Podcasts about advanced topics

Dennis McKenna - The Depths of Ayahuasca: 500+ Sessions, Fundamentals, Advanced Topics, Science, Churches, Learnings, Warnings, and Beyond | Brought to you by Wealthfront automated investing, Allform premium, modular furniture, and Tonal smart home gym. More on all three below.Dennis McKenna (@DennisMcKenna4) has spent more than 40 years researching the interdisciplinary study of Amazonian ethnopharmacology and plant hallucinogens. He has conducted extensive ethnobotanical fieldwork in the Peruvian, Colombian, and Brazilian Amazon.His doctoral research at the University of British Columbia focused on the ethnopharmacology of ayahuasca and oo-koo-he, two tryptamine-based hallucinogens used by indigenous peoples in the Northwest Amazon.He is a founding board member of the Heffter Research Institute, and was a key organizer and participant in the Hoasca Project, the first biomedical investigation of ayahuasca used by the UDV, a Brazilian religious group. He is the younger brother of Terence McKenna.From 2000 to 2017, he taught courses on ethnopharmacology as well as plants in human affairs in the Center for Spirituality and Healing at the University of Minnesota. In 2019, in collaboration with colleagues, he incorporated a new non-profit, the McKenna Academy of Natural Philosophy. He emigrated to Canada in the spring of 2019 together with his wife Sheila, and now resides in Abbotsford, B.C.Please enjoy!This episode is brought to you by Wealthfront! Wealthfront pioneered the automated investing movement, sometimes referred to as ‘robo-advising,' and they currently oversee $20 billion of assets for their clients. It takes about three minutes to sign up, and then Wealthfront will build you a globally diversified portfolio of ETFs based on your risk appetite and manage it for you at an incredibly low cost. Smart investing should not feel like a rollercoaster ride. Let the professionals do the work for you. Go to Wealthfront.com/Tim and open a Wealthfront account today, and you'll get your first $5,000 managed for free, for life. Wealthfront will automate your investments for the long term. Get started today at Wealthfront.com/Tim.*This episode is also brought to you by Allform! If you've been listening to the podcast for a while, you've probably heard me talk about Helix Sleep mattresses, which I've been using since 2017. They just launched a new company called Allform, and they're making premium, customizable sofas and chairs shipped right to your door—at a fraction of the cost of traditional stores. You can pick your fabric (and they're all spill, stain, and scratch resistant), the sofa color, the color of the legs, and the sofa size and shape to make sure it's perfect for you and your home.Allform arrives in just 3–7 days, and you can assemble it yourself in a few minutes—no tools needed. To find your perfect sofa, check out Allform.com/Tim. Allform is offering 20% off all orders to you, my dear listeners, at Allform.com/Tim.*This episode is also brought to you by Tonal! Tonal is the world's most intelligent home gym and personal trainer. It is precision engineered and designed to be the world's most advanced strength studio. Tonal uses breakthrough technology—like adaptive digital weights and A.I. learning—together with the best experts in resistance training so you get stronger, faster. Every program is personalized to your body using A.I., and smart features check your form in real time, just like a personal trainer.Try Tonal, the world's smartest home gym, for 30 days in your home, and if you don't love it, you can return it for a full refund. Visit Tonal.com for $100 off their smart accessories when you use promo code TIM100 at checkout.*If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. I also love reading the reviews!For show notes and past guests, please visit tim.blog/podcast.Sign up for Tim's email newsletter (“5-Bullet Friday”) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Discover Tim's books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss YouTube: youtube.com/timferrissPast guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Dr. Jane Goodall, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry Crews, Sia, Yuval Noah Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Strayed, Jim Collins, Mary Karr, Maria Popova, Sam Harris, Michael Phelps, Bob Iger, Edward Norton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Strauss, Ken Burns, Maria Sharapova, Marc Andreessen, Neil Gaiman, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jocko Willink, Daniel Ek, Kelly Slater, Dr. Peter Attia, Seth Godin, Howard Marks, Dr. Brené Brown, Eric Schmidt, Michael Lewis, Joe Gebbia, Michael Pollan, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Vince Vaughn, Brian Koppelman, Ramit Sethi, Dax Shepard, Tony Robbins, Jim Dethmer, Dan Harris, Ray Dalio, Naval Ravikant, Vitalik Buterin, Elizabeth Lesser, Amanda Palmer, Katie Haun, Sir Richard Branson, Chuck Palahniuk, Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, Rick Rubin, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Darren Aronofsky, and many more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to episode seventy-one of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!This episode is the latest installment in our ad hoc series: Swimrun 201-Advanced Topics in Swimrun. On this show we discuss in detail the concept of “Heads Up Racing.” Prepare for some knowledge bombs, but first....Training UpdateChris was out of town for work this past weekend so we didn’t get a Swimrun practice in but our training for Ödyssey Swimrun Casco Bay has officially begun. We will be ramping up our joint training sessions and look forward to sharing our progress (such as it is) with you. Now that we are training, we are going to start working on dialing in all of the key phases of racing to make sure that we’re as ready as we can be. On that note, it’s time for our first knowledge bomb of the show! We reached out to our friends at Precision Hydration to share their insight on the unique aspects of hydration for Swimrun and Andy Blow, the Co-Founder of Precision Hydration and previous guest of the show back in Episode 25 offered to share his wisdom as a hydration expert and experienced Swimrunner regarding the unique hydration demands that Swimrun events present to athletes. If that knowledge bomb wasn’t enough, Precision Hydration set up the discount code LOWTIDE21 for 15% off of your first order. That code is good through the end of May so make sure that you place an order and help make us look good.ShoutoutsThis week we’re shouting out a couple of our listeners that reached out to us over the past week. First, big shoutout to Alex Linas and his partner Cam Holman for rocking the short course with a first place finish at Swimrun Lake James and then doing it again at Swimrun Maryland this past weeked. These guys are new to the sport but you wouldn’t be able to tell by these performances! Strong work guys.Our second shoutout this week goes to Scott Turner. He’s been a fan of the show for a while and just raced his first event at Swimrun Maryland. He got second place in the Solo Long Course Category and handled all the weather that got thrown at him (including thunderstorms and hail!) with aplomb. Super proud of you and hope to see you at Ödyssey Swimrun Casco Bay in a few months. Feats of EnduranceThis week’s winner is NorCal local Jonathan Pascual who recently completed a big 30km trail run in our backyard trails of Mt. Burdell and didn’t invite us! We’ll forgive him this time...Make sure to join the LTBz Strava Club and get inspired by your fellow Swimrunners as they train all over the world.This Week in Swimrun (Powered by Raceid.com)We have a lot of Swimrun news to share this week.First, congratulations to everyone that raced Swimrun Maryland this past weekend. As far as Swimrun events go, this one checked off a lot of boxes: it was cold, there was a thunderstorm and hail at one point, and there were a lot of smiling faces at the finish line. There were also a lot of first-time Swimrunners at the race which was awesome to see.If anyone is still on the fence about signing up for Ödyssey Swimrun Mackinac Island we have two pieces of information for you. First, get off the fence and sign up! Second, Aaron and the rest of the Ödyssey recently hosted an info session about the race that you can check out on Youtube to help get you to comply with our first point to sign up! Atea Jönköping Swimrun, Presented by Speedo is set to take place on June 6th! This might be one of the first large Swimrun events to be taking place in Sweden this year and we couldn’t be happier. The event takes place in the town of Jönköping in southern Sweden has a 15km distance and a 35km distance that is also an ÖTILLÖ Merit Race. Registration is open now on Raceid.com.     Speaking of ÖTILLÖ, they recently announced that they will begin hosting live interviews on Facebook on May 19th. The first interview will be with Co-Founder, Michael Lemmel about how the 2021 race season is developing and what participants can expect at the races. They will also be doing interviews the week before their races so that participants can ask questions and get a better understanding of what the race courses will look like and other relevant information. Finally, we wanted to give a huge congratulations to a long-time friend of the show and two and a half-time guest, Helen Wilkmar, on being named the CEO of Ark Sports. We are super stoked for her and super stoked for Ark. We have a special place in our heart for Ark since they were the first company to really give us the time of day and not only reply to our DM’s but agree to be interviewed way back on Episode Seven when Co-Founder (and the most interesting man in Swimrun) Christofer Sundberg came on the show. Onward and upward for Ark!That’s it for this week. Feel free to email us to tip us off to any events or Swimrun news that you’d like for us to share on the show.UpdatesLooking to race an Ödyssey Swimrun race this year? Use the code LOWTIDE15 for 15% off your registration. We anticipate all the races selling out so don’t wait! We’re going to be putting out a lot of Ödyssey-related content in the next few months including course preview episodes for Casco Bay, Orcas, Luddington, and Mackinac Island so stay tuned for all of that. Envol Coaching’s “The Big Battle” is starting in less than a month. In case you missed our video, we have a team in the “battle” and everyone on the team has been passing the vibe check (being super stoked on Swimrun) with flying colors. Our team is already half full so if you want to be a part of it, sign up soon. We’re going to try to have a lot of fun with this so even though we won’t be winning, we’re going to look good, real good!The folks at Synergy Wetsuits were cool enough to send us a couple of their new Swimrun Wetsuits to try out and we’ve put together an overview video that you can check out on our YouTube channel. We will be doing a full review on a future Gear Talk show soon so stay tuned for that!SWIMRUN 201: Advanced Topics in SwimrunIn this edition of Advanced topics, we dive into the concept of “Heads Up Racing.” In Swimrun, heads-up racing is super important to make sure that event participants have the best experience that they can. We get the race director's perspective from Lars Finanger on what that side of things considers when they are designing and marking the courses. We also chatted with Marcus Barton to get his perspective on heads-up racing during a Swimrun event. Add it all together and the takeaways are this: be prepared before the race, have good communication with your partner and rely on your course preparation and not on other participants, and finally, take time to reflect after the race to come up with areas of improvement for your next event.That’s it for this edition of Advanced Topics in Swimrun. We hope that you found it useful and we would love to hear any feedback that you might have for us on topics that you’d like for us to cover and/or whether these types of episodes are helpful.That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.Thank you for listening and see you out there!-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode sixty-eight of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!On this week’s show, we’re taking another trip across the pond to Southern England to chat with Vinicius Vecchiatti and Sarah King of Söuthsea Swimrun. It was great to hear about how they are sharing their love for Swimrun and building community in Portsmouth, England. More on this interview later in the show.It’s Race Week!Swimrun season in the U.S. is officially kicking off this weekend at Swimrun Lake James in North Carolina. Best of luck to everyone racing either the short or long courses and remember to thank all the volunteers out there.ShoutoutsThis week we are shouting out our newest Patron on Patreon, Ryan Smith. Thank you so much for the support to help us keep the “lights on” and keep pumping out good content for everyone. Feats of EnduranceThis week’s winner is last week’s honorable mention, Mike McMillian. He’s been crushing it in the gym and everywhere else apparently with a cool “Swim the Bridge - Double Crossing” workout that looked pretty awesome.Make sure to join the LTBz Strava Club and get inspired by your fellow Swimrunners as they train all over the world.This Week in Swimrun (Powered by Raceid.com)We have a couple of updates to share this week.As we mentioned earlier, Swimrun season officially kicks off in the U.S. with Swimrun Lake James this weekend. This event is an ÖTILLÖ Merit Race (which means that Long Course teams will earn points towards qualifying for entry into the World Championship selection lottery.) Check out our recent podcast episode with Race Director Kristen Jeno if you want to learn more about the history of this race and get a mini-course preview.Speaking of Lake James, Wild Swimrun ambassador and our friend Trista Mennen is hosting a meet-and-greet on Friday, April 23 at 4 pm at Fonta Flora during packet pickup for Lake James for anyone who wants to learn more about Wild Swimrun. If you don’t know about Wild Swimrun (then you need to listen to more of our podcast episodes) they are a group of women who support women athletes to discover the sport of Swimrun. If you are a female, support a female, or just generally interested in what we do, come to say hi. For our German listeners, Swimrun Rheinsberg recently opened registration for their June 20th event. This race looks like it has it all: a kids race and super sprint, sprint, and long course distances. Get all the details on their website. This race is also part of the Deutschland Swimrun Cup consisting of ten races across Germany taking place throughout the year. Some of their urban Swimruns look--in a word--DOPE!In other event news, Envol Coaching announced their new “The Big Battle” virtual event this week. Individuals can join teams from all over the world to do as many Swimruns as possible in the month of June and “battle” for top honors and prizes. The registration fee is $13. You can find all the rules on the Envol Website. If you want to take part, feel free to join Team LTBz when you register. Teams are capped at 30 members so join us before we hit our cap. That’s it for this week. Feel free to email us to tip us off to any events or Swimrun news that you’d like for us to share on the show.UpdatesWe have some upcoming programming alerts for everyone. We have some cool shows coming up in the next few weeks including a special guest race report from Swimrun Lake James, our full review of Frank Paddle’s carbon fiber swim paddles, the next installment in our “Advanced Topics in Swimrun” series, and other cool stuff. Stay tuned for all of that! This Week’s InterviewIt was a blast chatting with Sarah and Vini from Söuthsea Swimrun. We always love learning about people that are super stoked on Swimrun since they are our people. We especially love when they are doing their part to build community in their locales to share their love for the sport and encourage others to try it. We chatted with Sarah and Vini about how they discovered Swimrun and their journey to start the Söuthsea Swimrun club. We talked about how they handled COVID restrictions and managed to have safe weekly Swimrun practices all year. We also chatted about what they think the future holds for their club and for Swimrun in the U.K.You can learn more about Söuthsea Swimrun on their website and follow them on Instagram.That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, please be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support us on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Welcome to episode sixty of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!We close out our inaugural “Partners Month” with another edition of Advanced Topics in Swimrun. In this episode, we discuss team tactics. For us, team tactics mean the things that partners can work on in practice and in races to take their team performance to the next level by being more deliberate/tactical in how partners prepare and communicate with each other.In our view, we take it as a general proposition that the more prepared that teams are for the foreseen (and unforeseen) things that happen on race day the better the experience that the team will have. In this way, partners can manage their race and deal with adversity calmly and rely on their preparation to problem solve and continue to move forward. Below we break down some key aspects for improving team tactics.Partner ManagementThe main key to a good partnership is communication. Getting to the point in Swimrun (as in life) where you can have an honest and open dialogue with your partner is the best way to help take your teamwork to the next level. In endurance sports that are typically solo affairs, it can be uncommon to think about your teammate’s performance, let alone talk to them about it. So don’t expect to have your mind read by your partner or have them read yours. Talking about how you plan to communicate during training and racing is the best way to stave off passive aggression, bad vibes, and lack of stoke. By working on your communication, both verbal and non-verbal (listen to our show on Swimrun Flow and the all-important tether) with your partner, you really unlock the possibilities for having more fun and better race experiences. This also allows teams to visualize what their races will be like and be prepared mentally for the known and unknown. This advice has been repeated by many of our previous guests including Susie Moonan, Oscar Olsson, Johan Carlsson, Andy Blow, and Team Precision Hydration UK. To sum it up, the more that a team is mentally prepared for their race, the less mental energy is required during the race to deal with adversity.Food/Trash ManagementWhen we interviewed Rhian and Ben from Team Precision Hydration UK one of the things that they talked about was how they managed their nutrition during a race as a team. One partner would carry the caffeine gels and the other would carry the non-caffeinated ones. It was really eye-opening for us how granular they were in their planning. While this seems like a simple enough thing to set up before a race, during the event you can just rely on the preparation and not have it take away your focus and flow to think about it. That same is true with your hydration strategy. Our guest Andy Blow shared his detailed plan that he used at OTILLO Catalina to make sure he was set up for success.Trash management is another thing that teams can communicate about to have a plan before the race starts. Brooke from Team Swimrun Labs (and co-host of our Gear Talk shows) has a special pocket in her Lapa Bra undergarment that is just for trash and she empties it when needed at an aid station. The moral of the story being that she doesn’t spend any mental energy thinking about worrying about what she’s doing to get disqualified for littering at a race.Heat ManagementRunning in a wetsuit can get pretty warm. Having a plan for managing heat during a race is yet another way that teams can have plans in place. Taking a swim cap off, unzipping, and cabbing down are basically the three progressive strategies to help manage heat. If there’s a long run coming up and you know that you run hot, then plan with your partner to cab down upon exiting the water.Basically, there are a lot of ways that teams can step up their performance through applying a tactical mindset to race preparation and execution with the cornerstone of good open communication with your partner. Feel free to email or DM us with tactics that you employ that have worked for you and of course, we’re happy to receive any and all feedback about the show.That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, please be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support us on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Show Notes(2:13) Jason went over his experience studying Computer Science at Loyola College in Baltimore for undergraduate, where he got an early exposure to academic research in image registration.(4:31) Jason described his graduate school experience at John Hopkins University, where he completed his Ph.D. on “Techniques for Vision-Based Human-Computer Interaction” that proposed the Visual Interaction Cues paradigm.(9:31) During his time as a Post-Doc Fellow at UCLA, Jason helped develop automatic segmentation and recognition techniques for brain tumors to improve the accuracy of diagnosis and treatment accuracy(14:27) From 2007 to 2014, Jason was a professor in the Computer Science and Engineering department at SUNY-Buffalo. He covered the content of two graduate-level courses on Bayesian Vision and Intro to Pattern Recognition that he taught.(18:20) On the topic of metric learning, Jason proposed an approach to data analysis and modeling for computer vision called "Active Clustering."(21:35) On the topic of image understanding, Jason created Generalized Image Understanding - a project that examined a unified methodology that integrates low-, mid-, and high-level elements for visual inference (equivalent to image captioning today).(24:51) On the topic of video understanding, Jason worked on ISTARE: Intelligent Spatio-Temporal Activity Reasoning Engine, whose objective is to represent, learn, recognize, and reason over activities in persistent surveillance videos.(27:46) Jason dissected Action Bank - a high-level representation of activity in video, which comprises of many individual action detectors sampled broadly in semantic space and viewpoint space.(35:30) Jason unpacked LIBSVX - a library of super voxel and video segmentation methods coupled with a principled evaluation benchmark based on quantitative 3D criteria for good super voxels.(40:06) Jason gave an overview of AI research activities at the University of Michigan, where he was a professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from 2014 to 2020.(41:09) Jason covered the problems and projects in his graduate-level courses on Foundations of Computer Vision and Advanced Topics in Computer Vision at Michigan.(44:56) Jason went over his recent research on video captioning and video description.(47:03) Jason described his exciting software called BubbleNets, which chooses the best video frame for a human to annotate.(51:44) Jason shared anecdotes of Voxel51's inception and key takeaways that he has learned.(01:05:25) Jason talked about Voxel51's Physical Distancing Index that tracks the coronavirus global pandemic's impact on social behavior.(01:07:47) Jason discussed his exciting new chapter as the new director of the Stevens Institute for Artificial Intelligence.(01:11:28) Jason identified the differences and similarities between being a professor and being a founder.(01:14:55) Jason gave his advice to individuals who want to make a dent in AI research.(01:16:14) Jason mentioned the trends in computer vision research that he is most excited about at the moment.(01:17:23) Closing segment.His Contact InfoWikipediaGoogle ScholarWebsiteTwitterLinkedInHis Recommended ResourcesBubblenets: Video Object Segmentation for Computer VisionVoxel51's FiftyOne Open-Sourced LibraryJeff Siskind (Professor at Purdue University)CJ Taylor (Professor at the University of Pennsylvania)Kristen Grauman (Professor at the University of Austin)"An Introduction to Mathematical Statistics"

Show Notes(2:13) Jason went over his experience studying Computer Science at Loyola College in Baltimore for undergraduate, where he got an early exposure to academic research in image registration.(4:31) Jason described his graduate school experience at John Hopkins University, where he completed his Ph.D. on “Techniques for Vision-Based Human-Computer Interaction” that proposed the Visual Interaction Cues paradigm.(9:31) During his time as a Post-Doc Fellow at UCLA, Jason helped develop automatic segmentation and recognition techniques for brain tumors to improve the accuracy of diagnosis and treatment accuracy(14:27) From 2007 to 2014, Jason was a professor in the Computer Science and Engineering department at SUNY-Buffalo. He covered the content of two graduate-level courses on Bayesian Vision and Intro to Pattern Recognition that he taught.(18:20) On the topic of metric learning, Jason proposed an approach to data analysis and modeling for computer vision called "Active Clustering."(21:35) On the topic of image understanding, Jason created Generalized Image Understanding - a project that examined a unified methodology that integrates low-, mid-, and high-level elements for visual inference (equivalent to image captioning today).(24:51) On the topic of video understanding, Jason worked on ISTARE: Intelligent Spatio-Temporal Activity Reasoning Engine, whose objective is to represent, learn, recognize, and reason over activities in persistent surveillance videos.(27:46) Jason dissected Action Bank - a high-level representation of activity in video, which comprises of many individual action detectors sampled broadly in semantic space and viewpoint space.(35:30) Jason unpacked LIBSVX - a library of super voxel and video segmentation methods coupled with a principled evaluation benchmark based on quantitative 3D criteria for good super voxels.(40:06) Jason gave an overview of AI research activities at the University of Michigan, where he was a professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from 2014 to 2020.(41:09) Jason covered the problems and projects in his graduate-level courses on Foundations of Computer Vision and Advanced Topics in Computer Vision at Michigan.(44:56) Jason went over his recent research on video captioning and video description.(47:03) Jason described his exciting software called BubbleNets, which chooses the best video frame for a human to annotate.(51:44) Jason shared anecdotes of Voxel51's inception and key takeaways that he has learned.(01:05:25) Jason talked about Voxel51's Physical Distancing Index that tracks the coronavirus global pandemic's impact on social behavior.(01:07:47) Jason discussed his exciting new chapter as the new director of the Stevens Institute for Artificial Intelligence.(01:11:28) Jason identified the differences and similarities between being a professor and being a founder.(01:14:55) Jason gave his advice to individuals who want to make a dent in AI research.(01:16:14) Jason mentioned the trends in computer vision research that he is most excited about at the moment.(01:17:23) Closing segment.His Contact InfoWikipediaGoogle ScholarWebsiteTwitterLinkedInHis Recommended ResourcesBubblenets: Video Object Segmentation for Computer VisionVoxel51's FiftyOne Open-Sourced LibraryJeff Siskind (Professor at Purdue University)CJ Taylor (Professor at the University of Pennsylvania)Kristen Grauman (Professor at the University of Austin)"An Introduction to Mathematical Statistics"

Welcome to episode fifty-two of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!We are kicking off a new series called “Advanced Topics in Swimrun” where we deep dive into specific aspects of Swimrun. In this episode, we discuss Swimrun Flow. What do we mean by Swimrun Flow? It’s hard to describe but it basically means achieving optimal Swimrun technique and moving through nature as seamlessly as possible. We feel like we really unlocked or leveled up on our Swimrun Flow at the Ödyssey Swimrun Austin in early November and we thought that we would share what we learned during our best race performance to date.There were three reasons why we think we had our best race to date. First, hosting this podcast gave us a wealth of knowledge that we applied to the best of our abilities. This included having a detailed race/nutrition/hydration plan that we stuck to. Second, we made sure that our transitions were smooth and our time at the aid station was kept to a minimum. We probably saved 20 minutes just from having practiced transitions during our Swimrun practices. Finally, we kept the tether attached for the entire race. Keeping the tether attached during the runs really helped with our pacing and allowed us to move more seamlessly through the course. For teams that are looking to advance in the sport, working on the skills mentioned above are low hanging fruit that can help teams unlock their Swimrun Flow.That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, please be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support us on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Show Notes(2:02) Shreya discussed her initial exposure to Computer Science and her favorite CS course on Advanced Topics in Operating Systems at Stanford.(4:07) Shreya emphasized the importance of distilling technical concepts to a non-technical audience, thanks to her experience as a section leader and teaching assistant for CS198.(6:26) Shreya shared the lack of representation in technical roles that keep women away from considering technology as a career path, and the initiative she was involved with at SHE++.(9:40) Shreya reflected on her software engineering internship experience at Facebook, working on Civic Engagement tools to help representatives connect with their constituents.(12:33) Shreya went over the anecdote of how she worked on Machine Learning Security research at Google Brain.(15:36) Shreya unpacked the paper “Adversarial Examples That Fool Both Computer Vision and Time-Limited Humans,” - where her team constructs adversarial examples that transfer computer vision models to the human visual system.(20:08) Shreya reflected on the lessons learned from her experience working with seasoned researchers at Google Brain.(23:31) Shreya gave her advice for engineers who are interested in multiple specializations.(25:34) Shreya provided resources on the fundamentals of computer systems.(27:15) Shreya explained her reason to work at an early-stage startup right after college (check out the blog post on her decision-making process).(28:41) Shreya was the first ML Engineer at Viaduct, a startup that develops end-to-end machine learning and data analytics platform to empower OEMs to manage, analyze, and utilize their connected vehicle data.(32:27) Shreya discussed two common misconceptions people have about the differences between machine learning in research and practice (read her reflection on one-year of making ML actually useful).(35:24) Shreya expanded on the organizational silo challenge that hinders collaboration between data scientists and software engineers while designing a machine learning product.(40:48) Shreya has been quite open about the challenge of recruiting female engineers, explaining that it is hard to sell women candidates when their alternatives are “conventionally sexy."(47:24) Shreya and a few others have developed and open-sourced GPT-3 Sandbox, a library that helps users get started with the GPT-3 API.(51:52) Shreya explained her prediction on why OpenAI can be the AWS of modeling.(54:24) Shreya shared the benefits of going to therapy to cope with mental illness challenges.(58:36) Closing segment.Her Contact InfoWebsiteTwitterLinkedInGitHubGoogle ScholarMediumHer Recommended ResourcesMartin Kleppmann’s “Designing Data-Intensive Applications”Stanford’s CS110 - “Principles of Computer Systems"Ada LovelaceWomen in AIBlack in AIQuoc LeUber Engineering BlogSteve Krug’s “Don’t Make Me Think"

Show Notes(2:02) Shreya discussed her initial exposure to Computer Science and her favorite CS course on Advanced Topics in Operating Systems at Stanford.(4:07) Shreya emphasized the importance of distilling technical concepts to a non-technical audience, thanks to her experience as a section leader and teaching assistant for CS198.(6:26) Shreya shared the lack of representation in technical roles that keep women away from considering technology as a career path, and the initiative she was involved with at SHE++.(9:40) Shreya reflected on her software engineering internship experience at Facebook, working on Civic Engagement tools to help representatives connect with their constituents.(12:33) Shreya went over the anecdote of how she worked on Machine Learning Security research at Google Brain.(15:36) Shreya unpacked the paper “Adversarial Examples That Fool Both Computer Vision and Time-Limited Humans,” - where her team constructs adversarial examples that transfer computer vision models to the human visual system.(20:08) Shreya reflected on the lessons learned from her experience working with seasoned researchers at Google Brain.(23:31) Shreya gave her advice for engineers who are interested in multiple specializations.(25:34) Shreya provided resources on the fundamentals of computer systems.(27:15) Shreya explained her reason to work at an early-stage startup right after college (check out the blog post on her decision-making process).(28:41) Shreya was the first ML Engineer at Viaduct, a startup that develops end-to-end machine learning and data analytics platform to empower OEMs to manage, analyze, and utilize their connected vehicle data.(32:27) Shreya discussed two common misconceptions people have about the differences between machine learning in research and practice (read her reflection on one-year of making ML actually useful).(35:24) Shreya expanded on the organizational silo challenge that hinders collaboration between data scientists and software engineers while designing a machine learning product.(40:48) Shreya has been quite open about the challenge of recruiting female engineers, explaining that it is hard to sell women candidates when their alternatives are “conventionally sexy."(47:24) Shreya and a few others have developed and open-sourced GPT-3 Sandbox, a library that helps users get started with the GPT-3 API.(51:52) Shreya explained her prediction on why OpenAI can be the AWS of modeling.(54:24) Shreya shared the benefits of going to therapy to cope with mental illness challenges.(58:36) Closing segment.Her Contact InfoWebsiteTwitterLinkedInGitHubGoogle ScholarMediumHer Recommended ResourcesMartin Kleppmann’s “Designing Data-Intensive Applications”Stanford’s CS110 - “Principles of Computer Systems"Ada LovelaceWomen in AIBlack in AIQuoc LeUber Engineering BlogSteve Krug’s “Don’t Make Me Think"

Two women from different walks of life come together to discuss the murder of George Floyd and the impact of systemic racism in the U.S. Each share their lived experiences immediately following the protests erupted in May 2020. They focus on experiences of oppression, privilege, and implicit bias. They also share ways in which their professional lives have been impacted and provide suggestions for moving forward. Why the World is on Fire: Historical and Ongoing Oppression of Black African American people in the US is part of a 3 part series by Dr. Jade Logan created for the Pennsylvania Psychological Association. The first two parts are in webinar form and can be found here: https://www.papsy.org/store/ListProducts.aspx?catid=471749&ftr= Presenters: Dr. Audrey Ervin is a licensed psychologist who completed a Ph.D. in counseling psychology at the University of Memphis and a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Delaware where she specialized in diversity issues and mindfulness-based interventions in therapy. Her clinical and research areas focus on multicultural competence with a particular emphasis on gender identity, sexual orientation, racial identity, and gender expansive identities. She has presented work at numerous national and international conferences including the American Psychological Association, the Association for Women in Psychology, and the Pennsylvania Psychological Association. She was the national spokesperson for the Association for Women in Psychology and concurrently served as a member of the implementation collective. She serves on the Committee on Multiculturalism for the Pennsylvania Psychological Association. She owns Ervin Counseling & Consulting, LLC., is the academic program director of the graduate counseling psychology program at Delaware Valley University in Doylestown, PA, and is a nationally certified Stop the Hate trainer. Dr. Ervin was awarded the Distinguished Faculty Member Award at Delaware Valley University, named to the Bucks County Courier Times “40 under 40” list and cited in the “99 Top Professors in Counseling, Psychology, and Therapy” list. She completed a certificate in Mindfulness at Harvard University in 2018. She is frequently cited in various media outlets including Time magazine, NBC News and Psychology Today about the Imposter Syndrome and psychological well-being. www.ervincounseling.com Dr. Jade Logan is a licensed and board-certified clinical psychologist. She currently serves as the Training Director for the Chestnut Hill College Internship Consortium and Assistant Professor of Psychology in the doctoral training program at CHC. Dr. Logan provides clinical supervision and individual psychotherapy to predominately African American women through The Ladipo Group, LLC. Her areas of clinical expertise include PTSD related to sexual trauma and intimate partner violence, anxiety and mood disorders, and women's issues. A majority of her work focuses on psychotherapy with African American/Black men and women who are coping with the stressors of working and being educated in predominantly White work and school environments. As the Training Director, Dr. Logan oversees an APA accredited predoctoral internship for 8-11 doctoral trainees each year. She conducts weekly group supervision and provides didactic seminars that focus on multicultural supervision, ethical and legal practices, cultural humility, and consultation. During the academic year, Dr. Logan teaches Advanced Topics in Human Diversity and Professional & Ethical Clinical Practice. Over the last 10 years, Dr. Logan has provided workshops on race, power, and privilege to local community organizations, businesses, and governmental agencies such as the Philadelphia Family Court, Delaware Valley Planning Commission, Pennsylvania CareerLink and more. Dr. Logan currently serves as the chair of the Publications Committee for PPA and is a member of the American Psychological Association.

There are now only 2 weeks left until TennoCon, but that doesn't mean there's nothing going on in Warframeland - or in Cephalon Squared Tower! Plenty of news to discuss this week, plus a round-up of our Beginner and Advanced Topics, and a good chat about our thoughts on how to improve Warframe cosmetics... Let us know your thoughts!

Fearless Training Roar Knowledge Podcast Episode 50: Dr. Bill Campbell - Performance & Physique Enhancement. Welcome back to the Fearless Training "Roar Knowledge" Podcast where we talk everything; Training, Nutrition & Lifestyle. Dr. Campbell is an Associate Professor of Exercise Science and the Director of the Performance & Physique Enhancement Laboratory at the University of South Florida. His master’s and doctoral degrees were earned at Baylor University while serving as the Coordinator of the Exercise and Biochemical Nutrition Laboratory. He joined the faculty at USF in the Fall of 2007. As a researcher and author, Dr. Campbell has published more than 150 scientific papers and abstracts (in academic journals) related to sports nutrition and physique enhancement. In addition, he is a paid consultant to professional sport team organizations, sport entertainment corporations, and also is a litigation consultant and expert witness related to dietary supplementation. Dr. Campbell has published three books on sports nutrition, including the NSCA's Guide to Sport and Exercise Nutrition and Sports Nutrition: Enhancing Athletic Performance. His research is focused on improving exercise performance and enhancing physique through the synergism of resistance exercise, nutrition, and dietary supplements. Dr. Campbell is a fellow of the International Society of Sports Nutrition where he also currently serves as the organization’s President. Teaching responsibilities include both the undergraduate and graduate levels at the University of South Florida. Undergraduate courses include: Nutrition for Fitness and Sport, Biomechanics, and Strength & Conditioning. Graduate courses include: Advanced Topics in Strength & Conditioning, Nutrition & Metabolism, Cardiovascular Aspects of Exercise Physiology, and Neuromuscular Aspects of Exercise Physiology. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/billcampbellphd/ Follow Along For More Here: Fearless Training United Academy : http://fearlesstrainingunited.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fearless_training_/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FearlessTraining/?ref=bookmarks Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFaAxEHPYiM2ucqUs4-z54A?view_as=subscriber Coaching/Business Inquiries: alex@fearlesstraining.org Stay Fearless!

Yeah! Another Devstream, and this one went into great detail as to what we should be expecting from the new major update, The Deadlock Protocol! Sadly, though, this is likely the last Devstream before TennoCon... but then again, that means TennoCon isn't so far away! Yay! And just so you know up front... we didn't neglect you this week. Beginner and Advanced Topics are BACK.

Advanced Topics in American Government with Keith Whittington

На первый взгляд может показаться, что типы в программировании – это просто и понятно. Во многих случаях это действительно так. Но что, если копнуть глубже? Можно ли добиться высокого уровня корректности и безопасности кода за счет типов еще на этапе компиляции? Этот вопрос, а также многие другие, связанные с типами в программировании, мы обсудили с Денисом Редозубовым, техническим директором typeable.io и продакшен-хаскеллистом с большим стажем. Поддержи лучший подкаст про мобильную разработку: www.patreon.com/podlodka Также ждем вас, ваши лайки, репосты и комменты в мессенджерах и соцсетях!
 Telegram-чат: https://t.me/podlodka Telegram-канал: https://t.me/podlodkanews Страница в Facebook: www.facebook.com/podlodkacast/ Twitter-аккаунт: https://twitter.com/PodlodkaPodcast Полезные ссылки: – Книга Types And Programming Languages https://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/tapl/ – Книга Advanced Topics in Types and Programming Languages https://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Topics-Types-Programming-Languages/dp/0262162288 – Книга Learn You a Haskell for Great Good http://learnyouahaskell.com – Документация по языку Rust https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/ – Доказательство теоремы о четырех красках https://www.ams.org/notices/200811/tx081101382p.pdf – Доклад «Is a type a lifebuoy or a lamp" https://skillsmatter.com/skillscasts/8893-is-a-type-a-lifebuoy-or-a-lamp

Episode 0239 - Advanced Topics in Meditation (Click on the above link, or here, for audio.) Sotapanna, commitment to mindfulness & non-differentiation in practice. Mental fashioning, non-dual awareness & fearless detachment. Four levels of Buddhist awakening & 6D Wanderers. The 3 Realms, formless trances, 10 Fetters & 7 Densities. ■ Sotapanna Study Guide: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/

Our main topic for today is the Young Guns of Environmental, Health and Safety     [listen to podcast for details]   Alright, that does it for our main topic, let’s now talk about some upcoming events.   First I should mention, that coming up next week, we have several new webinars starting and you should look at our schedule at Affygility.com.  These webinars have been very well attended and we have received a lot of positive feedback on them.  In addition to our very popular webinar on Advanced Topics in Potent Compound Safety, we also have a webinar on Dermal Exposure to Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients, Global Harmonization System, Hazardous Wastes for Hospitals, Clinics, and Medical Laboratories.  Again, if any of that interests you, I would suggest that you go to Affygility.com and look at our full schedule.   O.k.  That does it for this week’s show.  Remember to submit your questions to our voicemail feedback line at 206-337-4769 and stalk us on twitter at twitter.com/Affygility, on Facebook by searching for Affygility Solutions and giving us a “Like”, and finally on LinkedIn by searching for Affygility Solutions.   That does it for this week’s show.  We look forward to having you listen in next time.   Have a great rest of the day.

In this podcast, Dean Calhoun of Affygility Solutions discusses Social Media and Environmental, Health and Safety The twitter hashtag for today’s podcast is #socialehs    First, I’ll briefly cover what we talked about last time in episode number 12    Then I will cover our main topic for today, which is the use of Social Media in Environmental, Health and Safety industry.    And finally, I’ll then discuss upcoming events and happenings of importance to environmental, health and safety professionals in the BioPharma Industry. Last time in Episode 12 we discussed the topic of “Creeping Featurism of Environmental, Health and Safety software."  In that episode I shared my four observations regarding the evolution of environmental, health and safety software.  Those four observations were, first, everybody seems to want a comprehensive system that is off the shelf.  Complete with every bell and whistle, and one that keeps track of every possible requirement, emission, or metric.  The problem I have with this is, “in most companies with limited environmental, health and safety staff who is going to enter all this data?” My 2th observation was that an environmental, health and safety management system is not equal to MIS, my 3rd observation was that configuration does not equal customization, and my 4th and final observation is that comprehensive systems are pricey.  In episode 12 I also shared some questions that you might want to ask yourself prior to selecting a system.  So, if any of that interests you I suggest you go back and listen to episode 12 and listen to the whole thing. Alright, now before we move into our next topic, I might indicate that it’s going to be slightly different than previous topics that I’ve discussed. For those of you that have been listening in to previous episodes, most of you know that I recently attended South by Southwest Interactive in Austin, Texas.  First off South by Southwest was an amazing conference and the speakers were great, and the attendees were awesome – all 19,000 plus of them.  Many of the sessions that I attended dealt with social media and that inspired me to talk about today’s main topic, which is the use of Social Media in Environmental, Health and Safety. ·      So what exactly is Social Media? ·      So why Social Media? ·      Who is using Social Media? OSHA, NIOSH, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency all have Facebook pages and twitter feeds. The National Association for Environmental Management (NAEM), American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA), American Biological Safety Association (ABSA) and many other professional organizations. ·      What’s the value in Social Media?      Who is doing it right? What are the challenges of social media.    ·      As a final comment regarding social media, allow the users to have an opinion and to be human. Social media can get a little messy at times with mis-spelled words, the use of slang or jargon, and the occasional use of profanity.  As stated before, it will have to be moderated, but again, be careful not to over moderate. O.k.  The does it for the discussion on “Social Media in Environmental, Health and Safety.” If you have any comments or feedback – I loved to hear it.  You can call our listener voicemail feedback line at 206-337-4769 and leave an audio comment.  You can also stalk us on twitter at twitter.com/Affygility, or follow us on Facebook by just searching for Affygility Solutions and giving us a “Like. You can also email us your comments at podcast at Affygility.com. Alright, let’s now talk about some upcoming events.    First I should mention, that coming up in April, we have several new webinars starting and you should look at our schedule at Affygility.com.  These webinars have been very well attended and we have received a lot of positive feedback on them.  In addition to our very popular webinar on Advanced Topics in Potent Compound Safety, we also have a webinar on Dermal Exposure to Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients, Global Harmonization System, Hazardous Wastes for Hospitals, Clinics, and Medical Laboratories.  Again, if any of that interests you, I would suggest that you go to Affygility.com and look at our full schedule. Finally, as mentioned in previous podcast, I’ve been working on a podcast about the Young Guns of Environmental, Health and Safety.  So far, I’ve had over 100 participants complete the survey.  This week I will be working on tallying up the results and will have a free webinar presenting the results this coming Thursday, March 31st.  For details on the time and how to register, please go to potent compound safety.com.   O.k.  That does it for this week’s show.  Remember to submit your questions to our voicemail feedback line at 206-337-4769 and stalk us on twitter at twitter.com/Affygility, on Facebook by searching for Affygility Solutions and giving us a “Like”, and finally on LinkedIn by searching for Affygility Solutions.                   

BioPharma EH&S Podcast Episode No. 12.  Saturday, March 5th, 2011 and we have so much to talk about today, so I’m going to get right into it. First off, I’ll briefly cover what we talked about last time in episode number 11 Main topic for today :“Creeping Featurism in Environmental, Health and Safety software”, which I’m quite certain sure will stir up some controversy. Last time in Episode 11 we discussed the topic of “The Evolution of EHS Compliance and Operational Risk Management Software.”  Unfortunately I don’t have time to cover all the details today, but basically we covered the history of compliance software systems and tools, and where the future of EHS software is heading.  If any of that sounds like something that might interest you, I would suggest you go back to episode number 11 and listen to the whole thing. Let’s now get into our main topic for today which is “Creeping Featurism in Environmental, Health and Safety software” As many of you know, this past week I was in San Antonio, Texas at the National Association for Environmental Management’s Management Information Systems conference.  At this conference, there were numerous presentations by companies that have recently gone or going through the process of implementing an environmental, health and safety management information system.  In general, the presentations were good and the organizers did a great job of keeping everything on track, but as with most conferences, the best part of the conference was the excellent conversations in the hallway with your peers and colleagues, and the opportunity to meet new people.  However, as I thought about the presentations more, in some respects, I would like to see a presentation style similar to the DEMO conference.  Most of you listening to this podcast probably have never heard of DEMO, but DEMO is conference that is held twice per year, where technology developers are selected to showcase their latest technologies in front of venture capitalist, the technology media, and other technology interest groups.  DEMO is a pay to present type of conference and their presentation requirements are fairly unique – there is no Powerpoint allowed, and you have to use a “live” system not an install that on a local machine, and you get a very short amount of time to show what your system does – I believe it’s six minutes.  This style of presentation places a lot of pressure on the solution providers to make sure that their systems are clean, fast, and easy to explain.  “Bloatware” will not survive this kind of presentation style.  I will put a link to the DEMO conference website in the show notes. However, backed to the conference in San Antonio, based on the presentations of the environmental, health and safety software that I saw, I have the following observations. First off, everybody seems to want a “comprehensive” systems that will do everything.  They want it to handle everything from accident reporting to industrial hygiene, from carbon footprint reporting to sustainability reporting.  But despite what the solution providers will tell you, this dream system doesn’t really exist, at least not in an off the shelf version.  Solution providers tend to be reacting to perceived customer needs and keep adding module after module.  While this may provide the impression of comprehensiveness, I might mention that with all this increased “comprehensiveness” comes a significant increase in “complexity” of user interfaces.  Based on the seven or eight systems that I saw during my two days in San Antonio, most of the user interfaces were very, very cluttered. The second observation or take home point was, and as I believed as one of the speakers stated, make sure that your people understand that an environmental, health and safety management system, or EMS, is not about the software or your management information system.  In other words – an EMS is not equal to MIS.  The software is just a tool to support your EMS. The third observation was, understand that “configuration” does not equal “customization”.  Much of the costs of implementing an environmental, health and safety software solution arise when the company insists that the system have certain features that are unique to their company.  If you want to keep costs down and ensure rapid implementation - get a system that is easily configurable and works “off the shelf”.   As soon as you start demanding customization, expect the costs to go up significantly and the time for implementation to get much longer. And finally, the fourth observation was that these comprehensive systems are pricey.  If I recall correctly, at the closing presentation, based on a survey of its members, the typically budget for an EH&S-MIS system was somewhere between 100 thousand to 500 thousand per year. So there you have my four observations 1) Everybody wants a comprehensive system that is off the shelf, 2) EMS is not equal to MIS, 3) configuration does not equal customization, and 4) comprehensive systems are pricey. So if you’re considering selecting and implementing an EHS-MIS, I’d like to propose that you ask yourself several questions. The first question you need to ask yourself is “Where’s the value?” When scoping out a system keep a laser like focus on the value rather than the features or comprehensiveness.  Make sure that you are creating something that serves a real business outcome and not creating “bloatware.” From my perspective, companies are attempting to track too many things that really don’t advance the value of the company.  And when I talk about “value” I don’t necessarily just mean economic value.  In one presentation, I believe the presenter indicated that when they scoped out the user requirements they initially came up with 24 health and safety tracking requirements, and 34 sustainability requirements.  Ask everyone “where are the value added measurements?”  Which of these measurements are critical for reducing operational risk, improving the profitability of the company, or reducing significant amounts of pollution or wastes? Ask yourself “What is the end user really willing to do?”When scoping out user requirements for an environmental, health and safety management information system be very careful when listening to the end user.  In other words, don’t listen to what they tell you - watch what they do.  Instead of asking what they want, ask what they are they willing to spend their valuable time and money on.  The end user always, always wants ultimate flexibility. They want corporate colors and font, the ability to move the field input box from the left to the right, the ability to sort environmental, health and safety data by every possible way, draw every possible graph, and add custom fields at their leisure.  Please understand, that while all of this is very doable, it does come at a cost.  So, instead of asking about what features or requirements they want, ask them if they are willing to stay at work till 7:00 each Friday night of every week entering this data.  I’m quite certain that you will get your answer very soon.  Reducing complexity will improve data integrity. Ask yourself “How can we reduce complexity?” Instead of always thinking about what features we should add, think about what we should remove instead of what we should add.  Don’t get sold on all those pretty graphs that only impress yourself and your team.  Instead think about flexibility.  If you want those pretty graphs does the system have the flexibility to dump the data to Excel and then you can spend your personal time at night creating the graph in the official corporate colors and fonts. What single requirement do we need to do very well?Look at what the biggest EH&S challenge facing your company is, and fix that problem in a meaningful way.  Don’t worry about tracking the difference between potable and non-potable water usage when you’re having 60 occupational fatalities per year.  Fix the bigger issues first. Ask, How long is the implementation? At the conference, one company indicated that they were 2 ½ years into implementation. What? To me that equals lots of time in meetings and paying a team of consultants many, many billable hours.  Consultants love this kind of stuff, because it means job security to them. Ask, Who is on the selection and implementation team?EHS, IT, and Purchasing on the decision team - that’s a bad combination. What about operations? What about finance? Ask, What defines success? When embarking on any software project understand that there’s risk involved – risks of cost and schedule overruns, and risk of creating a system that never get adopted by the end users.  According to the Standish group, in the United States, only 16.2% of software projects are completed on time and on budget.  In larger organizations, only 9% of software projects meet those goals.  According to the Standish group, the average cost over run is 189% of the original cost, and the average time overrun is 222% of the original time estimate.  According to their report, the 3 major factors that determined the “success” of the project was user involvement, executive management support, and clear statement of requirements. What will our future workforce be like? Understand the future of your workforce and current trends, not the old.  The future of environmental, health and safety professionals that will be entering the workforce in the next 10 years are very different than the “decision makers” of today.  They are smart, comfortable with technology, used to rapid change, demand instant feedback, and are very mobile.  They have practically grown up with a smartphone such as a Blackberry, iPhone or Android in their hands, and are deeply involved in Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and LinkedIn.  Their needs, their demands will be very different from ours.  Figuring out ways to increase user engagement with this generation of environmental, health and safety professionals will be challenging for even the best of us. In closing this part of the podcast, I’d like to say that EH&S software, can be beneficial to any company, but be you need to be very clear about your expectations.  In addition, always, always look to simplify processes, rather than making more comprehensive.  Otherwise, your risk of failure rises significantly.  Sometimes a simple and affordable environmental, health and safety software solution that works off the shelf is best. O.k.  The does it for the discussion on “Creeping Featurism in Environmental, Health and Safety software. If you have any comments or feedback – I loved to hear it.  You can call our listener voicemail feedback line at 206-337-4769 and leave an audio comment.  You can also stalk us on twitter at twitter.com/Affygility, or follow us on Facebook by just searching for Affygility Solutions and giving us a “Like. You can also email us your comments at podcast at Affygility.com. Alright, let’s now talk about some upcoming events.The first event is the Society of Toxicology meeting on March 6th through 10th in Washington, DC.  Dr. Joe Nieusma, Senior Toxicologist with Affygility Solutions will be attending this event, so if you would like to meet with Joe let me know. Next, on March 11th through 15th, I will be attending South by Southwest Interactive in Austin, Texas.  I’ve been looking at the schedule of sessions and events that will be happening at South by Southwest and it is amazing.  This event has nothing to do with environmental, health and safety, but more to do with interactive technologies. Then I should also mention, that coming up in April, we have several new webinars starting and you should look at our schedule at Affygility.com.  These webinars have been very well attended and we have received a lot of positive feedback on them.  In addition to our very popular webinar on Advanced Topics in Potent Compound Safety, we also have a webinar on Dermal Exposure to Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients, Global Harmonization System, Hazardous Wastes for Hospitals, Clinics, and Medical Laboratories.  Again, if any of that interests you, I would suggest that you go to Affygility.com and look at our full schedule.

  BioPharma EH&S Podcast Episode No. 10 Note: This is the abbreviated script of the podcast, for the more detailed version go to http://potentcompoundsafety.com/?p=642 Cover what we talked about last time in episode number 9 Then I will cover our main topic for today, which is “Industrial hygiene in the pharmaceutical industry.” Discuss upcoming events and happenings of importance to environmental, health and safety professionals in the BioPharma Industry. Discussed the topic of “Are you an environmental, health and safety road warrior?”  Get into our main topic for today which is “Industrial hygiene in the pharmaceutical industry.” What I’m going to talk about here is based off of a journal article written by myself, Dr. Joe Nieusma, Senior Occupational Toxicologist with Affygility Solutions, and Angela Coler of Affygility Solutions.  This article is titled “Strategies for preventing occupational exposure to potent compounds” and was published in a 2010 edition of Toxicology Mechanisms and Methods.  In that article, Joe, Angela, and I discuss that since the 1970’s, occupational toxicologists, industrial hygienists and other occupational health professionals in the pharmaceutical industry have recognized that occupational exposure to active pharmaceutical ingredients can cause unintended health effects in workers handling these substances.  In our Advanced Topics in Potent Compound Safety webinar, Dr. Nieusma, always discusses that chemical compounds that are routinely handled in the pharmaceutical industry are unique from other chemicals in that these compounds are designed to have an effect on the human body.  In an occupational setting, if an employee provides a pathway of exposure to a potent compound, there is a high probability that the compound is going to elicit the designed response.  Industrial hygienists and other occupational health professionals in the industry have responded to this hazard recognition by employing strategies for the risk evaluation and control of potent active pharmaceutical ingredients, otherwise known by the term “potent compounds.” The strategies for preventing occupational exposure to potent compounds are very similar to any other industrial hygiene process, and consist of anticipating and evaluating the hazards of potent compounds; determining which of those process activities pose the highest risks; evaluating those risks, and finally, controlling potential exposures primarily through engineering devices.  These strategies should be applied at all stages of pharmaceutical product development including discovery, pre-formulation, initial test batches, pilot plant, scale-up, and production.  These strategies can be applied to initial discovery of a potent compound by an innovator company or to the development of a product coming off patent by a generic pharmaceutical company. Don't go into the definition of a potent compound, refer to article So, let’s now talk about our first strategy component, the first component is Evaluating the Hazards of Existing and New Compounds Prior to the introduction of any new APIs into the workplace, a thorough scientific literature search on the specific or similar compounds should be conducted.  If your company is just getting started in developing a potent compound safety program, a thorough literature search should be performed on pharmaceutical products already in the company’s portfolio – either in development or already on the market.  The industrial hygiene professional needs to gain an understanding of the potential hazards of all of the company’s products. While retrieving literature and understanding the hazards may seem like a fairly simple task, for new compounds early in the development process it is often challenging to find information that is relevant to an occupational exposure scenario.  However, the primary focus should be to identify sufficient information to allow preliminary classification of the potent compound into a control banding strategy.  Much has been written about control banding in the pharmaceutical industry, so I won’t go into those details today, but would suggest you either attend one of our webinars on this topic or do some research on this subject.  I will however mention that one of the most common modification to the classification scheme is typically in the number of classification bands individual companies utilize for their products.  The number of bands that a company chooses to employ depends on the range of pharmaceutical products in the company’s portfolio and the number of control options that the company has implemented. As an example, Affygility Solutions use a 5 band scheme. When you or your occupational toxicologist are searching for potential literature sources of information, these can originate from both inside a company and from published scientific literature.  Primary articles, can come from high quality databases from the National Library of Medicine can provide published resources on numerous chemical substances. However, for discovery compounds, the internal toxicology studies will provide the most useful information.  If the chemical entity has been on the market for a significant period of time, the literature can possibly provide all the necessary data to complete a potent compound safety classification.  Once the data has been assembled, professional judgment must be exercised to evaluate the data and determine the critical toxicological endpoints.   Conduct Risk Assessments on All Potential Exposure Scenarios   After you have an understanding of the potential hazards of the compound has and a preliminary occupational exposure limit has been calculated, the occupational toxicologist or industrial hygienist should perform a detailed risk assessment.  Risk assessments are often an overlooked, but extremely important, component of a potent compound safety program.  These risk assessments will contain a number of risk factors that will define the probability of exposure. These risk factors include how the active pharmaceutical ingredient is handled, the physical form, the quantity, the frequency and duration of exposure, and several other factors. Ideally, a well developed potent compound safety program will have completed detailed risk assessments on every step of the process. Also, in addition to manufacturing processes, risk assessments should also be conducted for non-routine activities, such as emergency repair activities, spill situations, or equipment failure.  In order to appropriately conduct a risk assessment, a number of departments will need to be involved.  These departments can include: industrial hygiene, occupational toxicology, occupational health, and operations. Strategy Component 3:  Evaluate Potential Exposures   After you have completed risk assessments, a risk-based monitoring strategy will need to be developed.  Exposure assessment strategies such as those used for other industrial hygiene purposes are fine.  But, briefly, exposure assessments are utilized to identify the need for engineering controls or in the case where engineering controls alone are not adequate to control occupational exposure, if personal protective equipment is required as an additional means of protection.  Data from an exposure assessment will determine the level of containment achieved and if other means of controlling exposure are required. When conducting air monitoring for potent compounds, it is frequently the case that air sampling and analytical methods will not be available and will need to be developed by specialty industrial hygiene analytical laboratories.  We go into a lot more detail on this subject in our webinars, so I won’t discuss it here.  However, during the interval of method development for a potent compound, the integrity of the containment strategy can be tested.  It is a very common practice in the pharmaceutical industry to use either lactose or naproxen sodium to perform surrogate monitoring on the equipment prior to inclusion of the more potent compounds.  This practice is typically called performing containment validation studies.  Affygility Solutions has significant experience in performing these types of studies, so if you need more information please don't hesitate to contact us.  The data from these evaluations can then be used to determine how the containment strategy will perform when the potent compound is actually introduced. After you receive the exposure assessment results, the industrial hygienist will need to carefully evaluate the data and compare to the field notes to determine the activities and operations that contribute to increased exposures. Exposure assessments are a critical tool for performance verification of engineering controls.  Operator effects are numerous.  Even the most sophisticated engineering controls can be ineffective due to poor operator technique or failure to follow established procedures. It’s been my experience that a single instance of inappropriately using a compressed air hose to remove spilled dry API from the top of a container can result in an 8-hour time weighted average exposure that is 400% higher than other who did not use a compressed air hose.  Training is critical to decrease or eliminate variability in operator technique.  Consistent techniques, attention to detail, and proper use of the available engineering controls is critical in preventing occupational exposure to potent compounds Implement Risk Management and Control Measures   The primary focus of a comprehensive potent compound program is to prevent occupational exposures through effective process containment.  When handling highly potent compounds, containment must be provided during all steps in the process.  Typical containment devices include the use of downflow booths during weighing or dispensing activities, the use of high containment or split butterfly valves during product transfer between containers, local exhaust ventilation near dust generating activates, closed systems, vacuum transfers, and the use of isolators to enclose the process.  Engineering controls need to be a workable design, ergonomically correct, and user friendly or they will quickly be relegated to the backroom by operators.  The operator interface is one main aspect that is controllable.  Minimize operator interaction in a process, and the exposure potential will also be minimized. In addition to engineering controls, other risk management strategies may need to be utilized.  These can include administrative controls such as compound-specific hazard communication training and product-specific medical surveillance.  However, these aspects cannot be considered as a substitute for the previously mentioned engineering controls.  Other examples of administrative controls include time limits for operator exposures, gender restrictions, biomonitoring protocols, and process changes to eliminate operator variability.  The use of personal protective equipment should only be used as a tertiary means of exposure control. Strategies for preventing occupational exposures to potent compounds require that all elements be considered.  Failure to control exposures to potent compounds can result in costly program missteps, delayed production schedules, or potentially hazardous exposures to workers.  A comprehensive potent compound program will have contributions from occupational toxicology, industrial hygiene, safety, engineering, and operations.  The bottom line is employee safety and increased productivity. O.k.  The does it for the discussion on “Industrial hygiene in the pharmaceutical industry. If you have any comments or feedback – I loved to hear it.  You can call our listener voicemail feedback line at 206-984-3214 and leave an audio comment.  You can also stalk us on twitter at twitter.com/Affygility, or follow us on Facebook by just searching for Affygility Solutions and giving us a “Like. You can also email us your comments at podcast at Affygility.com. Alright, let’s now talk about some great upcoming events. The first event is the National Association for Environmental Management MIS Conference to be held on March 2nd and 3rd in San Antonio, Texas.  I will be attending this event and showing off our new mobile EHS app, so if you would like to meet up with me, please feel free to call the listener voicemail feedback line and let me know that you’re going to be there. The second event is the Society of Toxicology meeting on March 6th through 10th in Washington, DC.  Dr. Joe Nieusma, Senior Toxicologist with Affygility Solutions will be attending this event, so if you would like to meet with Joe and discuss potent compound safety, so let me know. Next, on March 11th through 15th, I will be attending South by Southwest Interactive in Austin, Texas.  I’ve been looking at the schedule of sessions and events that will be happening at South by Southwest and it is amazing.  This event is going to be “off the chain”. If you don’t know what that means “Google it” and find out. I should also mention, that in April, we have several new webinars starting and you should look at our schedule at Affygility.com.  These webinars have been very well attended and we have received a lot of positive feedback on them.  In addition to our very popular webinar on Advanced Topics in Potent Compound Safety, we also have a webinar on Dermal Exposure to Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients, Global Harmonization System, Hazardous Wastes for Hospitals, Clinics, and Medical Laboratories.  Again, if any of that interests you, I would suggest that you go to Affygility.com and look at our full schedule. Finally, I’m starting to prepare for a podcast on the Young Guns of Environmental, Health and Safety, and I need several volunteer guests.  If you’re between the age of 25 to 34, and work in the environmental, health and safety field please send me an email if you’re interested in participating.  My email address is dcalhoun@affygility.com O.k.  That does it for this week’s show.  Remember to submit your questions to our voicemail feedback line at 206-984-3214 and stalk us on twitter at twitter.com/Affygility, on Facebook by searching for Affygility Solutions and giving us a “Like”, and finally onLinkedIn by searching for Affygility Solutions.  

Management Commitment and Involvement - How to obtain it and sustain it for your EHS Program. Introduction.   Review last time.   Main topic: "Management Commitment – how to obtain and sustain it.”   Upcoming events and happenings of importance to environmental, health and safety professionals in the BioPharma Industry.   Important announcement to talk about and I’m very excited about this, and I believe you will be too.   Episode 6 we discussed some of key regulatory agenda items for 2011.  Those items on OSHA’s regulatory agenda and having the most impact on the Biopharma industry are I2P2 or injury illness and prevention programs, and the pending finalization of the revisions to the hazard communication standard.     Key parts of I2P2 are likely to be management commitment, employee involvement, and hazard identification.  OSHA has indicated that this is their key regulatory agenda item for this year.  If you want more details on that discussion, I would suggest that you go back to Episode 6 and listen.  You should also stay tuned to the BioPharma EHS podcast for updates on I2P2 in future episode.     We then discussed, how OSHA was indicating that they hope to have the revised hazard communication standard that incorporates the global harmonization system elements into the standard completed by August of this year.  I did mention in that podcast, that these changes will require significant changes to material safety data sheets, and package labeling.  Which also means that you will have to update your written program, your training programs, and re-train employees.  Again, I would suggest that you go back to Episode 6 and listen in.   Well, the discussion on I2P2 and management commitment, leads us into our next topic - Management Commitment – how to obtain it and sustain it.   Often hear EHS managers state, “If I just have management commitment. If I just have management involvement.  Our progress would be so much better.”  Well, first off, any experienced environmental, health and safety professionals knows that “yes” management commitment and involvement is a critical component to a successful EHS program, but as I always tell EHS managers, be careful what you ask for and know exactly what your asking.    Because when you start asking for senior management to be deeply involved in your program, along with that involvement comes a significant increase in accountability and a lot of work on your part.  And if your strategies, your goals, your objectives, don’t deliver on their promises – then senior management may be looking carefully at your ability to make strategic decisions and execute them.   So, before you start asking for their involvement you need to know what you want and what they want.    ·      First off, gain a solid understanding of what your company does, the key strategic goals for the next several years, and gain an understanding of their current business cycle – is the business in a rapid growth mode or downsizing mode?  If often surprises me, how few environmental, health and safety professional understand the company that they work for in terms of strategic direction, product and service offerings, and the overall business. ·      You also want to understand who the key influencers in the organization are and why? – who has the ear of the CEO? Who does the CEO listen to? ·      Second, understand the language of the CEO.  It’s been my experience that you can tell a lot about the type of language that they want to hear by understanding their education and background.  Prior to becoming a CEO was their experience in finance, sales and marketing, operations, or science?  In the biotech industry, it’s very common to have CEOs with a science background.  I’ve heard that in the past several years this has been changing, but if science is their language, then whatever strategies that you propose better speak the language of science and be about furthering the science of the company. ·      Once you have some understanding of the company and the background of some of its senior management – pick a few strategic targets where you can involve senior management and get some early success.  One example is drafting an overall corporate environmental, health and safety policy and getting it endorsed by senior management. ·      Next what visible, actionable items do you want management to be involved in?  In the biotech/pharma industry several things that I’ve seen that have work well is at least one senior manager being present in all safety committee meetings.  Ideally, it should be on a rotating basis. At first it may be intimidating for the staff level employees, but it does show the employees that management is willing to spend their time on safety.  One important point here – make sure you have prepared and distributed an agenda ahead of time, and have defined start and stop times.  This can’t be an ad hoc meeting.  Another example of management involvement is senior management participating in walk-through inspections of laboratories and manufacturing area.  I should mention an important point here – make sure that your senior managers are wearing all the appropriate personal protective equipment such as safety glasses, lab coats, and whatever else your company requires.  Nothing causes an EH&S programs to lose credibility more than senior managers going through work areas without the proper protective equipment.  I always can tell the company’s that have developed strong EH&S programs when annual reports have photos of executives in the lab, and they are always wearing their PPE.  Why is that so rare?  Well, taking professional photos of people wearing safety glasses is a real trick.  Because you get a lot of reflection and glare off the lens, professional photographers don’t like them and don’t want to spend the extra amount of time to get it right. ·      After you have decided on one or two things you would like to propose that senior managers be involved in, setup a meeting with the highest ranking member of management that you can get access to.  If it’s the CEO – great! If it’s the site head – that’s o.k.  But regardless of who you’re attempting to get access to – you may want to keep your direct supervisor informed or they might get blindsided. ·      Prior to meeting with them.  Make sure you have a plan on what you would like to discuss.  One page of bullet items is fine.  Stay focused and don’t get off topic, unless they want to discuss other issues.  Be open to their suggestions. They may be better than yours.  You should also be careful, not to overstay your welcome or future meetings with them will become difficult. ·      O.k. now that you have proposed some ways for managers to be engaged, what measurements are you going to keep to ensure progress in the right direction.  Without some kind of meaningful measurement you won’t be able to sustain your efforts.  Management wants to see that however they spend their valuable time is resulting in progress for the company. You likely will need several metrics and a combination of leading and lagging indicators.  Make sure your metrics are credible.  Software tools like Affytrac, our proprietary compliance management software, can be extremely helpful in tracking completion of actions.. ·      Finally, now that you have their attention, it is your responsibility to provide updates to senior management. Use metrics as previously noted, as well as other important items and achievements.  EH&S reports don’t always have to be always negative news. Be sure to mention the things that are going right.  Focus on progress. Keep your report short and condensed down to 1 or 2 pages.  Use graphs where possible.  Comparison graphs are great.  Management is used to looking at these types of graphs.  These reports should be provided at least quarterly. ·      After you have gain the confidence and trust of senior management, and you have a few solid systems in place, you can further advance the progress of the EH&S program by establishing an executive level EH&S committee.  While this may be a stretch for some companies early in the development of their environmental, health and safety program, it is something to aim for.   So, yes management commitment and involvement is key.  If you’re an EH&S professional working full-time at a company, then there has already been some level of commitment demonstrated just by allocating a full-time position to handle these issues.  But, there are also some simple things that you can have senior management be involved. Take some small steps and you will see some progress.   O.k.  The does it for the discussion on management commitment. If you have any comments or feedback – I loved to hear it.  You can call our listener voicemail feedback line at 206-984-3214 and leave an audio comment.  You don’t need to leave your last name or anything like that. You can also email us your comments at podcast at Affygility.com.   Alright, let’s now talk about some great upcoming events.   The first event is the National Association for Environmental Management Conference to be held on March 2nd and 3rd in San Antonio, Texas.  I will be attending this event, so if you would like to meet up with me, please feel free to call the listener voicemail feedback line and let me know that you’re going to be there.   The second event is the Society of Toxicology meeting on March 6th through 10th in Washington, DC.  Dr. Joe Nieusma, Senior Toxicologist with Affygility Solutions will be attending this event, so if you would like to meet with Joe let me know.   Next, on March 11th through 15th, I will be attending South by Southwest Interactive in Austin, Texas.  This is going to be an exciting event and I look forward to hooking up with my good friends from E-Webstyle. They are the "A" team of Search Engine Optimization from Houston, TX  I’ve never met them face-to-face, but we have known each other virtual for several years now.  I look forward to meeting them in person.   I should also mention, that in April, we have several new EHS webinars starting and you should get out our schedule at Affygility.com.  These webinars have been very well attended and we have received a lot of positive feedback on them.  Also for those of you that are Certified Industrial Hygienist, you get 1.5 certification maintenance points for completing all 5 modules of the Advanced Topics in Potent Compound Safety webinar.   Alright, now for some very exciting news.  Just yesterday, Affygility Solutions announced the launch of Affytrac Mobile.  We are extremely excited about this innovative product and how it makes managing compliance programs so easy, and from the convenience of your smartphone.  Affytrac Mobile is the first fully functional environmental, health and safety mobile phone app.  Affytrac Mobile works from your iPhone, iPod touch, Android devices, and certain Blackberry Smartphones.  Check it out by going to Affygility.com.  We will be having a webinar going over the features of Affytrac Mobile this next Monday, January 31st, 2011 at 9:30 a.m.  The webinar should last approximately 30 minutes.  Please go to Affygility dot com to register for this free webinar.   Remember to submit your questions to our voicemail feedback line at 206-984-3214.  You can also stalk us on twitter at twitter.com/Affygility, on Facebook by searching for Affygility Solutions and giving us a “Like”, and finally on LinkedIn by searching for Affygility Solutions.