text:
[What follows is the text of a press release issued by Professor Hans Köchler on this date in 2005:]
Vienna, 14 October 2005/P/RE/19402c-is
The Austrian professor who was appointed by the United Nations as international observer at the Lockerbie trial in the Netherlands today commented on reports in the Scottish and British media about new doubts on the handling of the case by the judicial authorities.
Dr Hans Koechler said that the dramatic shortcomings and errors in the conduct of the trial that have been brought to the attention of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) confirm his earlier assessment that the Lockerbie trial resulted in a "spectacular miscarriage of justice." (BBC News, 14 March 2002) Dr Koechler pointed to the following information that transpired in the media and that puts in doubt the very integrity of the judicial process in the Lockerbie case:
1. The credibility of a key forensic expert in the trial, Mr Allen Feraday (UK), has been shattered. It was revealed that "in three separate cases men against whom Mr Feraday gave evidence have now had their convictions overturned" (BBC, 19 August 2005). Mr Feraday had told the Lockerbie court that a circuit board fragment found after the disaster was part of the detonator used in the bomb on board Pan Am flight 103. In the first case where Mr Feraday's credibility had been questioned the Lord Chief Justice had stated that Mr Feraday should not be allowed to present himself an expert in electronics.
2. A retired Scottish police officer has signed a statement confirming that the evidence that found Al-Megrahi guilty was fabricated. The police chief, whose identity has not yet been revealed, testified "that the CIA planted the tiny fragment of circuit board crucial in convicting a Libyan" for the bombing of the Pan Am jet (Scotland on Sunday, 28 August 2005). The fragment was supposedly part of the timing device that triggered the bomb. The circumstances of its discovery – in a wooded area many miles from Lockerbie months after the atrocity – have been mysterious from the very beginning.
3. Much earlier, a forensic specialist of the American FBI, Tom Thurman, who was publicly credited with figuring out the fragment's evidentiary importance, was later discredited as a forensic expert. A 1997 report by the US Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General found "that in a number of cases other than Lockerbie, Thurman rewrote lab reports, making them more favorable to the prosecution. The report also recommended Thurman be reassigned to a non-scientific job because he lacked a background in science." (American RadioWorks / Public Radio, March 2000)
4. The most recent revelation relates to a mix-up of forensic evidence recovered on the ground in Lockerbie with material used during a series of test explosions in the course of the investigation. In one case, a garment which was damaged in a test explosion was presented as if it was the original garment found on the ground (which was completely undamaged). This garment was supposedly placed in the suitcase containing the bomb. "It casts serious doubts over the prosecution case because certain items that should have been destroyed if they were in the case containing the bomb are now known to have survived the blast." (The Observer, London, 9 October 2005)
All these facts – which are now before the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission – confirm the serious doubts about the Lockerbie proceedings originally raised by the UN-appointed observer, Dr Hans Koechler. In his comprehensive reports on and evaluation of the Lockerbie trial (2001) and appeal (2002) as well as in his statement on the compensation deal made between the US, UK and Libya in 2003, Dr Koechler had criticized the highly politicized circumstances in which the case was handled and drew the attention of the international public to the possible interference of intelligence services from more than one country.
New light is being shed on his original conclusion that the trial was not fair and that the basic requirements of due process had been neglected by what The Herald (Glasgow) most recently has referred to as a "distasteful political fix" (12 October 2005). It has been reported that secret talks are under way to transfer the convicted Libyan national to a North African country, which may frustrate the efforts at a retrial under Scottish law. It is worthy to note, in that regard, that the decision of the SCCRC about a retrial or new appeal has again been delayed until some time next year, Dr. Koechler said. As reported by The Herald, it appears that the key players – the three countries involved in the Lockerbie dispute – "are so anxious to avoid a retrial that officials are said to have held secret talks to secure a get-out clause." Commenting on these revelations, Dr Koechler stated that only a retrial, if conducted in a fair, impartial and transparent manner according to the requirements set by UN Security Council resolution 1192 (1998), including the presence of international observers, will do justice to the convicted Libyan national and to the victims' families who deserve to know the full truth about the case. This is also imperative under the fair trial standards set by the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, he said.
Dr Koechler reiterated his call for an independent public inquiry about the background of the terrorist crime as well as the criminal investigation and prosecution by the Scottish judiciary and the institutions of the United Kingdom. He stated that the falsification of evidence, selective presentation of evidence, manipulation of reports, interference into the conduct of judicial proceedings by intelligence services, etc. are criminal offenses in any country. In view of the above new revelations and in regard to previously known facts as reported in Dr Koechler's reports, the question of possible criminal responsibility, under Scots law, of people involved in the Lockerbie trial should be carefully studied by the competent prosecutorial authorities.
In a TV talk with Anne Mackenzie for BBC Newsnight Scotland (1 September 2005) Dr Koechler said that, while he does not question the integrity of Scots law as such, the handling of the Lockerbie trial has nevertheless seriously damaged the reputation of the Scottish legal system. A "political fix" such as the one reported last week in the Scottish and British media would confirm these doubts and further undermine the confidence in the integrity of the Scottish judicial system. He also said that he is afraid that, because of the political interests involved in the case, the full truth – including the identity of those responsible for the planning, financing and actual perpetration of the crime – may never be known.
In today's statement Dr Koechler emphasized that the "global war on terror" cannot be fought credibly and with a chance of success if – in the worst case of terrorism in the history of the United Kingdom – the search for truth is abandoned for political expediency and criminal justice, i.e. the rule of law, is sacrificed on the altar of political and commercial interests.


text:
Salomon Hammer Trail has been on my race wish list since my blogger friend, Tina Christensen, trained all year to run the inaugural 50 mile version in 2010, fell, got injured, lost and was located by a rescue team and carried off the course on a stretcher. That is what I call going down in style. And - seriously - a race on Danish soil that is so tough? Bornholm, as I learned at the Fyr til Fyr 60k, is a Baltic Sea island that is geologically entirely distinct from the rest of Denmark and bears more resemblance Sweden.
Last year, TIF athletic club added the 100 mile version to the race. 17 people started, 8 finished under 30 hours, including one female, Anne-Marie Rossen. What on earth?, I thought. Certainly I was intrigued.
THIS year, the TIF arrangers, decided last year's course was not hard enough. Therefore they added 2000 extra meters of elevation and 6 trips down an enormous set of stairs to ring a bell over an ocean inlet (Jon's Kapel) and back up again (edit: Jon's Kapel was not new this year. A more technical trail along the coast was). The world wondered: would ANYONE finish this year?
|bag check-in. Photo: Moses Løvstad
|Me and D Ditlev - nervous energy. Photo: Dan Mygaard
|12:00 start. Here we go! Photo: Moses Løvstad
Here is a video from just before the start, made by Thomas Dupont, where I talk about my preparation for the race (especially for those who love to make fun of my accent)
And yes, it is true there was no specific preparation. In some ways this helped. I have been training a lot less than I am used to since the goal was to train for a sub 3 marathon. It may have been a magic combination of muscle memory from all of my old ultras and speed work + tapering over the last 6 monhts.
On the other hand, boy did I look and feel like a clod trying to run with my poles. Over half of the field ran with poles. If you knew how to run with them, certainly they were a help on the course. But I did not, so I had to drop them after the first 15km. At that point, I was in nearly last place, if not last. Oh boy. It was just so much more technical than honestly any race I had run, except the Trans Alpine (which I dropped out of).
|Photo by Stefan Stougaard
|Hammershus- built in 1255 by Archbiship Jakob Erlandsen - has been occupied by Danes, then Swedes, then Danes. Photo: denstoredanske.dk
Nowadays, I think Hammershus is occupied by the drunk guy with a rifle who Dan Majgaard and I met on the surrounding trails in the middle of the night (one of the many times I felt my life was in danger during the race).
Just before it got dark, I had finished around 70km. As you can see in the picture, I look like someone who ought to be finishing a race right about now.
|50 miles done. Photo: Jesper Halvosen
With nightfall upon us, I changed clothes, though not my sports bra or underwear, as there was no privacy to be found and I didn't want an accidental embarrassing photo ending up on Facebook. Besides the fact that the men there were so tired that they had better things to worry about than looking away. I ate hot potato salad for dinner prepared by the volunteers. It was wonderful. I chatted with Moses and Jesper, who as ALWAYS were there, making this race so much fun for us runners. Tine, the woman who owns Tines Gjestehuz, where I had stayed the night before, had come to cheer us on with her husband. It is a small island and this was a huge event for them.
I had dreaded it. Worried that I would be tired. But the night was by far the best part of the race. Imagine this- being awake all night with your mind and body and full alert- hearing and experiencing the sounds and subtelties of nature in full splendour. I could hear the sheep and the birds and other creatures I could not identify - roaming, living. Before I got lost and found Dan Mygaard, I was stunned by the experience of my headlamp gleaming into the green retinas of 40 sheep eyes. Wow! (none of them had cataracts) Then Dan and I realized we had gotten lost but soon found the trail again. We ran together sharing headlamp strength. His was much better than my Petzl. If I did this again, I'd buy a super strong headlamp.
As we were scaling a mud wall over a quasi cliff overlooking the ocean, I stopped and enjoyed the sound of the tide coming in. Strong waves suddenly out of nowhere. And the stars. No moon as it hadn't risen yet. THIS IS LIFE!!! I am alive and experiencing this world.
|Here with 50k left to go and I WAS STRUGGLING. Photo: Jesper Halvorsen.
|The stairs to Jon's Kapel.
In a while I was back at Jons Kapel to battle the stairs yet again - round number 5 - one to go.
I had been feeling ok before this, but these stairs could really make legs stiff. Basically everyone I passed from the 50 mile and 50k races were cheering me on. It helped- but most thought I was on my last lap - the fact that I wasn't was a bit of a mental blow!
Henrik Leth Jørgensen had just won for the men in an incredible 22:14!
|Henrik Leth Jørgensen and Kenneth Kofoed, winners of the 100 mile and 50 mile respectively, leaving for their last 25km loop.
|Maibritt Skovgaard battling her last 50km of the 50 miler. She would go on to win for the ladies in 11:12 (just for comparisson, she ran an 8:54 100km 3 weeks prior). Photo: Stefan Stougaard
|And I won. 2nd ever female finisher of the Salomon Hammer Trail 100!!! Photo: Jesper Halvorsen
Following the race, I was interviewed by the German running magazine, which I think he said is called "Running". He said in his lovely German accent - "You know this is the hardest 100 miler in the world". Well, I asked if he'd heard of Leadville or Hardrock and he looked at me a bit askance. Sure, let's just call it the toughest! Here is Leon Skriver Hansen's stats from the 50km (which he too 2nd in). So I guess you can multiply this by 3.2 to get the 100 mile race stats. 18,752 ft of elevation change.And that was enough for a flatlander like me!
Here are the results (for the 100 miler this year, 36 entrants, 15 finishers, I was nr. 12).
One bit of advice for runners wanting to complete a 100 miler: Look at it as a long journey from one point to another - no getting off until you have arrived - no way out - and you WILL make it. We humans are built for this.

subset: commoncrawl


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Suspicious fire at Westside auto repair shop
Fire close to several arsons still under investigation
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The owner of a Westside auto repair shop that caught fire early Monday morning says the state fire marshal told him it was arson.
Just before 5 a.m. Monday, Jacksonville Fire-Rescue was called to B.L.C. Automotive Repair at 4809 Blanding Blvd. The owner said the fire heavily damaged a newly renovated building and several customers' cars. He said he also found that a safe containing "a substantial amount of money" was opened with a torch.
"We got an unknown-type call. Crews came this way and discovered there was a large auto repair shop that was heavily involved in fire heavy smoke," said District Fire Chief Donald Blanton. "More crews were called to scene and turned out to be a second-alarm fire."
Car shop owner Mark Fleming said the arsonist used Fleming's tools, specifically his torch, to break open the safe. He left the safe and took what the owner described as a "substantial" amount of money.
The family business has been around for 24 years, and Fleming just finished renovating the building last week.
"You work hard and you try to save some money," Fleming said. "We've been working hard for the community to provide a good service, and when something like this happens, it is pretty devastating."
Devastating for not only him, but his family, employees and customers.
"That's the real devastating part is the customers were affected," Fleming said. "The money for me, yes it hurts. But the customers and the inconvenience that are going to come over this, that's a very heartening thing for me, too. My heart goes out to those people, and I'll do everything i can to make them whole again."
Fleming said someone broke the concrete surrounding the safe. Much of his shop and equipment were destroyed. Fleming believes whoever did this set the place on fire to cover up his or her tracks.
Because this fire was near several other suspicious fires to businesses in the area, state arson investigators were immediately called to the scene. But because the other fires did not involve theft, they are not sure if this one is related.
JFRD said a vacant church on the Westside had been set on fire four times since September. Since then, police have questioned several people in reference to the fires at Church of the Epiphany, but it's unknown if anyone is facing charges.
In October, a fire ripped through the Value Place Extended Stay Hotel, which was under construction and scheduled to open this month. Jacksonville Fire-Rescue personnel said the structure was fully engulfed in flames when the first units arrived.
Also in October, a fire destroyed the former Bennigan's on Blanding at Youngerman Circle.
And last week, a fire burned Video Empire, a video rental store on Blanding Boulevard just south of 103rd Street.
Each of the fires happened near Blanding Boulevard and 103rd Street. Most of them JFRD considers to be arson. No injuries were involved in any of these fires.
No arrests have been made.
"The building had a large ceiling and at one part of the building it was a two-office area within the auto repair shop, and there was lots of damage to all parts of the building," Blanton said of B.L.C.
The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office closed Blanding Boulevard between 103rd Street and Wesconnett Boulevard for several hours early Monday morning. The roadway was reopened before 7 a.m.
Fleming is hoping the public will help investigators solve this case.
"Somebody knows something, he said. "And if anybody could come forward with any kind of information, I'm thinking about a pretty hefty reward."
Fleming said although this is going to set him back quite a bit, he can rebuild and is just grateful no one was hurt. The shop will be closed for at least a couple days and will reopen as soon as possible.
People from a local church volunteered to help employees clean up.
Fleming said he had an arson fire about five years ago in which his building didn't catch fire, but several of his customers' cars did. In that instance, the insurance company covered it.
Copyright 2014 by News4Jax.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


text:
Permanent Cosmetics
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At Faces By Design, our expertise in procedural design and color theory, coupled with master level experience with the devices used for permanent cosmetics, our services are applauded by our clients and associate medical and beauty professionals as being exceptional.


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Booms and busts: First basemen
Eric Hosmer is looking to rebound from a difficult sophomore season in 2012. (AP)
On Thursday, I kicked off a new position-by-position series, offering my personal picks of players I expect to break out ("Booms") or decline ("Busts") in notable fashion in the coming season — a process inspired by all of the preview/promotional media hits that I do at this time of year. I haven't created hard-and-fast criteria for inclusion on these lists, no promises that the aforementioned players' OPS will increase by at least 50 points or that they'll help you rule your fantasy league — or conversely, that they'll wind up below the Mendoza Line and lose their jobs, making you the laughingstock of your 5x5 league. In fact, these aren't particularly fantasy-targeted because I don't think about RBI totals or batting average very often, as my spotty track record of fantasy baseball finishes can attest.
These are established players — not rookies — that I've studied and have my reasons for earmarking for better or worse. Particularly favorable or unfavorable projections, changed circumstances such as trades, new roles, recoveries from injury, entry into or exit from the prime age range of 26-29 all come into play. Thus far, the catchers are in the books, so we turn to the first basemen.
Yonder Alonso, Padres: The seventh pick of the 2008 draft by the Reds out of the University of Miami, Alonso placed in Baseball America's Top 100 Prospects list four times, topping out at 33 last year after being sent to San Diego in the Mat Latos blockbuster. Having gotten his feet wet with the Reds in the previous two seasons, he was clearly big league-ready, and he held down the Padres' first base job all year. His raw numbers (.273/.348/.393 with nine homers in 619 PA) weren't all that impressive, but in the stifling environment of Petco Park, that was still good for a .278 True Average, smack dab at the MLB average for the position.
A closer look shows that while Alonso's home/road splits weren't substantial (sub-.400 slugging percentage in both), he did show more power as the season went on. After hitting .259/.333/.346 with just two homers through the end of June, he delivered a more respectable .286/.361/.438 with seven homers the rest of the way. With Petco's fences coming in, the now-26-year-old should be able to build on those numbers; he may not hit 20 home runs, but his on-base skills will make him a valuable player.
Eric Hosmer, Royals: A top 10 prospect coming into the 2011 season, Hosmer made a solid debut with the Royals, hitting .293/334/.465 with 19 homers after arriving in early May of that season, and even bigger things were expected of him in 2012. Instead, he began the year in a funk that he couldn't shake, and posted an OPS below 700 in all but two months, June and August. Cheating on fastballs made him susceptible to breaking stuff, and he got too pull-happy, hitting a slew of groundballs into defensive shifts. His overall BABIP fell from .314 in 2011 to .255, and on balls that he pulled, it fell from .301 to .206, 107 points below the major league average for lefties. Having reviewed videos with his new hitting coach, Jack Maloof, and undertaken a new fitness regimen, the 23-year-old should be able to put last season behind him, iron out both his mechanics and approach, and rebound to be a productive hitter. Even so, he won't live up to his elite prospect status until he can raise his showing against lefties above the .228./283/.305 he has hit thus far.
Logan Morrison, Marlins: After flopping last year and cleaning house both during the season and over the winter, the Fish don't have many recognizable names besides Giancarlo Stanton. The 25-year-old Morrison is one of the few, mainly because he's young (25) and still in his pre-arbitration years. After hitting a combined .259/.351/.460 from his mid-2010 arrival through 2011, he slumped to .230/.308/.399 with 11 homers in 93 games last year. An early May knee injury sapped his power as well as his batting average on balls in play (.248, down from .295 in his first two seasons); he went on the disabled list with a right knee injury in late July and had surgery to repair a torn patellar tendon in September. He was cleared to run last week, but exhibition appearances are still at least a few weeks off, and Opening Day could be a stretch, so he could be a slow starter, but with Gaby Sanchez having been traded to the Pirates, Morrison won't have to clomp around leftfield anymore. If he can stay healthy, he has the plate discipline and power to hold his own in the first base pack.
Brandon Moss, A's: Moss had knocked around the majors for parts of five seasons with the Red Sox, Pirates and Astros prior to last year, hitting a meager .236/.300/.382 with 15 homers in 749 PA — the bulk of it in 2008-2009. He had drawn just 33 major league plate appearances over the previous two seasons while serving as organizational depth at Triple-A when he was recalled by the A's in June after Daric Barton once again failed to produce. Manager Bob Melvin used him as the short half of a platoon with Chris Carter and the results were astonishing; Moss hit .290/.363/.643 with 19 homers in 234 PA against righties — unprecedented success given his own track record, and the sixth-highest OPS for any hitter with at least 200 PA under such circumstances, behind Joey Votto, Robinson Cano, David Ortiz and Miguel Cabrera, all of whom have much longer histories of raking against righties. His .357 BABIP under such circumstances was 55 points above his career mark against righties, and even given that burst of power, he struck out an astronomical 32 percent of the time against them.
As great a story as it was for a 28-year-old to finally establish himself at the major league level, that kind of production isn't likely to be sustained over his next 400 or so PA against righties, though he's still got a shot at solid numbers if Melvin can protect him from lefties as well as he did last year, when Moss had the platoon advantage 79 percent of the time.
Jesus Montero


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WMFS (Window Manager From Scratch) is a lightweight and highly configurable tiling window manager for X. It can be configured with a configuration file, supports Xft (Freetype) fonts and is compliant with the Extended Window Manager Hints (EWMH) specifications. It is still under heavy development
The code structure of wmfs starts to become too old and is not adapted to the new ideas and concepts of the project anymore. So it has been rewritten (again from scratch). Changes and configuration is described in this wiki.
Rest of this page can be applied only to older version of WMFS.
WMFS is in AUR. Due the high development rate it is recommended to use the git version, wmfs2-gitAUR. Please note that the package wmfs-gitAUR is now not being actively developed.
WMFS will look for a configuration file in
$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/wmfs. To configure WMFS to your liking, you will need to create a configuration file; for most users this will be
~/.config/wmfs/wmfsrc. If
~/.config/wmfs does not exist, create it:
mkdir -p ~/.config/wmfs
A default file is located in your XDG directory, normally in
/etc/xdg/wmfs, called
wmfsrc. Copy it to your newly created
.config/wmfs folder and you can begin to modify it.
cp /etc/xdg/wmfs/wmfsrc ~/.config/wmfs
To use wmfs as a window manager, add it to your
echo "exec wmfs" >> ~/.xinitrc
Configuration file
The configuration file is well commented. Make small changes cumulatively and reload WMFS (default key to restart is
r) to test them.
By default two different mod keys are used for keybindings (
Ctrl and
Alt) which may conflict with your existing set-up. These can be changed in
wmfsrc. For example, if you want to use the Win-key instead of Alt, replace "Alt" with "Super" or "Mod4" in the configuration file, e.g:
[key] mod = { "Super" } key = "p" func = "launcher" cmd = "launcher_exec" [/key]
Or in a single command
sed --in-place=.bak 's/"Alt"/"Mod4"/' wmfsrc
To bind commands to special symbols you need to specify their name, like "slash" for "/". You can find symbol names by using xev and typing the symbol in question:
xev | grep keycode state 0x10, keycode 61 (keysym 0x2f, slash), same_screen YES, state 0x10, keycode 60 (keysym 0x2e, period), same_screen YES, state 0x10, keycode 59 (keysym 0x2c, comma), same_screen YES,
Tags & Rules
Assigning clients to a tag, eg., having Uzbl open in tag 2, is done through rules. In
wmfsrc, write a new rule in the [rules] section:
[rule] instance = "Uzbl" screen = 0 tag = "2" max = "false" [/rule]
This will open Uzbl in tag 2 unmaximized. To specify a layout for that tag, under [tags]:
[tag] name = "WWW" screen = 0 layout = "tile_right" [/tag]
For some rules, eg., where an application is opened in a terminal, you may need to specify a class as well as an instance:
[rule] instance = "mutt" class = "mutt" screen = 0 tag = "3" max = "true" [/rule]
Use xprop to determine the values for your rule.
Key Bindings
The [keys] section of
wmfsrc allows you to customize your keybindings. As described above, this could mean just changing the default modifier from
Alt to
By default, WMFS is set up to cycle through the 9 available layouts. You might, for example, wish to include a keybind to set a specific layout, say tile_right (the classic tiled mode). You could bind that function to
t like so:
[key] mod = {"Mod4"} key = "t" func = "set_layout" cmd = "tile_right" [/key]
Similarly, you can customize keybinds for any of the other functions. A full list of the functions can be found in
/src/config.c - search for "func_name_list_t".
By combining a rule with a keybind, you can create a basic scratchpad - a terminal bound to a keypress that will open in floating mode in any tag in a specific position; for example:
[key] mod = {"Control", "Alt"} key = "p" func = "spawn" cmd = "urxvtc -name scratchpad -geometry 64x10+480+34" [/key] [rule] instance = "scratchpad" name = "scratchpad" free = "true" [/rule]
Statusbar configuration
The text shown in the status bars (or infobars) is set on a running wmfs instance using the "wmfs -s" command. You can set a different bar for each screen. The bars can also be positioned at the top or bottom of each tag in the configuration file. For example
wmfs -s "hello world, I am visible on all screens" wmfs -s 3 "hello world, I am visible on screen 4 only" # screens begin at 0
Colors may be encoded like this:
wmfs -s "This text is \\#ff0000\red, \\#00ff00\green and \\#0000ff\blue"
Rectangles may be drawn like this:
wmfs -s "<--look rectangles \b[700;9;14;5;#00ff00]\ \b[715;4;14;10;#00ff00]\ \b[730;3;14;11;#ff0000]\ "
The format is \b[xx;yy;ww;hh;#cccccc]\ where xx and yy are absolute (not relative) x and y positions, ww and hh are width and height, and cccccc is a color. This feature could be used to create CPU barcharts, volume displays and the like. Note: the absolute positioning makes it difficult to accurately interleave text and graphics.
Images may be added like this:
wmfs -s "there is sexy image at x;y on this statusbar \i[x;y;height;width;/home/you/img/sexyimg.ext]\ "
(Default image height and width can be set with height = 0 and width = 0 in the sequence.)
Graph may be user like this:
wmfs -s "graph \g[x;y;width;height;#color;data1;data2;...;datan]\ "
For more info on images and graphs in status bar: http://fu.rootards.org/viewtopic.php?pid=14#p14[dead link 2020-02-26]
To pipe data to the bar, write a bash script with the relevant data you wish to display and source it in your
wmfsrc. WMFS will call it at the interval you specify:
status_path = ".config/wmfs/wmfs-status" status_timing = 5
Note that the output in the status.sh is as explained before.
wmfs -s "What ever you want to be displayed"
Some example status scripts are on the WMFS website.
You can use Conky to pipe output to the wmfs statusbar with the command:
conky | while read -r; do wmfs -s -name "$REPLY"; done
The keybinding
p starts a launcher in the titlebar (similar to dmenu). It supports tab-completion and command-line parameters. Multiple presses of the tab key iterate through possible completions.
WMFS can be controlled from the command line with commands such as
wmfs -V :ln
which selects the next layout. Equivalently press
Escape followed by ":ln". Type "wmfs -V help" to see the full list.
Status bar not working in last git version
Since some revision, the status_path variable from the misc section is not being used anymore. However, you can exploit the background_command from the root section to start your status.sh script.
background_command = "bash $HOME/.config/wmfs/status.sh"
This solution has some flaws:
- The script is running independently from WMFS, so it will keep running after WMFS has terminated (which will outputs errors indefinitely in the TTY).
- Reloading WMFS (
Rby default) will launch another process of the script, which will mess everything up.
Assuming your status.sh file is located in the wmfs config folder, you may try to put this command at the very beginning of your script:
kill $(ps U $UID | awk '/wmfs/&&/status.sh/' | grep -vi "$$\|grep\|awk" | awk '{print $1}')
It will prevent it from running multiple times. To stop it once WMFS has terminated, you can use an appropriate loop:
while [ "$(ps U $UID | awk '{print $5}' | grep ^wmfs$)" != "" ] ; do wmfs -s "Blah" sleep 1 done
- WMFS website
- Wiki for WMFS2
- The WMFS thread
- Share your WMFS desktop! thread
- #wmfs on Freenode


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Grape cultivation and wine production are thriving to such a degree in North Carolina that some Polk and Henderson vineyards and wineries have plans to develop a wine trail.
Grape cultivation and wine production are thriving to such a degree in North Carolina that some Polk and Henderson vineyards and wineries have plans to develop a wine trail directing tourists and wine enthusiasts along roads that will take them not only through the picturesque countryside but into the towns as well.
Wineries in the state have grown five-fold in the last decade and grape acreage has more than doubled, according to statistics from the N.C. Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services. There are now over 100 wineries and more than 400 vineyards in the state, making North Carolina among the top five destinations for wine travelers and creating an annual economic impact of over $1.25 billion. And, of course, Polk and Henderson counties are within easy drives of the nation's most visited winery, established in 1985, at Asheville's Biltmore Estate.
When Dennis Lanahan wanted to establish a vineyard somewhere in North Carolina in the late 1990s, he visited Biltmore and spoke with the vineyard manager there who, he said, recommended Tryon or Hendersonville because of their thermal belt climates that are favorable to grape cultivation. Lanahan said that Biltmore's manager also told him, "If you grow grapes, we'll buy them."
Lanahan found land in the Pea Ridge Road area of Tryon and, in 2001 cleared acreage for what would, a year later, become Mountain Brook Vineyards. He planted 7� acres, and, this summer, introduced his first vintage of Chardonnay, with vintages of Pinot Grigio, Petit Verdot and a Bordeaux blend to follow next year. He credits the combination of east-facing slopes with sheltering mountains behind, long sunny days and cool nights with providing ideal growing conditions for grapes in this area. "We do have an advantage," he said.
Bob Binns of Parker-Binns Vineyard in Mill Spring believes that a wine trail would only enhance the tourist appeal the region already has. "I think this area in western N.C. is as beautiful as anywhere in the country," he said. "I think people come here for the beauty and want things to do once they get here."
Binns and wife Karen started their vineyard in 2007, after many years in food and agriculture businesses. Since then word has spread and keeps spreading about the area. He recently spoke to a Charleston man who had heard about the area's growing reputation as a wine region and is interested in purchasing land in Polk County for his own vineyard.
"Working together is a wonderful way to do it," Binns said of the alliance the area wineries and vineyards have formed. Wine enthusiasts come to an area because of the variety of vineyards there, he said. And, he added, visitors then want to see the whole area.
To that end, the trail being mapped out will form a loop directing travelers not only to vineyards and wineries but through the towns of Columbus, Tryon, Saluda and Flat Rock. "You can start anywhere on the trail," Binns said. "We're trying to design the route so that it takes in a scenic area." Besides the money brought in and jobs created, the wine trails also spawn other businesses, Binns said, such as restaurants and lodging.
He sees the popularity of wineries with their tasting rooms and outdoor seating areas as a part of a green movement. "People are getting back to the land and nature," he said, citing the popularity of farmers' markets.
The vineyards and wineries offer more than just wine tastings and tours of the facility. There are outdoor areas with fire pits and pizza ovens, nature trails, picnic areas, gift shops and entertainment areas.
Alan Ward's family-owned Saint Paul Mountain Vineyards in Hendersonville was the first commercial vineyard in Henderson County, and today has two vineyards, one at 2,300 feet and another at 3,000 feet. A glance at their website provides a full roster of entertainment throughout the year.
Of winemaking, he said, "We're very passionate," adding, "We're trying to establish quality viticulture in this region." To that end he employs a full-time winemaker from California's Sonoma County. Everything from tractors to trellis system has been considered carefully, and, he said, "We are trying to use the least amount of chemicals and still be sustainable."
He sees the wine trail as a "good economic tool," with the purpose of showing off the growth of viticulture in the area and "the quality of wines produced here." Last fall he organized, with others who are planning to be on the trail, the inaugural Mountain Wine & Music Festival in Hendersonville. Another festival is being planned for late April or early May to showcase new wines, he said.
He too praises the region's climate, geography and soil as contributors to growing "high quality fruit," likening it to regions in middle and northern Europe. He said that wines produced in this area have different characteristics due to variations in temperatures, soil and elevation.
Burntshirt Vineyards, owned by Sandra and Lemuel Oates, is another Hendersonville winery excited about the wine trail. "It's a very good thing," said marketing director and wine consultant Kathleen Watson, and "a nice group of people to be working with." Burntshirt Vineyards planted its grapes in 2008. Its tasting room opened in 2012 and a winery opened in September.
The Summit Event Center at Burntshirt offers landscaped gardens and amenities to accommodate weddings and other special occasions. It is great, Watson said, for bus tours. The vineyard also offers all the enticements that others do, including picnic areas, walking trails, a wine club, and, of course, tours and tastings.
Like the others, she sees a trail as a means of further promoting an area that, because of its beauty, has always had a great deal of appeal for tourists. And, she added, as new wineries open, they can be added to the trail.
The oldest winery in Polk County, in operation now for eight years, belongs to Alvin Pack of Green Creek Winery in Columbus. An eighth-generation Polk County native, Pack says that he "took a 29-year vacation to California."
There, he said, he was able to do his homework, living for a time in Sonoma Valley and visiting and studying the wineries there. "I would have made a lot of mistakes had I not done it," he says today.
His biggest accomplishment to date, he said, was introducing a new wine in 2007 that had never been produced before. The world's first red Chardonnay, Chardonnay Rosso, earned him national press and recognition from the wine industry at large.
Pack also sells a line of wine-related food, including Chardonnay Walnut Cake, a lemon Chardonnay sauce that will be the recipe representing the county in an upcoming statewide cookbook, and wine ice cream. "When you come to our tasting room," Pack said, "you taste more than wine."
With the completion of plans for the wine trail, there will be brochures, a wine map and a website. There has also been discussion of trying to obtain an AVA (American Viticulture Area) designation, the federal recognition of an area's uniqueness as a grape-growing region.
Most of the vineyard owners mention the area's history of grape cultivation as conducive to the renaissance of vineyards today and the likelihood of their success. "Somebody else did it before we got here," Lanahan said. "All we're doing is following in their footsteps."


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Katy Perry can finally call herself Mrs. Russell Brand now that the couple has tied the knot in ceremony in India.
The much anticipated celebrity wedding took place at the luxury Aman-i-Khas resort-- close to the Ranthambhore sanctuary where the actor proposed -- in front of about 80 guests, Us Magazine reported.
"We just love each other and we want to get married in front of our friends and family and keep it very normal," Brand told The New York TImes' "Times Talk" ahead of the big day. "It ain't about selling pictures, it ain't about doing no pre-nup, it's just a normal thing."
The actor met his bride-to-be while on set of the comedy "Get Him to The Greek," in which the "Califronia Gurls" pop star had a quick cameo that didn't make the film.
Media were kept far from the festivities and four AP photographers claimed that bodyguards got so aggressive on Friday, they were physically assaulted. But Us Magazine reports that Perry was expected to wear an Elie Saab gown and Brand planned to "ride into the ceremony on a horse, flanked by camels and elephants."
Just days before the big day, Perry was seen wearing a traditional Indian bridal nose ring that is worn by brides throughout the marriage ceremony and removed by the groom on the wedding night in Indian tradition, Us Magazine reported.
Guests were entertained by Bollywood-themed performances, a traditional Indian Bazaar, and could enjoy the tigers and wildlife of the area, People reported.
As extravagant as the ceremony may sound, the English comedian insisted he wanted to keep things as normal as possible.
"I'm trying to preserve it, to keep it a beautiful thing," Brand told "Times Talks," "I think people get the wrong idea on how we want the wedding to play out. Love between two people is the most spectacular, yet ordinary thing in the world."
Selected Reading: Us Magazine, Hollywood Life


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(My latest book God vs. Darwin: The War Between Evolution and Creationism in the Classroom has just been released and is now available through the usual outlets. You can order it from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, the publishers Rowman & Littlefield, and also through your local bookstores. For more on the book, see here. You can also listen to the podcast of the interview on WCPN 90.3 about the book.
Because of the holidays and travel overseas where internet access will be sporadic, I am taking some time off from writing new posts and instead reposting some of my favorites (often edited and updated) for the benefit of those who missed them the first time around or have forgotten them. New posts will start again on Monday, January 18, 2009.)
In a previous post, I discussed the fact that although all of us have the identical set of ancestors who lived just 5,000 years ago, this does not mean that we have the same genes. The fact that we are different is due to the fact that if most of the mating occurs within a group, then this can result in certain features becoming emphasized. In extreme case, this initial isolated mating pattern can result in a new species being formed that cannot mate with other groups that it could have done in the past.
I had always thought that the two organisms belonged to different species if they were biologically different enough that they either could not produce offspring or, as in the case of mules produced by horses and donkeys, the offspring were infertile and thus not able to reproduce.
But I learned from Richard Dawkins' book The Ancestor's Tale (2004) that two things can be considered different species even if they are perfectly capable of producing fertile offspring. All that is required for them to be considered to be different species is that they are not found to mate in the wild for whatever reason.
Normally, this happens when there is some kind of barrier that separates two groups of the same species so that they cannot mate. "No longer able to interbreed, the two populations drift apart, or are pushed apart by natural selection in different evolutionary directions" (p. 339) and thus over time evolve into different species. But the separation can also occur due to sexual selection.
He gives a fascinating example of this on page 339. He describes experiments done with two species of cichlid fish. The two species live together in Lake Victoria in Africa and are very similar, except that one has a reddish color and the other bluish. Under normal conditions, females choose males of the same color. In other words, there was no hybridization between the two colors in the wild, thus meeting the requirements for being considered different species. But when experimenters lit the fish in artificial monochromatic light so that they all looked dirty brown, the females no longer discriminated among the males and mated equally with both kinds of males and the offspring of these hybrids were fully fertile.
He also describes ring speciation using the example of the herring gull and lesser black-backed gull (p. 302). In Britain, these two kinds of birds don't hybridize even though they meet and even breed alongside one another in mixed colonies. Thus they are considered different species.
But he goes on to say:
If you follow the population of herring gulls westward to North America, then on around the world across Siberia and back to Europe again, you notice a curious fact. The 'herring gulls', as you move around the pole, gradually become less and less like herring gulls and more and more like lesser black-backed gulls, until it turns out that our Western European lesser black-backed gulls actually are the other end of a ring-shaped continuum which started with herring gulls. At every stage around the ring, the birds are sufficiently similar to their immediate neighbors in the ring to interbreed with them. Until, that is, the ends of the continuum are reached, and the ring bites itself in the tail. The herring gull and the lesser black-backed gull in Europe never interbreed, although they are linked by a continuous series of interbreeding colleagues all the way around the other side of the world.
Dawkins gives a similar example of this kind of ring speciation with salamanders in the Central Valley of California.
Why is this interesting? Because it addresses a point that sometimes comes up with skeptics of evolution. They try and argue that there is a contradiction if we had evolved from an ancestor species that was so different from us that we could not interbreed with that species. Surely, the argument goes, doesn't speciation imply that if species A evolves into species B, then must there be a time when the child is of species B while the parent is of species A. And isn't that a ridiculous notion?
The herring gulls and salamanders are the counterexamples in space (which we can directly see now) of the counterargument in time (which we can only infer). What it says is that as descendants are produced, they form a continuum in time. Each generation, while differing slightly, can interbreed with its previous generation, but over a long enough period of time, the two end points of the time continuum need not be able to interbreed.
Thus it is possible for an organism to be intermediate between two species.
Coming back to the question of why we look so different if we all shared common ancestors so recently, it is likely that the kind of selectivity practiced by the cichlid fish has resulted in certain features being shared by groups that interbreed within a restricted domain bounded by distance and geography and culture, although the process has not become so extreme that we have formed into distinct species.
I apologize for boring those readers who had had a much more extensive biology education than I have because all these things which I have been writing about recently on evolution must be well known to them. But I find all this perfectly fascinating and novel.


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Interpretting results of model with d...
Mplus Discussion
Categorical Data Modeling
posted on Friday, July 06, 2001 - 8:55 am
I am estimating a model with several observed dichotomous outcomes. To simplify, lets say that I have one exogenous variable (X), and two endogenous variables (Y1 and Y2), all of which are dichotomous. X affects both Y1 and Y2, and Y1 affects Y2. I would like to be able to say something about the extent to which X affects the probability of Y2 (both directly and indirectly through Y1), rather than limiting my discussion to how the underlying latent variables are related. Reviewers have requested that I go beyond the sign and direction of coefficients in my interpretation--- a reasonable request--- I am just not sure how to do it.
Any help on calculated/interpretting predicted probabilities or using some other approach to interpretation would be greatly appreciated.
posted on Sunday, July 08, 2001 - 10:53 am
You can study how x affects y2 probabilities directly and indirectly as follows. Assume
y*_1 = g_1*x + e_1,
y*_2 = b*y*_1 + g_2*x + e_2,
where y* denotes the underlying latent response variable and b and g are regression coefficients. It follows that
y*_2 = b*g_1*x + g_2*x + b*e_1 + e_2.
Mplus assumes that V(y* | x) = 1, so that V(b*e_1 + e_2) = 1. Then
P(y_2 = 1 | x) = P(y*_2 > t_2 | x) =
F(- t_2 + b*g_1*x + g_2*x),
where tau_2 is the threshold for y_2 and F is the standard normal distribution function found in tables. The second term in the argument of F is the indirect effect and the third term is the direct effect. Using different values of x, the effects of x on y_2 = 1 probabilities via these two terms can be computed.
posted on Monday, September 06, 2004 - 5:11 pm
I have two (unrelated) models from which I am trying to calculate the probability of a binary outcome (labeled u3 in Model 1 and u2 in Model 2) for given values of the other variables. I have the Day 3 MPlus handouts, which are proving quite helpful for this, but I still have a few questions.
Model 1
MODEL: f1 BY u1 u2;
u3 ON f1 x1 x2;
ANALYSIS: TYPE = general MISSING h1;
Model 2
MODEL: y1 ON x1;
u1 ON y1;
u2 ON u1;
For Model 1, MPlus outputs a residual variance for the outcome of interest (as in page 19 of the handout). I was planning to plug this into the probability equation as shown on pages 21-22. However, the Model 2 output does not contain a residual variance. Is this 1, as you imply in your response above, or do I need to calculate it using other items from the output (and, if so, how?)
Finally, for Model 1, to compare the effects of f1, x1, and x2 on u3, are the Std or StdYX estimates most appropriate?
Thanks from a novice!
Linda K. Muthen
posted on Wednesday, September 29, 2004 - 4:26 pm
I would need to see your two outputs to understand why you are getting a residual variance in one and not the other. With categorical outcomes, residual variances are printed at the end of the results with r-square when you request a standardized solution.
I think you would look at stdyx.
posted on Tuesday, January 11, 2005 - 9:55 am
I have two unrelated questions. First, is there anywhere in the output that specifies whether a model was estimated using logit or probit. I thought I read in the user manual (or in the discussion) that random models using MLR are estimated as probit models. But in the output, I noticed that default logit thresholds were mentioned.
Second, I estimated a logit model using Mplus and STATA. While the coefficients on the independent variables were all virtually identical, the intercepts were quite different. Does Mplus calculate intercepts differently?
Linda K. Muthen
posted on Wednesday, January 12, 2005 - 4:52 pm
Weighted least squares estimation is done using probit regression. Maximum likelihood estimation including MLR is done using logistic regression.
Mplus uses thresholds instead of intercepts which should be the negative of the intercepts. You may be comparing probit and logit given your misunderstanding in paragraph one.
Peggy Tonkin
posted on Tuesday, February 01, 2005 - 6:05 am
I am modeling continuous mediators with a categorical outcome. I asked for the IND effects for each mediator on the outcome and get the specific indirect and sum of indirects. Can I add these to the direct effect to get the total effect of each mediator on the outcome?
Peggy Tonkin
Linda K. Muthen
posted on Tuesday, February 01, 2005 - 7:12 pm
See MODEL INDIRECT in the Mplus User's Guide for a full description of IND. Say y IND x1 not y IND x2 x1 to get all possible indirect effects and a total effect.
peggy tonkin
posted on Wednesday, February 02, 2005 - 8:00 am
Thank You.
Peggy Tonkin
posted on Wednesday, June 01, 2005 - 1:11 pm
I am working on a path analysis with categorical dependent variables using MPLUS (including indirect effect), but I don't know how to interpret the coefficients of the direct and indirect effects. I have seen your answer regarding this, but still feel a bit confused by the formula you gave. Could you please give a concrete example? For instance, how to interpret the following probit regression (direct and indirect effects):
CATEGORICAL IS y x1
MODEL: y ON x1 x2 x3
x1 ON x2 x4
y x1 x2
The result:
Estimates S.E. Est./S.E.
y ON
x1 -0.463 0.107 -4.328
x2 -0.295 0.161 -1.838
x3 0.063 0.383 0.165
x1 ON
x2 0.309 0.161 1.913
x4 0.004 0.067 0.062
Effects from x2 to y
Sum of indirect -0.143 0.084 -1.705
Specific indirect
x2 -0.143 0.084 -1.705
posted on Wednesday, June 01, 2005 - 6:09 pm
I think you are in the WLSMV - probit framework where you can think in terms of continuous latent response variables underlying the categorical outcomes. So for
y on x1 x2 x3;
x1 on x2 x4;
where y and x1 are categorical, the continuous latent response variables can be called x1* and y*. The indirect effect of say x2 on y via x1 is therefore viewed as an indirect effect of x2 on y* via x1* and is obtained as the product of the coefficients for x1* regressed on x2 and y* on x1* (which are the coefficients printed in the regular output), and this product is interpreted exactly the way you would interpret it had x1* and y* been observed (continuous) variables. And as you say, more has been said in earlier posts.
posted on Wednesday, June 01, 2005 - 7:20 pm
Thanks for answering my question above. Three quick questions:
1. In MPLUS's probit regression, is threshold the constant term in STATA's probit regression (the sign of MPLUS's threshold is opposite to the sign of STATA's constant term)?
2. To get the threshold value, I add "TYPE=MEANSTRUCTURE" in ANALYSIS. In the results:
y1$1 -2.524 1.488 -1.696
y2$1 2.341 1.608 1.456
Does -2.524 refer to the threshold in the equation where y1 is the dependent variable?
3. BTW, how does MPLUS obtain standard errors for indirect effect in path analysis, when dependent variables are categorical?
posted on Wednesday, June 01, 2005 - 7:59 pm
Sorry. one more question:
In the answer regarding interpreting coefficients you gave in 2001 (first message in this section), it seems you were addressing the case when there are two endogenous variales (y*_1 and y*_2) and one exogenous variable (x). If I have more exogeneous variables, when I interpret the coefficient of one particular variable, do I need to take the mean value of other exogeneous variables? Or, can I disregard the value of other exogeneous variables and only use the formula you gave, which is P(y_2 = 1 | x) = P(y*_2 > t_2 | x) = F(- t_2 + b*g_1*x + g_2*x)?
I guess I need to control the value of other variables, but I want to make sure. Thanks!
posted on Thursday, June 02, 2005 - 9:12 am
Answers to your questions:
1. Yes.
2. Yes
3. Two ways: Delta method and bootstrap (see User's Guide). The Delta method considers the product of slope estimates; the principle is the same as with continuous outcomes.
4. You need to use values for all your exogenous variables, since each slope refers to a partial effect just like in standard regression analysis.
posted on Friday, July 22, 2005 - 12:06 pm
Hi, I have two questions:
1. What's the major difference between a probit model estimated by WLSMV in MPLUS and a probit model estimated by ML?
2. In SEM, when the dependent variables are ordered categorical, you said MPLUS takes them as continuous latent variables by using WLSMV estimation. Is the "latent variable" here the same as "latent variable" in factor analysis? I ask this because my impression is that a latent variable is often based on several observated variables. But when you take ONE categorical variable as a latent variable, there is only one observed variable -- are you saying that in this case, a latent variable is actually based on observed categories in the observed categorical variable?
posted on Friday, July 22, 2005 - 12:22 pm
1. The results of those two estimators would probably be very similar (we plan to have probit ML in Mplus in the future).
2. Yes, the latent variable here is a continuous latent response variable underlying a single observed categorical variable. It is not a factor with multiple indicators but is specific to a certain observed variable. It can be thought of as what you really want to measure, whereas your measurement is a crude reflection of the response variable - the observed categories inform about which range (between neighboring thresholds) the response variable is in, but not its specific value. It is sometimes called a response propensity.
posted on Saturday, August 20, 2005 - 8:17 am
Hi, I am estimating a SEM model by using probit estimation (WLSMV). In one of the equations, the dependent variable (Y1) is binary, and in this equation, the coefficient of a continuous independent variable (X1) is .23 (p<.001). I have two questions:
1. Can I interpret the coefficient as: for one unit increase of X1, the latent continuous variable underlying Y1 increases by .23?
2. How can I interpret the coefficient in terms of probability? Readers are used to seeing that the effects of independent variables on a dichotomous dependent variable are interpreted in a way of probability change. Since this is a probit model by WLSMV, not a logit one by ML, I am not sure how to get this alternative interpretation.
Linda K. Muthen
posted on Saturday, August 20, 2005 - 9:33 am
1. Yes.
2. The probability you ask for is computed as P,
P = 1 - probability ((threshold - z)/sqrt(theta)),
threshold = the threshold of the dichotomous event,
theta = the residual variance for y* of the dichotomous event obtained from the standardized solution,
and, for example
z = a*eta1 + b*eta2 + c*x,
where a, b, and c are the estimated regression coefficients of y* for the dichotomous event, regressed on two factors and one x. P is the conditional probability of the event given those factor values and x value.
To compute P you choose values of eta1, eta2, and x that you are interested in and evaluate z for those values. You then use a normal probability table to obtain
probability ((threshold - z)/sqrt(theta)),
from which you obtain the desired P.
posted on Saturday, August 20, 2005 - 2:44 pm
Thanks a lot for your response. I can only find the threshold of the dichotomous event, but don't know how to find theta and eta1/eta2.
1. How to obtain "the residual variance for y* of the dichotomous event from the standardized solution?
2. What do you mean by standardized solution above?
3. What are eta1 and eta2?
Or, Could you please give me a real example?
posted on Sunday, August 21, 2005 - 1:41 pm
1. Theta is the residual variance which is found in the output next to the R-square values (at least if you request a standardized solution).
2. If you type "Standardized" in the OUTPUT command you get slopes standardized to unit variance.
3. In this example, eta1 and eta2 are factors used to illustrate the case where you have not only x's but also factors that influence the categorical outcome. If you don't have factors, then you drop that part.
Peter Martin
posted on Friday, October 14, 2005 - 3:34 am
Referring to the discussion of the last few postings (Aug 2005): How can I calculate the predicted probabilities of a probit when I am doing a path model using multiple imputation? When type=imputation, standardized output is not available, so it seems I don't get the residual variance of y*.
I notice that I do get a matrix of thetas in the TECH1 output; will that contain the resid var of y*, though (i.e. are these the same thetas, or is there a homonym here)? Anyway, in my output the theta matrix contains only zeros (so they are unusable for the probability calculation).
If I may make a suggestion: It would be quite nice to have estimated probabilities as an output option in MPlus - similar to the postestimation programs people like Gary King or Scott Long have written for STATA. But maybe that's asking too much? Mplus is a brilliant programme as it is, of course.
posted on Friday, October 14, 2005 - 10:12 am
To get the y* residual variance you have to use the parameter estimates printed (which have been averaged over the imputed data sets) and the formulas of Appendix 2 of the Version 2 Tech Appendix on the web site - see especially formula (43). We have it on our list to add more output features for imputed runs and also the estimated probabilities for individuals.
Diana Clarke
posted on Wednesday, March 29, 2006 - 9:06 am
Hi Bengt,
1. In a SEM model with categorical main independent variable (5-level nominal so 4 dummy variable created), categorical/ordinal endogenous variables (mediators) and a binary outcome, would one report the standardized or the unstandardized coefficients? Can you clearly explain the pros and cons of each?
2. Whan are the benefits of calculating and reporting the probabilities?
Bengt O. Muthen
posted on Wednesday, March 29, 2006 - 6:49 pm
Standardization is beta*SD(x)/SD(y).
1. I would not standardize wrt to x here, only wrt y. Standardization wrt to x is only suitable when x is continuous - it does not make to talk about a standard deviation (SD) change for a categorical variable (you want to consider changing categories). Standardization wrt to categorical mediators or ultimate outcomes may or may not be done. I personally feel that the rush to standardization is often not necessary - I like raw coefficients. Certainly, in logistic regression one typically does not standardize. But is is possible to do so considering as the variance the variance of the latent response variable underlying the categorical variable.
2. I think reporting key estimated probabilities for categorical dependent variables is much better than standardizations. This clearly shows what the model implies.
Diana Clarke
posted on Thursday, March 30, 2006 - 5:06 am
Hi Bengt,
Thanks for the response above (March 29, 2006 - 9:06 am). I have a few follow-up questions related to the calculation of the probabilities using the scenario below:
in a model:
y1 on d2 d3 d4 x1 x2 x3;
y2 on y1 d2 d3 d4 x1 x3;
y3 on y1 y2 d2 d3 d4 x1 x2;
y4 on y1 y3 d2 d3 d4 x1 x2 x3;
where y1-y3 are 4-level ordinal variable, y4 is binary x1 and x2 are dichotomous variables and d2-d4 are dummy variables that represents my main independent variable with d1 the referent category left out.
1. How would I calculate the probability of y4=1 for different categories of my main independent variables (i.e. the probability of an event (y4=1) for d2=1 compared to d4=1)?
2. Would I have to do this at each threshold value for each endogenous variable in the model (i.e. 3 threshold values for each)?
3. With respect to the continuous exogenous variable, is it sufficient to just include the group mean value for the variable?
Bengt O. Muthen
posted on Thursday, March 30, 2006 - 3:43 pm
I assume you use the WLSMV estimator (so probit and u* variables used for mediation), and not ML (logit and u variables used for mediation). Then it is simple:
1.You would express y4* in terms of the "reduced-form", that is in terms of the x variables d2, d3, d4, x1, x2, x3 (just like you would in a regular mediational path model for continuous outcomes). Then you are looking at a regular probit regression for which our V4 UG chapter 13 gives prob formulas.
2. No, because your y1-y3 are ordinal variables which have each only 1 slope and therefore the category does not have an influence; this makes is simple.
3. Yes.
Diana Clarke
posted on Friday, March 31, 2006 - 6:14 am
Can you supply the formulas? I have V3 of the UG which only supply the prob formulas for the logistic coefficients.
Linda K. Muthen
posted on Friday, March 31, 2006 - 7:59 am
The Version 4 Mplus User's Guide is available on the website as a pdf.
Diana Clarke
posted on Thursday, April 06, 2006 - 12:56 pm
Hi Bengt,
Thanks for your response above. However, if my model contains a correlation between two of my mediating variables, how is this taken into account in calculating the probability.
That is, the complete model is:
y1 on d2 d3 d4 x1 x2 x3;
y2 on y1 d2 d3 d4 x1 x3;
y3 on y1 d2 d3 d4 x1 x2;
y4 on y1 y3 d2 d3 d4 x1 x2 x3;
y2 with y3;
and I am trying to calculate the effect of d2 on y4.
Bengt O. Muthen
posted on Thursday, April 06, 2006 - 5:59 pm
Having that correlation in the model changes the parameter estimates and therefore the indirect effects, but not the procedure for calculating the probabilities (as a function of indirect and direct effects).
For instance, if you have
x--> y1 -->z with slopes a1 and b1
x--> y2 -->z with slopes a2 and b2
then z expressed as a function of x is
E(z | x) = b1*a1 + b2*a2
irrespective of y1 and y2 having correlated residuals.
Diana Clarke
posted on Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - 10:39 pm
Hi Bengt,
Since one can obtain beta coefficients for the specific indirect paths with MPLUS once your model is recursive, I am assuming that one could calculate the probability of X on Y through a specific indirect path (as opposed to the overall indirect path). Is this correct?
Linda K. Muthen
posted on Thursday, April 27, 2006 - 8:52 am
Yes, you can do this using the VIA option of MODEL INDIRECT.
Hossein Azadi
posted on Sunday, October 08, 2006 - 9:03 pm
How can I calculate direct and indirect effect in path analysis by SPSS?
Linda K. Muthen
posted on Monday, October 09, 2006 - 8:32 am
I don't know if SPSS has an automatic way to calculate indirect effects. You would need to contact their technical support.
Antonio A. Morgan-Lopez
posted on Monday, October 09, 2006 - 11:38 am
Kris Preacher (@ U. Kansas) has some nice SPSS macros (and corresponding papers) to calculate indirect effects in single mediator models, multiple mediator models and med mod/mod med models @
Hossein Azadi
posted on Friday, October 13, 2006 - 2:33 am
So, would you please kindly introduce me an appropriate package for Path Analysis?
Linda K. Muthen
posted on Friday, October 13, 2006 - 9:10 am
Mplus can estimate a path model and provide indirect effects.
Hossein Azadi
posted on Monday, October 16, 2006 - 10:37 pm
Thanks a lot. One more question: is there any free dwonloadable version (such as student version) of Mplus available on the web? If so, would you please kindly put its web address on the board?
Linda K. Muthen
posted on Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - 7:12 am
Yes, we have a free demo which is exactly the same as the regular version except for a limitation on the number of variables that can be analyzed. The full user's guide is also on the website. You can access both via
Hossein Azadi
posted on Wednesday, October 18, 2006 - 2:26 am
Many thanks,
Hossein Azadi
Nadia micali
posted on Monday, September 17, 2007 - 3:52 am
Sorry for the silly question, but doing a logistic regression on Mplus (using on) i get an estimate of 4.6, how should this be interpreted (i.e. what is it)? you also get an odds ratio, so it si not an oods ratio.
how do you use it tracing a path?
Linda K. Muthen
posted on Tuesday, September 18, 2007 - 4:39 am
It is a logit, that is, a log odds. If you are asking about an indirect effect, you can use the probit link and then the indirect effect is the product of the two regression coefficients in the indirect effect.
Magda M�nica Martins Rocha
posted on Wednesday, December 19, 2007 - 2:03 am
I'm trying to understand the results i have from a confirmatory factor analysis where all the six indicators are binary. One of the threshols is -1.363. is it possible, and what does it means?
Thank you
Magda Rocha
Linda K. Muthen
posted on Wednesday, December 19, 2007 - 9:05 am
Assuming you are using WLSMV, the threshold is a z-score indicating a probability of greater than .5.
posted on Thursday, March 12, 2009 - 5:22 am
I have a dependent variable (Y) which is nominal with three levels (degrdation, constant, improvement), and several independent variables (Xs) which are interval. Can I estimate any regression here? If so, what kind? and is it possible with SPSS?
Linda K. Muthen
posted on Thursday, March 12, 2009 - 7:25 am
You can specify a multinomial logistic regression in Mplus. You will have to check with SPSS to see if they do multinomial logistic regression.
Thomas Schl�sser
posted on Wednesday, March 18, 2009 - 4:28 am
One nominal independent X (3 conditions).
Six mediating nominal variables M1-M6, each of them with different number of groups (each mediating variable describes a membership to different clusters in one of six measures)
One binary dependent variable Y (a decision of the subjects)
The idea is to show the changes in behavior Y (decision) effected by a different treatment (X: condition) is mediated by some of the changes (belonging to one cluster and not another) within the six mediators.
I also used Hayes' (beta) indirect script for binary outcomes but then tried to do this with MPlus. The problem is obviously that in both approaches the mediators (are or) have to be defined as categoricals. But doing this, mediation depends on ordering of the nominal variables, of course. Is it possible to force Mplus to do a multinominal regression M on X and Y on M?
Doing this manually with SPSS it shows that multinominal regression for some of the mediators brings significant dependencies in both directions.
With the bootstrapping procedure I am forced to set variables to categorical. Using MonteCarlo I cannot build IND or VIA effects.
Grouping of course only works with one mediating variable, which hinders to show specific indirect effects.
Do you have an answer for me? Would be so great, it's my disseration.
Thank you, Thomas
Bengt O. Muthen
posted on Friday, March 20, 2009 - 12:16 pm
So it sounds like you want a multinomial logistic regression of M on X and a binary logistic regression of the Y on M. The latter of course needs to be interpreted as Y probabilities shifting as a function of the nominal M categories. The way I can see this done (using ML) is to represent M by a latent class variable c, making M and c the same by using the M intercepts to connect its categories with those of c. Y prob's (thresholds) would then shift as a function of the c classes. I don't know how one would think of indirect effects in this context, however.
posted on Saturday, March 21, 2009 - 1:42 am
Thank you for your answer. I will try it this way. I got two further questions: 1. Is it a problem that I have six latent variables each with two, three or four nominal categories at the end?
And 2. (to your last sentence) Do you mean there is no way to think about indirect effects or is it a technical problem? There is a strong direct effect of changes in X changing probabilities to be in one or the other state of Y. But the mediators may carry some of the changes meaning a specific pattern within the six mediators may sig. change the probability of changing state in Y. Some of the mediators can be interpreted as categorical and it can be shown that such significant specific indirect effects exist for them. So I wonder if the sig. nominal connection of M and X and the sig nominal connection of Y on M carry such effect.
Thank you again, Thomas
Bengt O. Muthen
posted on Saturday, March 21, 2009 - 10:40 am
1. No.
2. I mean that an indirect effect is not simply the product of 2 slopes in this case. As you say, the mediator class probability is influenced by x and the mediator class influences the mean of the y so there is certainly an indirect effect of x, but a more complex one.
Mary E. Mackesy-Amiti
posted on Friday, November 19, 2010 - 1:17 pm
In interpreting the results of a path analysis with a dichotomous outcome using WLSMV -
What is the difference between this probabilty:
[posted on Saturday, August 20, 2005 - 9:33 am]
P = 1 - probability ((threshold - z)/sqrt(theta)),
and this:
[posted on Sunday, July 08, 2001 - 10:53 am]
P(y_2 = 1 | x) = P(y*_2 > t_2 | x) =
F(- t_2 + b*g_1*x + g_2*x)
thank you
Bengt O. Muthen
posted on Saturday, November 20, 2010 - 7:55 am
They are the same. This has to do with the symmetry property
F(v) = 1-F(-v).
See for instance intro stat books for the case where F is the normal distribution function (Phi).
So for your two versions, threshold = t_2 and z = the g*x expression. The only difference is that in the second expression it is assumed that the residual variance (theta) is 1.
cathy labrish
posted on Sunday, August 26, 2012 - 6:51 pm
Quick question re how to interpret coefficients from a regression of a continuous latent on an observed binary (and an observed ordinal).
In the case of a binary outcome, what is the reference category 0 or 1 (eg. if my equation is y=.345eta1 then do I interpret this as for every one unit increase in eta1 my log odds of y being 0 increase by .345 or do I interpret it as my log odds of y being 1 increases by .345).
Similarly, for an ordinal outcome, do I interpret y as the likelihood of being in the next lower category or the likelihood of being in the next higher category.
Linda K. Muthen
posted on Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - 11:15 am
The regression of a continuous latent variable is a linear regression. For a binary item, zero is the reference category. See Chapter 14 of the user's guide for interpretation.
Todd Hartman
posted on Saturday, January 05, 2013 - 9:34 am
Could someone clarify the interpretation of indirect effects using predicted probabilities in a simple mediation model with a binary dependent variable? (I've carefully read through multiple threads, the user guides, and scoured the Internet--a concrete example would help me fix ideas.)
The path model is X --> M --> Y, where X is a binary treatment variable, M is a continuous mediating variable, and Y is a binary outcome. Below are the unstandardized coeff. (using WLSMV):
M ON X: a = .089 (.035)
Y ON M: b = 1.99 (.17)
ON X: c = .054 (.142)
Intercepts (for model with M): .673 (.021)
Thresholds (Y$1): 1.355 (.139)
Indirect Effect (X to Y): .176 (.071)
Using the formula provided in the user guides and this thread to calculate predicted probabilities:
P(Y=1|X) = F(-t + a*b*X + c*X)
So, when X = 0: P(Y=1|X) = F(-1.355 + .177(0) + .054(0)) = .087
And, when X = 1: P(Y=1|X) = F(-1.355 + .177(1) + .054(1)) = .130
1) Do these calculations look correct? My concern is that these predicted probabilities seem pretty low when I look at the raw data. For instance, the mean value of Y when X is 0 is .49, and it is .59 when X equals 1. Am I missing an intercept or something?
Bengt O. Muthen
posted on Saturday, January 05, 2013 - 4:30 pm
Even when you condition on X there is some variation left in M, namely its residual. This means that to get the probability of Y you have to integrate out this residual and the formula is more complex than what you have.
You can see how this is done in the paper
Muth�n, B. (2011). Applications of causally defined direct and indirect effects in mediation analysis using SEM in Mplus. Submitted for publication.
which is on our web site under Papers, Mediational Modeling. The Tech Appendix goes through the formulas in Section 13.2. Note that you may be better off presenting causal effects as discussed in the paper - you will find Mplus scripts there.
Todd Hartman
posted on Sunday, January 06, 2013 - 11:47 am
Thanks for clarifying. Your manuscript was very helpful, particularly the appendices showing the calculations for the causal indirect effects and specific examples with accompanying Mplus scripts.
I do have one more follow-up question. I noticed for your aggressive behavior and intention to stop smoking continuous mediators (for Examples 1 and 2, respectively), you transform these variables:
agg5 = (sctaa15s-2.400)/1.100; (On page 117)
intent = (intent-1.456)/0.8854; (On page 120)
Could you explain what you've done here (and why)? I'm just wondering whether I would need to use some sort of standardized mediator to obtain proper estimates.
Bengt O. Muthen
posted on Sunday, January 06, 2013 - 5:37 pm
These standardizations are just done for easier interpretation. Subtracting the mean is typically done when interaction terms are considered.
Todd Hartman
posted on Monday, January 07, 2013 - 10:29 pm
Ah, that makes sense. Thanks so much for your help--everything works beautifully now for a path model with a binary outcome.
What about a path model with an ordinal outcome? Seems to be a common situation and my hope is to use Mplus exclusively rather than having to switch back and forth between different software to do all of these types of analyses (like Imai et al.'s 'mediation' package in R). Is there a straightforward way of modifying the formulas/scripts to calculate causal indirect effects for a particular category of an ordinal outcome?
For instance, for a 4-category outcome variable (1,2,3,4), would it be possible to substitute 'mbeta2' for the ordinal outcome (from 'mbeta0' for the binary threshold) to get the indirect effect of moving from a value of 3 to 4?
[y$1] (mbeta0);
[y$2] (mbeta1);
[y$3] (mbeta2);
Bengt O. Muthen
posted on Tuesday, January 08, 2013 - 2:37 pm
I am glad you are moving ahead on it. Please send any paper you write on it - these techniques need to be more widely used.
The effect formulas generalize directly to an ordered categorical (ordinal)
and an unordered categorical (nominal) outcome. For a 0/1 binary outcome, the expected value for the outcome is the same as the probability of category 1. With an ordered categorical outcome, the expected value for the outcome is a sum over the non-zero categories, weighted by their probabilities. This, however, assumes a certain scoring for the categories. For example, an equidistant scoring such as 0, 1, 2,... may not be substantively motivated due to the difference between two adjacent categories representing a substantively larger difference than two other adjacent categories. As an alternative, the probability for each category can be considered, an approach that is also suitable for a nominal outcome.
Jiebing Wang
posted on Tuesday, August 05, 2014 - 5:18 pm
Hi Dr. Muthen,
I did CFA for binary indicators using WLSMV estimator. I have questions on the interpretation of the factor loading and threshold.
1. Interpretation of the factor loading, is it correct?
��probit (y = 1) = -��+�˦�
Factor loading �� can be interpreted in the linear form as 1 unit increase in �� results in �� units increase in the probit of getting the observed indicator as 1.��
2. Can factor loading also be interpreted as probability? I found in a book that ��the change in the probability is difficult to interpret when in the nonlinear form of the normal cumulative distribution function as it varies depend on the value of predictor �ǡ�? Is it correct?
3. Interpretation of the threshold?
How to interpret the threshold for binary data? I found an interpretation ��The thresholds, or cut points, reflects the predicted cumulative probabilities at covariate values of zero.�� Is it correct?
Many thanks!
Bengt O. Muthen
posted on Tuesday, August 05, 2014 - 5:27 pm
Please look at the video and handout for Topic 2 on our website.
Haigen Huang
posted on Monday, November 09, 2015 - 11:35 am
(1) For binary dependent variables, is this the default equation that Mplus uses for regression?
LN(P/(1-P)) =Intercept+beta1*X1+beta2*X2+...+error-term
Where LN=natural logarithm, P=probability of the incident, X1 and X2 are independent variables, and beta1 and beta2 are coefficients.
(2) What is the difference between threshold reported by Mplus and intercept?
I will appreciate!
Bengt O. Muthen
posted on Monday, November 09, 2015 - 4:16 pm
(1) Yes, with logit link.
(2) The threshold is the negative of the intercept.
Geoffrey Hoffman
posted on Friday, February 26, 2016 - 11:52 am
I am using MPlus for cross-lagged panel analyses using SEM, I have several baseline covariates in Year 1 and then two variables (A and B, where A is a latent factor and B is an observed dichotomous variable) each of which is measured in Years 1, 2, and 3. A and B are endogenous dependent variables. So, A in Year 2 is regressed on B in Year 1 and B in Year 2 regressed on A in Year 1 (and the same two relationships are modeled between Years 2 and 3).
To compute predicted probabilities for the risk of B in Year 2 at the mean of A in Year 1 (or, given a 1 SD change in A), can I use the same formula indicated earlier in this thread (and as illustrated on slide #163 of Topic 2)?
If I were not using Year 1 baseline covariates, then I believe the computation of the risk of B in Year 2 at the mean of A in Year 1 would involve: tau, the threshold for B in Year 2, lambda, the coefficient of B in Year 2 regressed on A in Year 1, and k, the coefficient of A in Year 2 on A in Year 1. Is that correct? And would that also work when including the baseline Year 1 covariates?
Also, is theta the SE of the Estimate under R-square? (In the example in Topic 2, slide #160, the output looks different than the MPlus output I get.)
And, finally, should one use the STDYX Standardized results for tau, lambda and k?
Thank you kindly.
Bengt O. Muthen
posted on Friday, February 26, 2016 - 3:11 pm
Q1. Yes.
Q2. No lambda because you are not predicting a factor indicator. Not the coefficient of A in Year 2 on
A in Year 1, just B in Year 2 on A in year 1.
Q3. Theta is the residual variance from the stand'd section
Q4. No, use raw estimates.
Geoffrey Hoffman
posted on Wednesday, March 02, 2016 - 6:06 am
Thank you. The formula from slide #163 of Topic 2 is:
P(u_ij=1|n_i,x_i)=1-F[(tau_j-lambda_j n_i - k_jx_i)/(theta_jj)^.5]
1. It sounds as if this is not quite right for my model--so, I should not include lambda_j. Is that correct? (Yet, slide #163 seemed to use an example with a dichotomous outcome and used lambda.) Other than removing lambda, does the formula remain the same?
(So that would leave threshold for B in Year 2 - mean of A in Year 1 (i.e., 0) - coefficient of B in Year 2 on A in Year 1 times mean of B in Year 1 times 1/sqrt of theta.)
2. Does the formula account for covariates included at baseline in Year 1? To obtain a predicted probability in Stata with a regression model, I can set other covariates to their means--can that be done here?
3. What is the residual variance from the standardized section? As illustrated on slides 160 and 163 in Topic 2, theta is the residual variance under R-square. In my output under STD standardization, I have a value of .535 for the estimate and 0.018 for the SE of the latent variable A in Year 1.
4. When displaying standardized model output, should I use STDYX Standardization?
Thank you kindly.
Bengt O. Muthen
posted on Thursday, March 03, 2016 - 6:39 pm
Lambda refers to a factor influencing its indicator which I don't think was your situation so you would find the value perhaps in Beta (you can tell what the names are by looking at the output and TECH1).
I worry that me giving you piece-wise advice on the formulas via quick posts on Mplus Discussion will not get things exactly right since I won't be digging into your model. Instead, I suggest that you take this to a statistical consultant who can look at it carefully. But you have to say which estimate goes with which relationship.
Vaiva Gerasimaviciute
posted on Tuesday, April 11, 2017 - 1:11 am
Am I understanding the calculations at the beginning of this thread correct?:
If my probit regression coefficient is 0.094, S.E. is 0.033, and the threshold of y is 3.267, then the P(Y=1|x)=
F(-3.267 + 0.094*x)?
Do I interpret this as increase in probability Y=1 as x changes from 0 to 1?
Bengt O. Muthen
posted on Tuesday, April 11, 2017 - 6:25 pm
The change is from
Vaiva Gerasimaviciute
posted on Tuesday, April 18, 2017 - 7:02 am
Thank you.....
In the case that this probit regression is included in a larger SEM model, X and Y are both categorical (binary) outcomes (with probit link), and also predictors in another regression path. Then, the estimated coefficients refer to the relation between the underlying Y* and X*. Thus, F(-3.267)
to F(-3.267 + 0.094) is the increment in probability of Y=1 when the underlying X* goes from 0 to 1.
Could we say something about the probabilities of Y=1 regarding the observed X (not just for X*)? Is it possible to compute/estimate some probabilities of Y=1 for X (not X*) changing from 0 to 1?
Bengt O. Muthen
posted on Tuesday, April 18, 2017 - 6:01 pm
For simplicity, let's say you regress Y* on X* only and that X* is a DV as yo say. Let's assume Y*, X* are bivariate normal (perhaps with X* conditioned on background variables). Then the probability that Y=1 given that X=1 (or any other combination) is obtained by the bivariate integral with the appropriate thresholds as limits. Mplus does not offer such computations in Model Constraint so you would have to do this in some other routine (e.g. from Numerical Recipes). So it's a bit messy.
You could instead of WLSMV and its working with X* use ML or Bayes (with predictor = observed) because then the regression of Y (or Y*) is on X, not X*. See our new book where this is discussed in the context of X being a mediator.
posted on Sunday, August 06, 2017 - 2:48 pm
Hi Dr Muthen
I have two related questions.
I read the forum and I wonder how it is possible to interpret results both as probit coefficients (after calculating probabilities) and as a linear regression when y* is considered?
Is it possible to combine both?
Are the threshold to calculate probit probabilities and y* the same value?
Thank you
Bengt O. Muthen
posted on Sunday, August 06, 2017 - 5:21 pm
Q1: Yes
Q2: I don't know what "Combine both" means here. You can discuss results in both terms.
Q3: The threshold is in the y* metric but they are not the same. You can read about this in Chapter 5 of our new book.
posted on Sunday, August 06, 2017 - 11:44 pm
Dear Bengt,
thank you for your response.
However, I am not in a position to find/buy a book now, so I have one more question.
Can you explain third answer: The threshold is in the y* metric but they are not the same.
I want to present both underlying latent variable y* and predicted probabilities.
If below is formula for calculating probabilities, I do not know where to find y*, since threshold is included in this formula?
P = 1 - probability ((threshold - z)/sqrt(theta))
I have also consulted with the presentation on new book, with slide 90 - results for HPV vaccination data.
Thank you and I am sorry if this is confusing.
posted on Monday, August 07, 2017 - 12:21 am
Hi Bengt,
and sorry for double post.
I completely failed to put my thoughts in the post before.
I mean, since the y* is followed with linear regression formula, I was wondering what would be an intercept (B0)?
Thank you
Bengt O. Muthen
posted on Monday, August 07, 2017 - 8:19 am
Take a look at the handout and video of Topic 2 from our short courses on our website.
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