#Senior Research Fellow jobs

[soelstress]

Ambivalent Research

Pairing: Ransom Drysdale x female!reader

Summary: Working with Ransom was never easy, so why did you think a joint research trip would be any different?

Word count: 3.5k

Warnings: 18+ Minors DNI , nsfw , sex/smut, p in v sex , unprotected sex , oral sex (f receiving) , vaginal fingering , some language

A/N 1 - This is my first joint submission for @steviebbboi 200 Followers Celebration Writing Challenge and @yenzys-lucky-charm & @sweater-daddiesdumbdork Horny Hoes Hootenanny. Sorry it's last minute!

A/N 2 - Prompts - - Enemies to lovers - "Slower, baby, I'm not going anywhere" - "We're both adults, we can share a bed for one night" - "Are you fucking kidding me?" - Withholding - getting scared during a horror movie

As a bonus, I asked Yenzy for two spins on the trick-or-treat wheel of potential doom... and for this one I chose the pillow fight!

A/N 3 - Do not Steal, Copy or Plagiarize any part of my work - GIF taken from google but page was listed for @writemarvelousthings

A/N 4 - Please let me know if I've missed a warning, knowing me it's more than likely. Hope you all enjoy ☺️

“Are you fucking kidding me?” The annoyed shout caused silence to fall as you stepped into the rustic lobby of the lodge. Optimistically, you had hoped that this trip would go smoothly… but of course nothing ever went to plan when he was involved, you thought with a disappointed sigh. “You’re fucking with me, right?” As you walked towards the check-in desk, you saw a staff member trying to apologize profusely to the person causing the ruckus. Any other person would probably see an exquisitely dressed, well groomed handsome man. All you saw was your boss Harlan Thrombey’s grandson, your fellow researcher and the biggest pain in your ass. 

Don’t-call-me-Hugh ‘Ransom’ Drysdale. When Harlan had said that Ransom would be working with you to research for Harlan’s next few mystery novels, you were filled with dread. From information you’d gleaned, Ransom was considered to be the black sheep of the family, a trust fund prick as they so lovingly called him. When asked, Harlan admitted that Ransom never had a job, only having worked as his research assistant for a summer. It was agreed between you and Harlan that you would have seniority, something you were grateful for as Ransom had been a reluctant participant to start, doing minimal work except for when he took every opportunity to cause trouble for you. He was an arrogant, self important conceited jerk who you wanted to kill… until things reached a peak one day. When Ransom had complained once again about working, you had lost all patience and your filter. “Fine! If you’re happy to keep sponging off your grandfather’s legacy and just remain a Drysdale in the self imposed so-called shadow of your parents rather than make something of yourself by your own efforts, then stop wasting my time and go!” From that day, Ransom had committed to contributing as much as possible. His work ethic might have improved… but he still annoyed you whenever the chance arose.

You subtly jabbed his side upon reaching the desk which caused his glare to focus on you. “Oops! Excuse me, Mr Drysdale. What seems to be the problem?” You offered your name to the staff member, the name you saw from his tag was Paul, who quickly found yours and Ransom’s booking were for the same company.

Another member of staff appeared behind Paul, radiating authority and a zero tolerance for nonsense attitude. Now this was someone who commanded respect, unlike the entitled idiot next to you whose gaze would have you murdered a million times over if looks could kill. “As my colleague Paul already explained to Mr Drysdale, unfortunately the pipes in his suite have burst, rendering the room unusable. Due to other bookings and events being reserved prior to yours, there are no other rooms available for tonight. We have called other hotels in the area, and found another suite at - “

”At a hotel 45 minutes away” Ransom interrupted. “Look, I need to be here for work. I don’t think you realize how important this could be for you, so why don’t you - “

”Share my suite” Three gazes focused on you though your attention was on the one that could potentially - and almost certainly would - make things more difficult. “We can share a room for a night”. Part of your brain screamed in horror and rebellion at the thought of sharing a room with him, but the other part scrambled to minimize the damage the arrogant asshole could cause with his big mouth and even bigger ego. Ransom opened his mouth to argue but when you jabbed him again and raised a brow, he knew to shut up. Or rather his version of shutting up which was to grumble and whine as he stomped over to the elevators. Rolling your eyes, you offered a small smile to the two staff members. “I’m so sorry about him, he shouldn't have spoken to you that way”.

Paul smiled at you gratefully, the weight of the world seemed to have dropped from his shoulders. “We have been trained to deal with such situations ma’am”.

You shook your head. “Just because a customer is paying for a service doesn’t give them the right to speak to you like that. Again, I’m very sorry and will be mentioning how professionally you handled this to my boss”.

”Thank you ma’am. Of course the suite will be refunded and due to the inconvenience, dinner is complimentary”. You thanked them profusely and headed to the elevator where Ransom fidgeted impatiently.

“So when should I get that refund?” Ransom huffed, pushing the call button.

You eyed him incredulously, somehow still amazed by his ego. ”You realise that Harlan will receive the refund, seeing as he paid?” Before you both stepped into the elevator, you pulled out your phone to call your boss. Upon hearing his greeting, a smile graced your lips. “Hello Harlan”

”Ah good afternoon dear girl”. You could hear the formality being replaced with fondness, a rare occurrence from what you had observed of Harlan. “I trust you and my grandson arrived safely at the lodge?” 

“Yes, though there is a slight change in plans”. Briefly, you informed him about the room being refunded and Ransom sharing a room with you instead of having to leave the area.

“Oh dear. I appreciate you being so accommodating, especially as I had wanted you both to specifically research the lodge and surrounding neighborhood for me. I must apologize in advance for my grandsons behaviour, as I know he seems to enjoy unnecessarily needling you”

”As long as I won’t be held accountable for any retaliation for the duration of this trip, short of bodily harm or murder”. You grinned as Harlan chuckled and Ransom gave you the side eye. You bid Harlan a good evening, ending the call.

”Retaliation huh? Now why would my dear Grandfather agree to that?” Ransom leaned back against the elevator wall. Your irritation flared at his casual arrogance. 

“Because he knows you ‘enjoy unnecessarily needling’ me Drysdale, and yes those were his exact words”. Inhaling deeply, you stood straight and held your ground. “Being a researcher is challenging enough, but to work for one as renowned as Harlan Thrombey is the chance of a lifetime and I’d be a fool to let anything ruin the opportunity. Which is what I told him when I applied for the role. After my interview and a few months of working for him, he said that he appreciated my honesty and work ethic, but also recognised I have no patience for drama or bullshit - a good deal of which is found within his own family, much to his disappointment”. Every word you spoke was true, Harlan had said all of this to you. Though you had overheard the specifics about his family while he was speaking to his caregiver Marta but you had met all of them in the few years you worked for Harlan. 

A dark brown arched. “Oh? And just what drama are you referring to?” With a ding, the elevator doors opened to your floor and Ransom hesitated before gesturing for you to move first. Finding your door a few strides down the corridor, you stopped and pulled the key card from your pocket. Opening the door, you waved for Ransom to precede you. 

”Take your pick, from your parents to your Uncle Walt or Aunt Joni. They all have their own drama. Though I wonder about how Harlan would react to hearing how much damage his eldest grandson could have caused by opening his big mouth without thinking. Newsflash Drysdale - any dramas linked to Harlan Thrombey or Blood Like Wine would be damaging. Those are the two names paying your income… and the only names worth mentioning. I’ve been doing this job for some time, so I’ll make it easy for you - despite what you, your mother or father may say no one has ever heard the name Drysdale with recognition outside of your social circle”.

Ransom's face darkened at the mention of his immediate family. “Hey, don’t compare me to those two. I asked Grandfather to show me the ropes for this business, so I could decide if it was something I wanted to do myself. But if by some small chance Grandfather leaves the company to me and not that idiot Walt, I’ve no intention to say that I’ve done my own work from the ground up. I’d say it’s Grandfathers and I’m just continuing his legacy”. A chuckle from you had him frowning. “What?”

”I think hell just froze over because I agree with you”. And you did. It irritated you that Linda, Ransom’s mother and Harlan’s eldest child, claimed to have built her business from the ground up by herself when in actuality she had used Harlan's money. And her husband wasn’t much better, you saw Richard’s eyes wander when you visited Harlan at his estate. All of the family repulsed you, trying to constantly outdo one another whilst trying to impress Harlan. But hearing Ransom say that he would honour and continue Harlan’s legacy rather than try to claim it for his own softened you slightly. 

Ransom had walked into the main area with a small seating area against the wall but a large king size bed dominated the space, facing beautiful views outside the windows. “You gotta be shitting me” he groaned, almost as if in pain.

When you saw the size of the couch, you knew that neither of you would be sleeping on it. It was soft and squashy looking, but more for sitting on than sleeping. Which really left you with one option. “For Gods’ sake. We’re both adults, we can share a bed for one night”. He glanced at you with an indecipherable look before sighing and stalking off to the bathroom and closing the door. Unsure whether to check on him after the look in his deep blue eyes, you hesitated. Oh yes, along with your annoyance of him came the reality that he really was a handsome bastard. Not that you’d ever tell him that. Dark hair swept off an angular face with soft pink lips and eyes to drown in, he really had won the genetic lottery. But his appearance aside, you had shared a few soft moments with him after the family gatherings he attended. Sometimes you would gently rub his back or pat his shoulder to ease the tension and resentment radiating off him. There were moments that you wanted to verbally comfort or reassure him, but after the brief physical contact he would pull away and annoy you before walking away. Part of you knew it was a defence mechanism, lashing out because it was all he knew. This time you decided to give him space.  

After eating dinner and making a plan to explore the area the next day, you changed into your pajamas - a matching set of cotton shorts and tank top -  and sat to watch a horror movie that you discovered had used the lodge you were currently staying at as a filming location. Harlan knew you were thorough in your research, so encouraged you to investigate any adaptations made to avoid plagiarism. You hated horror movies, much preferring a thriller or a mystery. But this was your job. As you sat watching, you hugged your pillow to your chest. Your heart began to pound watching the lead female edge into the dark room - 

and jumped as something grabbed you. Reacting on instinct, you swung out with your pillow and walloped whatever it was that had grabbed you. Surprised and amused blue eyes met yours. “Seriously? You hit me… with a pillow?”

Embarrassment was chased away by irritation. “Seriously” you mimicked his voice with a scowl. “You decided to scare me while watching a horror movie? Real mature, Drysdale”. 

“Pot, meet kettle” he huffed, grabbing his pillow and whacking you back.

It might have been immature, childish, just downright idiotic… but this man existed just to make your life a living hell. And you’d had reassurances from Harlan that any retribution this weekend would not be held accountable, So you decided the hell with it. And whacked him repeatedly with your pillow. Ransom was caught off guard for a moment before retaliating, making every effort to hit you with his pillow. At one point, you had stolen Ransom's pillow and struggled to keep hold of yours, Ransom in close proximity. Both your eyes locked as you panted, straining to win the pillow. 

The next moment the pillow was thrown aside and you were under Ransom, grabbing desperately at his hair, his sweater - anything to bring him closer. Your mouths clashed in a heated battle for dominance, filled with teeth and tongue. One arm propped his torso up to keep his weight off you while the other slid around your waist and pulled you against him. 

Once again your brain screamed at you - why the hell were you kissing Ransom Drysdale? More importantly, why the hell were you enjoying it so much? But your heart pounded loudly, drowning out your screaming thoughts and focusing on Ransom - how good his lips felt against yours, how smooth his hands felt gliding over your flesh, how he ground against you as desperately as you were to him. “Too many goddamn clothes” he hissed, yanking your top over your head and immediately latched his lips onto a nipple, fingers tweaking the other. Your back arched, pushing yourself closer to him. Desperate to feel his skin on yours you tugged at his sweater before he pulled back with a curse, almost ripping it off and tossing it aside before plunging his mouth to yours. His denim clad crotch ground against you, causing you to moan at the feel of his erection. Ransom pulled your shorts off, exposing you to him. His finger drifted up your thighs and across your folds before slowly sinking into your heat. He groaned against your lips, pushing in a few times before adding a second finger and curling them against your inner wall. 

His fingers worked a steady rhythm inside you as his palm rubbed against your clit. You moaned when a wave of pressure began to slowly build, rising to crest through you… and you whimpered when his hand stopped moving altogether. Desperate for friction you tried to grind your hips against his hand but he pulled it away, raising his head to look at his wet fingers. “Hmm.. I think you could be a little wetter, dear girl” he crooned, lightly mocking Harlan's usual endearment. When a snarl started to leave your throat, his fingers returned to the previous rhythm and any fight left you. His lips glided from one breast to the other, his tongue teasing and tasting your skin in time with his digits. The wave of pleasure built again, threatening to consume you and just as you tasted the first hint of release Ransom stopped again. You heard a soft chuckle which only fueled your frustration at being denied.

”Drysdale. So help me, if you don’t make me cum right now-” a soft brush over your clit briefly interrupted your threat. “I know a half a dozen ways to end you without weapons or toxins” your growl turned into a breathless whimper when he blew softly onto your pulsing heat. Looking down, you could see him watching you inches from where you needed him.

”Is one of those ways smothering me with this wet cunt?” Those blue eyes sparkled with wicked sensuality. “Then end me right now, baby”. Suddenly he licked firmly into your dripping folds, groaning deeply as the first drop hit his tongue which had you squirming from the vibrations. “Goddamn… you taste so fine, kitten”. He lapped away, humming as you began to grind against his face. The tension from your two prior denials built with a vengeance and in your desire, you gripped his hair and pulled him closer. His nose brushed against your clit and you cried out which he answered with a pleased hum as he firmly suckled on your clit.

”Fuck!” Pleasure coursed from head to toe, your mind solely focused on prolonging the feeling as long as possible. Once the tremors had stopped, you laid for a moment to gather your thoughts. Glancing to the side you saw Ransom facing you, laying on his back with his hands behind his head and that goddamn smug-sonofabitch-smirk etched on his face, lips glistening from your juices. 

Suddenly filled with an urge to wipe the smirk off his face you moved to pull his jeans and boxers down, watching as his cock was freed. God, no wonder he walked around with that attitude. He was big, and for a moment you wondered how the hell it was meant to fit in you but you didn’t want to say it aloud and give him yet another ego boost. Scrambling to straddle him, you squirmed as his flesh rubbed between your folds. “Woah… slower, baby, I’m not going anywhere” Ransom chuckled which turned into a gasp when you squeezed him with your hands. Guiding his tip, you both moaned when it rubbed over your clit. Biting your lip you began to sink onto him. “Shit” he hissed, hands moving to grip your hips and control your descent. Moaning from the stretch you wriggled on him, unable to sit comfortably on his thighs. Cursing, he gently pushed you to lean back and you slid flush against him, the movement causing his cock to rub deeply within you. At your whimper, his eyes flashed to you. “You ok?”

Grinding against him, a small keen echoed through the room. “Feels so good… fuck… you’re so big”. 

Hearing your voice crack on the last word, Ransom began to roll his hips watching as you lost yourself to pleasure. Head tipped back, chest heaving and hands grasping for something. Ransom bucked up into you and then groaned when your hands dug into his flesh. ”Oh… my kitten has claws” he whispered, relishing the sight of the red marks. Feeling you clench around him Ransom continued to buck into you, his hands gripping your hips. ”Fuck yes… you want my cum kitten? Gonna cream this sweet little pussy”. You moaned loudly at his words, his hands guiding you through deep strokes as your walls sucked at his throbbing cock insistently. Your body began to tremble with that oh-so-familiar heat and you clenched tightly around Ransom, suddenly terrified he was going to edge you again. “Not gonna stop, baby” he murmured, gasping as your body shook with pleasure. “That’s it kitten, squeeze me. I’m gonna cum so hard for you”. Suddenly he tugged you down to him for a deep kiss, groaning against your lips as he came deep within you.

Panting, you rested against Ransom’s chest and heard the gentle lub-dub of his heart. His fingers brushed cautiously against your cheek, cupping your face when you pushed further into his touch. He tensed and you worried that he was going to revert to his pattern of lashing out. You couldn’t handle that, not after this. You cared about him, somehow falling for him along the way despite the antagonism between you. “Please”. He looked down at you, worry lining his face. “Please don’t pull away, Ransom”. 

Shaking his head, Ransom held you close. “I’m sorry baby, for being an asshole and making things difficult for you. Honestly, I just wanted you to notice me. But I’ve wanted more since you basically told me to grow some balls and make something of myself. You’re the first person apart from Grandfather to see something in me”. Ransom sighed heavily. “I’m a mess, kitten. Fuck, you’re more than familiar with the shit show that is my so-called family”. Your heart ached at the bitterness lacing his voice and moved your hand to rest on his chest. “I don’t know how to do this” he gestured between you before capturing your hand with his and pressing his lips to your palm. “But I want to try. For you. With you. I’m probably going to upset you and definitely annoy you… but I want to try and make you happy”.

“Like our research”. He cocked his head at your answer. “Research means that you don’t know, but are willing to find out”. At your soft giggle, his blue eyes sparkled. “Together. We’ll do it together”.

[unordinary-diary]

Seraphina and Arlo: The Brainwashing of High Tiers

Exposition:

— Remi, Episode 50.

There is a heavy implication that Seraphina and Arlo were raised in much the same way. The pressure on Seraphina comes from her parents, so I’ll extrapolate that the same goes for Arlo. This raises the question: how do the authorities create such a strong societal pressure on such a small percentage of the population? Most high tiers will probably not know any other high tiers besides their parents. Take Wellston Private High School for example: it’s the most prestigious private school around, and canonically has the “highest concentration of high tiers in the region”. There are six high tiers in Wellston. Apply this to god tiers specifically, and there are only three. Not to mention that this current group of students is uniquely strong, even for Wellston. In Rei’s senior year, he was the strongest at 5.8 max.

So much of this brainwashing relies on the parents to do all of the work, and it only takes one or two people to break the cycle. So how are the authorities creating this immense pressure? One tactic could be by isolating high tiers. There is a very widespread concept that one shouldn’t associate with those outside their level range. A caste system like this that affects everyone is much easier to create and maintain than an expectation for a small group, and it also means that high tiers are only being influenced by those who are also high level. This creates an echo chamber. I’ve researched cults and how they brainwash victims, and the first step in the process is isolating them in exactly this way.

But, if there are so few high tiers, how the hell are they supposed be isolated from other groups? The answer is that high tiers are just isolated in general. Take a look at Arlo: his only friend is Remi, and even her, he keeps at an arm’s length. Arlo is only close with Remi in the first place because he was close with Rei, who, at the time of meeting Arlo, was presumably close in level with him. [EDIT: I forgot about Holden, which I think says a lot about his relevance. He is kept at more than an arm’s length and doesn’t seem to have any actual influence on Arlo, let alone a deep relationship. He is also not presented as an equal.] Take a look at Seraphina: before meeting John, she didn’t seem to have any friends other than possibly Arlo. Seraphina and Arlo pre-John seemed to have had more of a professional relationship, and while they were not close in level, Arlo did fit the bill of being a fellow god tier, and strong enough to also be brainwashed.

Now let’s look at Remi. In episode 60, Cecile says to Remi: “And yet here you are... Always hanging around those two monkeys, Blyke and Isen. Letting them treat you as an equal even though you’re in a completely different league.” This struck me as odd because, aside from Cecile herself, the Wellston students closest in level to Remi were Arlo, Blyke, and Isen. And who is she friends with? She actually was doing a pretty good job at following that social convention, unless Cecile wanted to be friends with Remi, which she clearly didn’t. But... her friends were still not close enough to her level. Was she supposed to just not have friends at all? The answer seems to be a resounding yes. Can you think of any genuine friends that Cecile has either?

Friendship simply isn’t considered a necessity for high tiers.

But... why is it that Arlo and Seraphina were brainwashed differently? Creating a societal norm for an isolated group of people is one thing, because those people’s mindsets feed into each other. Putting pressure on individual families to keep them in line, but doing it all in different ways? That would be near impossible. My theory is that Seraphina recieved the typical high tier brainwashing, and that Arlo was raised differently because he was being groomed to work for the authorities. Seraphina didn’t have a set career path planned out for her, but if she’s trying to be “perfect” by the standards of those controlling her, she’s bound to end up going in a direction that pleases them. Arlo on the other hand was specifically planned to become an authority figure. That’s why his brainwashing is so centered on leadership. Also, growing up with direct contact to the authorities makes it more possible for them to customize his brainwashing in this way.

But does all of this apply to high tiers in general, or is it specific to god tiers? Let’s take a look at the high tiers in Wellston. We have Seraphina, John, Arlo, Terrence, Remi, Cecile, and Blyke. John is a unique circumstance because he wasn’t raised by high tiers, so we’ll cross him off the list. Terrence was also unique, so we can cross him off as well. Remi was different from the norm as well. Why is that? Well, Remi actually wasn’t raised by high tiers either. Rei said on screen that both of his parents were elites. We can cross Remi off. Blyke doesn’t fit the bill either, but that’s easy to explain. He was an elite for a large part of the story, and he shot up rather quickly. We don’t know much of his family, but he probably wasn’t expected to be a high tier at all, and was raised as an elite. (All of this also serves to emphasize how much of this brainwashing comes from a person’s parents.) That leaves only Seraphina, Arlo, and Cecile to look at.

Cecile does seem to have high tier brainwashing, but it’s not nearly as intense as with Seraphina and Arlo. She doesn’t seem “obsessive”, and she wasn’t one of the examples Remi mentioned in chapter 50. It’s clear that high tiers are brainwashed in general, but god tiers are kept on a much shorter leash. This makes sense, obviously, because keeping a population in control like that is less necessary the lower the level. However, it’s also a chicken an egg situation: god tiers are both more important to keep in control, and also easier to keep in control. It’s important to note just how many exceptions we had to cross off. People like Remi and Blyke aren’t actually that unusual— a lower leveled high tier is much more likely to have non-high tier parents, or to have not always been a high tier themselves, or just in general, to have way more day-to-day interaction with non-high tiers. The brainwashing gets more and more diffused the lower down the ladder you go.

[mariacallous]

Linda McMahon, a business and wrestling executive and major Republican donor, is likely to lead the Education Department, CNN reported Tuesday evening, citing four people familiar with the matter.

McMahon, a co-chair of President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team who has virtually no experience in education, served as director of the Small Business Administration in Trump’s first term. She left the administration in 2019 and went on to help create the American First Policy Institute, a pro-Trump think tank that’s been closely involved in planning for the second term. The Trump transition team did not respond to a request for comment about the selection.

McMahon is perhaps most known for her time as CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, which she co-founded with her husband, Vince McMahon. Together, they built the company from a small regional corporation to a multinational public enterprise. She stepped down from the executive role in 2009. In 2010 and 2012, she ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate in Connecticut.

Although her experience in education is sparse, McMahon does have some ties. A New Bern, N.C., native, she graduated from East Carolina University in 1969 with a bachelor’s degree in French and certification to teach. She also served a one-year term on the Connecticut State Board of Education after being appointed by Republican governor Jodi Rell in 2009.

She’s a longtime supporter of and board member at Sacred Heart University, a private Roman Catholic institution in Fairfield, Conn. In 2012, Sacred Heart’s student commons was named after McMahon, who gave $5 million to support capital projects at the university, according to The Register Citizen.

Picking McMahon, a wealthy executive with little experience in education, is a move reminiscent of Trump’s first term, when he appointed Betsy DeVos as education secretary. DeVos, a billionaire philanthropist known for her support of school choice, voucher programs and charter schools, was a controversial candidate whose confirmation required then–vice president Mike Pence to cast a tie-breaking vote in her favor.

McMahon will be the second consecutive education secretary with ties to Connecticut—current secretary Miguel Cardona grew up in the state and served as commissioner of the Connecticut State Department of Education from 2019 to 2021.

McMahon’s name was not one of those thrown out as a potential candidate to lead the department, though The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that she was in the running for education secretary or U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom, citing people familiar with the matter. McMahon was up for the position of commerce secretary, CNN reported, though that job went to Howard Lutnick, also a co-chair of the transition.

Candidates whom some lobbyists and experts considered likely to be on the short list included Ryan Walters and Cade Brumley, the state superintendents of Oklahoma and Louisiana, respectively; Tiffany Justice, a co-founder of Moms for Liberty; and Christopher Rufo, a board member at New College of Florida and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.

If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, McMahon will take over a department that Trump has repeatedly said he wants to get rid of. But doing so will require an act of Congress. Some policy analysts have said Trump and his allies are more likely to leverage the department’s power to reshape the higher education system. Trump himself has pledged to fire accreditors in order to reclaim colleges from the “radical left” and proposed creating a free online university funded by taxes on wealthy private colleges.

McMahon penned an op-ed for The Hill in September supporting the Workforce Pell Act introduced by congressional Republicans in 2023, offering a rare glimpse into her potential education policy agenda.

The bill, which would expand eligibility for federal Pell Grants to students enrolled in short-term credential programs, was blocked by Democrats but faces a much easier path to becoming law in the new Congress. Critics worry that in lieu of increases in overall Pell funding, expanding the program would deplete funds for students pursuing four-year degrees.

In the Hill piece, McMahon argued that Pell funding for credentials like coding boot camps would “create high-paying jobs for more Americans.” A report published Monday on a federal short-term Pell pilot program found that it did not lead to higher employment or earnings for participating students.

“Half a century ago … colleges were focused on preparing students for professional roles at the highest levels of government, science, business and the arts,” she wrote. “Today, however, many degree programs have lost sight of their mission … Our educational system must offer clear and viable pathways to the American Dream aside from four-year degrees.”

Career Education Colleges and Universities, a national trade association representing for-profit technical institutions, endorsed Trump’s reported pick in a statement Tuesday evening.

“Linda McMahon has extensive experience that positions her well to address many of the key areas that will be education priorities in the new administration,” CECU said in the statement. “We look forward to working with the new secretary and the team assembled around her. Under her leadership, we are confident that the new Department of Education will take a more reasoned and thoughtful approach in addressing many of the overreaching and punitive regulations put forth by the Biden administration, especially those targeting private career schools.”

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Lee Cowan

Published: Nov 12, 2023

At the University of Vermont not long ago, it was move-in day for the class of 2027.  About a thousand incoming freshman were meeting their roommates, finding their dorm rooms, and getting settled on campus. At first glance one might have thought this was an all-women's college – 62% of this year's class are women, a gender gap that has earned Burlington, Vt., a nickname: Girlington. 

"You see six or seven women for every three or four men," said UVM's vice provost for enrollment Jay Jacobs. His job is all about student diversity, and these days the male/female divide is now part of that equation. "Sure, I thought about racial and ethnic diversity," Jacobs said. "Sure, at a public flagship in the state of Vermont, I've thought about geographic diversity. Never gender diversity like that. That's where we are."

UVM is hardly an outlier. Nationwide, women make up almost 60% of college undergraduates.

In 1972, when Title IX was passed to help improve gender equality on campus, men were 13% more likely to get an undergraduate degree than women; today, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, it's women who are 15% more likely to get a degree than men.

"We have a bigger gender gap today than we did when we passed laws to help women and girls; it's just flipped," said Richard Reeves, a former Brookings Institution senior fellow. He says, no one really has been able to explain why so many men are so absent in higher education. What is known is the gender disparity starts as early as kindergarten, where girls are just generally the stronger sex in academics.

Reeves said, "If you look at high school GPA, and those who are getting the best grades in high school, two-thirds of them are girls. Those with the lowest grades, two-thirds of them are boys."

It's been theorized girls and women today are just fulfilling their destiny – that once the limitations on their achievements were lifted, they soared. Reeves, who's just launched the American Institute for Boys and Men, fears that things have changed so quickly, it's left many boys and men struggling to catch up, not just in the classroom, but at work and at home, too.

"What does it mean to be a successful man today? That was a question that was pretty easy to answer a generation or two ago," said Reeves. "But actually, what is the answer today? A lot of these guys just don't know."

In short, he says millions of boys and men don't understand how or where they fit anymore, and their reaction is to generally disconnect. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, men's participation in the labor market has dropped more than 7% in the last 50 years. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 21% of men report binge drinking (almost double the rate of women), and men account for nearly 80% of suicide deaths (four times the rate for women).

Reeves said, "The two most commonly-used words by suicidal men to describe themselves were useless and worthless."

But even to suggest there's some kind of male crisis is perilous these days, said Reeves: "Merely raising it will cause people to eye roll, and say, 'Really? Ten thousand years of patriarchy, and now you're worried?'"

After all, women still earn only about 80 cents for every dollar earned by a man (according to Pew Research Center). Only a fraction (10.4%) of Fortune 500 CEOs are women. And women make up just a quarter (28%) of the members in Congress, and (so far) zero U.S. presidents.

Those numbers leave UVM students Sarah Wood and Maxine Flordeliza pretty skeptical that men are barely treading water. "I think it's very interesting that there is kind of a big fuss about – not a fuss, but it's a conversation that people are having," said Wood. "But I don't think it's necessarily a problem?"

"I think that just the fact that the playing field has been a bit more evened out, shouldn't be the reason as to why men don't really know where they fit," Flordeliza said.

"Sure, do we need to do more to encourage more women into politics and into board rooms? Yes," Reeves said. "But meanwhile, can I not see that one group is struggling here, and another group is struggling there? And if I can't do that, we're in really deep trouble."

And those in the most trouble, he says, are working class and African American boys and men.

Von Washington Jr., executive director of community relations with The Kalamazoo Promise in Michigan, said, "Before it used to be, you graduated high school, 'Goodbye, you're on your own.' A lot of people said, 'Hey, you're outta my house.' Or 'It's time for you to go.' But we're understanding now those supports need to continue."

The Kalamazoo Promise program offers high school graduates in Kalamazoo scholarships covering up to the entire cost of in-state college tuition. The impact?  The number of Kalamazoo women getting a college degree has increased by about 45%. But the number of Kalamazoo men getting college degrees didn't budge.

"We're working with them, we're talking with them," said Washington. "We're trying to find out what is it that, even with this opportunity, you have some of the same challenges as someone in another community that doesn't have this opportunity."

One solution that seems to be working is making sure those men who are struggling have a place to freely admit they're struggling. Staffers with The Promise are tracking down those men still eligible for the scholarship, finding out why they never used it, and helping them get what they need to finally do it – like Daniel Jaffari. "I just started wandering around in life and doing random jobs, getting tired of doing random jobs," said Jaffari. "And now I'm here!"

He joined with dozens of other men at what the Promise was calling their Males of Promise event. Another participant was Denis Martin, who graduated high school six years ago. He said, had the Promise not tracked him down, he might not have realized he was ready for something more. "I feel like now I have the discipline to be in a five-year program or a four-year program," he said. "As a kid I feel like I was still bouncing off the walls, and my mind didn't know what exactly was out there."

Back at UVM, administrators have changed their marketing and communication strategies to reach out to men, especially those who might not think they want to go to college at all. The college is also hiring a diversity coordinator to focus specifically on helping men.

Jacobs said to Cowan, "The world is built for people like you and me to succeed, so why do we need to help men succeed here on our campus even more? But I think once people start to understand the nuances and challenges that we're talking about here today, people understand that all students need support."

UVM junior Lucas Roemer doesn't see it as a sort of affirmative action – putting the finger on the scale for men. He sees it as a way to help anyone who's been hanging on and feeling left out.  "I think there's ways to promote both femininity and masculinity on campus equally well," he said. "I think there's definitely a path forward that could be beneficial to everybody."

The coordinator of the Men and Masculinities Program will be housed in the Women & Gender Equities Center – ironic to some. But it's also a recognition that men's problems can co-exist with those of women. "You lift the edges up, the center will be lifted up as well," said Jacobs. "And here, the edges include men."

It's the kind of reaction to the very real problems of boys and men that Richard Reeves says needs to be the rule, and not the exception: "This is not a made-up crisis of masculinity. This is an actual hard fact. There is real suffering here, and if we don't address real suffering, then what are we here for?"

==

Let's address a couple of throat-clearing, hand-wringing statements the author inserted - or perhaps, was obliged to insert - to apologize for the rest of the article:

After all, women still earn only about 80 cents for every dollar earned by a man (according to Pew Research Center).

The key word is "earn." No serious economist takes the gap seriously, as it's accounted for by hours worked, maternity leave, choice in occupation, changes to occupation, length of tenure, tendency for overwork, and dozens of other variables. Not the "goddidit" of "tEh PaTrIaRcHy." The Equal Pay Act was introduced 60 years ago in the US, and any legit complaints of unfair pay are actionable.

Only a fraction (10.4%) of Fortune 500 CEOs are women. And women make up just a quarter (28%) of the members in Congress, and (so far) zero U.S. presidents.

This is called the Apex Fallacy, or more formally, the Ecological Fallacy.

Ecological Fallacy (also known as: ecological inference fallacy) Description: The interpretation of statistical data where inferences about the nature of individuals are deduced from inference for the group to which those individuals belong.

For starters, male variability is greater than female variability in a number of ways. You'll find far more men at both the higher and lower ends - 80% of homeless are men, 80% of suicides are men, majority of unemployed are men - than for women. If you want to talk about the president, be prepared to also talk about the homeless, unemployed and suicides.

And secondly only 45 people have ever been the US President. This includes no atheists, no Muslims, no Hindus, no openly gay, no Asians, no Hispanics, no trans. No electricians, no plumbers, no mobile app developers, no chefs, no janitors have ever been the president. And only one nominally black (half and half) president. It omits that 51% of voters are women. If women wanted a president based on her being a woman, they would easily vote one in. They have not. So perhaps ask women how they decide who to vote for. If that feels like a stupid question to ask them, then it's a stupid argument to make.

As well as the fact the 2016 runner-up and the current second-in-line to an 80 year old president are both women, both beating out men and women for those positions. Being unsuccessful is also a part of equality, and something hundreds of unsuccessful male candidates have had to accept.

And those in the most trouble, he says, are working class and African American boys and men.

It's disturbing that people can't care about half of the population without framing it as, well, if you help men and boys out, then you'll help black men and boys. Which is like saying "you have to take the good with the bad." You should want to help people who need help because they need help.

This topic really causes the sociopaths to come out of the woodwork and into the light.

[ausetkmt]

Get Ready for Fort Liberty: The Pentagon Begins Changing Confederate Base Names | Military.com

The Pentagon has started the process of renaming Fort Bragg and other bases, as well as ships and hundreds of signs and roads, as it plans to scrub ties to the Confederacy from all installations by the start of 2024.

William LaPlante, the undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, directed all Department of Defense organizations to implement this week the recommendations handed down by the Naming Commission, an independent panel created by Congress and charged with reviewing and replacing the names, according to a press release.

It's a heavy undertaking that includes new names for nine Army bases -- Bragg will become Fort Liberty -- two Navy ships and upward of 1,000 other items located on America's military installations. But Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon's press secretary, told reporters Wednesday he was optimistic it could all be done within the year.

Read Next: States Must Recognize Military Spouses' Job Licenses After Moves Under New Law

"I think we are confident, you know, each of the services has clear instructions in terms of what it is that they need to focus on, and where the secretary is confident that the services are and will continue to take that seriously," he said.

Ryder did not have an updated figure on what it would cost to take on all of the recommendations from the Naming Commission. The latest estimate from the group, released this past September, was a total of $62.5 million.

Katherine Kuzminski, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security think tank who researches military culture, told Military.com on Friday that the DoD has dealt with renaming operations in the past.

In 2018, then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis announced that the U.S. Pacific Command would become the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, a shift that required changes ranging from signs to stationery.

Kuzminski said that was accomplished in a relatively short period of time. She added that senior leaders in the military can also start referring to those Army bases by their new names right now to help make them commonplace.

"You do have to think about all of the details such as who owns what signage or when exits on interstates will be changed," Kuzminski said. "But we can start referring to these installations like Fort Liberty by these new names and it can get at what the Naming Commission was doing, which was changing the culture."

Kuzminski said it's possible cost estimates could go up as the Pentagon starts to unravel how involved the renaming and replacing process is.

Department of Defense officials began to reckon with the military's long history of honoring namesakes tied to the rebel army that fought in the Civil War following George Floyd's murder at the hands of police, which subsequently sparked nationwide anti-racism protests.

The Naming Commission was established in the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act and began submitting its first report cataloging those Confederate-linked names on military bases in May 2022. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin accepted the commission's recommendations this last September.

The group identified nine Army bases, including Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and Fort Benning, Georgia, which are both named for Confederate officers.

They recommended Benning be renamed Fort Moore, after Lt. Gen. Hal Moore, who led men during the Vietnam War, and his wife Julia. The cost of renaming all of those bases will come to around $21 million, by the Naming Commission's estimates.

Additionally, the Navy identified the USS Chancellorsville, named after a Civil War battle with a Confederate victory, and the USNS Maury, named after Matthew Fontaine Maury, who left the Navy to sail for the Confederacy, according to the Pentagon. The commission did not provide new name recommendations for those vessels.

The commission also identified Confederate officers recognized on campus at West Point and the U.S. Naval Academy, which will cost an estimated $450,000 to replace.

The largest amount of assets would be various roads, signs, buildings and street names throughout the Pentagon's portfolio, which would account for nearly $41 million of the cost.

Editor’s note: The Pentagon said in a Jan. 5 press release that The Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery was being disassembled. A spokesman for Arlington National Cemetery contacted Military.com after publication to say that the information provided by the Department of Defense was incorrect. A paragraph reporting that detail has been removed from the story. A plan for the removal of the monument is still being developed, the spokesman said.

[owedfavors]

ON UNA’S DAY-TO-DAY RESPONSIBILITIES ; ** also known as 'where to find commander evers.'

contrary to impressions given by the show, una spends relatively little of her day on the bridge. instead, her time is occupied with behind-the-scenes work. her responsibility is to ensure that ship and crew run smoothly ( at least, when not derailed by external situations over which she has no control ). she spends her days conducting meetings with senior staff in the various departments operating on the ship, organizing duty rosters and schedules for repairs and use of labs and various equipment shared between departments, handling crew disputes and concerns, reviewing reports and collating them for submission to starfleet command, among other things.

her domain is the ship. she rarely joins away missions, she is only infrequently in the midst of the action, she will avoid diplomatic engagements with every excuse she can identify. all of this, she leaves all of this to captain pike. instead, she works to keep everything off of his desk that does not absolutely have to be on his desk, to handle situations before they become a problem, and in general to ensure that enterprise runs smoothly and that the captain can focus on the more important parts of his job.

because she reads every report, because she has her ears constantly to the ground, because she spends her days everywhere on the ship, there is almost nothing that transpires on enterprise that she does not know of. she does not need close personal connections with the crew to know the subject of the newest betting pools, the emergent gossip, the latest addition to enterprise bingo. these reach her ears in other ways.

at any given time, una generally also has about five projects she is working on beyond her usual duties. these range from updates to the ship’s programming, be it the main computer, the replicators, etc.; tweaking equipment whose standard specifications she considers insufficient ( or inefficient ); analyzing data from scientific phenomenon recently investigated; or researching the newest developments in dozen scientific and technological fields.

her base of operations is ostensibly her office, which compared to many of the spaces on enterprise she selected for its small size. to some, it feels cramped. to her, it feels comfortable. and, if the ‘cramped’ conditions discourage her fellow officers from lingering, so much the better. however, she generally goes to others for meetings, rather than bringing them to her, and so she spends most of her official on-duty hours on the move throughout the ship.

so when is una actually on the bridge? first, whenever she has a shift at the helm. prior to the battle with control, this was frequent. her primary responsibilities were as helmsman and first officer, and she spent half her shifts on the bridge. once enterprise returns to service after her repairs, una leaves the helm primarily to lieutenant ortegas on the alpha shift and to her colleagues. enterprise’s chief of operations was reassigned during the ship’s time in space dock, and una has subsumed their former responsibilities into her own daily routine. however, she does miss the helm, and will take the occasional shift here and there, whether to offer relief in the usual duty roster or to indulge her own fondness for the post.

she will also be on the bridge during any emergent situations. at the onset of any red alert, or should captain pike call her to the bridge, she is swift to drop whatever she is in the middle of and make her way there. however, she very rarely takes a post on the bridge; unless she is at the helm, she is more likely to float between stations to allow her to oversee the situation as needed, be it monitoring sensor readings or communications or collaborating with her colleagues.

the exception is if the captain leaves the ship to join an away mission, leaving her in command. in this case, she is likely to be on the bridge barring some emergency elsewhere on the ship that requires her attention.

[isabelwcna]

Open Your Future: Top CNA Training Programs in Boston for Aspiring Caregivers

Unlock your ‍Future: Top CNA Training Programs ⁤in ⁤Boston for aspiring Caregivers

Are you looking for a rewarding career in the healthcare field? Becoming a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) is a great starting point! In this extensive guide, we will explore the top CNA training programs in Boston, provide valuable insights on what to expect, ‍and equip you wiht tips to succeed in your training and career. Let’s dive in and unlock your future as a caregiver!

Why Become⁣ a CNA ‍in Boston?

Boston is home to a thriving healthcare industry, with numerous hospitals and senior living facilities in need of qualified CNAs. Pursuing CNA training in this vibrant city offers several advantages:

Job Opportunities: High demand for CNAs ensures a robust job market.

Compassionate ⁤Work Surroundings: ‍CNAs play a critical role in patient care, making a significant difference in people’s lives.

Flexible Work Hours: Many‍ healthcare facilities offer shifts that accommodate various ​lifestyles.

Pathway⁤ to Advanced Careers: Starting as a CNA can open doors to ‌advanced roles in nursing and healthcare management.

Top CNA training programs in Boston

Below, we’ve compiled a list of some of the best ​CNA training programs in Boston, ⁣which‌ are known for‌ their quality education and supportive learning environment:

Program ‌name

Duration

Location

Tuition

Boston College

8 weeks

Chestnut Hill

$1,200

Massachusetts Bay Community College

12 weeks

Wellesley

$900

Southern New⁤ Hampshire University

10 weeks

Manchester

$1,500

City of Boston CNA Program

6 weeks

boston

$950

Curry College

8 weeks

Milton

$1,100

What ​to Expect During CNA Training

CNA training programs typically consist of classroom instruction, hands-on skills training, and clinical​ experiences. Here’s a breakdown of what you can ‍expect:

Theory Classes: cover fundamental nursing concepts, anatomy, hygiene practices, and patient care.

Skills lab: Practise essential skills such as taking vital signs, infection control,⁢ and mobility assistance.

Clinical Experience: Gain real-world experience by working with patients in healthcare settings‌ under supervision.

Benefits of Enrolling in CNA Programs

Investing⁣ in a CNA training program offers various benefits, including:

Short Training Duration: Most programs can be completed in a matter of weeks, allowing you to enter the workforce quickly.

State Certification: Upon completion, you’ll ​be eligible to⁣ take the state certification exam.

Hands-On Learning: Practical‍ training prepares you​ for ⁢real-life scenarios you’ll face as a CNA.

Supportive Community: Engage with instructors and fellow students who share your passion for caregiving.

Practical Tips ⁤for Aspiring CNAs

Here are some practical ⁢tips to make the‍ most of your CNA training journey:

Stay Organized: ⁤ Keep track of assignments, exams, and⁢ clinical schedules to manage your time effectively.

practice Skills: Regularly practice your nursing ⁢skills with classmates​ to⁣ build confidence and competence.

Ask Questions: Don’t hesitate to seek clarification from instructors on topics you find challenging.

Network: Build relationships with fellow students and professionals to create⁢ opportunities for career advancement.

First-Hand Experience: A Journey to Becoming a CNA

To illustrate the transformative impact of CNA training,here’s a ‍brief case study of‌ Emily,an aspiring caregiver:

Emily always had a passion for helping others but didn’t know how to turn that passion into a career. After researching various options,she decided to enroll in​ a CNA program at Massachusetts Bay Community college.⁤ With dedicated effort, she completed her training in 12 weeks, gaining both theoretical knowledge and ‍hands-on experience.

Upon finishing her program, Emily took the certification exam and successfully became a​ CNA. She secured a position at a local​ hospital where she was able to provide excellent patient ‌care while continuing her education towards a nursing degree. emily’s story highlights how CNA training can serve as a ⁢launching⁢ pad for⁣ a fulfilling career in healthcare.

Conclusion

Choosing‌ to become a Certified Nursing assistant in Boston can be a life-changing decision.With numerous training programs available, aspiring caregivers⁣ have the ​opportunity‍ to gain invaluable skills and enter a rewarding profession in a thriving job market. By⁢ enrolling in one of the top CNA training‍ programs in Boston, you can unlock your future and ⁢make a lasting impact on the lives of those you care for.

https://coursescna.com/open-your-future-top-cna-training-programs-in-boston-for-aspiring-caregivers/

[krupa192]

Exploring CFA Career Paths: Diverse Opportunities Beyond Investment Banking

The CFA is regarded as one of the most highly sought after designations in the finance industry. Though most people link the CFA with investment banking, the scope of opportunities that the CFA charter opens is not limited to this sector alone. Instead, it provides the way to numerous interesting positions within various finance sectors, each challenging and providing its own unique opportunities.

Here in this blog, we'll analyze the varied number of career paths in which individuals completing a CFA course have to choose, thus including the job opportunities that emerge in the various fields such as asset management, corporate finance, risk management, and financial consulting.

Asset Management Asset management is the largest career opportunity provided by CFA chartering; asset managers operate on behalf of clients to conduct investment management including individuals, pension funds, as well as all types of institutional investors. You may be equipped, as a chartered fellow associate, with assets to analyze, manage equities, bonds as well as alternative investments

Key Roles in Asset Management:

Portfolio Manager: Portfolio managers give investment decisions and manage client portfolios. They use their knowledge of financial analysis to create diversified portfolios that fit clients' financial goals. Research Analyst: Research analysts make an in-depth look at specific sectors, companies, or even financial instruments. This helps them provide insights that portfolio managers can use when making investment decisions. Client Relationship Manager: These professionals maintain and grow relationships with clients, ensuring that their investment needs are met while providing market insights and updates. The CFA course provides a strong foundation in investment management, equipping you with the necessary skills to succeed in this field.

Corporate Finance Corporate finance professionals work within companies to manage their financial activities, which include budgeting, forecasting, financial reporting, and capital budgeting. Though investment banking is often the first career that comes to mind when thinking of finance, corporate finance offers a wide range of roles that are just as rewarding and impactful.

Key Roles in Corporate Finance:

Financial Analyst: Financial analysts work to analyze a company's financial performance, detect trends, and make recommendations that can improve profitability and efficiency. Treasury Manager: Treasury managers handle the cash flow of a company, manage its liquidity, and ensure that it has enough money to achieve both its operational and strategic objectives. Chief Financial Officer (CFO): The CFO is in charge of the overall financial strategy of a company. They work closely with senior management to make strategic decisions based on financial data and market trends. CFA charterholders can leverage their deep understanding of financial analysis and valuation techniques to make strategic decisions that help businesses grow and succeed.

Risk Management Another growing field for charterholders is risk management. A risk manager assists organizations in identifying, assessing, and mitigating financial risks. In this highly complex and volatile global economy, companies require such skilled professionals to anticipate possible risks and strategize to minimize them.

Key Roles in Risk Management:

Risk Analyst: A risk analyst analyzes financial risks that an organization may encounter, including market risk, credit risk, and operational risk. Using quantitative models, they are able to forecast the potential losses and suggest strategies for mitigating the risks. Chief Risk Officer (CRO): The CRO is responsible for the overall risk management strategy of an organization. They work with other executives to ensure that the company is adequately protected against potential financial risks. Compliance Officer: Compliance officers ensure that a company adheres to regulatory requirements and industry standards. They play a crucial role in mitigating legal and financial risks. The CFA course is well-rounded in financial modeling, quantitative analysis, and risk assessment. This makes it an excellent qualification for those looking to pursue a career in risk management.

Financial Consulting Financial consulting is another area where CFA charterholders can make a significant impact. Financial consultants provide advisory services to businesses and individuals on a wide range of financial matters, including mergers and acquisitions, capital raising, and financial restructuring.

Key Professional Positions in Financial Consulting:

M&A Consultant: M&A consultants assist businesses in identifying and evaluating potential merger or acquisition targets, conduct financial due diligence, and then advise on structuring deals.

Financial Planner: Financial planners assist individuals in developing personal financial plans that include retirement planning, tax planning, and investment strategies.

Management Consultant: Management consultants are generally advisors to companies looking to enhance total performance, including financial management, cost reduction, and operational efficiency. CFA charterholders bring a wealth of financial expertise to consulting roles, helping clients navigate complex financial decisions and achieve their goals.

Private Equity and Venture Capital Private equity and venture capital are specialized sectors in the finance industry that deal with investments in private companies. The private equity firm invests in established companies for the improvement of their operations and profitability, whereas the venture capital firm invests in early-stage startups with a high growth potential.

Important Roles in Private Equity and Venture Capital:

Private Equity Analyst: Private equity analysts assess investment opportunities in private companies, conducting due diligence and financial analysis to determine the potential for growth and profitability. Venture Capitalist: Venture capitalists focus on identifying and investing in high-growth startups. They provide funding and strategic guidance to help startups scale and succeed. Investment Partner: Investment partners are responsible for making final investment decisions and managing relationships with portfolio companies. The CFA course provides valuable skills in financial modeling, valuation, and due diligence, making it an ideal qualification for those interested in private equity or venture capital.

Conclusion Investment banking is the traditional career path for CFA charterholders, but there are many other exciting and rewarding opportunities. From asset management to corporate finance and risk management and financial consulting, the CFA qualification leads the way into career paths in each of these different fields. Having completed a CFA course gives you the tools and the experience to do things right and properly in those wide-ranging fields to lead you into an exciting, lucrative, and highly rewarding career in finance.

Whether you want to work with huge corporations, handle investments, or advise clients on complex financial decisions, the CFA designation sets the foundation for success in many finance-related roles. So, if you are ready to explore all the career opportunities available to charterholders of CFA, joining a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) course could be the first step toward achieving your professional goals.

[jobrxiv]

Research Fellow and Postdoctoral Fellow Positions in ICT Helsinki Institute for Information Technology Attn: ICT Researchers ! We are now accepting applications for Postdoctoral Fellows (3 years) or Research Fellows (5 years) more info in link See the full job description on jobRxiv: https://jobrxiv.org/job/helsinki-institute-for-information-technology-27778-research-fellow-and-postdoctoral-fellow-positions-in-ict/?feed_id=90210 #algorithms #artificial_intelligence #bioinformatics #cybersecurity #data_science #ScienceJobs #hiring #research

[spacenutspod]

3 min readPreparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Latha Balijepalle, a senior database administrator at NASA Ames, encourages others to take a risk and pursue challenges in their work, like trying something new that might open doors to a new opportunity.NASA/Brandon Torres Navarrete When Madhavi Latha Balijepalle noticed that her morning commute took her past NASA Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, she set a new career goal for herself: working for NASA.  “I started manifesting it, thinking about it every day as I drove by. When I started looking for a new job, I saw an opening and decided to apply,” said Balijepalle, a senior database administrator working at the Airspace Operations Laboratory (AOL) at NASA Ames.   Eight and a half years later, she supports the researchers and developers who research next-generation solutions to advance aircraft technology and air traffic management.  A journey into the unknown  Balijepalle’s journey to NASA started thousands of miles away. She grew up in a small town in southern India, studying electrical engineering in college and establishing a career in information technology, working in C++ and Python.  When her husband found a job opportunity in the United States, Balijepalle’s life took an unexpected turn.  “I never planned to move to America,” said Balijepalle. “It was not easy to come here, even though my husband had a job. I stayed in India for almost nine months, before he found a different job that would help us with my visa and documentation.”  After settling into her new country, growing her family, and developing in her new career, Balijepalle began to ponder her dream job at NASA. She and her younger daughter, a fellow space fan, enjoyed talking about the agency’s work in space, and when a Linux administrator position opened up, she jumped at the chance.  A dream job becomes reality  At the lab, Balijepalle was initially responsible for managing the lab’s Linux servers and applications. Today, she also supports researchers and developers with development, automation, and deployment of their work.  “Latha is the lifeblood of the lab,” said Jeff Homola, co-leader of the Airborne Operations Laboratory at NASA Ames. “Without her unwavering dedication to making sure our systems are safe, secure, up to date, and running smoothly, we would not be able to do what we do in the lab.”  One of Balijepalle’s proudest achievements during her NASA career is her language skills. Growing up, she spoke Telugu and Hindi, and learned English, but communication was still a challenge when she arrived at NASA.  “I spoke English when I came to America, but not as well, and not using the technical language we use at NASA,” said Balijepalle. “I’m proud that I’ve improved my communications skills.”  “Step outside your comfort zone”  Looking back on the commute that changed her life, Balijepalle says she owes it all to being up to the challenge.  “I wasn’t a risk taker, I didn’t think about stepping outside my comfort zone, but as I drove by NASA Ames each day, I started to think about astronauts. They step outside their comfort zone and leave the planet, so maybe I could take a risk, too.”  For those who also dream of working at NASA one day, Balijepalle has some advice: try doing it her way.  “Start thinking about it and manifesting your dream. Maybe it will come true, and maybe it won’t, but you might as well try.”  Share Details Last Updated Dec 23, 2024 Related TermsAmes Research CenterGeneral Explore More 16 min read NASA Ames Astrogram – December 2024 Article 3 days ago 5 min read NASA’s Ames Research Center Celebrates 85 Years of Innovation Article 3 days ago 3 min read NASA’s Webb Reveals Smallest Asteroids Yet Found in Main Asteroid Belt Article 3 days ago Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA Missions Humans in Space Climate Change Solar System

[jcmarchi]

MIT affiliates named 2024 Schmidt Futures AI2050 Fellows

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/mit-affiliates-named-2024-schmidt-futures-ai2050-fellows/

MIT affiliates named 2024 Schmidt Futures AI2050 Fellows

Five MIT faculty members and two additional alumni were recently named to the 2024 cohort of AI2050 Fellows. The honor is announced annually by Schmidt Futures, Eric and Wendy Schmidt’s philanthropic initiative that aims to accelerate scientific innovation. 

Conceived and co-chaired by Eric Schmidt and James Manyika, AI2050 is a philanthropic initiative aimed at helping to solve hard problems in AI. Within their research, each fellow will contend with the central motivating question of AI2050: “It’s 2050. AI has turned out to be hugely beneficial to society. What happened? What are the most important problems we solved and the opportunities and possibilities we realized to ensure this outcome?”

This year’s MIT-affiliated AI2050 Fellows include:

David Autor, the Daniel (1972) and Gail Rubinfeld Professor in the MIT Department of Economics, and co-director of the MIT Shaping the Future of Work Initiative and the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Labor Studies Program, has been named a 2024 AI2050 senior fellow. His scholarship explores the labor-market impacts of technological change and globalization on job polarization, skill demands, earnings levels and inequality, and electoral outcomes. Autor’s AI2050 project will leverage real-time data on AI adoption to clarify how new tools interact with human capabilities in shaping employment and earnings. The work will provide an accessible framework for entrepreneurs, technologists, and policymakers seeking to understand, tangibly, how AI can complement human expertise. Autor has received numerous awards and honors, including a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship, an Andrew Carnegie Fellowship, and the Heinz 25th Special Recognition Award from the Heinz Family Foundation for his work “transforming our understanding of how globalization and technological change are impacting jobs and earning prospects for American workers.” In 2023, Autor was one of two researchers across all scientific fields selected as a NOMIS Distinguished Scientist.

Sara Beery, an assistant professor in the Department of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) and a principal investigator in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), has been named an early career fellow. Beery’s work focuses on building computer vision methods that enable global-scale environmental and biodiversity monitoring across data modalities and tackling real-world challenges, including strong spatiotemporal correlations, imperfect data quality, fine-grained categories, and long-tailed distributions. She collaborates with nongovernmental organizations and government agencies to deploy her methods worldwide and works toward increasing the diversity and accessibility of academic research in artificial intelligence through interdisciplinary capacity-building and education. Beery earned a BS in electrical engineering and mathematics from Seattle University and a PhD in computing and mathematical sciences from Caltech, where she was honored with the Amori Prize for her outstanding dissertation.

Gabriele Farina, an assistant professor in EECS and a principal investigator in the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS), has been named an early career fellow. Farina’s work lies at the intersection of artificial intelligence, computer science, operations research, and economics. Specifically, he focuses on learning and optimization methods for sequential decisio­­­n-making and convex-concave saddle point problems, with applications to equilibrium finding in games. Farina also studies computational game theory and recently served as co-author on a Science study about combining language models with strategic reasoning. He is a recipient of a NeurIPS Best Paper Award and was a Facebook Fellow in economics and computer science. His dissertation was recognized with the 2023 ACM SIGecom Doctoral Dissertation Award and one of the two 2023 ACM Dissertation Award Honorable Mentions, among others.

Marzyeh Ghassemi PhD ’17, an associate professor in EECS and the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, principal investigator at CSAIL and LIDS, and affiliate of the Abdul Latif Jameel Clinic for Machine Learning in Health and the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society, has been named an early career fellow. Ghassemi’s research in the Healthy ML Group creates a rigorous quantitative framework in which to design, develop, and place ML models in a way that is robust and fair, focusing on health settings. Her contributions range from socially aware model construction to improving subgroup- and shift-robust learning methods to identifying important insights in model deployment scenarios that have implications in policy, health practice, and equity. Among other awards, Ghassemi has been named one of MIT Technology Review’s 35 Innovators Under 35; and has been awarded the 2018 Seth J. Teller Award, the 2023 MIT Prize for Open Data, a 2024 NSF CAREER Award, and the Google Research Scholar Award. She founded the nonprofit Association for Health, Inference and Learning (AHLI) and her work has been featured in popular press such as Forbes, Fortune, MIT News, and The Huffington Post.

Yoon Kim, an assistant professor in EECS and a principal investigator in CSAIL, has been named an early career fellow. Kim’s work straddles the intersection between natural language processing and machine learning, and touches upon efficient training and deployment of large-scale models, learning from small data, neuro-symbolic approaches, grounded language learning, and connections between computational and human language processing. Affiliated with CSAIL, Kim earned his PhD in computer science at Harvard University; his MS in data science from New York University; his MA in statistics from Columbia University; and his BA in both math and economics from Cornell University. 

Additional alumni Roger Grosse PhD ’14, a computer science associate professor at the University of Toronto, and David Rolnick ’12, PhD ’18, assistant professor at Mila-Quebec AI Institute, were also named senior and early career fellows, respectively.

[medievalista]

Ok im gonna ramble about my thesis under the cut bc im rly overwhelmed and annoyed....

Basically I'm a history student (undergrad) and I've learned the hard way that my school's history department just kinda sucks. Our undergrad thesis is a requirement for the first semester of our senior year. We're "given the option" to continue working on it into our second semester of senior year but we basically got zero info on the requirements or how to go about adding that to our schedules or proposing our ideas for continuation. Our class is ~12ppl and all but one (not including me) are stopping their thesis now - e.g. at the end of first semester, so what is required of us. I hadn't been planning on continuing into the next semester but I've learned that I've rly enjoyed the process of writing this and have so much more I want to add. Like I literally just made this decision to continue which is my fault but given I didnt know anything about how next semester would work, I didnt see that as a problem. BUT there are now only two of us wanting to work into the second semester. Both of us are doing premodern history, everyone else is doing 19th-20th c. Our schools faculty has SUCH a dearth of premodern historians, so both of us have reached out to faculty outside our department to help us write (her with an English prof, me with an art history research fellow). Anyways I told my current prof for the thesis class that I want to continue next sem. She said yes BUT - she's the head of both the history & international studies department, and since there are only two history students wanting to keep thesising, we'd have to enroll in the international studies thesis course for the second semester, with her being our advisor. Again she's a 20th c. historian, very valuable but my work is in the 12th c, my friends is in the 15th. We both rly want to pursue history postgrad and want to receive feedback that actually suits our research. I was chill with it til I messaged my friend and realized she already arranged an independent study with the prof she's working on - so she won't be in the intl studies thesis course, meaning I'd be the only history student in there. She basically just got that prof to be an advisor and work with her weekly but they don't get paid or anything. I have no clue what to do!!! Bc the semester ends in less than 2 weeks, and then there's the holidays. I'd try to arrange an independent study course but I worry I don't have time. I also don't even know if I could get the person I'd be working with to be my advisor because she's not a professor. I might enroll in the intl studies thesis course and speak to my prof about arranging meetings with my research fellow during class time because literally what reason would I need to be in class? How am I meant to give or receive feedback w ppl who are not studying anything close to what I am? I'm just so losttttttt. I feel so picky but they literally do a terrible job at fostering any interest in historical research and it's so frustrating. Everything is treated as a graduation requirement. I love my school but if I knew how shit they were with my major, SPECIFICALLY the premodern aspect I'd totally have chosen elsewhere :,( I feel rly passionate about this project and it's only an undergrad thesis so I feel silly being upset but it's so annoying how it feels like the stupidest things are getting in the way of me continuing research!! Just rather discouraging

[mariacallous]

"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights," according to Article 1 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The job of the UN Human Rights Council is to monitor countries' compliance with this fundamental tenet, ensuring that people can live free from persecution, torture and discrimination. 

Several of the countries currently serving as the guardians of global human rights, however, have a poor track record at home — chief among them China, the United Arab Emirates and Eritrea.

In recent years, human rights violations such as reeducation camps, torture and arbitrary arrests, as well as forced labor and suppression of the opposition, have been documented in these countries.

As the number of authoritarian regimes has grown globally, their presence on the Human Rights Council has increased. China, in particular, has exploited this by leaning on allies to vote — or abstain from voting — in favor of its national interests.

Council members becoming less democratic 

In 2023, only 30% of the countries on the Human Rights Council were classified as "free" by the US think tank Freedom House. For its annual Freedom in the World report, the organization examines whether governments provide free elections and meet certain minimum standards for political rights and civil liberties, such as freedom of assembly. A total of 70% of the current council members were classified as "partly free" (such as India) and "not free" (Sudan and other countries). 

Each year, the Human Rights Council elects one-third of its 47 members to three-year terms according to fixed geographic quotas based on the number of UN countries per region: The Asia-Pacific and Africa groups have 13 members each, the Western Europe and North America group has seven, Eastern Europe has six, and the Latin America and Caribbean group has eight. 

Elections for terms running from 2024 through 2026 are anticipated in October. The candidates include Cuba, Kuwait and Russia, which was removed from the council in 2022 following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Researchers from organizations such as Freedom House, V-Dem and Democracy Matrix attempt to quantify members' adherence to minimum international humanitarian standards such as guarantees for civil liberties and compliance with prohibitions on torture. 

The human rights score of the countries that have been sent to the council since its inception in 2006 has declined considerably. In 2023, it is only just above the historic low of 2022.

"This unwelcome development is not only evident in the council but worldwide," said Silke Voss-Kyeck, a research fellow at the German Institute for Human Rights. "Many members are governed in an authoritarian and dictatorial manner." Compliance with human rights obligations seldom plays a role in the election of council members, she said.

'China has Africa in its pocket'

One consequence of the rise of autocratic regimes is that Human Rights Council votes often pit blocs against each other, said Yaqiu Wang, senior researcher on China at Human Rights Watch. Unlike the Cold War, however, the driving factor here is not a shared ideology, she said. 

"It's more interest-based," said Wang. Pakistan, for example, often votes with China because economic ties are strong and Pakistan sees China as an ally against an adversarial India. "It's like a trade: 'If you vote with me, I will go with you.'" 

In addition to Asian countries, Wang said, China has especially relied on African governments for support on the Human Rights Council. "I don't think any particular country has stood up to China — except Somalia, which recently rejected demands," Wang said, referring to the Horn of Africa country's vote for a 2022 resolution that addressed human rights abuses in reeducation camps in Xinjiang. "China has Africa in its pocket."

A unifying element, Wang said, is a rejection of Western dominance. "There's a history of Chinese-African solidarity," Wang said, "an alliance against the Western imperialism." China is building on that — and on economic interdependencies. 

Cultivating unlikely alliances 

China has had less success bringing Latin American governments under its sway. Countries such as Costa Rica are economically more self-sufficient than many African nations. Moreover, South American governments are more democratic, according to the Freedom House Global Freedom Score, and therefore less susceptible to China's influence.

Unlike in many African countries with authoritarian governments, for example, it's not enough to "ensnare" the elites, Wang said. That's because in democracies elites are often replaced through elections.

Unlike the UN Security Council, which is unable to act on the war in Ukraine because Russia has exercised its veto power on votes to address the conflict, the Human Rights Council is not blocked.

Resolutions reprimanding specific countries for human rights violations have increased since the council's founding in 2006. Country-specific resolutions are intended to pressure the respective governments to address the issues or face additional loss of reputation, sparking heated debates among members of the Human Rights Council.

The countries most often mentioned in resolutions brought before the Human Rights Council are Syria, Congo, Israel, Mali, Myanmar, Sudan and Yemen. Despite its own well-documented human rights abuses, China has not been on the losing end of a country-specific resolution. So far, there has only been one such effort: A resolution to condemn the UN-documented reeducation camps for Uyghur Muslims in China's western Xinjiang region failed in 2022, with 17 votes for, 11 abstentions and 19 votes against — including by Indonesia, Pakistan, Namibia and China itself.

'China goes ballistic after the vote'

Wang said China used not-so-subtle coercion to maintain support in the Human Rights Council. "It is intimidating," she said. "It threatens veiled. Before a vote, it's like a Chinese diplomat in another country, let's say Chile, just to give an example, he tells Chile: 'You know, you have to vote this way. Otherwise, you don't want to undermine the economic ties between Chile and China, right?'" Should a country not comply with such demands, Wang said, "China goes ballistic after the vote."

Voss-Kyeck confirmed that China's government uses pressure to get what it wants. "High Commission staff and diplomats are being threatened — personally, but also politically," she said. "It's all well-documented. People are getting evening phone calls to private numbers." No country, she said, is as aggressive as China in attempting to avoid criticism.

The efforts of China and its allies to prevent critical resolutions are evidence of their desire to avoid censure by the council. Only Russia has given up on trying to evade condemnation. "They've become such an outsider," Voss-Kyeck said. "They don't care about the council."

Though countries such as China are able to use alliances to diminish the Human Rights Council's oversight efforts, the work of the UN body is important, Voss-Kyeck said, and its "impact is great." One example is its importance to domestic civil society movements and Indigenous groups.

"That doesn't exist in any UN body: that Indigenous people are allowed in the room, that they have the right to speak, to make statements," said Voss-Kyeck. "That's a thorn in the side of many states."

Limited options for reforming Human Rights Council

Despite the stated purpose of the council, the body's current structure prevents it from being effective in the fight against human rights violations. Too often, countries are both the defendants and judges in the cases of their own violations — and they have little interest in judging themselves.

Though critics of the council agree that changes are needed to restore the body to its intended purpose, many have long been skeptical about specific proposals— such as limiting membership to countries that have ratified certain human rights treaties. "Of course, you can make a court only by the good guys, who then judge the bad guys," said Voss-Kyeck. "But the question is: What effect does that then still have on the 'bad guys'? And who decides who are the bad guys, who are the good guys?" 

Wang also worries that making changes to the structure of the Human Rights Council could ultimately weaken the body. "Reforming the HRC can be risky," she said, "given we do not know the outcome of putting it all back on the negotiation table." 

[kausanoop]

Your Blueprint to a High-Growth Career

Certified Corporate Industrial Accountant (CCIA): Your Blueprint to a High-Growth Career"

In today’s fast-paced corporate landscape, the demand for professionals who excel in financial management and industrial accounting is growing exponentially. The Certified Corporate Industrial Accountant (CCIA) certification is a game-changer for anyone looking to master the complexities of corporate and industrial finance. With its industry-focused curriculum and global recognition, CCIA is more than just a certification – it’s a career catalyst.

What is CCIA?

The Certified Corporate Industrial Accountant (CCIA) program is a specialized certification designed to prepare professionals for the dynamic demands of corporate and industrial finance. It combines core accounting principles with advanced financial strategies, making it ideal for individuals who aspire to take on high-level roles in the finance domain.

Key Features of the CCIA Program

1. Advanced Curriculum for Real-World Applications

The CCIA program focuses on critical areas such as:

Corporate accounting and reporting

Cost accounting and management

Taxation (direct and indirect)

Budgeting and financial planning

ERP and financial technology integration

2. Hands-On Training

Unlike traditional courses, CCIA emphasizes practical learning through case studies, project-based training, and real-world scenarios.

3. Customizable Learning Path

The program allows exemptions for eligible candidates, ensuring a personalized and efficient learning journey.

Exemptions in CCIA: Accelerating Your Certification

Exemptions make CCIA accessible and manageable for professionals with prior qualifications or relevant work experience.

Eligibility for Exemptions

Commerce and Finance Graduates: Skip foundational modules like basic accounting and introductory finance.

Experienced Professionals: Candidates with 2+ years of relevant experience can qualify for advanced module exemptions.

Certified Professionals (CA/CPA): Exemptions for overlapping subjects like taxation, auditing, and advanced accounting.

By acknowledging prior learning, the CCIA program ensures that you focus only on areas that add value to your skill set.

Why Choose CCIA?

1. Industry-Relevant Expertise

The CCIA curriculum is aligned with current industry needs, ensuring you acquire skills that employers value.

2. Career Advancement

With CCIA certification, you can step into roles such as:

Corporate Accountant

Industrial Finance Manager

Tax Consultant

Budget Analyst

3. Global Opportunities

The certification’s recognition across industries and borders makes it an excellent choice for professionals aiming for international careers.

4. High Return on Investment

Professionals with CCIA certification often command higher salaries and enjoy accelerated career growth.

Benefits of CCIA Certification

1. Comprehensive Knowledge Base

From mastering financial analysis to understanding the nuances of industrial cost management, CCIA provides a 360-degree view of the accounting landscape.

2. Enhanced Credibility

CCIA-certified professionals are viewed as experts, boosting their employability and professional reputation.

3. Job Placement Support

Many institutions offering CCIA programs also provide placement assistance, helping you secure lucrative roles in top companies.

4. Networking Opportunities

Joining the CCIA community connects you with industry leaders, mentors, and fellow professionals, opening doors to collaborations and career growth.

Who Should Consider CCIA?

Fresh Graduates: Commerce and finance graduates looking to kickstart their careers in accounting.

Experienced Accountants: Professionals aiming to transition into senior roles or specialize in industrial finance.

Entrepreneurs: Business owners seeking deeper financial insights to drive growth.

How to Get Started with CCIA

Research Accredited Institutes: Choose an institute that offers a robust curriculum, practical training, and placement support.

Check for Exemptions: Understand the modules you can skip based on your qualifications and experience.

Plan Your Timeline: Set realistic goals to complete the certification without compromising your current commitments.

The Future of Accounting with CCIA

As industries continue to evolve, the role of financial professionals becomes increasingly vital. The CCIA program prepares you to meet these challenges head-on, equipping you with the skills to excel in any corporate or industrial setting.

Conclusion

The Certified Corporate Industrial Accountant (CCIA) program is a transformative opportunity for anyone looking to excel in accounting and finance. Its practical approach, global recognition, and career-focused curriculum make it a top choice for ambitious professionals.

Start your journey with CCIA today and unlock a world of possibilities in the ever-growing field of accounting and finance!

[atplblog]

Price: [price_with_discount] (as of [price_update_date] - Details) [ad_1] “SOA Design Patterns is an important contribution to the literature and practice of building and delivering quality software-intensive systems.” - Grady Booch, IBM Fellow “With the continued explosion of services and the increased rate of adoption of SOA through the market, there is a critical need for comprehensive, actionable guidance that provides the fastest possible time to results. Microsoft is honored to contribute to the SOA Design Patterns book, and to continue working with the community to realize the value of Real World SOA.” - Steven Martin, Senior Director, Developer Platform Product Management, Microsoft “SOA Design Patterns provides the proper guidance with the right level of abstraction to be adapted to each organization’s needs, and Oracle is pleased to have contributed to the patterns contained in this book.” - Dr. Mohamad Afshar, Director of Product Management, Oracle Fusion Middleware, Oracle “Red Hat is pleased to be involved in the SOA Design Patterns book and contribute important SOA design patterns to the community that we and our customers have used within our own SOA platforms. I am sure this will be a great resource for future SOA practitioners.” - Pierre Fricke Director, Product Line Management, JBoss SOA Platform, Red Hat “A wealth of proven, reusable SOA design patterns, clearly explained and illustrated with examples. An invaluable resource for all those involved in the design of service-oriented solutions.” - Phil Thomas, Consulting IT Specialist, IBM Software Group “This obligatory almanac of SOA design patterns will become the foundation on which many organizations will build their successful SOA solutions. It will allow organizations to build their own focused SOA design patterns catalog in an expedited fashion knowing that it contains the wealth and expertise of proven SOA best practices.” - Stephen Bennett, Director, Technology Business Unit, Oracle Corporation “The technical differences between service orientation and object orientation are subtle enough to confuse even the most advanced developers. Thomas Erl’s book provides a great service by clearly articulating SOA design patterns and differentiating them from similar OO design patterns.” - Anne Thomas Manes, VP & Research Director, Burton Group “SOA Design Patterns does an excellent job of laying out and discussing the areas of SOA design that a competent SOA practitioner should understand and employ.” - Robert Laird, SOA Architect, IBM “As always, Thomas delivers again. In a well-structured and easy-to-understand way, this book provides a wonderful collection of patterns each addressing a typical set of SOA design problems with well articulated solutions. The plain language and hundreds of diagrams included in the book help make the complicated subjects of SOA design comprehensible even to those who are new to the SOA design world. It’s a must-have reference book for all SOA practitioners, especially for enterprise architects, solution architects, developers, managers, and business process experts.” - Canyang Kevin Liu, Solution Architecture Manager, SAP “The concept of service oriented architecture has long promised visions of agile organizations being able to swap out interfaces and applications as business needs change. SOA also promises incredible developer and IT productivity, with the idea that key services would be candidates for cross-enterprise sharing or reuse. But many organizations’ efforts to move to SOA have been mired–by organizational issues, by conflicting vendor messages, and by architectures that may amount to little more than Just a Bunch of Web Services.

There’s been a lot of confusion in the SOA marketplace about exactly what SOA is, what it’s supposed to accomplish, and how an enterprise goes about in making it work. SOA Design Patterns is a definitive work that offers clarity on the purpose and functioning of service oriented architecture. SOA Design Patterns not only helps the IT practitioner lay the groundwork for a well-functioning SOA effort across the enterprise, but also connects the dots between SOA and the business requirements in a very concrete way. Plus, this book is completely technology agnostic―SOA Design Patterns rightly focuses on infrastructure and architecture, and it doesn’t matter whether you’re using components of one kind or another, or Java, or .NET, or Web services, or REST-style interfaces. While no two SOA implementations are alike, Thomas Erl and his team of contributors have effectively identified the similarities in composition services need to have at a sub-atomic level in order to interact with each other as we hope they will. The book identifies 85 SOA design patterns which have been developed and thoroughly vetted to ensure that a service-oriented architecture does achieve the flexibility and loose coupling promised. The book is also compelling in that it is a living document, if you will, inviting participation in an open process to identify and formulate new patterns to this growing body of knowledge.” - Joe McKendrick, Independent Analyst, Author of ZDNet’s SOA Blog “If you want to truly educate yourself on SOA, read this book.” - Sona Srinivasan, Global Client Services & Operations, CISCO “An impressive decomposition of the process and architectural elements that support serviceoriented analysis, design, and delivery. Right-sized and terminologically consistent. Overall, the book represents a patient separation of concerns in respect of the process and architectural parts that underpin any serious SOA undertaking. Two things stand out. First, the pattern relationship diagrams provide rich views into the systemic relationships that structure a service-oriented architecture: these patterns are not discrete, isolated templates to be applied mechanically to the problem space; rather, they form a network of forces and constraints that guide the practitioner to consider the task at hand in the context of its inter-dependencies. Second, the pattern sequence diagrams and accompanying notes provide a useful framework for planning and executing the many activities that comprise an SOA engagement.” - Ian Robinson, Principal Technology Consultant, ThoughtWorks “Successful implementation of SOA principles requires a shift in focus from software system means, or the way capabilities are developed, to the desired end results, or real-world effects required to satisfy organizational business processes. In SOA Design Patterns, Thomas Erl provides service architects with a broad palette of reusable service patterns that describe service capabilities that can cut across many SOA applications. Service architects taking advantage of these patterns will save a great deal of time describing and assembling services to deliver the real world effects they need to meet their organization’s specific business objectives.” - Chuck Georgo, Public Safety and National Security Architect “In IT, we have increasingly come to see the value of having catalogs of good solution patterns in programming and systems design. With this book, Thomas Erl brings a comprehensive set of patterns to bear on the world of SOA. These patterns enable easily communicated, reusable, and effective solutions, allowing us to more rapidly design and build out the large, complicated and interoperable enterprise SOAs into which our IT environments are evolving.” - Al Gough, Business Systems Solutions CTO, CACI International Inc.

“This book provides a comprehensive and pragmatic review of design issues in service-centric design, development, and evolution. The Web site related to this book [SOAPatterns.org] is a wonderful platform and gives the opportunity for the software community to maintain this catalogue….” - Veronica Gacitua Decar, Dublin City University “Erl’s SOA Design Patterns is for the IT decision maker determined to make smart architecture design choices, smart investments, and long term enterprise impact. For those IT professionals committed to service-orientation as a value-added design and implementation option, Patterns offers a credible, repeatable approach to engineering an adaptable business enterprise. This is a must read for all IT architect professionals.” - Larry Gloss, VP and General Manager, Information Manufacturing, LLC “These SOA patterns define, encompass, and comprise a complete repertoire of best practices for developing a world-class IT SOA portfolio for the enterprise and its organizational units through to service and schema analysis and design. After many years as an architect on many SOA projects, I strongly recommend this book be on the shelf of every analyst and technical member of any SOA effort, right next to the SOA standards and guidelines it outlines and elucidates the need for. Our SOA governance standards draw heavily from this work and others from this series.” - Robert John Hathaway III, Enterprise Software Architect, SOA Object Systems “A wise man once told me that wisdom isn’t all about knowledge and intelligence, it is just as much about asking questions. Asking questions is the true mark of wisdom and during the writing of the SOA Design Patterns book Thomas Erl has shown his real qualities. The community effort behind this book is huge meaning that Thomas has had access to the knowledge and experience of a large group of accomplished practitioners. The result speaks for itself. This book is packed with proven solutions to recurring problems, and the documented pros and cons of each solution have been verified by persons with true experience. This book could give SOA initiatives of any scale a real boost.” - Herbjörn Wilhelmsen, Architect and Senior Consultant, Objectware “This book is an absolute milestone in SOA literature. For the first time we are provided with a practical guide on how the principle centric description of service orientation from a vendor-agnostic viewpoint is actually made to work in a language based on patterns. This book makes you talk SOA! There are very few who understand SOA like Thomas Erl does, he actually put’s it all together!” - Brian Lokhorst, Solution Architect, Dutch Tax Office “Service oriented architecture is all about best practices we have learned since IT’s existence. This book takes all those best practices and bundles them into a nice pattern catalogue. [It provides] a really excellent approach as patterns are not just documented but are provided with application scenarios through case studies [which] fills the gap between theory and practice.” - Shakti Sharma, Senior Enterprise Architect, Sysco Corp “An excellent and important book on solving problems in SOA [with a] solid structure. Has the potential of being among the major influential books.” - Peter Chang, Lawrence Technical University “SOA Design Patterns presents a vast amount of knowledge about how to successfully implement SOA within an organization. The information is clear, concise, and most importantly, legitimate.” - Peter B. Woodhull, President and Principal Architect, Modus21 “SOA Design Patterns offers real insights into everyday problems that one will encounter when investing in services oriented architecture. [It] provides a number of problem descriptions and offers strategies for dealing with these problems.

SOA design patterns highlights more than just the technical problems and solutions. Common organizational issues that can hinder progress towards achieving SOA migration are explained along with potential approaches for dealing with these real world challenges. Once again Thomas Erl provides in-depth coverage of SOA terminology and helps the reader better understand and appreciate the complexities of migrating to an SOA environment.” - David Michalowicz, Air and Space Operations Center Modernization Team Lead, MITRE Corporation “This is a long overdue, serious, comprehensive, and well-presented catalog of SOA design patterns. This will be required reading and reference for all our SOA engineers and architects. The best of the series so far! [The book] works in two ways: as a primer in SOA design and architecture it can easily be read front-to-back to get an overview of most of the key design issues you will encounter, and as a reference catalog of design techniques that can be referred to again and again…” - Wendell Ocasio, Architecture Consultant, DoD Military Health Systems, Agilex Technologies “Thomas has once again provided the SOA practitioner with a phenomenal collection of knowledge. This is a reference that I will come back to time and time again as I move forward in SOA design efforts. What I liked most about this book is its vendor agnostic approach to SOA design patterns. This approach really presents the reader with an understanding of why or why not to implement a pattern, group patterns, or use compound patterns rather than giving them a marketing spiel on why one implementation of a pattern is better than another (for example, why one ESB is better than another). I think as SOA adoption continues to advance, the ability for architects to understand when and why to apply specific patterns will be a driving factor in the overall success and evolution of SOA. Additionally, I believe that this book provides the consumer with the understanding required to chose which vendor’s SOA products are right for their specific needs.” - Bryan Brew, SOA Consultant, Booz Allen Hamilton “A must have for every SOA practitioner.” - Richard Van Schelven, Principal Engineer, Ericsson “This book is a long-expected successor to the books on object-oriented design patterns and integration patterns. It is a great reference book that clearly and thoroughly describes design patterns for SOA. A great read for architects who are facing the challenge of transforming their enterprise into a service-oriented enterprise.” - Linda Terlouw, Solution Architect, Ordina “The maturation of Service-Orientation has given the industry time to absorb the best practices of service development. Thomas Erl has amassed this collective wisdom in SOA Design Patterns, an absolutely indispensible addition to any Service Oriented bookshelf.” - Kevin P. Davis, Ph.D “The problem with most texts on SOA is one of specificity. Architects responsible for SOA implementation in most organizations have little time for abstract theories on the subject, but are hungry for concrete details that they can relate to the real problems they face in their environment. SOA Design Patterns is critical reading for anyone with service design responsibilities. Not only does the text provide the normal pattern templates, but each pattern is applied in detail against a background case study to provide exceptionally meaningful context to the information. The graphic visualizations of the problems and pattern solutions are excellent supplementary companions to the explanatory text. This book will greatly stretch the knowledge of the reader as much for raising and addressing issues that may have never occurred to the reader as it does in treating those problems that are in more common occurrence.

The real beauty of this book is in its plain English prose. Unlike so many technical reference books, one does not find themselves re-reading sections multiple times trying to discern the intent of the author. This is also not a reference that will sit gathering dust on a shelf after one or two perusings. Practitioners will find themselves returning over and over to utilize the knowledge in their projects. This is as close as you’ll come to having a service design expert sitting over your shoulder.” - James Kinneavy, Principal Software Architect, University of California “As the industry converges on SOA patterns, Erl provides an outstanding reference guide to composition and integration–and yet another distinctive contribution to the SOA practice.” - Steve Birkel, Chief IT Technical Architect, Intel Corp. “With SOA Design Patterns, Thomas Erl adds an indispensable SOA reference volume to the technologist’s library. Replete with to-the-point examples, it will be a helpful aid to any IT organization.” - Ed Dodds, Strategist, Systems Architect, Conmergence “Again, Thomas Erl has written an indispensable guide to SOA. Building on his prior successes, his patterns go into even more detail. Therefore, this book is not only helpful to the SOA beginner, but also provides new insight and ideas to professionals.” - Philipp Offermann, Research Scientist, Technische Universität Berlin, Germany “SOA Design Patterns is an extraordinary contribution to SOA best practices! Once again, Thomas has created an indispensable resource for any person or organization interested in or actively engaged in the practice of Service Oriented Architecture. Using case studies based on three very different business models, Thomas guides the reader through the process of selecting appropriate implementation patterns to ensure a flexible, well-performing, and secure SOA ecosystem.” - Victor Brown, Managing Partner and Principal Consultant, Cypress Management Group Corporation In cooperation with experts and practitioners throughout the SOA community, best-selling author Thomas Erl brings together the de facto catalog of design patterns for SOA and service-orientation. More than three years in development and subjected to numerous industry reviews, the 85 patterns in this full-color book provide the most successful and proven design techniques to overcoming the most common and critical problems to achieving modern-day SOA. Through numerous examples, individually documented pattern profiles, and over 400 color illustrations, this book provides in-depth coverage of: • Patterns for the design, implementation, and governance of service inventories–collections of services representing individual service portfolios that can be independently modeled, designed, and evolved. • Patterns specific to service-level architecture which pertain to a wide range of design areas, including contract design, security, legacy encapsulation, reliability, scalability, and a variety of implementation and governance issues. • Service composition patterns that address the many aspects associated with combining services into aggregate distributed solutions, including topics such as runtime messaging and message design, inter-service security controls, and transformation. • Compound patterns (such as Enterprise Service Bus and Orchestration) and recommended pattern application sequences that establish foundational processes. The book begins by establishing SOA types that are referenced throughout the patterns and then form the basis of a final chapter that discusses the architectural impact of service-oriented computing in general. These chapters bookend the pattern catalog to provide a clear link between SOA design patterns, the strategic goals of service-oriented computing, different SOA types, and the service-orientation design paradigm.

This book series is further supported by a series of resources sites, including soabooks.com, soaspecs.com, soapatterns.org, soamag.com, and soaposters.com. Publisher ‏ : ‎ Pearson Education India; First Edition (31 December 2008) Language ‏ : ‎ English Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 864 pages ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0136135161 ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0136135166 Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1 kg 720 g Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 18.42 x 4.45 x 23.5 cm Country of Origin ‏ : ‎ India [ad_2]

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