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The Benefits of a Dysfunctional Workplace

Nearly every office has its share of dysfunctional employees.

It is part of the corporate world and reflects society's variety of personalities not all of them van earrings copy ideal for working with other people. Organizations have always and will always have to accommodate the idea thief who takes other's inspiration, the backstabber, chronic complainer, chauvinist, adulterer, addict, the list goes on.

"Dysfunctional workplaces are not only common, they're universal," says Robert Giacalone, the chair of business ethics at the University of Denver. "There isn't a place to work in America that isn't dysfunctional."

Yet dysfunctional relationships can also have a strangely positive impact on work. Workers may rally around troubled colleagues. Even the sturm and drang of difficult interactions can spur creativity and higher productivity.

"While it's not the norm, sometimes when the right group of dysfunctional people come together their personalities gel and it just works," Giacalone says.

The new STARZ comedy "Blunt Talk" addresses, among other themes, off kilter office dynamics. Patrick Stewart plays Walter Blunt, a successful but self destructive British host of a cable news show. Blunt relies on a team of capable and highly tolerant producers, editors, a therapist and manservant to help him overcome bouts of excessive drinking, drug use and other excesses. In one episode, Executive Producer Rosalie Winter (played by Jacki Weaver)spoons Blunt on an air mattress in his office to calm him. Through it all, the team produces a news program van cleef earrings alhambra knock off that keeps fictional viewers returning.

To be sure, in many cases, dysfunction breeds an unproductive environment. However, sometimes the odd assortment of strong willed, difficult even troubled individuals can function at a higher level than most would expect. Giacalone says that unique work relationships exist in nearly every skyscraper and office complex, and that it's up to each organization to embrace their benefits. Here are four of the advantages:

1. A Boost of Confidence For The Quiet Employee

Dysfunctional environments can encourage shy employees to step forward. These are the type of productive individuals who may lack the confidence to speak out at meetings or when projects go awry. Or they may simply prefer working quietly in the background. A dysfunctional environment may embolden them to assume a larger, more vocal role in the group. In some instances, they may feel the need to counterweight boisterous or troubled colleagues. Their sense of duty to their organization trumps their sense of copy van cleef flower earrings decorum. They recognize that their more active participation is critical to success.

"Personalities can shift in a dysfunctional environment," Giacalone says, although he adds, "some for the good, some for the bad."

2. Increased Creativity

The same character or lack of that spurs people to behave badly also is frequently the source of innovation. The history of music, letters and art is filled with troubled souls and bad boys (and girls) who made beautiful works. Salinger and Hunter Thompson, and the painters Jackson Pollock and Caravaggio, a notorious brawler who according to legend murdered a man in a gambling dispute.

Assemble a group of zany people and you're likely to wind up with hyper creative brainstorming sessions along with any fisticuffs.

Giacalone says that a corollary to this theme: Dysfunctional environments aren't for everyone and may lead to turnover. But as some employees leave, new co workers bearing fresh ideas arrive.

"New employees bring in a wave of new concepts," Giacalone says. "Plus, new hires are usually upbeat and positive, which could improve the atmosphere and spark additional creativity."

3. Discomfort Encourages Focus

People who are uneasy around big personalities may often wind up focusing more on what they can control: their jobs. Giacalone says that this may be to avoid dealing with difficult situations or there may be a practical reason, namely that they want to build their portfolio so they can find a more suitable environment elsewhere.

4. A More Relaxed Environment

In a dysfunctional office, the environment may be more freewheeling. There may be fewer rules, and the ones that exist may be less stringently enforced.

Some organizations may fear a breakdown in discipline but the upside is a relaxed atmosphere more conducive to innovation and productivity provided, as Giacalone says, there is some balance and structure. That is, there have to be some rules.

"Dysfunction works on a spectrum," Giacalone says. "Most people can deal with light dysfunction, but when you start getting into toxic environments where malicious rumors are spread or people are sabotaging projects, that's a whole other ordeal."

The new STARZ Original Series "Blunt Talk" created by Jonathan Ames and Executive Produced by Seth MacFarlane stars Patrick Stewart as a British import intent on conquering the world of American cable news. Don't miss the premiere of the half hour scripted comedy, Saturday, August 22 at 9P only on STARZ
loersertydass Sep 9 '17
Vauxhall workers wait for Peugeot buyout

Representatives from four car companies will gather in the French capital today to announce one of the most significant deals in the recent history of European car making.

The meeting will be hosted by the French giant PSA, which owns Peugeot and Citroen, at is headquarters in Avenue de la Grande Arm there with the French bosses will be senior management from General Motors, Opel and Vauxhall, three companies that are about to be divided from each other.

Once the papers are signed and the handshakes exchanged, Opel and Vauxhall will become part of PSA which will, at a stroke, become the second biggest carmaker in Europe.

It will take over Opel factories across Europe, notably in Germany, and also inherit Vauxhall's two big plants in Britain.

And General Motors (GM) will have got rid of the companies that have been costing it billions in recent years. Both sides, you suspect, will think they've played their hand well.

But for 4,500 Vauxhall workers in Britain, this will be an announcement that brings a slew of questions over the future.

The company has two big plants in this country in Ellesmere Port, where the Astra is made, and in Luton, home of the Vivaro van and both have contracts to continue production for years to come.

Under the current agreements, the Astra would be built replica birkin handbags until at least 2021 while the Vivaro's production run is scheduled to go on until 2025.

The natural question for every Vauxhall worker to ask is: "What happens next?"

A week ago, PSA boss Carlos Tavares met with Len McCluskey, the leader of the Unite union, to offer some calming words.

Mr Tavares gave no public comment on the meeting, but Mr McCluskey said he had received "assurances that current production commitments would be met".

Later, the Business Secretary Greg Clark said he had found Mr Tavares "heartening" and was also told that "commitments to the plants would be honoured".

This deal has only been in the public eye for a matter of weeks, but industry insiders have told Sky News that it has been considered for years, and actively pursued for around 12 months.

Ever since PSA and GM started an active alliance in 2012, there have been suggestions of putting that relationship on a more formal footing, but those ideas were interrupted by PSA's sudden, and dramatic, financial crisis.

Only a bailout, funded by the French government and the Chinese company Dongfeng, kept PSA in one piece.

In came Mr Tavares as the new leader with new ideas.

He had a plan to recreate the company with a more aggressive, global outlook. And one of his long standing plans was to buy Opel.

Mr Tavares believes that there is a ceiling to the number of people prepared to buy a French car.

But he is convinced that Opel will bring a German cachet to the company, expanding its reach not just in Europe, but around the world.

The question is whether he is quite fake hermes bag as motivated by owning Vauxhall as he is by buying Opel.

There is probably no easy answer to that if Mr Tavares wants to create global brands, he may feel baffled by a badge such as Vauxhall, which only exists in the UK.

But he will be more impressed, and more interested, in the long standing success of both the Ellesmere Port and Luton plants two of the most efficient car factories in Europe.

It would be a great surprise were he to renege on either of those productions deals, which means he imitiaton hermes bag has years to decide fashion cheap hermes handbags if he wants to maintain a presence in the UK.

As for GM well it won't shed too many tears about this deal.

As well as getting a great pile of money informed sources have told Sky News that PSA will pay around ( for the two companies it will also rid itself of a distant division that has consistently lost money.
Victoria novelist Tricia Dower explores sorrows of marriage

By Tricia DowerThe phrase "The Marriage Plot," if you are a graduate student in English literature, will remind you of Jane Austen and other 18th and 19th century novelists whose stories turned on the misunderstandings and obstacles between a woman and the man who courts her. (Spoiler alert. No matter how fierce the misunderstandings or daunting the obstacles, the marriage is usually represented as the happy ending of these tales.) Austen may be the quintessential mistress of the marriage plot, and is certainly one of its most accomplished and witty champions.

"The marriage plot" is a term of art in literary criticism that refers to the many tales of middle class courtship and its discontents that filled bookshelves and reading tables during the long 19th century, when the novel was as much a central figure in mass culture as Netflix or HBO are now.

But since the rise of second wave feminism in the middle of the 20th century, another body of literature has emerged which could also be gathered under the rubric of "The Marriage Plot." The "plot" in this group of novels and polemics is conspiratorial, not narrative, and it references the many ways that marriage under patriarchy is a rigged game designed to hold women and children under the clammy, often clumsy and always oppressive dominance of husbands and fathers.

Some of the most powerful and eloquent Canadian novelists of the 20th and 21st century belong to this tradition, including Margaret Atwood, Margaret Lawrence and Ethel Wilson.

This impressive new book is the second volume in a planned trilogy that began with Dower's first novel, Stony River, in 2008. That book, in turn, elaborates and extends one of the short stories from her first book length publication, the story collection Silent Girl.

Dower, who came to fiction in mid life after an early retirement from a corporate career, is clearly at work here on a complex weave of interconnected narrative that follows her protagonist, Linda Wise from a childhood in New Jersey through a coming of age narrative that strips away the '50s illusions of untroubled suburban life to reveal some of the horrors beneath the surface, including a young woman held as a sex slave in a neighbour's house, a knife wielding attacker and the lurid local gossip that blames and shames the victims. But Dower, with a keen eye for period detail, especially clothing and pop music, and a gift for creating believable characters with distinctive voices, insists on the human particularity of her characters.

Although her characters illustrate some of the iconic moments experienced by an American generation, including the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, draft resistance, emerging feminism and all the bewildering and thrilling chaos of the '60s, they are never simply vehicles for abstract politics or cultural commentary. They are fully realized characters who evoke genuine empathy in the reader.

In the trilogy's imitiaton hermes bag next instalment, Becoming Lin, the protagonist experiences a disillusioning marriage to an idealistic young husband who turns out to be more dedicated to the freedom of distant others than that of his own wife.

Like so many women of her generation, Linda Wise soon begins to understand the constraints imposed by sexism (a term that does not appear in the book itself) at home, at work and in the church, and begins to fight back

Moving, well crafted and thoughtful, Becoming Lin is a novel of ideas and of politics in the very best sense. Dower shows us the tectonic shifts that undergird a culture in transition while respecting and bringing to life the fine grain human details of the characters living out their own poignant stories on that shifting ground.

By the end of the novel, Linda Wise has become Lin, and is well on her way to an adult, autonomous identity, the one thing the culture surrounding her was designed to make impossible. She has begun to come to terms with her difficult past and has discovered the healing powers of female friendship. And all of this is accomplished without any of the slogan mongering and cardboard characters that mar too many earnest attempts at political fiction.

Readers who enjoyed Dower's earlier work will welcome this latest offering, and first time readers are in for a genuine, pleasurable discovery.

Tom Sandborn lives and writes in Vancouver. He is grateful to the feminists of his generation for their challenge and instruction.

A family affair: St Viateur Bagel celebrates 60 yearsBagels are the great replica birkin handbags equalizer. Everybody eats them, everybody loves them and everybody is invited to the bagel factory's block party on Sunday.

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Vaughn Palmer: Vote verdict in Comox will clear political pictureTuesday saw the NDP lead trimmed to 12, then the Liberals pulled ahead by three and, as counting ended.

Daphne Bramham: Preserving Chinatown should be a local and national priorityGreat cities have texture. They have buildings, places and communities that reflect their unique character.

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Reuters journalists and civilians gunned down

The Americans later discovered two children in the van had been injured. Reuters photographer Namir Noor Eldeen, 22, was also killed. The Reuters men were hit because their cameras were mistakenly identified as guns.

David Schlesinger, Reuters' editor van cleef and arpels pendant replica in chief, said the deaths were 'tragic and emblematic of the extreme dangers that exist in covering war zones'.

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loersertydass Sep 9 '17
The impact of sleep deprivation on food desire in the human brain

AbstractEpidemiological evidence supports a link between sleep loss and obesity. However, the detrimental impact of sleep deprivation on central brain mechanisms governing appetitive food desire remains unknown. Here we report that sleep deprivation significantly decreases activity in appetitive evaluation regions within the human frontal cortex and insular cortex during food desirability choices, combined with a converse amplification of activity within the amygdala. Moreover, this bi directional change in the profile of brain activity is further associated with a significant increase in the desire for weight gain promoting high calorie foods following sleep deprivation, the extent of which is predicted by the subjective severity of sleep loss across participants. These findings provide an explanatory brain mechanism by which insufficient sleep may lead to the development/maintenance of obesity through diminished activity in higher order cortical evaluation regions, combined with excess subcortical limbic responsivity, resulting in the selection of foods most capable of triggering weight gain.IntroductionMounting epidemiological data implicate sleep loss as a risk factor for obesity in both children and adults worldwide1. Moreover, sleep deprivation alters appetite regulating hormones and increases caloric intake2,3. Given the continued decline in sleep duration in industrialized nations, mirrored by the steep rise in obesity in these same populations1, understanding the association between sleep loss and weight gain has become of paramount concern for global public health.Despite such population level as well as peripheral body evidence, the central brain mechanisms explaining the impact of sleep deprivation on appetitive food desire that can lead to weight gain remain unknown. Discovering such neural dysfunction may represent a critical component to understanding the link between sleep loss and obesity2. It would further contribute to a central nervous system explanation for the failure to appropriately regulate dietary intake and thus develop or maintain obesity under conditions of insufficient sleep. Using a food desire task in combination with human functional MRI (fMRI), here we sought to characterize the impact of sleep loss on the brain mechanisms governing appetitive food desire.The study focused a priori on a discreet set of well characterized cortical and subcortical regions of interest (ROIs) known to be instrumental in appetitive desire and food stimulus evaluation4. At the cortical level, the anterior insular cortex, lateral orbital frontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex, all have well established roles in signalling stimulus value across contexts, including appetitive choices, and in integrating food features that govern preferences (for example, the odour and flavour of food)5,6. Moreover, disrupted functional activity within frontal cortex, including these anterior cortical regions, is widely considered to be one hallmark of sleep loss7. At the subcortical level, both the amygdala and the ventral striatum have been strongly implicated in governing the motivation to eat4. The amygdala has consistently demonstrated responsivity to food stimuli, especially when the salience of food stimuli is high8. Activity in the ventral striatum in response to foods accurately predicts immediate food intake9, binge eating10 as well as real world weight gain11. Moreover, previous work has demonstrated that activity in the amygdala and striatum in other (non appetitive) affective tasks is elevated following sleep loss12,13.Building on this established literature, the current study sought to test two non mutually exclusive hypotheses regarding the central brain mechanisms that may lead to weight promoting food choices following sleep loss. One hypothesis is that failure to recruit cortical regions necessary for optimal evaluation of food stimuli (the anterior cingulate, the lateral orbitofrontal cortex and the anterior insula) leads to improper food choice selection (that is, choosing items with greater weight gain potential). A second hypothesis is that excessive reactivity in two subcortical regions known to signal food salience and promote eating behaviour (the amygdala and the ventral striatum) may exaggerate food salience and motivated consumption for appetitive food stimuli, also leading to weight gain potential. The findings reported here demonstrate not only reduced recruitment of all three key cortical regions necessary for food stimulus evaluation but also amplified subcortical amygdala (yet not ventral striatal) reactivity under sleep deprivation. Such changes offer a novel explanatory brain mechanism by which insufficient sleep may lead to altered food choices and thus imitation van cleef and arpels pendant the development or maintenance of obesity.ResultsNeural responses to food desire under sleep deprivationCompared to the sleep rested state, sleep deprivation significantly diminished activity in all three cortical ROIs the anterior cingulate cortex (T=3.87; P=0.0008), lateral orbital frontal cortex (T=2.08; P=0.0491) and anterior insular cortex (T=2.63; P=0.0154) as food desire progressively increased (Fig. 1a). This was further confirmed by t tests of van cleef pendant necklace replica averaged parameter estimate activity extracted from 5 mm spheres placed around these literature based ROIs (see Methods). Note that the significance threshold is PT=3.08; P=0.0055), compared with the sleep rested state (Fig. 1b). In contrast, this profile of amplified subcortical reactivity was not observed in ventral striatum (T=0.28; P=0.7852), showing no significant difference between the sleep deprivation and rested conditions. Of note, the amygdala also survives correction for five comparisons if these regions are taken as a family of independent tests. Additionally, complimenting the average activity analysis approach, described above, all ROIs of significance also demonstrated clusters of activity that survived familywise error rate correction for multiple comparisons within these small volumes (PTable 1). For completeness, and as this is the first study to our knowledge to assess neural responses to food desire after sleep loss, Table 2 reports exploratory whole brain activation differences between sleep rested and deprived conditions (Pt tests). In summary, sleep deprivation diminished activity in an established set of cortical appetitive evaluation regions as food desire progressively increased, yet triggered a converse amplification in subcortical amygdala reactivity known to signal food salience in the context of appetitive choice8. Importantly, self reported hunger levels were no different between the sleep rested and sleep deprived conditions (P=0.28; see Fig. 2), indicating that differences in brain activity could not be explained on the basis of hunger differences alone. In addition, sleep deprivation resulted in a significant increase in amygdala reactivity to food desirability but no significant difference in ventral striatum reactivity (b). All parameter estimates are from a GLM with a parametric contrast of individual 'want' ratings from 23 participants. Whole brain analysis (above) are thresholded at PPt tests across 23 participants and PTable 2 reports whole brain activation differences between sleep rested and deprived conditions beyond our a priori ROIs (Pt tests). Hunger levels were significantly greater before the scan compared with study arrival (the evening before) in both groups (Pt tests across 23 participants).Behavioural changes in food desire under sleep deprivationComplimenting these changes in brain responsivity, we further examined whether sleep deprivation triggered an increase in desirability for food items carrying the greatest weight gain promoting potential; that is, high calorie food items. Relative to the sleep rested state, sleep deprivation resulted in a significant increase in the proportion of 'wanted' food items of high caloric content (T=2.21, P=0.04). In contrast, no corresponding differences between the sleep rested and sleep deprived states were observed for low calorie items (T=1.15, P=0.26; Fig. 3a). Calorie average increase. Additionally, the level of caloric content across food items significantly predicted the extent to which desirability ratings increased after sleep deprivation, such that the highest calorie foods accrued the largest increase in desirability ratings following sleep deprivation (Spearman's r=0.23, P=0.04). Further implicating an association with insufficient sleep, increasing perceived severity of sleep deprivation across individuals, indexed by self reported subjective sleepiness14, was positively and significantly correlated with the percentage of wanted high calorie foods in the sleep deprived state (Fig. 3b), and this correlation remained significant when controlling for body mass index (BMI) using linear regression (T=3.41, P=0.003). Confirming the specificity of this finding to the state of sleep deprivation, no such association between subjective sleepiness and percentage of wanted high calorie foods was observed in the sleep rested state (r=0.19; P=0.39). Additionally, BMI was not correlated with the percentage of high calorie choices in either the sleep rested or sleep deprived condition (r=0.23, P=0.30, and r=0.05, P=0.80, respectively), consistent with previous studies examining calories from snacks rather than meals15. Therefore, paralleling the observed change in the neural reactivity, sleep deprivation induced a concomitant behavioural profile of increased desire for weight gain promoting (high calorie) food choices, with inter individual differences in the magnitude of such a change in food choice behaviour being accounted for by the severity of perceived subjective sleepiness. High/low calorie items are based on the median split of calories per serving; wanted items were collapsed across 'somewhat' and 'strongly' wanted ratings (Pt test across 23 participants).DiscussionTaken together, these findings establish a disrupting impact of sleep deprivation that blunts activity in established appetitive evaluation regions5 within the human frontal and insular cortex during food desirability choices, yet a converse subcortical amplification of reactivity within the amygdala, known to code salience in the context of food decisions8. Furthermore, these neural changes were associated with a significant increase in appetitive desire for weight gain promoting (high calorie) food items following sleep loss, the magnitude of which was proportional to the subjective severity of sleep loss across participants. In addition, these changes occurred despite participants consuming more calories during the sleep deprivation session (provided in a controlled manner in order to offset any increased energy expenditure). Moreover, participants' self reported hunger levels were not different in the sleep rested and sleep deprivation session, suggesting that the condition of sleep loss, rather than metabolic need or hunger, acts as a primary factor influencing the observed changes.The characterization of these neural and behavioural changes following sleep loss may provide several explanatory insights into a central nervous system (brain) mechanism by which insufficient sleep leads to the development/maintenance of obesity.First, these data describe a profile of bi directional change in responsivity in appetitive relevant brain regions following sleep deprivation. All three cortical ROIs demonstrated activity reductions following sleep loss in response to increasing food desire, while one of the two subcortical target ROIs the amygdala, associated with salience signaling of food items expressed significant increases in response to food desirability. Interestingly, no significant differences in reactivity were observed in the classical reward region of the ventral striatum following sleep loss. It is important to note that although these brain areas do have specific and recognized functional roles in the context of appetitive food stimulus evaluation and choice, as we examined using the current task, these regions are not limited to performing such functions. For example, the anterior cingulate has been associated with conflict monitoring16 as well as autonomic (especially cardiovascular) regulation17; the orbital frontal cortex has been associated with inhibitory control18; the anterior insula has been associated with interoception19 and the amygdala has been associated with fear and arousal processing20. Although our interpretation of the impact of sleep loss on these regions is made within the context of appetitive food evaluation and choice, due to the nature of the task, they may nevertheless extend beyond appetitive processes, and include alterations in other functions such as those described above.Second, this collection of brain changes may not only help account for recognized shifts in dietary intake and altered food choices following insufficient sleep3 but further reconcile potentially dissonant previous findings. Prior reports have demonstrated that sleep restriction leads to increased caloric intake following sleep loss under non laboratory or 'free living' conditions (where food selection was not fixed)3, fitting with impoverished mechanisms of appetitive evaluation and choice regulated by the frontal lobe as well as heightened salience signaling within the amygdala. However, such altered food choices following sleep loss can also occur without any significant change in the ratings of the hedonic qualities of food pleasantness or food desire when smelling foods directly3, consistent with our observations of unaltered responding in this reward related region of ventral striatum. Furthermore, such a neural dissociation may additionally explain why some studies have failed to observe increases in caloric intake under sleep restriction when food choices are limited to small selection arrays and eating opportunities are fixed15,21, as increases in knock off van cleef and arpels alhambra pendant the motivated drive to eat in the absence of food choices has been primarily associated with activity in the ventral striatum (independent of the effects of sleep loss)9. Therefore, one plausible interpretation emerging from our data is that impoverished recruitment of cortical regions involved in appetitive choice selection following sleep loss, combined with enhanced responsivity from the amygdala, may result in improper valuation of food stimulus features, shifting behavioural choice selection to high calorie desirable items driven more so by salience, when food is available. The current neural observations would therefore predict that if a range of freely attainable food choices and eating opportunities are offered (as is ecologically the case in the majority of real world situations), then the effect of sleep deprivation would lead to a significant increase in food consumption choices considered non optimal in the context of obesity (that is, high calorie items).Third, and congruent with these predictions, these changes in neural reactivity to food desirability under sleep deprivation were additionally accompanied by a significant shift in preferences for food items carrying the highest caloric content. While a shift in food desire ratings was observed following sleep deprivation, the controlled eating schedule of the study precluded the ability to measure actual changes in caloric intake under ad libitum (rather than controlled) food availability. Interestingly, this alteration in food desire, coinciding with changes in brain activity, is consistent with previous behavioural findings describing increases in actual caloric intake following sleep loss when ad libitum food conditions are presented3,22 and increased cravings for higher caloric food categories (for example, sweet, salty and starchy foods)23. Given the established increase in energy needs induced by sleep deprivation22,24,25, the shift towards increased caloric intake and high calorie choice preferences identified in the current experiment, supports an adaptive homoeostatic function to recover such energy expended. However, a recent study that assessed ad libitum caloric intake as well as energy expenditure in sleep restricted humans reported increased calorie consumption beyond that which could be explained by expended energy or altered metabolic rate22. Moreover, this increase in calorie intake resulted in significant gains in weight. This finding leads to the hypothesis that changes in central nervous system disruption due to sleep loss, such as the alterations in appetitive brain signaling discovered in the current study, may trigger decisions that lead to increased calorie consumption in excess of energy expenditure changes, one consequence of which is weight gain. Consistent with this proposal, we additionally demonstrated that the magnitude of change (increase) in desire for high calorie foods was positively correlated with the perceived subjective severity of sleep deprivation across participants (indexed in the measure of sleepiness). These neural and behavioral data provide indirect support linking the state of sleep deprivation, and the subjective severity of this state, to altered internal homoeostasis following extended time awake, consistent with already established alterations in other primal homeostatic functions such as metabolic balance and temperature regulation following sleep loss26,27. This may reflect a progressive deterioration in the brain and body systems that regulate and maintain optimal energy balance, one expression of which is select cortical and subcortical dysfunction leading to increases in energy consumption through heightened desire for high calorie foods.Finally, and related to such whole organism considerations, elegant work has characterized peripheral body changes in appetite and metabolism regulating hormones following sleep loss that can lead to weight gain2,26,28. Our findings help establish a pattern of central nervous system dysfunction that stands alongside these peripheral body changes following sleep deprivation that, together, may converge on a common impact of sleep loss on weight gain potential. An important next step will be to examine whether these peripheral and central nervous system pathways of sleep loss dependent dysfunction actively interact, thus providing the first whole organism mechanistic account underlying a relationship between sleep loss and obesity.Beyond the implications stated above, it is important to note that the current findings should be considered in the context of several limitations. First, this study used a carefully controlled feeding schedule that was standardized across participants, which did not allow us to assess actual changes in calories consumed due to sleep deprivation (although, refer to the studies by Brondel et al.3 and Markwald et al.22) or to assess the relationship between neural responses and behavioural shifts in actual calories consumed. Furthermore, due to this limitation, it will be important for future studies to assess whether access to ad libitum high calorie food would normalize the observed brain responses under sleep deprivation potentially due to reduced motivational demands for high calorie items after consumption. Second, all scan sessions for this study took place during the morning. As both appetite and sleep patterns are significantly influenced by circadian phase29, future studies will be needed to examine the interactions of measurements at different circadian phases. Indeed, recent behavioural studies indicate that the largest impact of sleep loss on altered food choices occurs during the evening22,30, leading to the prediction that changes observed in the current study would be further exaggerated when repeated later in the day. BMI). An important future challenge will be to examine whether similar alterations caused by sleep deprivation are expressed across a broader age and body mass
loersertydass Sep 9 '17
Vernon ethics advisor says city misled him about ad

Former state Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp says he thought he was being interviewed (Los Angeles Times )

A prominent attorney who was hired by Vernon to do an independent audit of its scandal tainted City Hall criticized city officials for misleading him into cooperating with a promotional ad he thought was a newspaper story.

The ads, which appeared in several newspapers this week, show two photos of former state Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp and include an interview in which he discusses the report he was commissioned to write about the industrial city south of downtown Los Angeles.

Van de Kamp said the city arranged for him to be interviewed by a reporter. But officials did not tell him it was for a large, full color advertisement touting the virtues of the embattled city. He said he didn't know about the ad until he saw it in Pasadena Star News on Thursday morning.

"I'm not here toflak for the imitation hermes belt on sale city," Van de Kamp said. "We're out here trying to do a straightforward, objective job. So that format is a problem for me."

He said he was planning to talk about the issue Monday with City Administrator Mark Whitworth, who asked him to talk to the reporter.

"I'm going to tell him I felt that they did not give me the full picture when I was asked about doing an interview," said Van de Kamp, adding that he thought it was for "straight article" by the chain of newspapers that owns the Star News. The ads also ran in the Long Beach Press Telegram and the Daily News of Los brown hermes belt replica Angeles.

The advertisement features a smiling Van de Kamp overlooking a downtown Los Angeles vista. There is a question and answer segment as well as a section, in larger type, praising Vernon's economic value to the region, which Van de Kamp described as "a plum piece for Vernon."

Van de Kamp's involvement as an independent ethics advisor is a centerpiece of Vernon's campaign to stave off a bill by Assemblyman John Prez (D Los Angeles) to disincorporate the city. Perez has accused the largely industrial city, which has fewer than 100 residents, of being a fiefdom run for the economic benefit of a small cadre of officials. Vernon's former city administrator is currently facing public corruption charges. Five years ago, prosecutors filed public corruption charges against the longtime mayor and another city administrator.

Along with Van de Kamp, who was also the fake hermes mens belt Los Angeles County district attorney, the city has hired Robert Stern, former general counsel of the California Fair Political fake hermes brown belt whosale Practices Commission. They are being paid $550 and $450 an hour respectively by the city.

Fred MacFarlane, Vernon's media consultant, called the advertisements a mistake. He said that he had suggested Van de Kamp as a subject for an advertisement to representatives of the Los Angeles Newspaper Group publications. Vernon has purchased a series of advertisements from the group, some of which have already been published.

"I never should have suggested Mr. Van de Kamp, plain and simple. I cost my client, and did damage to Mr. Van de Kamp's reputation for having done so," MacFarlane said, adding that he planned to apologize.

He said that Van de Kamp and other attorneys completing the ethics review were working independently from city officials.

"We've dealt with Mr. Van de Kamp at an arm's length distance to ensure that his opinions aren't influenced by the city in any way," MacFarlane said. In an interview Friday, Barrera said that he never identified himself as a reporter to Van De Kamp, and that he assumed that everything had been explained to him prior to the call. "The miscommunication certainly wasn't on my end," he said.

Afterward, Van de Kamp said he mentioned the interview during a conference call with his team of Vernon ethics advisors. One of them, Cynthia Kurtz president and chief executive officer of the San Gabriel Valley Economic Partnership said that she noticed Vernon had advertising contracts with the newspaper chain.

The next day, he saw the ad, which took up nearly two full pages.

"I thought, 'Good grief,' " he said. "I saw the print and thought, 'That doesn't look like a regular article.' "

Van de Kamp said he is not reconsidering his work for the city. He said he expected some bumps in the road, adding that he feels Whitworth really wants to "do the right thing" as far as making positive changes in Vernon.
video shoots for feminist

In most parts of the pop landscape, female artists routinely capitalize on the mainstream obsession with sex and sexuality. Performers like Beyonc, Nicki Minaj, Katie Perry, hermes brown belt imitation and Lana del Rey all use sex, and the sexualization of the female body, as a selling point. All of them of course take crap for it; they often accused of being only talentless bodies rather than musicians, or of damaging women, or of being immoral. The fact that pop music has to be sexualizedlimits their options and robs them of respect. But, at least as long as they conform to particular beauty standards, it doesn stop them from performing.

Country music, though, is different. While still reticent by the standards of a Nicki Minaj, perhaps, bands like Florida Georgia Line stock their videos with wall to wall gyrating women in bikinis and cut off shorts, but that obsession with female bodies hasn translated into opportunities (however limited) for female artists. But in country, the anonymous video honeys in the cut off shorts are window dressing. In that video, a trio of scantily clad guys pour water over themselves and eat strawberries in slow motion, gender swapping and mocking standard bro country tropes. The song hit number one on the country fake hermes mens belt charts a rare success these days for female performers. Miranda Lambert seems to have been watching; her new single Red Wagon (written by Audra Mae) is also, arguably, a response to bro country. But where Maddie and Tae engaged in explicit parody, Lambert video is more complicated and more ambivalent.

Maddie and Tae are out to show how stupid it is to treat people as objects; they criticizing the sexism and the cheesy sexuality of bro country tropes. Lambert thinks the tropes are funny, too but she also wants to embrace them as a way to be sexy and sexual herself.

The plot of Red Wagon involves Lambert pulling into a motel off the dusty interstate, but the real point is to watch her strut about in various outfits, including (inevitably) cut off shorts and a very red vintage swimsuit. Lambert enjoys being a sexual object in the video, Hermes replica belt paris teasingly withholding and manipulating her various viewers, on screen and at home. can ride in my little red wagon / the front seat broken and the axle draggin she coos as she bats her eyes flirtatiously at the desk clerk in order to get him to bring her foofy little lap dog into the hotel.

But while she enjoys being the bro country object, she also the bro country objectifier. The steamiest moment in the video is when Lambert passes a maid in the hallway. Breathing Ahhhh! in a Donna Summers vein, she scopes the other woman out and is blatantly scoped out in return. Women in videos are not just objects of male desire, but objects of female desire as well. And if that the case, then women are not just objects, but are also objectifiers; not just the looked at and sung about, but also the singers looking. Once we established that, Lambert can head out to the pool, where she and a shirtless, ab tastic pool boy get to exchange significant glances, too.

The Vegas rock music, complete with a mimed air guitar solo, harks back to Van Halen lines like, just tryin to slow this rollin stone, but I onto you babe, rival David Lee Roth in their lusty vaudeville insouciance (albeit with more of a twang.) play guitar and I go on the road and I do all the shit you wanna do, Lambert proclaims in a quasi spoken rap. Women can be sexual objects and stars and express sexual desire all at the same time in hip hop and rock, and Lambert determined to do it all in country as well. ain my fault when I walkin jaws drop except, of course, she careful to let you know that it is.

For all her swagger, though, Lambert distaff take on bro country continues to show some inevitable signs of strain. After passing Lambert, the maid (played by a woman of color) heads into a room to clean, boogieing sensually and occasionally checking herself out in the mirror. There no twerking, sure, but there is enough rump shaking to suggest that Lambert is well aware of the connection between bro country brand of objectification and its precedents in hip hop. To get purchase as an objectifier, Lambert has to have that woman of color show up to be an object. Bros can just show up and enjoy the sights, but Lambert has to leverage race and class in order to give herself the same privilege (after all, the woman playing the maid is, as an actor on this video shoot, Lambert employee in real life, too).

Bro country artists enjoy their polyamorous videos with little evidence of guilt; the more girls, the better. But at Lambert video end, she walks away wearing a wide belt emblazoned with Shelton reminding the pool boy, and all you video watchers, that she the wife of country star Blake Shelton, and that you can look but not touch. For all the flirtation, Lambert still wants you to know that her sexuality is carefully circumscribed.

Maybe at some point Lambert will do her own take on her idol Beyonc with some explicit window steaming marital sex. For the moment, though, it clear why Lambert is the only woman (other than Taylor Swift, who fled Nashville for New York and the pop world) who can put singles on the country chart with any consistency. Red Wagon is sexy, smart and audacious. In its reticences and negotiations, though, it also a reminder that country, more than other pop genres, continues to be uncomfortable with women expressing desire. As long as that the case, country is going to be a male dominated genre, even if, as Lambert shows, women can, when given the chance, do bro country style hermes men belt replica objectification better than the guys ever could.
Sir Van Morrison overjoyed at prlee bracelet replica receiving knighthood

During his career, he has wowed audiences at a host of grand venues van cleef perlee clover bracelet ranging from the Royal Albert Hall to the Hollywood Bowl, but admitted his preference was for the more intimate gigs.

"I enjoy van cleef and arpels perlee copy bracelet that the most playing a small club that's really what I do," he said.

"The bigger places you have to do for financial survival reasons, let me put it that way, but the bigger places enable me to play small clubs occasionally."

The 70 year old said he had a brief chat with Prince Charles as he received his award and was asked about his future plans.

"He was just saying, was I still writing? And he said: 'You're not going to retire any time soon?' And I said: 'No, I'm not, I'm going to keep it going while I can'."

Asked if fans could still call him Van The Man now that he has a knighthood, the singer laughed and said "Well, take your pick".

Morrison grew up in Belfast, where his father, a shipyard worker, was said to have had one of the best record collections in the city.

Common OneAstral Weeks, which regularly features in critics' lists of all time great albums, was recorded in three days and set the template for the rest of his career with its mix of poetic lyrics, often inspired by his native country, jazz improvisation, Celtic folk and soulful vocals.

But the singer said his favourite album was the 1980 production Common One.

"It's a mixture of different components a bit of funk, blues, gospel it's quite a fusion, and plus I seemed to tap into something, and that particular band seemed to have a rapport," he added.
loersertydass Sep 9 '17
shale companies to boost spending as banks loosen purse strings

North America focused oil and gas producers are expected to increase capital investments by 30 percent in 2017, according to analysts at Raymond James.

A number of shale producers including Pioneer Natural Resources Co, Diamondback Energy Inc and RSP Permian Inc have forecast bigger budgets and increased output for next year.

Every six months, oil and gas producers negotiate credit with banks based on the value of reserves in the ground. Through the latest round of talks in the fall, 34 companies had their available credit lines raised an average of about 5 percent, or more than $1.3 billion, according to data compiled by Reuters.

The combined bank credit for the companies stood at $30.3 billion, compared with $28.9 billion at the end of spring 2016.

The industry's available credit had been cut by 40 percent over the past three reviews as it contended van cleef perlee clover bracelet with a two year price rout.

"The 'animal spirits,' seem to be coming back to the exploration and production market, albeit slowly," said Reorg Research analyst Kyle Owusu, referring to the human emotion that drives confidence.

Of the 34 companies, 12 saw increases of 5 to 90 percent, while 10 companies had their borrowing bases cut in the latest round, and 12 companies' credit limits were left unchanged.

In addition to the increased borrowing base, lenders have extended maturities on loans.

Oil prices have risen by more than 45 percent this year, increasing the value of oil and gas reserves against which loans are decided. And a number of companies have seen their eligible proved reserves rise, in part due to acquisitions. Energy Department. But shale output could increase from 200,000 to 500,000 bpd in the coming year, analysts said.

Shale companies generally use revolving credit to finance day to day operations. But with tight credit over the past two years, they have relied on asset sales and stock issuance to fund routine operations, leaving less money for exploration and production.

With borrowing bases raised, companies do not have to turn to capital markets to finance routine operations.

They are expanding reserves with acreage purchases, particularly in prolific fields such as the Permian Basin van cleef and arpels perlee clover bracelet replica in Texas. That in turn helps them negotiate higher borrowing bases with their lenders.

With expanded credit lines, companies can fund acquisitions and new exploration. Diamondback's borrowing base rose to $1 billion from $700 billion. Its Viper Energy Partners LP unit had its credit limit boosted to $275 million from $175 million.

"I think we (will) continue to use that borrowing base as a way to fund acquisitions," Kaes Van't Hof, a Diamondback executive, said on a November earnings call.

Some companies are going another route, selling more shares. Carrizo Oil Gas Inc kept its current credit line at $600 million and sold $225 million in stock van cleef perlee bracelet price in October to fund more land purchases.

Other companies are struggling to make up for so called borrowing base "deficiencies," which arise when their outstanding loans exceed its borrowing base.

After the round of borrowing base redeterminations last spring at least six companies had overdrawn borrowing bases. Four of them have since filed for bankruptcy.
loersertydass Sep 9 '17
Victor Pasmore

Known first for his very lyrical and poetic landscapes and figure pictures, his conversion to abstract art in 1948 was one of the most dramatic events in post war British art and, to begin with, caused great dismay to many fashion cheap hermes handbags of his admirers; but he went on to become a major figure in the international abstract movement. Characteristic of all his work was a natural gift for lyrical expression on the one hand and a tendency to theorise about the nature and purpose of painting on the other.

He was born in Chelsham, Surrey in 1908, the son of a distinguished doctor, and began to show exceptional talent for painting while still a pupil at Harrow (experimenting at that time with a form of Impressionism). However, the sudden death of his father in 1927 obliged him to earn his own living, and on leaving school he worked for over ten years as a clerk in the Public Health Department at LCC County Hall, and was only able to paint in his spare time. He attended evening classes at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, visited the Tate and exhibitions in dealers' galleries, and began to familiarise himself with 20th century art, especially the work of Braque, Picasso, Matisse and Bonnard, sometimes even painting with reproductions of their works spread out on the floor around him. He became friendly with a number of young painters, including William Coldstream and Claude Rogers, and in 1937 collaborated with Coldstream and Rogers in opening a School of Drawing and Painting first in Fitzroy Street and then in the Euston Road which became known as the Euston Road School.

Having become dissatisfied with his own attempts at a sort of Fauvism, he joined with Coldstream to pioneer a return to naturalism, and the pupils were taught to paint from the model without recourse to stylisation. Sickert, Degas, Cezanne (but not the late Cezanne) and Bonnard were the recommended exemplars. Then in 1938 the patronage of Sir Kenneth Clark enabled him to give up his job at County Hall, and devote his whole time to painting and teaching.

The Euston Road School closed soon after the outbreak of war, and in 1940 Pasmore married Wendy Blood, herself a painter. She served as model for a number of pictures of this period, which in their delicacy and sense of dreamy reverie reflect the happiness of their life together. After a brief spell in the Army in 1941 42, he suddenly deserted and went home to paint. He was put in prison and only released through the intervention of Coldstream and Sir Kenneth Clark. Out of prison, out of the Army, and living at Chiswick by the Thames and a little later at nearby Hammersmith Terrace, he embarked on a series of views of the river, somewhat in the spirit of Whistler and Turner.

While reading the writings of the great Post Impressionist painters such as Cezanne, Gauguin and Van Gogh, he was interested to note that some of the ideas they expressed were far in advance of any of their paintings ("Colouristic painting is entering a musical phase", wrote Gauguin, for instance), and decided to follow up the implications of these ideas. His later Hammersmith paintings the view of Thames side gardens in mist or under snow, the figure pictures and still lives were made as a systematic exploration of Post Impressionism from Cezanne to Seurat including shifting viewpoints and the use of pointillist dots. These experiments reached their peak after his move to Blackheath in 1947, when he began to introduce a few shapes which were completely abstract and subject nature to arbitrary patterning and stylisation.

Feeling that he had reached a dead end and that his paintings were becoming neither one thing nor the other, he decided in 1948 to make a fresh start with abstract art, and to explore all its possibilities in a replica hermes handbags outlet completely scientific way, finding out what happened when one started with a square or a spiral and so on. He read the writings of Kandinsky, Mondrian, Arp and the other pioneers of abstract art, but was entirely uninfluenced by the post war Parisian and American abstract movements, which were still imitiaton hermes bag unknown in Britain at the time. His example was followed by a small group of artists who were pupils or friends of his, such as Kenneth Martin, Adrian Heath, Terry Frost and Anthony Hill. Some of these artists were later to become, like him, the nucleus of a British Constructivist movement.

Pasmore's earliest abstract paintings were very painterly and (except for the spiral compositions) rich and glowing in colour, and in some works the square and spiral motifs were still deliberately used to evoke an impression of landscape with a horizon line. However, before long this illusionistic treatment of space began to disturb him, and in 1951, the same year as his spiral mural on the outside wall of the Regatta Restaurant at the Festival of Britain, he decided to give up painting entirely, at any rate for the time being, and concentrate on making reliefs. The earliest of these were made out of painted plywood and had a painterly, hand made character, but he soon went on to make ones which projected both forwards and to the sides, and which incorporated sheets of transparent perspex: works with the impersonal finish and precision of machine production.

One of the effects of this development was that it brought his works into close relation with modern architecture. In 1955, soon after starting to teach at Newcastle (as Master of Painting at King's College, Durham University, from 1954 to 1961), he was appointed consultant architectural designer to nearby Peterlee, to collaborate with two young architects on the design of the south west area of the New Town. Their work there and even the town plans replica birkin handbags bears the strong imprint of Pasmore and is related to his paintings and reliefs. In its elegance of design, human scale, and integration of buildings with the landscape, it still ranks as one of the most successful architectural developments of the period.

He began to make a few paintings again towards the end of the 1950s, experimenting at first with different types of "basic" form in a rather bare, austere way, but did not become fully involved with painting again until about 1964 65 (the year of his large retrospective at the Tate). It was only after his purchase of a house and studio in Malta in 1966 67 that his paintings became fully liberated once more, in the glowing Mediterranean light. Working with ever increasing freedom, pouring and spraying paint, using a range of gorgeous colours, adding black lines and marks of an almost oriental refinement, he recaptured all the lyricism of his early period. And he continued working at painting and prints, right up to the time of his death.

Pasmore was a man of great elegance and charm, who could also be extremely obstinate. But without an element of cussedness it is hardly likely he could have achieved so much.

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