, genre-bending performance they are known for to the Atlas Center on Friday. Throughout a fresh and varied program, they showed closer affinities to jazz and popular music than to the avant-garde. All the instruments, which included drum set and electric guitar, were miked as if for a jazz show, and the compositions mostly avoided the atonality and extended techniques that often challenge audiences. Unsurprisingly, they attracted what seemed like the biggest crowd of this season’s new music series at the Atlas.
The first half of the program featured pieces by David Lang, Michael Gordon, and Julia Wolfe, the three composer-leaders of Bang on a Can, the collective of which the All-Stars are a part. Lang’s minimalist Sunray obsessively reiterated a few simple, mantric motifs, seeming at first like an unsettled dream but ending up as a protracted nightmare. Even so, it evoked an enjoyable trance-like state. Gordon’s For Madeline was a poignant memorial to his mother. It presented an incessantly pulsing minor third interval, around which a series of moaning glissandi created a bleak, grief-stricken mood. Big Beautiful Dark and Scary by Wolfe depicted an ominous, gathering tumult that finally erupted, receded, and gathered again like stormy waves at sea. But beyond this excitement, it didn’t add up to much.
The second half opened with two pieces by Don Byron. Basquiat was a rich, melancholy waltz memorializing the street artist of that name. Show Him Some Lub was a stale exercise in musical identity politics. Over some spunky, oppositional rhythms, the players were called on to state their ethnicities into the microphone along with the date -- past or conjectured future -- of that ethnic group’s liberation. The tackiness of this was exacerbated by uneven amplification and by the obvious discomfort with which certain of the players mumbled their lines.
The hypnotic Ridgeway was commissioned by Bang on a Can from young Australian composer Kate Moore. It was a promising contribution, at times creating a meditative atmosphere like that of David Lang’s piece. But many of its transitions were not convincingly organic; it seemed to jump from one section to another without following each one to the conclusion of its minimalist logic.
Finally, Stroking Piece #1 by Thurston Moore (of Sonic Youth), featuring a defiantly nonsensical program note, began with a simple chord progression played quietly over and over on the guitar. Then it grew into a full-throated rock ballad by the whole ensemble, seeming like it should accompany a montage showing an aged musician relearning how to rock after suffering a stroke. A quirky end to the program, it was performed with the All-Stars’ typical absorbing intensity.
With new cameras being released every month and new developments in memory card technology, many readers have struggled to find a memory card reader that works well for them. My friend Michael Tapes, designer of LensAlign, was having an issue finding a card reader that could grow with him and evolve as his cameras evolve. The Nikon D5 shoots either dual XQD or dual CF cards, Nikon D810 shoots SD and CF, Nikon D500 shoots XQD and SD, Canon 1DX Mark II shoots CF and CFast cards, and both the Canon 5D Mark III and 5Ds R shoot CF and SD cards. As part of his constant testing of new cameras and lenses, Michael finds himself shooting a collection of cameras and it’s not uncommon for him to come back to the studio with 4 different card types.
Littered across his desk are single-purpose card readers…One for SD and CF cards, one for CFast cards, then the XQD card reader. There has to be a better way than importing one card at a time, then changing the cable and reader and importing the next card. He mentioned to me that he was looking for a new solution.
Enter the Lexar Professional Workflow Hub. Lexar’s Hub has 4 empty interchangeable bays that you can use to load in a card reader for any card you’d like. Connected to your computer via USB 3 or Thunderbolt 2, you can transfer from all 4 card slots simultaneously.
But you can build out the reader to your liking…The possibilities are almost endless. Lexar has bays for CF, SD, CFast, XQD, MicroSD, and even a USB 3.0 two-port hub. Each “module” can also be used independently, which is perfect if you travel around and don’t want the bulk of the hub.
Lexar has two versions or the Professional Workflow Hub. HR1 is USB 3.0 or HR2 is USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt 2. I’ll be honest…the HR2 is expensive, but it’s worth-while if it saves you time. Michael has been using it for a few weeks now and loves the flexibility it provides. It cleans up his desk and makes it easier to import images after a day of shooting.
You can find more information about the Lexar Professional Workflow hub on their website by clicking here.
﻿THE Committee for Initiative on Kashmir condemns the sudden arrest of Dr A A Guru, a leading physician of Kashmir belonging to the staff of Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences, Srinagar, who was whisked away from the Delhi international airport some days ago. We feel that this is an utterly unaccountable action on the part of the government, particularly if we remember that this same government only some months ago authorised Dr Guru to negotiate with the militants to secure the release of Rubayya Sayeed, the daughter of the union home minister, from the custody of the militants. Strangely enough, now, according to the reliable sources, we hear that the J and K government has charged Dr Guru of financing terrorists, or being involved in the kidnapping of Rubayya Sayeed, and of being a terrorist himself! Surely, the government owes an explanation to both Dr Guru and the citizens of India.
BRAFV600E mutation and X-linked inhibitor of apoptosis expression in papillary thyroid carcinoma.

BACKGROUND
The BRAF mutation V600E (BRAF(V600E)) is the most common genetic alteration in papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC), while overexpression of X-linked inhibitor of apoptosis (XIAP) has been found in various tumors. Both of these events are implicated in carcinogenesis, tumor progression, recurrence, etc. There are few reports, however, of the BRAF(V600E) mutation and XIAP overexpression in PTC patients. The aim of this study was to investigate the frequency of the BRAF(V600E) mutation in PTC and its relationship to clinicopathological parameters and the expression of XIAP.


METHODS
Genomic DNA was extracted from 123 paraffin-embedded PTC tumor tissue samples and amplified for analysis of the V600E mutation in exon 15 of the BRAF gene by polymerase chain reaction. XIAP expression was examined by immunohistochemical methods in 46 PTCs, 18 benign nodular goiters, and 10 Hashimoto's thyroiditis samples.


RESULTS
The BRAF(V600E) mutation was found in 34.1% of PTC, and was especially prevalent in the classic type. BRAF(V600E) was significantly correlated with younger age at diagnosis (p = 0.026), tumor size (p = 0.009), and histological variants (p = 0.024). There was a trend towards association with extrathyroidal invasion (p = 0.067). By logistic regression analysis, a significant relationship was found between tumor size and the BRAF(V600E) mutation (p = 0.03). XIAP was expressed in 82.6% of PTCs, which was a higher percentage than observed in the group of benign thyroid disorders (35.7%, p < 0.001). Neither the intensity (p = 0.611) nor the extent (p = 0.723) of XIAP staining was correlated with the presence of BRAF(V600E) in PTC patients.


CONCLUSIONS
These data indicate that BRAF(V600E) is associated some of the aggressive clinicopathological features of PTC including younger age at diagnosis, larger tumor size, and classic histological type, as well as also extrathyroidal invasion. XIAP-positive staining was more prevalent in PTCs than in the benign thyroid disorders. Although BRAF(V600E) and XIAP expression are commonly seen in PTC, their presence together seems unrelated.Drawing on painter Alice Neel’s longtime residence in the northern reaches of Manhattan, David Zwirner is currently presenting a body of paintings by Alice Neel, curated by author and critic Hilton Als, and exploring Neel’s longtime practice in portraiture. Encouraging an exploration of visual art history and politics, social commentary and painterly craft, the exhibition is a striking exploration of the artist’s work in all of its nuance and power.
Over the course of her life in New York, Neel would spend much of her time in and around Harlem, first moving to the neighborhood’s East Side (Spanish Harlem) in 1938, and later to the Upper West Side, where she would live until her death in 1984. A relentless portrait-maker, Neel would paint her neighbors and friends, students, fellow artists, musicians, and anyone else who would sit for the artist, rendering a body of work as diverse and expansive as the neighborhoods that she lived and worked in.
This act of seeing is turned towards the political by Neel’s attentive and skilled hand. Her deft