Andy Bailey has been photographing bins in his Cheshire town, giving them a rating out of 25.

6 Top Outdoor Projects Homeowners Are Taking On

Some things you should never do on a dog walk include approaching unfamiliar pets, using an extendable leash, and not picking up waste, experts said.

Shortly after President-elect Donald Trump appointed Tom Homan as “border czar,” the immigration hardliner’s hilarious 2019 smackdown of Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York went viral on social media. […]

The post Flashback: Video of Tom Homan Taking Down AOC Resurfaces, Showing Why Trump Picked Him appeared first on The Western Journal.

Xi Jinping shows the world he is taking a tougher line Expert comment NCapeling 16 October 2022

Xi opens the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party with a political report which demonstrates both change and continuity in the approach of his leadership.

The 20th Party Congress report is significantly shorter than the 19th, which is a clear indication of Xi’s success in centralizing power. The report acts as a summary of the party’s achievements and its plans – expressed as the lowest common denominator of consensus between competing factions. A shorter political report would seem to represent fewer factions now seeking consensus.

In the 20th Party Congress report, the language on Taiwan has been revised, reflecting the changes in tone and the policies of the CCP senior leadership. In addition to the conventional ‘peaceful reunification’ term, there is also an addition of more hawkish language on Taiwan to ‘not exclude the use of force as a last resort’.

Xi also suggested that ‘resolving Taiwan Question should be in hands of the Chinese’, sending a further warning to the US and other Western allies which are perceived as interfering in Taiwan affairs.

In his remarks, Xi suggested the ‘zero-COVID’ strategy has worked for China although he gave no clear timeline on when the policy will end. He also proposed building a healthcare system able to cope with future pandemics. This implies that China is still in short supply of sufficient healthcare resources to cope with a disease like COVID.

Economic policy reveals anxiety

On economic policy, much of the emphasis is given to the extent to which security and economic growth should go hand in hand, which illustrates Beijing’s deep anxieties on supply chains and the high-tech sector. These supply chains need to become more ‘self-determined, self-controlled’, voicing frustration that the highest value-added elements of the Chinese tech sector remain reliant on overseas suppliers and vulnerable to geopolitical tensions.

Also, he expected the Common Prosperity Initiative will further adjust uneven income distribution to increase the amount of middle-income population. He gave little favours for financial services and fin-tech companies but insisted that China should remain as a manufacturing-led economy with qualitative growth. That implies Beijing will tolerate much slower growth so long as the income gap between the rich and poor is closing.

On foreign affairs, Xi has completely abandoned the ‘new types of great power relations’ – instead he has stressed that China should further develop its ties with the Global South through the Global Development Initiative and the Global Security Initiative.

Ricardo Bermudez-Otero and Tobias Galla discuss the mathematics describing the evolution of human languages. The sounds and structures of the world's approximately 7,000 languages never stop changing. Just compare the English in Romeo and Juliet or the Spanish in Don Quixote to the modern forms. But historical records give an incomplete view of language evolution. Increasingly, linguists draw upon mathematical models to figure out which features of a language change often and which ones change more rarely over the course of thousands of years. A new model inspired by physics assigns a "temperature" to many sounds and grammatical structures. Features with higher temperatures are less stable, so they change more often as time goes on. The linguistic thermometer will help researchers reconstruct how our languages came to be, and how they might change in future generations.

Taking Stock of Turkey's Trade Policy 11 September 2018 — 5:00PM TO 6:15PM Anonymous (not verified) 23 August 2018 Chatham House | 10 St James's Square | London | SW1Y 4LE

As the only large economy outside of the EU with a customs union agreement, Turkey has a unique trade policy. Amid domestic economic challenges, Turkey’s trade minister, Ruhsar Pekcan, will discuss prospects for upgrading the EU-Turkey customs union. She will also discuss relations between the UK and Turkey and outline strategies for post-Brexit trade.

Attendance at this event is by invitation only.

School district leaders must make high-stakes decisions with woefully imperfect information.

International fertilizer benchmark prices have risen throughout 2021.

The artist's cityscapes, once dismissed as too masculine, would later influence the floral artworks that became central to her iconic style

A blockbuster exhibition in London examines the Dutch Post-Impressionist's creative output between 1888 and 1890, which was one of the most productive periods of his career

Despite its unusually small size, the newly unearthed House of Phaedra is covered in elaborate frescos depicting mythological scenes

This brief chapter of art history is often overlooked. Now, an exhibition in New York City makes a strong argument for the integral role played by four artists in the city of Siena

Many people travel to TeenStreet from afar, but very few choose to take as massive of a detour as the Harju family who drove through eleven countries before arriving in Germany.

New rebuilding regulations in Jasper have been approved, but roadblocks — including the sheer number of people that are needed for construction — are popping up.

Mozambique's Maputo port, a key chrome export hub, has stopped receiving cargo due to ongoing election unrest in the southeast African nation.

A group of 10 students, including a translator, participate in a two months training programme in Panama. The Mission Extreme Outreach has its students work amongst Panamanians and indigenous tribes. Un grupo de 10 estudiantes,incluyendo la traductora, participan durante los dos meses de gira en Panamá. Una vez más Misión Extrema está en acción con los latinos y grupos indígenas.

OM Pakistan helps build the Church by leading young men and women into deeper faith through small groups.

In Japan, the birth and life of Jesus Christ is hardly known. For this reason, Christmas is a wonderful opportunity to point people to Him.

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This week SA Money Report tries to understand eThekwini's surprising plan for nuclear power, and whether the ANC's RET faction has a hand in things.

Shreyas Talpade suffered a heart attack in December last year

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Positioned near the side of her head, the eye provides an expansive field of vision, while a thick layer of protective blubber shields it from harm and maintains warmth.

Check here each week to keep up with the latest from John MacArthur's pulpit at Grace Community Church.

ferrard Thu, 02/18/2021 - 10:42

venkatp Thu, 09/30/2021 - 15:50

The attorney general has submitted documents to the Constitutional Court regarding the case in which former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra is accused of asserting influence over the Pheu Thai Party.

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The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City is TV’s best soap opera, week after week offering twists more shocking than secret twins and characters returning from the dead. That’s because it’s all real, happening in the most haunted suburb in the continental United States.

Where else do two women connect over knowing the long-lost birth father of one’s child? Is there another city where women squabble over body positivity in a parking lot off the side of a snowy mountain? Surely, there’s no other place on Earth where Lisa Barlow could come across anywhere near a voice of reason.

But that all happens here in Salt Lake City. Five episodes in, Season 5 has continued to evolve into the most captivating season in modern Real Housewives history, carried by the ever-changing bonds between our OGs and a team of wonderfully bizarre newbies.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

The Euclid space telescope's massive “cosmic atlas” promises to shed light on fundamental questions in physics and cosmology

A researcher who underwent dozens of brain scans discovered that the volume of her cerebral cortex was 1 per cent lower when she took hormonal contraceptives

As traditional web search falters, OpenAI offers an AI-based alternative.

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article on the use of “Big Data” to identify and solicit potential clinical trial participants. The premise is that large consumer data aggregators like Experian can target patients with certain diseases through correlations with non-health behavior. Examples given include “a preference for jazz” being associated with arthritis and “shopping online for clothes” being an indicator of obesity.

We've seen this story before.

In this way, allegedly, clinical trial patient recruitment companies can more narrowly target their solicitations* for patients to enroll in clinical trials.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I should mention that I was interviewed by the reporter of this article, although I am not quoted. My comments generally ran along three lines, none of which really fit in with the main storyline of the article:

1. I am highly skeptical that these analyses are actually effective at locating patients
   
2. These methods aren't really new – they’re the same tactics that direct marketers have been using for years
   
3. Most importantly, the clinical trials community can – and should – be moving towards open and collaborative patient engagement. Relying on tactics like consumer data snooping and telemarketing is an enormous step backwards.

The first point is this: certainly some diseases have correlates in the real world, but these correlates tend to be pretty weak, and are therefore unreliable predictors of disease. Maybe it’s true that those struggling with obesity tend to buy more clothes online (I don’t know if it’s true or not – honestly it sounds a bit more like an association built on easy stereotypes than on hard data). But many obese people will not shop online (they will want to be sure the clothes actually fit), and vast numbers of people with low or average BMIs will shop for clothes online.  So the consumer data will tend to have very low predictive value. The claims that liking jazz and owning cats are predictive of having arthritis are even more tenuous. These correlates are going to be several times weaker than basic demographic information like age and gender. And for more complex conditions, these associations fall apart.

Marketers claim to solve this by factoring a complex web of associations through a magical black box – th WSJ article mentions that they “applied a computed algorithm” to flag patients. Having seen behind the curtain on a few of these magic algorithms, I can confidently say that they are underwhelming in their sophistication. Hand-wavy references to Big Data and Algorithms are just the tools used to impress pharma clients. (The down side to that, of course, is that you can’t help but come across as big brotherish – see this coverage from Forbes for a taste of what happens when people accept these claims uncritically.)

But the effectiveness of these data slice-n-dicing activities is perhaps beside the point. They are really just a thin cover for old-fashioned boiler room tactics: direct mail and telemarketing. When I got my first introduction to direct marketing in the 90’s, it was the exact same program – get lead lists from big companies like Experian, then aggressively mail and call until you get a response.

The limited effectiveness and old-school aggressiveness of these programs comes is nicely illustrated in the article by one person’s experience:

Larna Godsey, of Wichita, Kan., says she received a dozen phone calls about a diabetes drug study over the past year from a company that didn't identify itself. Ms. Godsey, 63, doesn't suffer from the disease, but she has researched it on the Internet and donated to diabetes-related causes. "I don't know if it's just a coincidence or if they're somehow getting my information," says Ms. Godsey, who filed a complaint with the FTC this year.

The article notes that one recruitment company, Acurian, has been the subject of over 500 FTC complaints regarding its tactics. It’s clear that Big Data is just the latest buzzword lipstick on the telemarketing pig. And that’s the real shame of it.

We have arrived at an unprecedented opportunity for patients, researchers, and private industry to come together and discuss, as equals, research priorities and goals. Online patient communities like Inspire and PatientsLikeMe have created new mechanisms to share clinical trial opportunities and even create new studies. Dedicated disease advocates have jumped right into the world of clinical research, with groups like the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and Michael J. Fox Foundation no longer content with raising research funds, but actively leading the design and operations of new studies.

Some – not yet enough – pharmaceutical companies have embraced the opportunity to work more openly and honestly with patient groups. The scandal of stories like this is not the Wizard of Oz histrionics of secret computer algorithms, but that we as an industry continue to take the low road and resort to questionable boiler room tactics.

It’s past time for the entire patient recruitment industry to drop the sleaze and move into the 21st century. I would hope that patient groups and researchers will come together as well to vigorously oppose these kinds of tactics when they encounter them.

The columnist puts the spotlight on India’s star female wrestlers who have accused Wrestling Federation of India chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh of serial sexual harassment

Dec 3, 2022

Recent guest speaker at the Future of Diplomacy Project, Ricardo Zuniga, the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary and Special Envoy for the Northern Triangle in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs at the U.S. Department of State, was quoted in Folha de Sao Paulo describing Brazil as "a great multilateral actor and has a long legacy of involvement in peace processes, in the search for multilateral solutions to one of the most complex security problems."

Kala Gibson, Head of Business Banking at Fifth Third Bank, discusses the importance of small businesses to our economy and communities

When Donald Trump reenters the White House, he will be met with a newly Republican-controlled Senate, consolidating power in the hands of a party now dominated by supporters of Trump. We take a look at the results of down-ballot races for the Senate and House, and the possibilities for congressional opposition to Trump’s agenda with John Nichols, The Nation’s national affairs correspondent. Nichols notes that losing Democratic Senate candidates missed opportunities to highlight working-class voters and economic issues, likely to their detriment.

A researcher who underwent dozens of brain scans discovered that the volume of her cerebral cortex was 1 per cent lower when she took hormonal contraceptives

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