To stay up to date you can also follow on Mastodon.

🔗 Medicine 🔗 Death 🔗 Medicine/Society and Medicine

"Daughter from California" syndrome is a phrase used in the medical profession to describe a situation in which a long-lost relative arrives at the hospital at which a dying elderly relative is being treated, and insists that the medical team pursue aggressive measures to prolong the patient's life, or otherwise challenges the care the patient is being given. In his 2015 book The Conversation: A Revolutionary Plan for End-of-Life Care, American doctor Angelo Volandes ascribes this to "guilt and denial," "not necessarily what is best for the patient."

The "daughter from California" is often described as angry, articulate and informed.

Medical professionals say that because the "daughter from California" has been absent from the life and care of the elderly patient, they are frequently surprised by the scale of the patient's deterioration, and may have unrealistic expectations about what is medically feasible. They may feel guilty about having been absent, and may therefore feel motivated to reassert their role as an involved caregiver.

The phrase was first documented by a collective of gerontologists in a 1991 case report published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, titled "Decision Making in the Incompetent Elderly: 'The Daughter from California Syndrome'". In the paper, Molloy and colleagues presented strategies intended to help medical staff deal with the difficult family members of mentally incompetent patients.

In California, the "daughter from California" is known as the "daughter from New York".

🔗 Medicine 🔗 Ageing and culture

Old person smell is the characteristic odor of elderly humans. Much like many animal species, human odor undergoes distinct stages based on chemical changes initiated through the aging process. Research suggests that this enables humans to determine the suitability of potential partners based on age, in addition to other factors.

One study suggested that old person smell may be the result of 2-nonenal, an unsaturated aldehyde which is associated with human body odor alterations during aging; however, there are other hypotheses. Another study failed to detect 2-nonenal at all, but found significantly increased concentrations of benzothiazole, dimethylsulphone, and nonanal on older subjects.

In 2012 the Monell Chemical Senses Center published a press release claiming that the human ability to identify information such as age, illness, and genetic suitability from odor is responsible for the distinctive "old man smell". Sensory neuroscientist Johan Lundström stated, "Elderly people have a discernible underarm odor that younger people consider to be fairly neutral and not very unpleasant."

Old person smell is known as kareishū (加齢臭) in Japan, where much social value is placed on personal grooming, and specific upmarket odor-eliminating soaps are targeted at more elderly consumers.

🔗 Mathematics 🔗 Statistics

In probability theory and intertemporal portfolio choice, the Kelly criterion (or Kelly strategy or Kelly bet), also known as the scientific gambling method, is a formula for bet sizing that leads almost surely to higher wealth compared to any other strategy in the long run (i.e. approaching the limit as the number of bets goes to infinity). The Kelly bet size is found by maximizing the expected value of the logarithm of wealth, which is equivalent to maximizing the expected geometric growth rate. The Kelly Criterion is to bet a predetermined fraction of assets, and it can seem counterintuitive. It was described by J. L. Kelly Jr, a researcher at Bell Labs, in 1956.

For an even money bet, the Kelly criterion computes the wager size percentage by multiplying the percent chance to win by two, then subtracting one-hundred percent. So, for a bet with a 70% chance to win the optimal wager size is 40% of available funds.

The practical use of the formula has been demonstrated for gambling and the same idea was used to explain diversification in investment management. In the 2000s, Kelly-style analysis became a part of mainstream investment theory and the claim has been made that well-known successful investors including Warren Buffett and Bill Gross use Kelly methods. William Poundstone wrote an extensive popular account of the history of Kelly betting.

🔗 Israel 🔗 Apps

Yo is a social mobile application for iOS, Android, and formerly also Windows Phone. Initially, the application's only function was to send the user's friends the word "yo" as a text and audio notification, but it has since been updated to enable users to attach links and location to their "Yo"s.

🔗 Economics 🔗 Business

The principal–agent problem, in political science, supply chain management and economics (also known as agency dilemma or the agency problem) occurs when one person or entity (the "agent"), is able to make decisions and/or take actions on behalf of, or that impact, another person or entity: the "principal". This dilemma exists in circumstances where agents are motivated to act in their own best interests, which are contrary to those of their principals, and is an example of moral hazard. Issues also arise when companies have an incentive to become increasingly deferential to management that have ownership stakes. As shareholders are dis-incentived to intervene, there are fewer checks on management. Issues can also arise among different types of management.

Common examples of this relationship include corporate management (agent) and shareholders (principal), elected officials (agent) and citizens (principal), or brokers (agent) and markets (buyers and sellers, principals). Consider a legal client (the principal) wondering whether their lawyer (the agent) is recommending protracted legal proceedings because it is truly necessary for the client's well-being, or because it will generate income for the lawyer. In fact the problem can arise in almost any context where one party is being paid by another to do something where the agent has a small or nonexistent share in the outcome, whether in formal employment or a negotiated deal such as paying for household jobs or car repairs.

The principal–agent problem typically arises where the two parties have different interests and asymmetric information (the agent having more information), such that the principal cannot directly ensure that the agent is always acting in their (the principal's) best interest, particularly when activities that are useful to the principal are costly to the agent, and where elements of what the agent does are costly for the principal to observe (see moral hazard and conflict of interest). Often, the principal may be sufficiently concerned at the possibility of being exploited by the agent that they choose not to enter into the transaction at all, when it would have been mutually beneficial: a suboptimal outcome that can lower welfare overall. The deviation from the principal's interest by the agent is called "agency costs".

The agency problem can be intensified when an agent acts on behalf of multiple principals (see multiple principal problem). When one agent acts on behalf of multiple principals, the multiple principals have to agree on the agent's objectives, but face a collective action problem in governance, as individual principals may lobby the agent or otherwise act in their individual interests rather than in the collective interest of all principals. As a result, there may be free-riding in steering and monitoring, duplicate steering and monitoring, or conflict between principals, all leading to high autonomy for the agent. The multiple principal problem is particularly serious in the public sector, where multiple principals are common and both efficiency and democratic accountability are undermined in the absence of salient governance. This problem may occur, for example, in the governance of the executive power, ministries, agencies, intermunicipal cooperation, public-private partnerships, and firms with multiple shareholders.

The relationships between investment managers and corporate management is an especially common example of the principal–agent relationship. There are several drivers of agency problems that affect investment managers of index funds and mutual funds include. First, investment managers receive a fraction of the benefits resulting from stewardship activities while having to handle all the costs. competition among investment managers is can also contribute to agency problems.And, lastly, another driver of agency problems is that investment managers can be heavily influenced by private incentives provided by the managers of corporations.

Various mechanisms may be used to align the interests of the agent with those of the principal. In employment, employers (principal) may use piece rates/commissions, profit sharing, efficiency wages, performance measurement (including financial statements), the agent posting a bond, or the threat of termination of employment to align worker interests with their own.

🔗 Germany 🔗 Measurement

The obsolete units of measurement of German-speaking countries consist of a variety of units, with varying local standard definitions. Some of these units are still used in everyday speech and even in stores and on street markets as shorthand for similar amounts in the metric system. For example, some customers ask for one pound (ein Pfund) of something when they want 500 grams.

The metric system became compulsory on 1 January 1872, in Germany and on 1 January 1876, in Austria.

Some obsolete German units have names similar to units that were traditionally used in other countries, and that are still used in the United Kingdom (imperial units) and the United States (United States customary units).

🔗 International relations 🔗 Espionage 🔗 Soviet Union 🔗 Russia 🔗 Russia/history of Russia 🔗 English Language

In political jargon, a useful idiot is a derogatory term for a person perceived as propagandizing for a cause without fully comprehending the cause's goals, and who is cynically used by the cause's leaders. The term was originally used during the Cold War to describe non-communists regarded as susceptible to communist propaganda and manipulation. The term has often been attributed to Vladimir Lenin, but this attribution is unsubstantiated.

🔗 Mathematics 🔗 Archaeology

The Ishango bone is a bone tool and possible mathematical object, dated to the Upper Paleolithic era. It is a dark brown length of bone, the fibula of a baboon, with a sharp piece of quartz affixed to one end, perhaps for engraving. It is thought by some to be a tally stick, as it has a series of what has been interpreted as tally marks carved in three columns running the length of the tool, though it has also been suggested that the scratches might have been to create a better grip on the handle or for some other non-mathematical reason. Others argue that the marks on the object are non-random and that it was likely a kind of counting tool and used to perform simple mathematical procedures.

🔗 Computer Security 🔗 Computer Security/Computing

Zombie Zero is an attack vector where a cyber attacker utilized malware that was clandestinely embedded in new barcode readers which were manufactured overseas.

It remains unknown if this attack was promulgated by organized crime or a nation state. Clearly there was significant planning and investment in order to design the malware, and then embed it into the hardware within the barcode scanner. Internet of things (IoT) devices may be similarly preinstalled with malware that can capture the network passwords and then open a backdoor to attackers. Given the high volume of these devices manufactured overseas high caution is to be exercised before placing these devices on corporate or government networks.

🔗 Computing 🔗 Books

EPUB is an e-book file format that uses the ".epub" file extension. The term is short for electronic publication and is sometimes styled ePub. EPUB is supported by many e-readers, and compatible software is available for most smartphones, tablets, and computers. EPUB is a technical standard published by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF). It became an official standard of the IDPF in September 2007, superseding the older Open eBook standard.

The Book Industry Study Group endorses EPUB 3 as the format of choice for packaging content and has stated that the global book publishing industry should rally around a single standard. The EPUB format is implemented as an archive file consisting of XHTML files carrying the content, along with images and other supporting files. EPUB is the most widely supported vendor-independent XML-based (as opposed to PDF) e-book format; that is, it is supported by almost all hardware readers, except for Kindle.