Features

LOS ANGELES — “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 2” dominated the weekend box office. The final film in the science-fiction franchise debuted to $102.7 million, but even that massive figure wasn’t as big a sendoff for Katniss Everdeen and her fellow revolutionaries as some had predicted.

The bow ranks as the year’s fifth biggest opening, but it falls short of tracking that projected the picture would top $120 million in its initial weekend in theatres. It also represents a low for the series, falling far short of the $158.1 million high-water mark established by 2013’s “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire”. It’s a sign, perhaps, that interest in the dystopian world of Panem has crested.

Investors in Lionsgate, the studio behind the series, reacted negatively to news that “Mockingjay — Part 2” would miss projections, sending the company’s stock down more than 3 per cent on Friday. For its part, the studio was put in the odd position of almost having to defend a debut that ranks among the largest in movie history.

“It’s a phenomenal opening and we launched these movies at this time consciously knowing there’d be a lucrative long run way through the holidays,” said David Spitz, Lionsgate’s domestic distribution chief.

The series made up some ground overseas, picking up $147 million after debuting in nearly every significant foreign territory, including China. That left it with a worldwide haul of $247 million, less than the $274.9 million global kickoff enjoyed by “Mockingjay — Part 1” and far below the $300 million weekend that some analysts had predicted.

“Across the board this is just down and it’s a direct reflection of how people thought about [‘Mockingjay — Part 1],” said Jeff Bock, a box office analyst with Exhibitor Relations. “That was not a film. It was just a trailer.”

Lionsgate spared no expense in planning a farewell to its most valuable series. It spent nearly $200 million to make and market the film. In the US the film did well in premium formats, earning an estimated $9.8 million, and Imax, where it picked up $8.5 million.

With “Mockingjay — Part 2” sucking most of the air out the multiplexes that left two new releases, Sony’s “The Night Before” and STX/IM Global’s “The Secret In Their Eyes”, struggling to get some recognition. “The Night Before,” a bawdy comedy with Seth Rogen and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, fared best, earning $9.9 million from 2,960 theatres. The film cost $23 million to make, and drew an opening weekend crowd that was evenly split between men and women.

Sony distribution chief Rory Bruer noted that there won’t be another mainstream comedy in the marketplace until Tina Fey and Amy Poehler’s “Sisters” debuts on December 16. He predicted the film would “get that pop” of playing into the holidays, and noted that the film received an A-minus CinemaScore.

“People love this movie,” said Bruer. “It’s one of those movies that you see with an audience and you want to throw up you’re laughing so hard.”

“The Secret In Their Eyes” faces fiercer headwinds. The remake of an Oscar-winning Argentinian thriller of the same name earned a disappointing $6.7 million for a fifth place finish. The story of a team of FBI agents involved in a murder investigation stars Nicole Kidman, Julia Roberts, and Chiwetel Ejiofor. It cost $19.5 million to produce, and is the latest in a string of films pitched at adult audiences such as “By the Sea” and “Steve Jobs”, to whiff at the box office this fall.

Despite the weak opening, STX, which bought domestic rights with Route One to the film for $6.5 million, expressed confidence that “The Secret In Their Eyes” would find its audience over the holidays.

“We feel this is too early in the process to give us a full grade,” said Kevin Grayson, distribution chief at STX. “This is going to factor into the Thanksgiving play period, and the twists and surprise ending are going to keep water cooler conversation going.”

The weakness of the new films allowed holdovers “Spectre” and “The Peanuts Movie” to pad their box office results. The latest Bond adventure added $15 million to its $154.1 million domestic haul, nabbing second place on the charts. “The Peanuts Movie” finished third, picking up $12.8 million to push its stated total to $99.3 million.

In limited release, the Weinstein Company scored with “Carol”. The critically heralded love story with Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara generated $248,149 from four theatres for a strong per-location average of $62,037.

“Reviews and word of mouth will drive this film,” said Erik Lomis, distribution chief at the Weinstein Company. “These are fantastic performances by Rooney and Cate and Todd Haynes delivered some great filmmaking.”

Universal had more trouble finding its audience for “Legend”. The violent gangster picture about the Kray twins saw Tom Hardy doing double duty as the crime boss brothers, but critics were lukewarm, and the picture nabbed a so-so $83,000 from four theatres for a per-screen average of $20,271.

With “Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 2” not hitting as big a bullseye as other pictures in the series, the overall box office tumbled. Ticket sales were down roughly 10 per cent for the weekend, down from the year-ago period that fielded “Mockingjay — Part 1’s” $121.9 million opening.

“The overall marketplace is slow,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Rentrak. “There’s too many movies, too many distractions, and so much going on in the world right now.”

SAN FRANCISCO — When users ask Siri, Apple’s digital assistant, what she likes to drink, she is quick with an answer.

“I have a thirst for knowledge,” she responds.

Her counterpart at Microsoft, Cortana, opts for a very, very dry martini.

But M, the digital assistant Facebook is testing, deflects the question. “I don’t have an opinion about that. What’s your favourite drink?”

As the tech giants race to build ever better artificial intelligence platforms, they are obsessing over the nuances of their digital assistants’ personalities.

For users, digital assistants are a gateway to powerful artificial intelligence tools developers expect to influence major decisions about what to buy and how to spend time.

The more tech companies can get users to rely on their digital assistants, the more valuable data they will accumulate about the spending habits, interests and preferences of users. The information could be fodder for lucrative digital advertising or a lever for companies to keep users locked into their ecosystems.

But companies are split on the best way to forge deep connections with users. Siri and Cortana are waging charm offensives, both quick to crack a joke or tell a story. Their elaborate personas are meant to keep users coming back.

Facebook has built M with no gender, personality or voice. The design bears some resemblance to Google’s similarly impersonal assistant.

While catchy one-liners generate buzz, a digital assistant with personality risks alienating users or, the companies say, misleading them about the software’s true purpose: carrying out simple tasks, much like a real-life assistant.

Facebook’s no-nonsense assistant focuses on handling chores such as ordering flowers or making restaurant reservations.

“We wanted M to be really open and able to do anything — a really white piece of paper — and see how people use it,” Alex Lebrun, a Facebook executive who oversees the AI team for M, said in an interview with Reuters.

For tech companies, the stakes are high, said Matt McIlwain, managing director of Madrona Venture Group, since digital assistants can guide users to their own products and those of their advertisers and partners — and away from those of competitors. Google’s digital assistant, for example, uses the company’s search engine to fulfil user requests for information rather than Yahoo or Microsoft’s Bing.

“That trusted assistant could function as my agent for all kinds of transactions and activities,” McIlwain said.

Research from the late Stanford professor Clifford Nass, an expert on human-computer interaction, shows that users can become deeply invested in AI that seems human, though they are also more disappointed when the systems come up short, raising the stakes for companies that make the attempt. And what charms one user can annoy another — a danger that Facebook and Google have largely sidestepped.

Nevertheless, the Siri team concluded that personality was indispensable, said Gary Morgenthaler, an investor in Siri, the startup that created the eponymous assistant and was later acquired by Apple.

“If you are emulating a human being,” he said, “then you are halfway into a human type of interaction.”

Google has decided it doesn’t want to take personality further without having a better handle on human emotion.

“It’s very, very hard to have a computer be portrayed as a human,” said Tamar Yehoshua, vice president of mobile search.

The Google app, making use of predictive technology known as Google Now, responds to questions in a female voice but has few other gendered touches and little personality.

The Google app does reflect its creator’s spirit of curiosity, however, by sharing fun facts, Yehoshua said.

Facebook has a team of human “trainers” behind M, who answer some requests that are beyond the capabilities of its artificial intelligence. The company hopes to gather data on users’ most frequent requests in order to improve M so it can handle them in the future.

That data is limited, however, as M is so far available only to 10,000 people in the San Francisco Bay area.

Despite M’s design, users frequently ask to hear jokes, a request the assistant obliges. Humans tend to anthropomorphise technology, academics say, often looking for a personality or connection even when tech companies intentionally have veered away from such things.

“When you give people this open mic, they will ask anything,” said Babak Hodjat, co-founder of AI company Sentient Technologies.

Siri’s personality did not change much after Apple acquired the startup in 2010, though she switched from responding in text to speech at the insistence of the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, said Adam Cheyer, a co-founder of Siri who is now a vice president at another AI company, Viv Labs.

“He was right on that call,” Cheyer said. “The voice is something that people really connect with.”

Microsoft interviewed real-life personal assistants to help shape Cortana’s personality, said Jonathan Foster, Cortana’s editorial manager. The assistant’s tone is professional, but she has her whims.

She loves anything science-fiction or math-related — her favourite TV show is “Star Trek” — and jicama is her favourite food because she likes the way it sounds.

Such attention to detail is critical because humans are very particular when it comes to artificial intelligence, said Henry Lieberman, a visiting scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studies human-computer interaction.

Companies must be mindful, he said, not to venture into what researchers call the “uncanny valley,” the point at which an artificial intelligence tool falls just short of seeming human. Users become fixated on the small discrepancies, he said.

“It becomes creepy or bizarre, like a monster in a movie that has vaguely human features,” Lieberman said.

iDAvatars CEO Norrie J. Daroga said he walked a fine line in creating Sophie, a medical avatar that assesses patients’ pain. He gave Sophie a British accent for the US audience, finding users are more critical of assistants that speak like they do.

And she has flaws built in because humans distrust perfection, said Daroga, whose avatar uses technology from IBM’s Watson artificial intelligence platform.

Some academics say Siri’s personality has been her greatest success: After her release in 2011, users raced to find all her quips. But some of her retorts have caused headaches for Apple.

When asked what to do with a dead body, Siri used to offer joking suggestions such as swamps or reservoirs — an exchange that surfaced in a 2014 murder trial in Florida.

She is more evasive when asked the question today. “I used to know the answer to this,” she says.

Even in that response, Morgenthaler sees traces of the true Siri.

“It’s a little bit of a protest against the corporatisation,” he said. “I don’t forget, but I’ve been made to forget.”

Making its global debut weeks ago at the Frankfurt Motor Show and expected in Amman in early 2016, the new Audi A4 is the Ingolstadt-based four-ring maker’s finest compact executive car yet. Competing in a crucial entry-level four-door premium segment, the A4 is a thoroughly well-reconciled and high-tech player that puts the squeeze on German, Japanese and British rivals. 

Driven in Quattro four-wheel drive guise on winding Italian country and hillside routes surrounding Venice, it was expectedly grippy, but with lighter weight and revised suspension design, also proved a rewardingly dynamic and eager drive. Advanced and well equipped, the new A4 features lightweight construction, class-leading aerodynamics and a sophisticated next generation suite of semi-automated driver assistance and infotainment systems.

Assertive and elegant

Built using an intelligently applied mixture of materials including high strength steel and lightweight aluminium, the new A4 is slightly roomier and bigger than its predecessor, but also up to 120kg lighter. Extensive weight-saving measures include lighter electric-power steering and aluminium suspension components for a lighter un-sprung weight to improve ride comfort and driving dynamics.

Assertive and chiselled, the A4 represents a striking yet elegant design evolution, with squinting sharply angled and browed LED front lights, and a huge and hungry hexagonal grille. Athletic even without optional S-Line trim, the A4 features sculpted surfaces and sills, ridged character lines, aggressive lower and side front intakes, shorter front overhang and pert rear bumper, lights and integrated spoiler.

Sporty but elegant, the A4’s level waistline lends a classier look and better visibility, while with smoothly arcing roofline and numerous design tweaks from mirrors to engine and suspension underbody covers, the A4 achieves best in class aerodynamics. Helping reduce fuel consumption, improve on-the-move performance and cabin noise refinement, the A4 achieves aerodynamics drag co-efficiency as low as 0.23 (0.27, as driven).

Fast and frugal

Offered with three turbocharged four-cylinder engines at launch — with more powerful options including S4 and RS4 variants soon arriving — the driven A4 2.0 TFSI Quattro is in the meantime certainly no slouch. Developing 248BHP at 5000-6000rpm and 273lb/ft from its 2-litre engine, and with tenacious Quattro traction digging in, it bolts through 0-100km/h in just 5.8 seconds and can top 250km/h.

Optimised for refinement, efficiency and power, the 2.0 TFSI features direct and indirect injection with its intake manifold integrated into the cylinder head for thermal management. Responsive from tickover with imperceptible turbo lag, its broad and rich peak torque mid-range provides effortlessly versatile progress and responses, and underwrites power build-up. With a distant growl and smooth delivery, power accumulates urgently and progressively to a peak plateau.

Driven through a finger-snap responsive 7-speed dual-clutch S-Tronic gearbox with economic and manual modes, and a stop/start system, the 2.0 TFSI returns frugal 6.3-litre combined fuel efficiency. Operating with default 60 per cent rear power bias for eager dynamics and balance, the Quattro system can transfer 85 per cent power rearward or 70 per cent frontward for sure-footed vice-like grip when pushed hard through corners or over low traction surfaces.

Tidy and tenacious

Riding on new five-link front and rear suspension designed for supply longitudinal absorption and lateral stiffness — and with upper links integrated directly into bodywork — the A4 is fluidly comfortable over imperfections and poised and flat through snaking switchbacks. Driven with optional adaptive dampers, the A4 proved refined, smooth and stable at speed, yet tautly controlled weight transfer through corners.

Tidy into corners — with precise electric-assisted steering — the new A4’s five-link suspension design and rear-biased Quattro drive allow for a crisp turn-in despite its engine being positioned just ahead of the front axle. Eager and agile, the A4’s cornering finesse is aided by a torque vectoring system that selectively brakes the inside wheel into corners for enhanced agility. 

Committed and precise through tight cornering lines and narrow winding roads, the A4’s Quattro four-wheel drive ensures resolute road-holding and re-allocates power as needed to power out of a corner with poise and precision. An optional limited-slip “Sport” differential can also mechanically and instantaneously re-allocate power along the rear axle for even sportier, safer, grippier and more agile cornering.

Ergonomic and extensively equipped

A model of design, build, cabin refinement and ergonomics in its segment, the driven Audi A4 featured rich textures, leathers, metals and open pore woods and a clean, sleek and uncluttered yet user-friendly dash and console layout. Supportive, well-adjustable seats and steering provided an ideal driving position while a level waistline provided an airy ambiance and good visibility.

Thoroughly well-equipped with standard and optional features, the A4’s infotainment systems includes Audi’s configurable Virtual Cockpit instrument cluster screen, head’s up display and Bang and Olufsen sound system. Also available are an 8.3-inch centre screen infotainment system features voice control, smartphone integration, rear seat tablet infotainment and a navigation system that operates in close cooperation with safety and assistance systems.

A comprehensive suite of semi-autonomous and safety systems includes, standard pre-sense city safety that can prevent collisions at 40km/h and reduce severity to 85km/h. Meanwhile, a Tour package features radar-based adaptive cruise control and a traffic jam assist function, which can even take over steering control on well-developed roads, up to 65km/h, in addition to the ability to anticipate and prepare for corners.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Engine: 2-litre, in-line turbocharged 4 cylinders

Bore x stroke: 82.5 x 92.8mm

Compression ratio: 9.6:1

Valve-train: 16-valve, DOHC, direct injection

Gearbox: 7-speed automated dual clutch, four-wheel drive, self-locking centre differential*

Gear ratios: 1st 3.188; 2nd 2.19; 3rd 1.517; 4th 1.057; 5th 0.738; 6th0.557; 7th 0.433 

Reverse/final drive ratios: 2.75:1/4.27:1

Power distribution, F/R: 40 per cent :60 per cent

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 248.5 (252) [185.3] @5000-6000rpm

Specific power: 125BHP/litre

Power-to-weight: 164.5BHP/tonne

Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 273 (370) @1600-4500rpm

Specific torque: 186.5Nm/litre

Torque-to-weight: 245Nm/tonne

0-100km/h: 5.8 seconds

Top speed: 250km/h

Fuel consumption, urban/extra-urban/combined: 7.9/5.4/6.3-litres/100km**

CO2 emissions, combined: 144g/km**

Fuel capacity: 58 litres

Length: 4726mm

Width: 1842mm

Height: 1417mm

Wheelbase: 2820mm

Track, F/R: 1572/1555mm

Aerodynamic drag co-efficient: 0.27** (est.) 

Overhangs, F/R: 880/1026mm

Headroom, F/R: 1039/953mm

Luggage volume, min/max: 480/965 litres

Unladen weight: 1510kg

Steering: Electric-assisted rack & pinion

Suspension: Five-link, adaptive dampers

Brakes: Ventilated discs

Tyres: 245/35R19 (optional)

*Optional limited-slip rear-differential

**As tested, with 19-inch wheels

PARIS — Scientists warned Thursday of the “epidemic potential” of deadly and fast-spreading bacteria resistant to last-line antibiotics. 

The new superbugs, found in southern China, could erase nearly a century of antibiotic protection against killer diseases born by common germs such as E. coli, the researchers reported in a study.

“These are extremely worrying results,” said Jian-Hua Liu, a professor at Southern Agricultural University in Guangzhou and co-author of the study. 

Liu and colleagues found a gene, called MCR-1, that makes bacteria resistant to a class of antibiotics, known as polymyxins, used to fight superbugs.

The gene — detected in common but deadly bacteria such as E. coli and K. pneumoniae, which causes pneumonia and blood disease — effectively makes these bacteria invincible.

Even worse, MCR-1 allows the bacteria to spread easily from one strain or species to another, said the study, published in Lancet Infectious Diseases.

Until now, rare cases of resistance occurred only through mutation in individual organisms, severely limiting transmission.

“Polymyxins were the last class of antibiotics in which resistance was incapable of spreading from cell to cell,” said Liu.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has already warned antimicrobial resistance may result in “a return to the pre-antibiotic era”, where infections once easily cured prove fatal.

Most of the 50 to 100 million people who died during the 1918 flu pandemic — 10 years before the discovery of penicillin — were killed by bacterial pneumonia, not the flu virus itself.

Animal to human

The superbugs were detected during routine health testing of pigs and chickens in southern China. The animals were found to be carrying bacteria resistant to colistin, an antibiotic widely used in livestock farming.

This prompted researchers to examine E. coli and K. pneumoniae samples collected over a four-year period from pork and chicken sold in dozens of markets across four provinces.

They also analysed lab results from patients at two hospitals in Guangdong and Zhejiang provinces. 

More than 20 per cent of bacteria in the animal samples, and 15 per cent of the raw meat samples, had the telltale MCR-1 gene. It was also found in 16 of the 1,322 specimens taken from hospitals. 

The lower infection rate among humans suggests the resistant bacteria passed from animals to people, the study found.

Although currently confined to China, the MCR-1 bacteria were “likely... to spread worldwide”, it said.

Experts not involved in the research expressed sharp concern. 

“This is a worrying report, as polymyxins are often the last-resort antibiotic to treat serious infections,” said Laura Piddock, a professor of microbiology at the University of Birmingham in England.

Post-antibiotic era

Other types of drug resistance — in tuberculosis, for example — show that “this likely paves the way for it to spread throughout the world”, she added. 

Some 480,000 people contracted multi-drug resistant tuberculosis in 2014, according to the WHO. The disease killed 190,000 in the same year.

“It is likely inevitable that polymyxin resistance will be added to the arsenal of multi-drug resistant bacteria and that they will spread globally,” said Judith Johnson, an expert on emerging pathogens at the University of Florida.

Professor Timothy Walsh of the University of Cardiff, who collaborated on the study, told the BBC News website antibiotics could soon become useless.

“If MCR-1 becomes global — which is a case of ‘when’ not ‘if’ — and the gene aligns itself with other antibiotic resistance genes, which is inevitable, then we will have very likely reached the start of the post-antibiotic era,” he said.

The study will renew debate about the use of colistin in animal husbandry, researchers said.

“The finding that this type of resistance can be shared by different bacteria — irrespective of whether from food, an animal or a person — is further evidence that the same drugs should not be used in veterinary and human medicine,” Piddock said. 

In the European Union, colistin is used in only veterinary medicine. In China, however, it is used routinely to promote growth, especially in pigs.

Nearly 12,000 tonnes of the drug are used annually in livestock production there, according to Marilyn Roberts, a researcher at the University of Washington School of Public Health in Seattle.

WHO’s 12-country survey found that nearly two-thirds of all those questioned (64 per cent) believe wrongly that antibiotics can be used to treat colds and flu, despite the fact that the drugs have no impact on viruses. 

A WHO report in April showed there were “major gaps” in all regions of the world in addressing the problem and reining in overuse and misuse of antibiotics.

The UN health agency has warned that without urgent action, the world could be headed for “a post-antibiotic era” in which common infections and minor injuries that have long been treatable once again become killers.

The recently published survey showed a dire lack of understanding of the problem and widespread dangerous behaviour.

Broken down by country, the survey for instance showed that 5 per cent of Chinese respondents who had taken antibiotics in the past six months had purchased them on the Internet, while the same per centage in Nigeria had bought them from a stall or hawker.

In Russia, only 56 per cent of those who had taken antibiotics in the past year had them prescribed by a doctor or nurse.

Erased from Space and Consciousness: Israel and the Depopulated Palestinian Villages of 1948

Noga Kadman

US: Indiana University Press, 2015

Pp. 256

Noga Kadman is a researcher in the field of human rights and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She is also a licensed tour guide in Israel, and co-editor of a Hebrew-Arabic guide to the depopulated Palestinian villages and towns. In “Erased from Space and Consciousness,” she examines how “Israel deals with the preceding layer of its existence, a layer that it has erased and on which it has been built.” (p. 2)

In her view, “the importance of examining the Israeli approach to the Palestinian villages depopulated in 1948 goes beyond the subject matter itself, since this approach can serve as an indicator of Israeli readiness to achieve a sustainable resolution of the conflict.” (p. 6)

The book was originally published in Hebrew, signalling the author’s intent to advocate for Israeli recognition of Palestinian loss as a step towards reconciliation.

Grounded in Walid Khalidi’s and Salman Abu Sitta’s documentation of 416 destroyed villages, Kadman did extensive archival and field research, visiting 230 of these villages, to see how the policies of state and other Zionist agencies have shaped Israeli public consciousness of the destroyed villages and, by extension, of the Palestinians. 

The book begins with the 1948 war and its aftermath, focusing on the Zionist military campaign which demolished and depopulated the villages, created the refugee problem, and began the process of Judaisation — blocking the return of the Palestinians and settling Jewish immigrants in their place. 

Countering this erasure, Kadman highlights what happened in specific villages, including the less-publicised massacres in Tantura, Dawayima, Saliha, Safsaf and other places. After the war, Judaisation evolved: “In the 1950s and 1960s the demolition’s emphasis shifted from military and utilitarian needs to those of landscape architecture and erasure of the ruins, which stood as constant reminders of the refugee problem that Israel strongly preferred to ignore.” (p. 27)

Kadman analyses Israel’s treatment of village remains as part of the drive to control the land on the one hand, and build an Israeli national identity on the other. While early settlers’ records reveal delight at the fruit orchards and olive groves left behind by their Palestinian owners, much of such cultivation was ploughed under to make way for modern forms of agriculture, enacting furthering erasure. This “created a new demographic map, closer to the original Zionist imagery of an ‘empty land’.” (p. 38)

The Jewish National Fund’s massive forestation programme also changed the landscape. The bulk of new plantings were non-native — “an implementation of its stated policy of endowing Israel with a European landscape”. (p. 42)

There was another aim as well: Kadman quotes a JNF official as saying: “a large portion of JNF parks are on lands where Palestinian villages used to stand, and the forests are intended to camouflage this.” (p. 43)

The new geography was reflected in the naming and mapping of sites, with the original Arabic names of depopulated villages often changed to Hebrew names, and many dropped from the maps. Zionist imperatives determined whether remaining structures were kept or destroyed. Generally, ruins associated with ancient Jewish sites, or the Crusaders, were preserved while centuries-old Palestinian buildings were demolished. 

“Alongside the physical Judaisation, spatial socialisation is taking place, binding Israelis to the space in which they live, one that is structured and imparted to them as an almost exclusively Jewish space. This process includes, inter alia, the ignoring and marginalisation of the depopulated villages in Israel, which complement their erasure from the ground. Symbolic sidelining of the villages is carried out when their names are being erased or when they are marginally represented in maps.” (p. 51)” 

A most interesting chapter in the book addresses Jewish views of the depopulated villages on which their kibbutzim or moshavim was established. While the new rural communities benefited from what the Palestinians left behind, “seldom do they articulate any feeling or guilt or moral dilemma in this regard”. (p. 57)

“References to the lives of the villagers prior to their departure are rare.” (p. 59)

In addition to the lingering trauma of Holocaust survivors and the hardships of settling anew, Kadman attributes their attitude to their “having internalised the hegemonic Israeli narrative, which lays the blame for the war and its results… on the Palestinians themselves”. (p. 89)

“Erased from Space and Consciousness” is a case study in how geography and demography interact, and how politics and ideology shape material reality, which in turn shapes public consciousness. It is also a sign of the growing movement among Israelis to come to terms with their past. One only wonders why Kadman presents the conflict as one between two national movements without specifying Zionist as a colonial movement, when the picture she presents of the Judaisation process matches a colonial project.

A gastric balloon that’s swallowed like a pill and then sits in the stomach filled with fluid helped patients lose more than a third of their excess weight over a four-month period, researchers have reported.

The Elipse device has not been approved for weight loss by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA). But it is one of a new generation of “gastric balloons” aimed at helping the obese lose weight and improve related health conditions without undergoing an invasive and largely permanent replumbing of the digestive system.

In July, the FDA approved the “Reshape Dual Balloon” system, which is put in place during a 30-minute procedure during which a patient is mildly sedated.

The Elipse device, which is expected to come before the FDA for consideration soon, differs from the Reshape Dual Balloon in that it is swallowed rather than implanted into the stomach in an endoscopic procedure. Tethered to a tiny catheter, the Elipse device would be swallowed like a pill. Once in the stomach, the capsule dissolves, revealing a gastric balloon that is ready to be filled with sterile fluid through the catheter.

Once filled to roughly the size of a grapefruit, the balloon sits in the stomach for four months. By taking up room there, the balloon creates a sensation of fullness and helps a patient eat less and develop habits of portion control. After four months, the balloon is emptied and passed from the body in stool.

The device’s manufacturer, Allurion Technologies, calls the Elipse “the first procedure-less gastric balloon” and suggests it may be used to help those with a body mass index above 27 to lose weight.

A BMI of 25 is the cutoff point for overweight, and obesity is defined as a BMI above 30. The inclusion of non-obese patients in the population of the latest study suggests Allurion hopes to position the device as a treatment meant to prevent patients’ progression to obesity as well as to reverse it.

In research recently presented at the Obesity Society’s annual meeting, study co-author Dr Ram Chuttani reported that 34 overweight and obese subjects who got the balloon lost an average of 22 pounds after four months — roughly 37 per cent of their excess weight.

Chuttani, who is chief of interventional gastroenterology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre in Boston, said that patients who got the Elipse also saw improvements in their triglycerides and in haemoglobin A1C levels — a key measure of metabolic function.

The current study, sponsored by Allurion, had no comparison group of subjects who got a placebo treatment. Gastric balloons are widely reported to cause stomach discomfort and some vomiting, at least in the initial days and weeks after they are implanted.

Chuttani said that in addition to helping subjects feel full sooner, the Elipse appears to affect appetite, weight and physiological functions in some of the same ways that far more invasive bariatric procedures do: In addition to reducing the stomach’s capacity, it also appears to delay the process by which the stomach empties its contents and alters hormones that control hunger and appetite.

University of California, Irvine’s chief bariatric surgeon, Dr Ninh T. Nguyen, cautioned that the gastric balloon is not a permanent solution to weight loss. But Nguyen, who was not involved in the current study, said it may offer a treatment for overweight patients hoping to avert obesity, and to patients who may not be good candidates for bariatric surgery.

With nearly two-thirds of US adults overweight or obese and obesity now considered a disease, the Obesity Society’s meeting in Los Angeles this week underscores the clamorous effort to offer new treatments that are accessible to a wider range of patients.

Bariatric surgery’s Roux-en-Y bypass, which surgically removes a part of the stomach and reroutes food around part of the intestine, is still considered the most effective and enduring treatment of obesity and its related ills. But that procedure’s cost, invasiveness and irreversibility — as well as the technical demands of conducting the surgery — have left plenty of room for less radical and permanent treatments for obesity.

At this year’s meeting, researchers revealed that just three years after it was first introduced in the United States, a less radical bariatric procedure called sleeve gastrectomy — which uses sutures to create a smaller stomach “pouch” — has overtaken Roux-en-Y as the most-performed weight loss surgery.

Weight-loss medications, as well as devices such as gastric balloons and intestine-lining gastric “sleeves”, also appear to be diversifying choices for overweight and obese patients and their doctors.

Stanford bariatric surgeon Dr John Morton says that the growing portfolio of treatments will allow physicians to tailor their responses to meet the needs of patients in different stages of disease.

Morton, the current president of the American Society for Metabolic & Bariatric Surgery, likened the treatment of obesity to cardiology and cancer care just a decade or two ago: Earlier intervention — and the ability to offer patients combination treatments — not only should make treatment more effective, he said, it also should increase the field’s focus on preventing obesity-related disease.

If you like to play with Lego you’d probably like to build your own desktop computer too, or to be more precise, to assemble its different components.

Admitted, it requires a little more knowledge than a Lego castle, some care and a dash of flair, but it is in no way a daunting task. And it takes much fewer pieces than the average Lego masterpiece you built last time you joined your children in their recreational activity.

Building a laptop computer is a different story. It does not really belong in the DIY category, mainly because of the high level of miniaturisation of the components, and of the hard to manipulate and extremely frail cables, not to mention the fact that everything is rather crammed inside the unit and makes it a specialist’s work to do anything inside its entrails.

On the other hand a desktop machine, understand a full size computer, a “tower” case as it is sometime referred to, is large and roomy enough to let you play with its components comfortably, adding and assembling the building blocks to make a customised power house. 

Building your own desktop computer is a fashion that has went up and down a few times since the 1980s. At the beginning of the personal computer story it was an absolutely inconceivable undertaking. A few manufacturers ruled the market and provided all-ready machines: IBM, Olivetti, Wang, Commodoure, DEC, Apple, to name the main ones.

Then Asian factories started flooding the market with all the discrete elements that make a computer: the motherboard, the memory modules, the CPU, the hard disk, the power supply unit, the “tower” case and so forth. The appeal was immediate. Not only you were suddenly able to assemble the machine of your dreams (and brag about it), but it also became cheaper and more fun to do so instead of buying a genuine IBM, an Apple or an Olivetti.

The wave after was caused by most manufacturers of ready-made desktops reacting and even counter attacking by slashing prices and making buying their products actually less expensive than getting the components from all the various sources. It has been the case for quite a while now and overall Dell, Lenovo, HP, Fujitsu and Acer reign over the market by offering excellent ready-made desktops at hard to beat prices. Why then should you bother building your own desktop?

A new wave may be here today for now several points come and combine to make building your own desktop computer an interesting enterprise again, from both the technical and the financial points of view.

The need to have extremely performing machines, more particularly when it comes to the multimedia aspect, makes it almost a must to build your own desktop. Choosing the exact motherboard, the fastest multi-core CPU, the perfect video card, the ultimate high-definition sound card, the efficient (and silent…) cooling fans, this can hardly be achieved by buying an off-the-shelf unit. 

Whereas the CPU would most likely be made by Intel, there’s a wide choice in the market when it comes to all the other components. Biostar, for one, makes a motherboard that can satisfy the most demanding hobbyist. 

The newest element, however, the one that changes everything compared to the previous years, is the fact the knowledge required to achieve the machine’s assembly is easily and widely available on the web, often in the shape of YouTube video tutorials, and sometimes in a simpler manner just by asking Google and getting the answer.

Not sure how to mount and set this video card? Hesitating about the compatibility of this CPU with that motherboard? Afraid of mixing memory modules? Take heart and don’t bother to ask a friend or to call the technical support of an expensive IT service company. This so twentieth century! Just search the web. Everything is there today, be it as video, image, sound or simple text. As long as you know how to search and can understand the information you find, you can easily build a super personal computer.

You still have to be a little tech-minded to succeed. It’s just like playing with Lego building blocks, you have to like it.

AMMAN — In his latest exhibition “Kitab Al Filaha” at Jacaranda Images, artist Tariq Dajani pays an evocative tribute to the legacy of Muslims in Al Andalus.

His meticulously created photography artworks hark back to a time when Muslims populated southern Spain’s La Alpujarra region, focusing on an aspect of Andalusian legacy that is often overlooked — their achievements in agriculture.

“There were no beautiful palaces or other splendid monuments by the Muslims in the Alpujarra. Yet their presence can be felt almost everywhere: in the names of villages… in the names of agricultural produce; and in the methods of farming and irrigation systems,” Dajani writes in his notes on the exhibition.

His photographs shed light on what Muslims left behind in farming techniques and animal husbandry, with the name of the exhibition coming from an authoritative encyclopaedia on agriculture by 12th century Muslim scholar Ibn Al Awwam Al Ishbili of Al Andalus.

Ruins of old farmhouses, remains of cattle raised by farmers in the past, olive trees planted centuries ago and the fruits and nuts borne by those trees are some of the subjects of Dajani’s pieces, where he skilfully manipulates the focus through his lens to enrich each photo.

In keeping with the spirit of the subject matter, the artist revives a photo printing technique that dates back to the 1800s in a tribute to the time and effort invested in the manual agriculture methods he seeks to highlight.

“I wanted a printing process that would be true to that notion… instead of just making digital prints, I thought it would be nice to make prints by hand,” he told The Jordan Times.

His use of the labour-intensive photogravure technique produces unique black-and-white prints with a sense of raw detail unlike that of regular digital prints.

Instead of being just another collection of photogenic images of beautiful trees and fruits, Dajani’s prints have a depth and degree of detail that speak of the time and effort put into creating them.

“I spent one and a half years learning how to print like that,” he said.

The method entails etching a photo onto a light-sensitive surface on a metal plate by exposure to ultraviolet sunlight.

“Oil-based inks are then pressed into the etched grooves and gently wiped. The deeper grooves retain more ink than the shallower ones, corresponding to the tonal range of the image,” according to Dajani’s notes.

The metal plate is then “placed on the bed of a traditional printing press and a damp piece of heavy-weight art paper” is positioned on top of it before both are “rolled through the press”, the artist explains.

In addition to the range and layers that each print gains from this process, having black-and-white photos also brings something to the work.

“Because they are black and white, the viewer is required to perhaps put more effort into feeling the picture and understanding… or seeing what they get out of it,” said Dajani.

The artist is also influenced by the still-life paintings of Spanish masters such as Francisco Goya and Diego Velazquez in their “staged presentation of objects”, and the use of light and shadow.

Employing similar techniques, “allowed me to present the work in a way which would isolate it from an environment and make it kind of more dramatic and theatrical,” he said.

The still nature of each piece and — paradoxically — the portrayal of life in the seeds, fruits and tree branches adds to the binaries of black and white, light and shadows.

The artist says he sought to explore this link between past and present, life and death. He was also intrigued by the use of pieces of string to position objects in these early paintings, employing it himself visibly in some of the photos and seeing it as a metaphor that links past and present.

The careful thought and effort that Dajani invests in each little aspect of every piece pushes the viewer to take similar meticulous effort to examine his work and soak in all the details.

The artist stresses that he does not want the process he used to take away “from the overall message of the work”, which sheds light on a bygone era whose legacy lives on today.

If anything, his work inspires one to examine and appreciate this forgotten past of Al Andalus better than thousands of words in history essays. 

The exhibition continues through November 26.

TSAGAAN NUUR, Mongolia — For thousands of years Mongolia’s Dukha ethnic minority have depended on their reindeer herds to survive the bitter winters, but now their nomadic way of life is threatened by new government restrictions introduced on environmental grounds, they say.

The Dukha spend the winter in snow-covered mountain forests where temperatures plunge as low as -50ºC.

Just a few dozen such families remain, sleeping in tarpaulin tents beside their tethered animals.

But raising livestock — including reindeer — has been banned in parts of the “taiga”, rugged wooded areas stretching from Mongolia to neighbouring Russia, where a national park was declared in 2011.

The area is the Dukhas’ traditional autumn feeding grounds, where they fatten their animals before the onset of the severest cold, and the measure has put them under what they call intolerable pressure.

“There is no place left for us to live in the taiga,” said Sandagiin Ganbat, a 57-year-old Dukha and father of five.

“The park authority’s decision is no different than letting us cease to exist.”

Even by the standards of one of the world’s most sparsely populated countries, life in the taiga is harsh. There are only a few tracks, and often the only mode of transportation is horse or reindeer.

Staying warm is a constant struggle and attacks from roaming packs of wolves an everyday threat.

Some of their tents are equipped with solar panels and satellite phones in a nod to modernity, but younger Dukha are tempted by apartments in Mongolia’s expanding towns and cities.

Herder Tsendeegiin Ganbat — no relation — recalled one harsh season when he could not find anything to eat.

“I wanted to give up several times, when the weather got too cold... and all my kids got sick,” he said.

His 11-year-old son Bayandalai spends his weekends at the family camp, riding a reindeer for an hour every Sunday to the nearest track, and then going by car to spend the week at a school in the nearest town.

He also has a daughter who studies in Mongolia’s bustling capital Ulan Bator, and has told her parents she will stay there after graduation — a decision they understand.

‘No more’

Most Dukha do not eat their reindeer, which they keep mainly for milk, and many keep guns to shoot elk and other wild mammals as well as for protection from wolves.

But Mongolia heavily restricts hunting, citing concerns about declining animal stocks, and the nomads are forced to buy mutton, goat meat and staples such as rice from nearby farmers in order to stay within the law.

The park had been made off-limits to nomads to protect it from illegal gold mining, which causes ecological damage, Tsedendashiin Tuvshinbat of Mongolia’s environment ministry told AFP.

Nomads can graze their reindeer outside the park, he added.

Some younger Dukha — known as Tsaatan in Mongolian — flout the rules, bringing their animals into forbidden zones to graze on moss and lichen buried under the snow.

Many Dukha are dependent on government handouts — worth about $65 each month for adults — and income generated from tourists visiting their camps.

“If there were no allowance, all the reindeer men would have gone to jail,” Sandagiin Ganbat said. “And there will be no more reindeer and reindeer riders.”

As I watched horrific pictures of the terrorist attack in Paris unfold on my television screen, my thoughts went back to a similar carnage that happened in my home country a few years ago. 

On November 26, 2008, Mumbai was brought to a standstill in one of the deadliest extremist assaults on Indian soil. One hundred seventy-one people died in a standoff between the police and ten heavily armed militants. The siege of the city lasted for over three days in the heart of India’s financial capital.

Last weekend, I had just returned to Amman from Mumbai after a short visit there. I was, in fact, staying at the same hotel where the terrorists had stormed in, seven years ago. The similarity in the bloodbath that occurred in the two cities Paris and Mumbai is eerie. Quite like the Bataclan concert hall where Eagles of Death Metal performed in Paris, the night when terrorists targeted the 1,500 capacity venue as part of a series of organised terror attacks, Mumbai’s attention, on that particular evening, was focused on one of the country’s favourite sports: cricket. 

India was playing against England, and beating its old colonial master. At about 9:30pm, two gunmen with assault rifles appeared on the sidewalk. One stood at the entrance, the second to his left. Then they started firing. Minutes later, they walked away, leaving more than a dozen casualties behind amid upturned, bloodied tables.

In Paris, gunmen armed with Kalashnikovs targeted three busy restaurants and a bar. Around forty people were killed as customers were singled out at venues including a pizza joint and a Cambodian diner. The other target was a stadium in France, on the northern fringe of Paris, where President Hollande and 80,000 other spectators were watching a friendly international between France and Germany. The president was whisked to safety after the first explosion just outside the venue. Three attackers were reportedly shot there.

In Mumbai the assailants landed by sea in a hijacked fishing trawler. They struck at a crowded railway station, a few restaurants and a hospital, and then, in a coordinated spate of attacks, seized two five-star hotels, taking hostages. Military commandos later stormed these places and began a battle with terrorists that transformed the city into a war zone for sixty hours, as live television footage of the shootout was beamed around the world. Fifty-two people died in one hotel while thirty-eight died at the other one. 

While checking-in at one of those hotels earlier this month, there was not a sign of the unfortunate tragedy that had occurred there previously. The resilience of the human spirit had ensured that on the surface at least, everything was back to normal. But the psychological and emotional scars that we carried resurfaced with the Paris incident, and I found myself instantly uniting with the French in their grief. Like I had united with the Pakistanis when there was a shootout in a school in Peshawar, with the Lebanese when there were serial bombings in Beirut last week, and so on. 

Talking to one of the survivors in Mumbai was an eye-opener. 

“A guy burst in with a machine gun. He was in western dress, wearing jeans,” the American singer of the hotel band recalled. 

“Then what happened?” I asked. 

“He told everybody to put their hands up and asked if there were any British or Yankees,” he continued. 

“What did you say?” I was curious.

“I am alive, aren’t I?” he smiled.