

“Theres a tendency in a university to interact mostly with your immediate colleagues,” he said. “You dont realize how much parallel thinking is going on about a given problem. We can make so much more progress if we can foster those interdisciplinary initiatives. I think its at these interfaces between fields where the real breakthroughs occur.”

Profiting From Nonprofits

As one of the newest of the Interfaculty Initiatives, the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations still is in the process of finding those interfaces, of putting together the proper mix of scholars and facilitating their interaction in a way that will produce new breakthroughs.

Established in 1997, the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations is headed by Mark Moore, the Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Professor of Criminal Justice and Policy Management. The Centers mandate is to increase the amount of scholarship on the nonprofit sector.

Moore had a taste of interdisciplinary collaboration when he was part of a MBB working group on inter-group violence. The experience introduced him to some of the problems that can occur when scholars of different disciplines sit down to address a common issue.

“I found that there was an astonishingly high degree of brilliance and imagination among that group,” Moore said. “But I also found that the clash of paradigms was huge. I found I had to start over and learn these subjects anew.”

Learning a new subject, or relearning it from an unfamiliar perspective can be difficult for scholars, Moore discovered.

“Its a hard thing for a faculty member to be naive and incompetent in an area, after developing expertise in his or her own area. It feels scary to go back to school, to have to learn the basics.”

But Moore has taken the lessons learned during his MBB experience and applied them to his fledgling Hauser Center. One of the Hauser Centers main endeavors is to develop working groups, which have acquired the title “Intellectual Foundations.” There are two of them, known as IF1 and IF2. The first is dedicated to looking at the nonprofit sector from a public policy perspective. The second seeks to define and understand the role of faith-based organizations.

Moore believes that simple things can sometimes hold the secret to effective collaboration. For example, he has found that round-table discussions by experts in various fields can help bring to light the important aspects of a subject. But such discussions will be of little avail unless they are accurately recorded and transcribed and subjected to careful analysis. Participants in a discussion, even if they take careful notes, cannot hear all the points that are made.

Another factor is what Moore calls “a sufficiently powerful holding environment that will hold people together when the work is painful to do and uncertain in its results.”

Equally important is having a smoothly working administrative staff that can get people to meetings at the same time and make sure the chairs are comfortable. Also key is simply whether people like each other.

Although the Hauser Center is still in the early stages of its cross-disciplinary research, Moores grasp of the essentials of effective collaboration bodes well for the future. Doubtless, it will be only a matter of time before the scholars who form these exploratory discussion groups find their way to what Kosik calls the “interfaces between fields where the real breakthroughs occur.”


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News Release

Chevron Chairman and CEO Mike Wirth Says the Oil Market Appears to “Have Found a Bottom;” How COVID-19 Has Accelerated the Digital Transformation in Energy; and Why the Industry is Essential to Combatting the Virus

Chevron Chairman and CEO Mike Wirth Says the Oil Market Appears to “Have Found a Bottom;” How COVID-19 Has Accelerated the Digital Transformation in Energy; and Why the Industry is Essential to Combatting the Virus

May 14, 2020

Mike Wirth, chairman of the board and CEO of Chevron discusses the operational challenges of the COVID-19 era, the roots of the virus-induced shock to oil prices and how petroleum-based and petrochemical products are on the front lines against the virus in the latest edition of the CERAWeek Conversations series.

In a conversation with Daniel Yergin, vice chairman, IHS Markit (NYSE: INFO), Wirth talks about preparing Chevron to weather an economic downturn, greater diversity in the strategies of international energy majors and early signs of demand returning to markets.

The complete video is available at:

Selected excerpts:

(Edited slightly for brevity only)

  • On the main operational obstacles posed by COVID-19:

    “The biggest challenge for us—and I think this is true for others in our industry that have workforces that rotate to locations and remote and distant geographies—the travel restrictions that governments have imposed make it very difficult to bring people to work or away from work on their normal schedules. We might have people that would normally be 28 days on, 28 off who haven't been able to leave their work location or haven't been able to bring in the next crew to rotate in. We're working very carefully to try to be sure that we're doing all we can to enable that, so people get the rest that they need and get away from work.”
  • On energy as an essential industry amidst the COVID-19 pandemic:

    “Energy has been, pretty clearly, deemed essential because the supply chains that support everyday life, and especially support the health and medical industry, require energy to function. And I think the industry has a lot to be very proud of that we've been able to continue to meet those needs even as demand has come off and markets now are pretty well-supplied. But if you didn't have the essential products and services that enable the response, the situation would be even worse. So I think our industry, as it always does during times of crisis—be they natural disasters, conflicts, different unforeseen events—the men and women of our industry step up and perform in a way that should make everyone proud.”
  • On the critical role that petroleum and petrochemical-derived products are playing to fight COVID-19:

    “Gloves, gowns, masks, face shields—and if you go into an emergency room and intensive care unit or a hospital—the medical supplies and medical equipment are manufactured from materials derived from petrochemical products. They’re packaged in them, they’re kept sanitary and sterile by these products. So our industry is ubiquitous and essential, particularly in terms of the things that are absolutely necessary for health professionals to respond with.”
  • Views on the developments building up to the oil market shock:

    “I think the margin and price environment had reflected a pretty well-supplied market. As the demand dropped off dramatically—and then of course we had the breakdown in the relationship between Saudi Arabian and Russia in the OPEC+ meeting—it's created a market that's tremendously oversupplied and demand has dropped at a rate and in a magnitude we've never really seen in modern times.”
  • On preparing the company to weather a market downturn:

    “We've been in a long economic expansion and I think most people expected some sort of a recession here in the upcoming period of time. We were positioned with a very strong balance sheet, low levels of debt, with a very flexible capital budget which we've intentionally reshaped from one that a decade ago was heavily dependent on long-cycle projects—very expensive projects that you have very little flexibility once you sanction the project—to one that now is dominated by shorter cycle projects where we do have flexibility.

    “We’ve been trying to take our cost structure down, invest in the assets that have a lower cost of supply so that we could be prepared for a down cycle and to be strong enough to withstand even a prolonged period of time of tough market conditions.”
  • Where Chevron is reducing production vs. completely shutting it down:

    “Right now, we're shutting in some of the OPEC, OPEC+ oil countries as a result of government actions and then North America primarily due to economics and logistics.

    “Broadly speaking, I would say more of what we're doing is curtailing than actually shutting in. You can restrict flow from your wells without actually shutting them down completely. And of course, each reservoir is different, wells are different. The technical issues, the logistics, financial issues, and economic issues can vary, but broadly speaking, we've taken some complete shutdowns. In general if you can keep production flowing, you can mitigate some of the risks of a hard shutdown or restart which can be solved with people, with money and with technology.”
  • On the current state of oil storage:

    “It’s fully spoken for, if not fully utilized. It's pretty hard to get your hands on storage right now. It's pretty well-committed. And of course, those who hold the storage they've got some options. They can make it available to others, they can hold it for the future, depending on their view of the market, but access to storage is pretty tough right now.”
  • On the slow, but visible signs of energy demand resuming:

    “There’s a lot of interest in OPEC+ actions, a lot of interest in curtailment or cuts out of producers. But the real question is: when and how does demand return? Certainly, it would appear that the market has found a bottom. Most of the data you look at from anywhere in the world would suggest we're not seeing demand erode even further right now. And in some places, we're beginning to see signs that demand is coming back—a little bit of it. It's still well off from where it was prior to the crisis.”
  • On the disparities that have emerged between the strategies of international energy majors:

    “There was a period of time when the strategies across the industry looked very much alike and I don't think we see that anymore. I think we've seen some very distinct choices being made by different companies and positioning, whether it's upstream or downstream-weighted, oil and gas-weighted, conventional energy versus energy transition-weighted.

    “There are a series of choices that companies have made and trajectories they began to put their companies on that don't all follow along the same path the way it once did and I think that creates some very interesting choices for investors as they look at what kind of exposure they want.”
  • How COVID-19 has accelerated the ongoing digital and operational transformations in the industry:

    “We were already, like so many others, embarking upon a digital journey to begin to take decades of legacy technology platforms and take advantage of the cloud, of mobility, of artificial intelligence and some of the things you can do with big data now. I think this only accelerates that journey as we really see the value of it and people become more confident in these technologies.

    “And of course, we've all had to be much more flexible in terms of how we work. this. I don't think everybody will always work from home. But I also think that the traditional model where everybody always comes to the same place, where people get on planes to go to meetings – they might be able to do using other technologies. I think there will be changes that every company in every industry will have to sort through.”

Watch the complete video at:

About CERAWeek Conversations:

CERAWeek Conversations features original interviews and discussion with energy industry leaders, government officials and policymakers, leaders from the technology, financial and industrial communities – and energy technology innovators.

The series is produced by the team responsible for the world’s preeminent energy conference, CERAWeek by IHS Markit.

New installments will be added weekly at

Recent segments also include:

A complete video library is available at

About IHS Markit (

IHS Markit (NYSE: INFO) is a world leader in critical information, analytics and solutions for the major industries and markets that drive economies worldwide. The company delivers next-generation information, analytics and solutions to customers in business, finance and government, improving their operational efficiency and providing deep insights that lead to well-informed, confident decisions. IHS Markit has more than 50,000 business and government customers, including 80 percent of the Fortune Global 500 and the world’s leading financial institutions. Headquartered in London, IHS Markit is committed to sustainable, profitable growth.

IHS Markit is a registered trademark of IHS Markit Ltd. and/or its affiliates. All other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners © 2020 IHS Markit Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Skip to main content

Tag: materials science

The sun peeks through the leaves of a tree at the Court of North Carolina.

Jun 2, 2021

Turning Tree Residue Into Smart Hydrogels

NC State researchers are turning wood byproducts into sensory hydrogels and sustainable, biodegradable smart materials.

Apr 15, 2014

Why Captain America’s Shield Is Basically a Star-Spangled Supercapacitor

Captain America’s shield is famous for absorbing tremendous amounts of kinetic energy, from an artillery shell to a punch from the Hulk – keeping Cap not only safe, but on his feet.  What’s going on here? It’s tough to explain how the shield works, in part because it behaves differently under different circumstances. Sometimes the…

Mar 3, 2014

New NSF Dielectrics Center Ties Research Efforts to Product Development

If you want to do research that solves problems facing global industries, it helps to form partnerships with the industries you want to help. That’s the idea behind the National Science Foundation’s new Center for Dielectrics and Piezoelectrics, being led by NC State and Penn State. “Broadly speaking, our goal is to work with industry to…

Nov 27, 2013

Nanoscale Coatings Improve Stability and Efficiency of Devices for Renewable Fuel Generation

Splitting water into its components, two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen, is an important first step in achieving carbon-neutral fuels to power our transportation infrastructure – including automobiles and planes. Now, North Carolina State University researchers and colleagues from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have shown that a specialized coating technique…

Jun 20, 2013

Heads Up, Isaac Newton

How do you throw a 100-pound ball of Silly Putty off the top of an 11-story building? Just use the scientific method and let gravity do the rest. Catch this year's Silly Putty Drop.

Feb 8, 2013

Koch Elected to Nat’l Academy of Engineering

Carl Koch has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering, one of the top professional honors in the field. Learn more about his groundbreaking research.

Oct 24, 2011

Spontak Wins Professorship

Dr. Richard Spontak, chemical engineer and materials scientist, has been selected as the 2012 recipient of a professorship at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

Jun 29, 2011

Serious Silly Putty

What happens when you drop an 80-pound ball of Silly Putty from the top of a nine-story building? Ask the budding engineers and scientists at NC State’s Materials Camp.

May 11, 2011

Spontak’s Research Recognized

Dr. Richard J. Spontak, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and materials science and engineering, has been honored for seminal research on thermoplastic elastomer systems.

Feb 11, 2011

Narayan Wins Materials Science Award

Dr. Jagdish “Jay” Narayan received a 2011 Lee Hsun Lecture Award for contributions to materials science and technology.

Nov 16, 2010

Thinking Outside the Brick

During a teaching fellowship at NC State, Ginger Dosier came up with the idea of harnessing the power of bacteria to grow bricks. Thanks to a multidisciplinary effort, the idea is becoming reality.

Apr 20, 2010

Gold Medal Material

Dr. Jay Narayan has won the Acta Materialia Gold Medal and Prize for exceptional research contributions and leadership in materials science.


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Tuesday,  September 28, 2021  3:34 am

Confusing European travel rules wasting advantages of digital COVID pass, IATA says

  • Air
  •   09-03-2021  11:17 am
  •   Pax Global Media

Confusing European travel rules wasting advantages of digital COVID pass, IATA says
Pax Global Media

Free movement within Europe is being compromised by the failure of EU member states to harmonize COVID-19 entry regulations, says the International Air Transport Association (IATA).

As a result, the reopening of borders is confusing travellers and businesses and not delivering the expected benefits in terms of easier travel and economic recovery.

IATA research has found significant differences in how EU member states are managing travel:

  • Around 30% of states using the EU Digital Covid Certificate (DCC) are not accepting rapid testing
  • 19% of states are not exempting children from testing requirements
  • 41% of states are not allowing vaccinated travellers from non-EU ‘White-List’ countries to enter
  • For the Passenger Locator Forms, 45% accept it online, while 33% accept paper and online submissions. But 11% only accept paper, and a further 11% have no locator forms at all.

“It’s essential that European states come together on COVID-19 travel procedures. The good work done by the Commission and the states to develop the DCC is being wasted by a mess of unharmonized regulations. How can passengers travel with confidence when the rules are so different in each country within the European Union? They can’t be sure if their children need to be tested or not, or if they need to fill in a form on paper, online, or not at all. It’s one Europe Union. People reasonably expect a united approach to managing travel,” said Rafael Schvartzman, IATA’s regional vice-president for Europe.

With regard to harmonizing requirements around the DCC, IATA and other stakeholders have urged EU states to:

  • Conduct DCC verification digitally before passengers arrive at the airport, to limit operational disruptions and give certainty to passengers that they are ready to fly. Germany and Spain are two countries observing best practice in this area.
  • Develop a state portal to facilitate DCC verification directly by national authorities and limit health data processing by airlines.
  • Integrate digital Passenger Locator Forms into a state portal for DCC verification, which is not currently the case in 80% of European countries.

In addition, EU states need to align on health requirements including:

  • Universal acceptance of rapid testing in place of expensive and unnecessary PCR tests
  • Universal exemption of minors from testing and vaccination requirements, and
  • The universal opening of borders to vaccinated passengers and to allow travelers from low-risk countries to enter Europe without restriction (or with proof of a negative test from non-vaccinated travelers).
  • The Netherlands, Estonia, Slovenia and Spain are leading the way in aligning these policies.

“The experience over the European summer shows that a standard digital certificate is not enough: the travel processes around COVID-19 must also be harmonized and smoothed out," said Schvartzman. "We urge European states to sort out the current mess and give hard-pressed passengers greater certainty over their travel plans."


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Eminent chemist to discuss primordial genetic materials in annual Bunnett Lecture on Friday, May 4

Albert Eschenmoser

The renowned organic chemist Albert Eschenmoser will give the 2007 Joseph F. Bunnett Research Organic Chemistry Lecture on Friday, May 4. Eschenmoser's lecture, "The Search for Potentially Primordial Genetic Materials," will take place at 5 p.m. in the Baskin Engineering Auditorium.

Eschenmoser is a professor emeritus of organic chemistry at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and research professor at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla. In his talk, he will give a survey of experimental efforts toward a chemical etiology of nucleic acid structure and discuss recent results of a search for potentially primordial informational oligomer systems.

Eschenmoser is best known for his many contributions to synthetic methodology, structure elucidation, synthesis of natural products, physical organic chemistry, and, more recently, experiments on the etiology of nucleic acids aimed at an understanding of the chemical criteria by which nature chose nucleic acids as its genetic code. Among his contributions to natural products chemistry, his stereochemical interpretation of the biogenetic isoprene rule is particularly well known.

Perhaps his overall most outstanding achievement has been the total synthesis (with R. B. Woodward) of vitamin B12, a molecule of incredible complexity and, at the time, the Holy Grail of synthetic chemistry.

For additional information about this lecture, please call the Chemistry Department at (831) 459-4823.


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Message from Dave Kliger regarding March 4

To: The Campus Community

From: Campus Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor David Kliger

In the wake of last week's demonstration, I have heard from many students, faculty, and staff, and I would like to take a moment to share my thoughts with you.

As befits a university campus, the calls and messages reflect a broad range of views, from those who wish I had praised the protesters to those who criticize me for failing to prevent demonstrators from blocking access to campus. I appreciate all of you who have taken the time to communicate with me.

The campus protests on March 4 were part of a national day of action in support of greater funding for public education, a cause I wholeheartedly support. As I have said before, I appreciate advocacy on behalf of UCSC, and I encourage people to express support for the university without violating the rights of others. That endorsement certainly includes those who choose to engage in peaceful public protest.

I have heard from professors who hiked to classrooms and lecture halls last Thursday to honor their commitment to their students. I know others came to campus with more mixed emotions, while some faculty members chose to hold classes off campus or to support students in other ways. Staff also responded to the day with a range of strategies: many telecommuted, some came to work at the crack of dawn or made other arrangements so they could serve the campus, others took a furlough day, and many told me they would have provided service but were thwarted by those who blocked campus entrances. Student input has ranged from those who believe last week's actions were entirely appropriate to many others who felt frustrated and angered by the disruptions.

I want to emphasize that the tactics embraced by a handful of protesters evoked a range of reactions among students, faculty, and staff. One professor wrote that she had planned to bring a carload of students to campus to join the protest but changed her mind upon learning that masked protesters were using threats and intimidation to discourage motorists from entering campus. In the end, her words reflect the views of many who contacted me. She wrote that although she is delighted to see students and faculty standing up for the noble cause of education, she was dissuaded by a strategy that she wrote "goes against every peaceful sit-in that I took part in during the 1970s--and we were able to stop a war that time."

There is room for a range of views about last week's protests. With due respect to those who disagree, I simply do not support the tactics of a small group of people who chose to impose their views on the majority through acts of intimidation, violence, destruction of property, and disruption of campus operations. Their actions suggest a disturbing lack of tolerance for diverse points of view. Daniel Simmons, a professor of law at UC Davis and vice-chair of the UC Academic Senate, published an op-ed in the Sacramento Bee that expresses the sentiments of many in our campus community.

UC Santa Cruz is a dynamic and vibrant community with a proud history of engagement and public protest. There are strong opinions on all sides regarding the best tactics and strategies. I appreciate the variety of viewpoints, and I encourage you to reach out to colleagues and fellow students, particularly those who disagree with your own views, to foster free and open discussion.

David Kliger


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UN concerned about growing displacement of people in DR Congo’s Katanga province

29 January 2014

More than 400,000 people have been displaced recently in the so-called “Triangle of Death” – the area between the towns of Pweto, Mitwaba and Manono – in the Katanga province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the United Nations confirmed today.

More than 600 homes in 11 villages have been destroyed since October, a dramatic increase in the last two years, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Special Representative for the DRC, Martin Kobler, said today that he was “extremely concerned” by the deterioration of the humanitarian situation in the southern province.

“All armed groups must stop their activities and allow humanitarian access to the main victims of this tragedy, the civilian populations” urged Mr. Kobler, who is also the head of the UN Mission in the country (MONUSCO).

The Mission today reported that most of the attacks in the region are perpetrated by Mayi-Mayi Katanga, one of the rebel groups known to operate in the country.

Fighting in the DRC between the Government and rebels – including the M23 who were defeated by the national army with UN support last month – the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) and others, has displaced 2.9 million people, OCHA has reported.

The DRC has been torn apart by civil wars and factional fighting since its independence in 1960, but with the support of a series of UN missions, a measure of stability has been restored to much of the vast country over the past decade.

But fighting between the Government and a variety of rebel and sectarian groups has continued to devastate the eastern regions, particularly North and South Kivu provinces.

In March, the Security Council authorized the deployment of an intervention brigade within MONUSCO, based in North Kivu province with a total of 3,069 peacekeepers, to carry out targeted offensive operations, with or without FARDC, against armed groups threatening peace in that part of the country.

Mr. Ban, his Special Envoy for the Great Lakes Region, Mary Robinson, and Mr. Kobler have stressed the importance of a political solution to address the underlying causes of violence in the region. The Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework for the DRC and the Region was signed by 11 nations last February, and has since been nicknamed the “framework of hope.”

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WSU Cougar Head Logo Washington State University
WSU Insider
News and Information for Faculty, Staff, and the WSU Community

Jan. 15-16: Award-winning play imagines Martin Luther King Jr.’s last night

By Gail Siegel, WSU Performing Arts

The Mountaintop posterPULLMAN, Wash. – Acclaimed radio theatre company L.A. Theatre Works will present Katori Hall’s “The Mountaintop,” 2 p.m. Monday, Jan. 15, and 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 16, at WSU’s Jones Theatre.

“The Mountaintop” is an award-winning play that imagines Martin Luther King Jr.’s last night on earth.

King was assassinated April 4, 1968, outside room 306 of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn. What happened inside room 306 the night before the killing is a mystery. In “The Mountaintop,” Hall imagines what may have transpired in the overnight hours between the legendary civil rights leader and a seemingly inconsequential motel maid.

Hours after King’s famed final speech, punctuated by the immortal line “I’ve been to the mountaintop,” the celebrated reverend reveals his hopes, regrets and fears, creating a masterful bridge between mortality and immortality.

“The Mountaintop” won the prestigious Olivier Award for Best Play (2010). It has been praised as “wondrous, hilarious and heartbreaking” by London’s Independent and “a powerful, poetic take on (King’s) legacy” by the Los Angeles Times.

Gilbert Glenn Brown as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Karen Malina White as Camae, in L.A. Theatre Works production of “The Mountaintop.” Photo by Matt Petit
Gilbert Glenn Brown as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Karen Malina White as Camae, in L.A. Theatre Works production of “The Mountaintop.” Photo by Matt Petit

The production is directed by Shirley Jo Finney and stars Gilbert Glenn Brown as King and Karen Malina White as Camae, the enigmatic maid.

Reserved seating costs $18 for adults, $15 for seniors (ages 60 and up) and $9 for non-WSU students and youth. WSU student admission is free with valid ID. A discounted rate of $14 per person is available to groups of eight or more.

Tickets are on sale now at all TicketsWest outlets, including online at, by phone at 800-325-SEAT, and in person at WSU’s Beasley Coliseum and the Rosauers Supermarket in Lewiston. Advance tickets are subject to convenience charges unless purchased at the Beasley Coliseum ticket office. The Daggy Hall box office will open for ticket sales and will-call beginning two hours before each performance.

L.A. Theatre Works has been the foremost radio theatre company in the United States for more than 25 years. Its performances feature first-rate casts and live sound effects, creating sound-rich, intimate experiences that draw audiences into the stories and performances.

White has received two NAACP Image Awards as well as the L.A. Drama Critics Award and the L.A. Ovation Award. She has been seen on screen in “Lean on Me” with Morgan Freeman and numerous independent films such as “The Ties That Bind” and “Where Do We Go from Here.” Her television credits include “The Cosby Show,” “How to Get Away with Murder,” “Living Single,” “Animal Kingdom” and “Veep,” among many others.

Brown is an accomplished stage actor with credits ranging from the Goodman Theatre to True Colors Theatre Company to the National Black Theatre Festival. Television appearances include “Stranger Things,” “Valor,” “CSI: Miami,” “Cold Case,” “The Shield” and others. On film, he’s been seen in “Dreamgirls,” “Best of Enemies,” “Drumline II” and “Raising the Heights.”

Finney is a multiaward-winning director with credits that include the Goodman Theatre, Pasadena Playhouse, McCarter Theater, Humana Festival, Kennedy Center and Sundance Theater Workshop, among many others.

“The Mountaintop” is presented by WSU Performing Arts and the WSU Office of Equity and Diversity as part of WSU’s 2018 Martin Luther King Jr. events, with generous support from the Residence Inn by Marriott Pullman and Courtyard by Marriott Pullman.

Convenient parking for both performances will be available without permits or fees in the Daggy Hall parking garage and in the Green 3 lot directly across the street from Daggy Hall.

This production contains some mature language.

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WSU celebrates Latinx Heritage Month systemwide

Movie showings, an art night, and a food festival are just a few of the events WSU is hosting across the state to celebrate Latinx Heritage Month.

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September 21, 2021

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The secret behind NHK’s BS message erasure! Summary of charges and cancellation methods

2 min read

NHK has been talking about for several years, such as the problem of intimidating the collection of reception fees and uncontracted trials.Even on the Internet, many people are searching for contracts and how to refuse payment of reception fees, and there is still a deep gap with consumers.

About NHK broadcast reception fee.First, let’s take a look at the basic NHK reception fee. There are two types of NHK broadcast reception fees: terrestrial contracts (TVs that can receive only terrestrial broadcasts, etc.) and satellite contracts (TVs that can receive satellite broadcasts including terrestrial broadcasts).

The reception fee for the ground contract is 2,520 yen for a 2-month payment, 7,190 yen for a 6-month advance payment, and 13,990 yen for a 12-month advance payment. And satellite broadcasting (BS) is 4,460 yen for 2 months payment, 12,730 yen for 6 months advance payment, and 24,770 yen for 12 months advance payment. It’s not double … but it’s a big difference depending on whether you can receive BS. By the way, if you choose to pay with the payment form, fees will be added and it will be slightly higher.

Satellite charges without seeing BS …? Be careful of automatic reception.For a while, my family moved a lot because of work, and when I finished moving, NHK came from nowhere.

When I moved to the condominium where I live now, NHK came, but since I had a ground contract for NHK at my previous house, I used the payment account and the address where I lived before. I checked and went home.There are still various discussions about NHK, such as the obligation to pay under the Broadcasting Law and the freedom to not watch the broadcast, so there are various discussions about it, but at home, children are in the morning. Since I am watching E-tele in the evening, I usually pay for terrestrial broadcasting.

I’ve confirmed the contract details, so I’m relieved … but a few days later, the collector came again. I did When I heard the story, he said, “Since I am receiving BS (satellite broadcasting), please switch to satellite charges.After I came back, I was surprised to see the satellite broadcasting reception fee again.

That’s right, because the monthly license fee has doubled even though I haven’t seen it at all .I was told that I was receiving satellite broadcasting (BS), so I made a contract without knowing it, but I made a contract and what kind of broadcasting are you doing? I was surprised again by pressing the BS broadcast button on the remote control.
The screen is pitch black and nothing is reflected.

I couldn’t agree with the satellite fee even though it didn’t show up, so I called the NHK support center that was written in the document.

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Covid has claimed more than 600,000 lives in United States

More than 600,000 people have died from Covid-19 in the United States, a grim reminder that even though cases are down as more people are vaccinated, the pandemic is not over.

As of Thursday evening, the nation had seen at least 600,040 Covid-19 deaths, according to a count of reports by NBC News.

More than 33.4 million cases have been recorded in the United States.

The death toll crossed the 500,000 mark Feb. 21, according to NBC News‘ count.

The number of newly identified cases of Covid-19 and deaths has decreased as more people have gotten vaccinated.

But hundreds of deaths from the disease are reported in the U.S. nearly every day (on Sunday and Monday, which was a holiday weekend, the reported deaths were more than 150 each day, according to NBC News’ count).

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US says corrupt Ukrainian oligarch banned from entering country

Antony Blinken
Antony Blinken

dpa/GNA – US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, said on Friday that an entry ban has been imposed against billionaire Ukrainian oligarch and former public official Igor Kolomoisky, due to his involvement in “significant corruption.”

In his former role as governor of Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, Kolomoisky, 58, engaged in corrupt acts and used his political power to enrich himself, Blinken said in Washington.

Blinken said that while the punitive measure relates to Kolomoisky’s time in office, the Ukrainian is also part of “ongoing efforts to undermine Ukraine’s democratic processes and institutions.”
The US State Department also imposed entry bans on his wife and children.

The 58-year-old was one of the main supporters of the candidacy of Volodymyr Zelensky, who was elected president in 2019 and has tried to foster close ties with Washington.

However, Zelensky is seen as increasingly trying to distance himself from Kolomoisky, who in recent years has also been confronted by money-laundering investigations by US authorities.

Kolomoisky belongs to a group of Ukrainians who became rich in the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

His business activities now focus on companies in the oil and metals sectors. He holds shares in Ukraine’s largest airline and one of the leading television stations. He co-founded Ukraine’s largest bank, PrivatBank, in 1992. The firm was nationalized in late 2016.

From March 2014 to March 2015, Kolomoiski was governor of his home region of Dnipropetrovsk, in the south-east of Ukraine.

He was initially credited with forcefully suppressing separatist efforts in the Russian-speaking region. However, some of his methods raised alarm for their alleged illegality.

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Surprising Percentage of Biopsy Samples Retained in GI Endoscopes

Researchers examining GI endoscopes after colonoscopy and esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD) procedures found a “startingly high” rate of retained biopsy samples in the endoscope accessory channel or cap.

Investigators found 64% of 105 total endoscopies featured retained biopsy samples, including 76% of EGDs and 50% of colonoscopies examined.

“The take-home message would be that retained biopsies are much more common than most endoscopists would think. In our institution, many endoscopists guessed 10% to 15%, while the actual number was 64%,” Gregory Toy, MD, told Medscape Medical News.

Raising awareness about the high proportion of retained biopsy samples “could help change behavior to make this happen less often,” added Toy, an internal medicine resident at the University of Utah Health in Salt Lake City.

“Another finding of this study was that there were significantly more retained biopsies found in EGDs compared to colonoscopies,” Toy said.

Toy presented the findings during the Digestive Disease Week (DDW) 2021 virtual meeting.

“Very Surprising” Findings

“The study is very important as it points out a significant rate of tissue retention in the biopsy channel at the conclusion of endoscopic procedures,” session moderator Serge Sorser, MD, told Medscape Medical News in an email when asked to comment.

The high rate of tissue retention “is very surprising,” added Sorser, a gastroenterologist at Ascension Michigan Providence Hospital in Novi, Michigan.

“Not only does this mean that not all tissue is submitted for pathologic review, but also brings to light the need for diligent endoscope processing between procedures,” he said.

Because biopsy specimens during GI endoscopy procedures must pass through the device’s biopsy channel and cap, Toy and colleagues decided to examine the rate of potentially retained samples.

Endoscopists “have noted anecdotally that retained biopsies can be found in the accessory channel and/or cap,” Toy said during his presentation at DDW. “However, this has not been formally studied.”

After 55 EGDs and 50 colonoscopies, each a standard outpatient procedure, the researchers removed the cap and the male end where the cap attaches. They brushed these areas for residual tissue. Next, they applied a new suction trap and cleared the channel using water and suction. They then brushed the channel and repeated the water and suction procedure. As a final check, they visually inspected the cleaning brush.

They sent any recovered tissue — designated from either the cap or channel — to pathology for evaluation. “The new pathology reads from these retained biopsies changed or added to the diagnosis in only five of our patients. All of these changes were minor, and patients were already on appropriate treatment,” Toy said.

Interestingly, Toy and colleagues found no differences between EGDs and colonoscopies with and without retained biopsy samples according to procedure time, doses of propofol or fentanyl, and age or gender of the patient. Likewise, the number of samples collected did not appear to influence the retention rates.

Of retained samples discovered after 42 EGDs, 71% were in the cap, 35% were in the channel, and 29% were found in both locations. Of the 25 colonoscopies with retained samples, 40% were in the cap, 34% were in the channel, and 24% were found in both places.

“The overall incidence of retained biopsies during standard upper and lower endoscopy is high,” the researchers noted.

Inclusion of multiple endoscopists and a hospital outpatient setting were strengths of the study. Limitations included a single center study with a relatively small sample size.

Toy and Sorser have disclosed no relevant financial relationships.

Digestive Disease Week 2021: Abstract 136. Presented May 21, 2021.

Damian McNamara is a staff journalist based in Miami. He covers a wide range of medical specialties, including infectious diseases, gastroenterology and critical care. Follow Damian on Twitter:  @MedReporterFor more news, follow Medscape on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn

This post originally appeared on Medscape Medical News Headlines

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Norway has decided to dispose of the frigate HNoMS Helge Instag that sank last year

This story made a lot of noise at the end of 2018. Then, during a NATO exercise, the Norwegian missile frigate HNoMS Helge Instag, colliding with the civilian oil tanker Sola TS, was seriously damaged. To avoid total flooding, the frigate's crew decided to run it aground. Later, the ship sank anyway. Fortunately, there were no casualties. Eight crew members received minor injuries.

HNoMS Helge Instag is one of five frigates of the Fritjof Nansen series, built in Spain 9 years ago. It is armed with a 76mm dual-use cannon, eight anti-ship missiles, 32 ESSM anti-aircraft missiles, four anti-submarine torpedoes and an NH-90 helicopter. The vessels of this series are the smallest ones equipped with the American Aegis missile defense system.

At first, the possibility of repairing it was considered, but later it turned out that it would cost a pretty penny, namely $ 1, 4 - 1, 6 billion, that is, about the same as for the construction of a new frigate - 1, 3 - 1, $ 5 billion. According to the government commission, it is possible to reuse some spare parts and equipment from the damaged vessel in the amount of $ 11 to 44 million. Complete disposal will cost $ 11 million.

It is not yet clear how the out-of-order frigate can be replaced. By the way, this is a colossal loss for the Norwegian Navy, whose surface fleet consisted of only five ships.

According to available information, the Norwegian government intends to order the same ship, but with some changes in its design, in particular, the propeller shafts. The fact is that after the collision with the tanker, water began to flow into the vessel through the hollow shafts of the propellers.


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Two smugglers arrested in Mussoorie with lakhs of rupees

STF's Anti Drug Task Force in Mussoorie has taken action against the prohibition. Two smugglers were arrested along with two and a half kilograms of charas from the Barlogz GP Band in Mussoorie. Action is being taken against drug traffickers as a result of the action being taken against STF addicts. The same two smugglers are residents of Uttarkashi. A case has been registered in Mussoorie Kotwali.

SSI Manohar Rawat said that the drug traffickers in Mussoorie and the surrounding areas are being monitored by the police. On the information of the same Mukhbir, two charas smugglers are coming to Dehradun along with a large consignment. The action plan was prepared by the STF team on the instructions of the high officials. In this sequence, two teams were informed by the Anti-Drug Task Force and chased the smugglers of Charas and in the morning two youths from Mussoorie got about two and a half kilos of Charas. arrested with. He said that accused Devendra Lal Shah resident Bhatwadi Maneri Uttarkashi and Rakesh Sharma resident Dhunda Uttarkashi were arrested and filed in court by filing 8/20 NDPS Act lawsuit. He said that according to the information received from the accused, he does not know that Charas said that he gets a packet from Uttarkashi which he takes to Dehradun and Haridwar, in return for which he gets the money. Manohar Rawat said that the accused are being strictly interrogated by the police, that the big fish of the drug trade will soon be under the arrest of the police.
SSI Manohar Rawat said that the police's continuous campaign against drugs is going on and action is being taken by marking drug dealers in Mussoorie and the surrounding areas said that Charas merchants in the state are entrapping the youth in a trap. After which the people are being made aware of the drug continuously following the instructions of the higher authorities, joint action is being taken against the drug dealers.

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Tag Archives: The Flying Lizards

That 70’s Feeling

  I love compilations, especially as a DJ.  They are a great beginning to get a feel for a genre of music, time period, and it’s an easy way to get a bunch of hits without having to purchase multiple … Continue reading

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News: Starks AR Headset Displays Subtitles for Hearing Impaired

Starks AR Headset Displays Subtitles for Hearing Impaired

The more impressive demonstrations of the capabilities of augmented reality add another dimension to what we see in the real world.

One company, Greta & Starks, is on the verge of launching an augmented reality headset called Starts AR that displays film subtitles for the deaf and hearing impaired, as well as those who need dialogue translated into their native language.

Starks AR resembles a call center headset, except the arm that would hold the microphone rests at variable angles in front of the wearer's eye. A micro display, similar to those seen on Google Glass, streams subtitles in any language to the user's field of view.

Starks AR shows subtitles in the user's field of view via a micro display. Image via Greta & Starks

In an email to Next Reality, Greta & Starks states that they expect to have the Starks AR headset available to consumers by the end of the year. To this end, they plan to launch a crowdfunding campaign on Sept. 6 that will enable them to finalize their prototype and commence manufacturing.

The European company specializes in technology for individuals with sight and hearing impairment. Their Greta app for iOS and Android provides audio descriptions of films to those suffering from loss of vision, while the Starks app, also for iOS and Android, delivers subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing.

Cover image via Greta & Starks

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Dear Anthony,

Thank you for your interest in the Starks AR! We value every feedback regarding our product.

The subtitles displayed on the headset are produced by the producer or distributor of the movie, and are therefor the exact same subtitles you'll read in a movie theater or watching the DVD.

Subtitles are downloaded beforehand. When opened at the beginning of the film, the Starks App recognizes the audio (same technique as Shazam), for a perfect synchronization from the beginning until the end!

The headset was produced in order to enable the best experience and viewing comfort possible; the screen in front of the eye does not affect the viewing quality.

Please forward any additional question or feedback to

The Greta & Starks team.

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Young Founders of STAWI Win $15,000 Thomas J. Bata Legacy Award for Responsible Entrepreneurship in East Africa

Friday, May 29, 2015

At a reception in Nairobi today the Bata Shoe Foundation announced that STAWI, a Kenyan business that processes perishable fruits, grains, and cereals into gluten free flour, is the winner of the $15,000Thomas J. Bata Legacy Award for young responsible entrepreneurship in East Africa. Two runners up – GreenChar and KARIBU Solar Power – received $5,000 each. The Award was established in 2014 in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of the late CEO of the Bata Shoe Organization, known as “Shoemaker to the World.” It provides funding and mentoring for young entrepreneurs inEast Africa who demonstrate a commitment to the values that guided Mr. Bata’s leadership of the organization for four decades.

“The real role of business is to give a service by making and selling products that satisfy the want and needs of society, and in doing so to be a caring organization in partnership with community and government,” said Thomas J. Bata.

The award-winning business, STAWI, is based in Kenya and led by a team that includes Eric Muthomi (Founder & CEO), Kent Libiso (Chairman), and Sangu Delle (Director). STAWI provides high quality processed foods through sustainable and equitable farmer relations. Seeking to combat agricultural waste from foods such as bananas, STAWI processes perishable fruits, grains, and cereals into gluten free flour. This flour, with a higher market demand and shelf life, increases food security, increases farmer income, and reduces waste. Smallholder farmers, whose crops are most at risk for perishing, and rural consumers, most at risk for malnutrition, receive the sharpest benefits from STAWI.

The Bata Legacy Award challenged entrepreneurs 35 and younger to identify a community need in East Africa and share a creative, viable business solution that embraces the values that guided Thomas J. Bata throughout his career. After the first round of submissions five finalists were chosen and assigned a business mentor, who will work with them for a year. Each then completed a detailed proposal that was evaluated by an international jury comprised of leaders in business and development, including Mrs. Sonja Bata.

“My husband felt strongly that the role of business should be to serve society by providing services and products which contribute to the well-being of the community,” said Mrs. Bata. “I am delighted about the Thomas J. Bata Legacy Award promoting this vision. The award celebrates entrepreneurship, teamwork, creative and innovative thinking, and hard work. It is unique because it also has a special educational mentoring component.

I wish the winners a lot of success with their business and that they will be able to create jobs and more importantly, opportunities for advancement for the persons they employ and for the communities in which they work.”

“I want this award to be an inspiration to other philanthropists by showing that the encouragement of entrepreneurs requires not only financial support, but also mentoring and role modeling of positive community values,” she said. “Thank you to our mentors and judges assisting us.”

The Thomas J. Bata Legacy Award finalists include:

Source: PR Newswire (link opens in a new window)

Entrepreneurship, Impact Assessment
entrepreneurship, social impact


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Network Cabling

We provide low voltage cabling such as:

  • Cat-3 , Cat-5 and Cat-6e,
  • HDMI
  • Fiber
  • T-1
  • Coaxial

With over 50 years of experience, we provide a wide range of voice and data cabling for all indoor and outdoor purposes. We manage low voltage wiring projects for voice and data connections including but not limited to: phones, computers, cameras, speakers, access points, door phones, TV and etc., using the most cost effective materials in the market. We provide all materials and labor for running, extending, cross connection, termination and test of Cat-3 Cat-5 and Cat-6e, HDMI, Fiber, T1, and Coaxial cables.

NextCom is certified and bonded to pull Low Voltage City Permit if required. If you need a price estimate, we will do free of charge pre-fields.