#( c: wolfram 001. )

[seaspraycd]

Wow,  Ronan  knew  that  he  could  be  incredibly  serious  but  as  he  got  closer  to  the  fisherman  attempting  to  use  a  pole  to  fish,  he  realized  that  perhaps  this  man  had  him  beat  exponentially. 

"  The  fish  here  aren't  stupid.  If  you  want  to  eat  some  you're  better  off  with  a  net  or  spear  fishing.  "  Ronan  offered  advice  to  the  man,  perhaps  to  his  own  detriment  expectig  the  other  to  bark  back  that  he  hadn't  asked  for  it.

"  Besides,  the  smaller  fish  hang  out  at  the  surface.  If  you  want  something  substainal,  you'll  want  to  head  further  down.  I'd  say  at  least  10  meters  down.  " 

wolfram wasn't sure how long he was here at the edge of the lake, bored as he watches the glimmering ripples lap against the shore. his fishing rod was propped up, bobber untouched in the water. he knew there were fish here, he'd seen them when he first got here, but strangely enough, none of them bit. no matter the bait, no matter how still and quiet he was.

he's about to resign himself to failure when he spots someone approaching out of the corner of his eye. "if you're here to fish, don't bother." a gentle sigh leaves his lips, shaking his head. "never seen fish so disinterested in bait."

@seaspraycd

[dmvresearchvenkat]

Study about Suicide rate and its dependencies

                                                                                -Venkatesh Vasudevan

Hello Everyone,

Good day!!!

On going through the code book of Gapminder , the suicide rate which is alarmingly increasing now-a -days caught my attention.

Although the study was conducted back in 2010 , I suspect there are some variables which will directly or indirectly cast its shadow on the suicide rate.

Initially looking through the dataset , the suicide rate was dependent on  several variables but I did circle out some of the variables with the help on literature ( References quoted below ) that predominantly affects the suicide rate.

The variables which might have a impact on the suicide rate according to the data available and my interests are listed down:

a) Income per person

b) Alc consumption

c) Employ rate

d) Urban Rate

e)Internet use Rate

The above are the data sets 

Research Question: The impacts of Incomeperperson ,Alc consumption, Employ Rate , Urban rate , Internet use rate on Suicide Rates

A) Income per person,(Un)Employment rate vs Suicide rate

                During the  global crisis of 2008 , a study(1) was conducted to understand the impact of the economic crisis on the mental health of the subjects which might lead to high suicide rate.This study was extensively conducted in European Union , however the results were the same for USA.

               The correlation coefficient of the suicide rate was linked  to all the economicindices except GDP per capita income for men and  however the women suicide rate was only  linked to unemployment rate.

We will also have to keep in mind the GDP was used to weigh the country’s income and growth and  thus cannot be used as a proxy to weigh the  standard of living of the country’s pouplation.However it is used extensively on the assumption that the growth of GDP of the country will have equal impact on the total population which is certainly not the case.

To the opposed understanding of causual relationship between the unemployment rate and suicide rate , there was no deterministic relationship between them ( Results of regression analysis ). Astonishingly , the suicide rate rose higher before the unemployment rate. We can propose a hypotheses stating that the people out of fear of being unemployed , resulting in stress ,tend to suicide before their unemployment actually happens . But this hypotheses, on the contradictory suggest that the employed people take their lives far before than the unemployed ones.

                  Another findings  suggest that the strong correlation was found on GDP per capita  with suicide rates although the regression analysis did not suggest the same for EU. When the same study was conducted outside EU independently for several countries , some were found to have a strong correlation of 0.80. Likewise , some had weak correaltion and the pattern was very difficult to chalk down.

Results:

No deterministic relationship ( Causal )  between the economic indices , employment rate was found.

B) Urban Rate Vs Suicide Rate:

                     On the general note ,a study (2) consisting of  21 169 suicides in Denmark , found that the urbanisation increases the suicide rate ( except China & USA ) , however it is greatly dependent upon the other factors namely personal marital state , age , sex and economic stability. Living in the urbanised areas , reduces the suicidal rate in men however it increases the rate among woman particularly in between age 24-35 years or greater than 65 years. The autopsy of the suicide cases reveal that the cases reported in the urban areas are majorly due to psychiatric disorders while the rural one’s predominantly had physical disorders.

                    The study (3) conducted divided the timer period between ( 1997-2007 ) as early period and ( 2008-2015 ) as later period in the US.Increase in suicide rates was found in all 6 urbanisation areas where the study was conducted.But to the contrary the less urbanised areas had higher rate than the more urbanised one and the gap between them were increasing with time.During the study period , the suicide rate of the males were four times higher than the females.Studies help to understand that the access to  mental health care was limited in less urbanised areas and the increased social isolation might have resulted in the increasing rate. 

Results:

The result of the study is that different type of strategies are to be deployed in different areas as the prevailing problems are different for different regions.

C)Alcohol consumption  Vs Suicide Rate:

                    The heavy alcohol consumption is often realted with psychatric problems including  distress , seperation , emotional instability. The alcohol consumption might also lead to ease the stress and thus preventing the subject from purusing suicidal attempts. This is the base and the underlying logic that made me to select the alcohol consumption as one of the variables to explain the suicidal rate. 

                 Studies ( 4)  show the traditionally the suicide is common among elderly men but recently the younger males are prone to the highest risk in both developed and developing countries. The link between the alcohol consumption and the suicide is known as  Kraepelin. Although the consumption of alcohol might ease the stress , often they are the precursor of depression and they tend to amplify the effect of depression. Heavy alcohol conusmers have 5 fold risk of attempted suicide than the social drinkers. In western countries women are more likely to call for help by personal support on comparison with men , however it is limited  to western countries and a strong relation is yet to be found.

                     Another aspect of suicide is because of the alcohol dependence.About 40 % of all patients seeking treatment of alcohol dependence report atleast one suicide attempt. Kolves et al. in a psychological autopsy study reported that 68% of males and 29% of females who committed suicide met the criteria for alcohol abuse or dependence.

Results:

There is no casual relationsip between the alcohol consumption and suicide rate. However the suicides are closely realted with the alcohol consumption

D) Internet Use rate Vs Suicide Rate:

                          It is evident that the social media has an influence on the suicidal rate (Study 5 ).  A systematic web search on prosuicide search resulted in  373 Web site hits, 31% were suicide neutral, 29% were antisuicide, and 11% were prosuicide. This shows that the information available to suicide on the internet is accessible on a finger’s touch. Multiple regression analysis was conducted that resulted in positive relationship though statistically not significant for men ( P=.001 ) and significant for women ( P=.074).

 Cyber bullying and cyber harrassment has also led to increase in the suicide rate. Hinduja and Patchin19 reported results from a survey given to approximately 2000 middle school children that indicated that victims of cyberbullying were almost 2 times as likely to attempt suicide than those who were not. The first documented use of the Internet to form a suicide pact was reported in Japan in 2000. It has now become a more common form of suicide in Japan, where the suicide rate increased from 34 suicides in 2003 to 91 suicides in 2005. Moreover, people with mental illness and alcohol and substance abuse problems, who may already be at high risk for suicide, may be more likely than others to use the Internet to discuss and learn about suicide methods. 

Result:

However due to legal and practical complicatons a strong relationship between them is not yet found.

                       All the independent variables which might have an impact on the suicide rates have been well defined to the extent possible and  I will report the result of my research in the same blog.

Stay Tuned!!!!

Bibliography

1) Relationship of suicide rates to economic variables in Europe: 2000–2011-  Konstantinos N. Fountoulakis, Wolfram Kawohl et.al

2)  Suicide risk in relation to level of urbanicity—a population-based linkage study-  International Journal of Epidemiology, Volume 34, Issue 4, August 2005, Pages 846–852 

3) Trends in Suicide by Level of Urbanization — United States, 1999–2015 Scott R. Kegler, PhD1; Deborah M. Stone, ScD2; Kristin M. Holland, PhD2

4)  Suicidal Behavior and Alcohol Abuse-  Maurizio Pompili,1,2,*Gianluca Serafini, et al

5) Social Media and Suicide: A Public Health Perspective -  David D. Luxton, PhD,Jennifer D. June, et al

[kelasparmak]

001: Vorkosigan Saga. 002: Charles Gunn/Wesley Wyndam-Pryce.

OH MAN THIS GOT LONG

Vorkosigan Saga:

Favorite character: Hmmm, tough one. No, just kidding, everyone who’s ever met me knows Bel’s my favourite, hands down, no contest.

Least Favorite character: I mean, there are a lot of baddies to pick from. Ryoval, Ser Galen and Bruce Van Atta all rate highly.

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): This one actually is tricky, since I really really like a lot of the canon relationship dynamics. Byerly and Ivan definitely, Aral and Cordelia (and Oliver Jole, though it’s Aral and Cordelia’s dynamic that I’m particularly fond of), Ethan and Terrence, Simon and Alys, and I think Miles and Bel. (Honourable mentions go to Bel and Nicol, Ivan and Tej, and Elli and Elena, which is a pairing I’d not actually really considered until I got desperate for Vorkosigan fic and ran the Russian works on AO3 through Google Translate and found some really interesting fic.)

Character I find most attractive: My mental images of book characters are generally super vague and I’m eh about attractiveness anyway, but thinking about it I’d probably say Rish, Taura or Dono Vorrutyer.

Character I would marry: I’d be quite happy marrying an awful lot of them, really. Bel, for preference, since I’m practically in actual bona fide love with it.

Character I would be best friends with: I’d like to say Bel, but I don’t think I’m exciting enough. My actual best friends through life have mostly been more like Tej or maybe the younger Kareen, so maybe one of them? Tej and I could definitely bond over language learning. (I would also love to be best friends with Byerly, but again, I don’t think we have the same idea of a good time.)

A random thought: The first thing that springs to mind is my fascination with the fact that Bel and Jole had a fling back in the day. When was this? How (hilariously) would Miles react? I would love for Bel, Nicol, Garnet Five and Corbeau (since he’s the Barrayaran Imperium’s ambassador or attache or whatever to Quaddiespace) to visit Sergyar and pop in on Miles, and have that awkward ‘yes, we’ve met’ conversation when Miles tried to introduce them to each other. Well, awkward for Miles and Jole, at least; Bel and Cordelia would no doubt find it hilarious.

An unpopular opinion: Iiiii don’t really like that more or less everyone ended up paired off to an Appropriately Gendered Spouse, with a bureaucratic position and babies ever after. I mean, that’s an oversimplification and there are exceptions (like Elli, or Ethan and Terrence, though that’s implied rather than explicit and since Athos is men-only it feels a little ‘for lack of alternative Terrence might end up with a guy and if he does it’ll probably be Ethan’) but that’s how it feels to me. I don’t know how unpopular that opinion is, though.

My canon OTP: Aral/Cordelia

Non-canon OTP: Byerly/Ivan (I mean, we’ve essentially had this question already)

Most badass character: I think Taura or Elli, probably? Miles is definitely a contender too, but I suppose because you see him wallowing in self-pity or making it up as he goes or doing extremely silly things pretty often the overall effect is perhaps diminished a little. Though I think overall the sheer amount of obstacles, self-imposed as well as external, that he manages to overcome, might put him at the top of the list.

Pairing I am not a fan of: Leo/Silver, probably. I don’t think it was very ethical for Leo to get involved, at least not at that point - I’m not sure if she was canonically a great deal younger than him or if I’ve just imagined that, but there’s a huge gap in terms of life experience, and I think that given the way Van Atta had exploited her very very recently, Leo should have given her some space and time and the tools to figure out what she wanted before he got involved with her.

Character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): Bothari’s portrayal made me pretty uncomfortable at times. Not sure if it was necessarily a screwup because she writes other mental illnesses pretty well, at least as far as my understanding of them goes, but I felt like with Bothari there was a very fine line being tread between a very complex depiction of schizophrenia (specifically traumagenic schizophrenia) & cyclical abuse on the one hand, and the ‘dangerous and barely-human crazy person’ stereotype on the other.

Favourite friendship: So many. In the interests of not just repeating myself from the shipping questions, though, I really like the development of Miles and Ivan’s relationship from not really Getting each other at all in the first book (and Miles in particular being pretty contemptuous of Ivan), to a close (if constantly mutually exasperating) friendship once they’re a little older.

Gunn/Wesley

when or if I started shipping it: Gosh, it’s been absolutely years since I watched Angel and I only watched it the once, so any of these answers may be completely wrong, but honestly I think it was from the first time they argued.

my thoughts: I really liked their 'odd couple’ dynamic - it reminds me a little of a much more extreme version of Eliot and Hardison’s initial impressions of each other, in that they each have a lot of preconceptions about the type of person the other is and about their worth, but pretty quickly get over it and come to respect each other and (shockingly enough) realised that it was actually really useful that they’d had such different experiences and that they worked much better together than separately. I’d have liked more episodes dealing with their very different backgrounds and attitudes in a more casual setting - I don’t remember how often that came up but I don’t feel like it was very often, or at least not often enough for my liking :P I just wish that phase

What makes me happy about them: I guess I’ve just said it. Got a bit carried away there I guess. 

What makes me sad about them: The goddamn unnecessary love triangle! And everything getting fucked up! Why did this happen! I prefer to pretend that storyline, and the Illyria storyline, and the Grimdark Wesley storyline, didn’t happen, because they were silly and unnecessary. Whedon, you didn’t even have to let my kids be happy, but making them miserable because of internal conflict that wasn’t even in-character for them wasn’t even lazy writing, it would have been lazy writing with different characters, but this required effort! To be bad! Why! (Caveat: possibly the Grimdark Wesley storyline isn’t so much objectively bad as I just didn’t like it. I don’t mind him being emo, that’s a-ok, but his behaviour toward Gunn and Fred was straight-up gross, and while I quite liked Wesley dealing with the consequences of his mistakes, I’d have been happier if he’d learned from them instead of getting worse, lol.)

Things done in fanfic that annoys me: Iiii actually have never read any fic of this series, I don’t think, so I guess I don’t know. I can imagine some things that would and that I wouldn’t be surprised to see done.

Things I look for in fanfic: Well, nothing, but I guess it would be the dynamic that I liked between them in the Good Times. Preferably a ridiculous shenanigans, some near-death experiences, actually talking about their feelings, and a healthy dose of fluff (or h/c). And Gunn being smart as hell, because he is and arguably is better at applying that in practice than Wesley.

My kinks: I am a pure and innocent soul and I don’t even know what a kink is. (Okay, but leaving out the sexual element, I guess even though I was talking about how much I hate Grimdark Wes, I’d probably be interested in hatesex fic set during that period if it was concerned with working out their frustration and betrayal rather than just uncomplicated angry sex) (Also, I can see Wesley being super into Gunn being smart as fuck generally, and specifically into his Lawyer Talk after he got essentially the entire corpus of law and G&S downloaded into his brain. In my head this is not a very sexy thing, it’s very ‘Ooh Mr Darcy’, Wesley is hopelessly enamoured and Gunn is initially bemused but flattered and very quickly gets tired of Wes swooning every time he says something smart, which is way too often for it not to have lost its effect AND YET. And especially if they’re working for Wolfram & Hart together in this scenario, in which case Gunn uses advanced legal terminology often on account of it being his job, which makes it hugely impractical for Wesley to try and jump his bones every time it happens. He’s probably just into the legal jargon and not the Gilbert and Sullivan because that would be a very weird kink and not one I can imagine being sexy at all, but now that I say it, if someone wrote that fic I would read it just out of morbid curiosity.)

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: Fred! As well as each other! Guys, polyamory, it’s a thing! (If it had to be other people, I’d probably go for Gunn with Fred and Wes with either Angel or Spike. Probably not Lilah.)

My happily ever after for them: No one dies and Gunn has high self-esteem and Wesley stops fucking up everything he touches. Nothing bad happens and The Gang never have to deal with apocalypses or implausibly huge conspiracies or anything, they just hang out being supernatural detectives and doing Season 1-2 type stuff forever. Possibly they are in a triad with Fred but this is not necessary.