University Of California Los Angeles Alumni

"That way of visualizing emotions, I feel like that came from that book I read that helped me meditate, A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle...And one thing he emphasizes over and over, which is also something that’s explored a lot in Buddhist philosophy, is that your true essence is completely separate from your thought process. So whatever verbal chatter is in your mind, you can be immersed in it, or you can actually see it as a third-person observer and sort of step back from the chaos of your thoughts and just think to yourself, “Oh, that’s an interesting response I’m having,” or “Oh, how interesting that I’m going through that mental battle again. I’m triggered to think these thoughts again.” And it’s, of course, easier said than done, but I feel like making these comics is a way of reminding myself that if I’m feeling sad or if I’m feeling anxious, I’m not the sadness, I’m not the anxiousness. I can step back from this bad energy or see it as a rainstorm or a bad streak of weather that will eventually go away."

"we exist because of all the other living creatures the came before us"

"Lesson 1: You are a part of the universe, the universe is a part of you"

"A lot of people ask me — I get this all the time — 'Are you Buddhist? Are you Zen?' And my answer is always, 'I don't always necessarily identify myself with Buddhism, but the philosophy is something I'm always interested in and am very curious about learning more about.' So I am very influenced by Buddhist philosophies, Buddhist schools of thought. So much of it deals with being mindful, being fully aware of just a very subjective nature of reality, the illusion of reality, sort of the dichotomy of samsara or nirvana ... those are things that I do think about a lot, and I think it definitely, that interest reflects itself in the comics. (2014)"

"How can we possibly feel oneness with the universe, if we aren't creating any inner space to really listen to what the universe is trying to tell us?"

"We can be pushing all these individual change things on people, but unless the government steps up, we won't be able to reach the target."

"So maybe the one biggest thing you can do is to get politically engaged, because behavioral change is really slow. Too slow to stop runaway climate change."

"Far from it! The sooner we tackle climate change, the less extreme the measures need to be to solve it. In fact, most of the things we need to do to solve climate change are things we would want to do anyway for health, economic and social reasons. There are a lot of great reasons to move to a transport system that’s dominated by cycling and public transport options over traffic-inducing, isolating and dirty cars."

"If we let climate change continue unabated, it will affect the most vulnerable first."

"I'm kind of approaching my carbon footprint like I approach my weight, going to the gym regularly, watching what I eat, and realizing I'm not going to lose that 10 pounds (4.5 kilograms) all at once, like I want."

"In my experience and that of my colleagues, public interest in climate change has actually increased over the past few years - We’re witnessing the effects of climate change with far more frequency than we used to due to increased storms, flooding, and generally wacky weather."

"I would like to thank Bangladesh for providing shelters to thousands of Rohingyas. I want to reiterate that if Myanmar government is reluctant to establish good governance to save its Rohingya community, if they do not want to provide security to the Rohingya people living at the northern parts of Rakhine state or unable to do so then the Rohingya majority area of the State should incorporate with Bangladesh. And US should support to annex Rakhine to Bangladesh that is also a demand for the people of the area. Rohingyas want to stay with such a government who will work cordially to save them instead of killing."

"The crypto bros are spending tens of millions in Washington to make sure this industry is regulated as lightly as possible, ... There are no lobbyists or PACs dedicated to preventing tax evasion, sanctions evasion, and the other forms of illicit finance that cryptocurrency enables,"

"There is an impressive incidence of anaerobes in major infections involving the lung and pleural space, intra-abdominal sites, and the female genital tract. Almost all anaerobic infections are endogenous in origin. Therapy consists of making the environment such that anaerobes find it difficult to proliferate, checking the spread of anaerobes into healthy tissues, and neutralizing the toxins of anaerobes."

"Anaerobes are prevalent on all mucosal surfaces and virtually all anaerobic infections are endogenous. Two thirds of anaerobic infections involve five anaerobic organisms or groups—the Bacteroides fragilis group, the Bacteroides melaninogenicus-Bacteroides asaccharolyticus group, Fusobacterium nucleatum, the anaerobic cocci, and Clostridium perfringens. Conditions that lower the oxidation-reduction potential and disrupt the mucosal surface (eg, vascular problems, malignant neoplasms, and surgery) lead to infection with anaerobes. Clues to anaerobic infection include foul odor, gas, tissue destruction, underlying malignant neoplasms, and the unique appearance of certain anaerobes on Gram's stain. Specimens must be collected to avoid normal flora and transported to the laboratory under anaerobic conditions. Therapy involves surgical débridement and drainage and the use of various antimicrobial agents. Antimicrobial agents must be used for extended periods to avoid relapse."

"Anaerobic bacteria produce many different enzymes that are of importance in providing nutrients to the bacterial cell, as virulence factors, and in permitting organisms to colonize or survive under adverse conditions (including exposure to antimicrobial agents). Some enzymes effect several types of modifications to bile acids, neutral steroids, and corticosteroids. Anaerobes are clearly important in a variety of infections in humans and animals as well as in various other types of pathologic processes."

"The field of infectious diseases covers many entities that can be considered true medical emergencies. Included are meningitis, brain abscess, spinal epidural abscess, epiglottitis, pneumonia, bacteremia, endocarditis, certain intraabdominal infections, gas gangrene, and necrotizing fasciitis. Because emergencies related to infectious agents are potentially the most readily reversible of all medical emergencies, it behooves us to diagnose them as rapidly and specifically as possible so that appropriate life-saving therapy may be begun expeditiously."

"Several classes of antimicrobial agents (e.g., penicillins, cephalosporins, tetracyclines, chloramphenicol, and clindamycin) are useful in treatment of infections due to anaerobic bacteria. However, certain anaerobic bacteria have shown a striking resistance to antimicrobial agents. In vitro susceptibility tests are useful for selection of optimal therapy. The choice of agent depends, to some extent, on the organisms responsible for the infection. Bacteroides fragilis is the most commonly encountered anaerobe, and it is also the most resistant to antimicrobial agents. Other factors influencing the selection of therapy include pharmacologic characteristics, degree of bactericidal activity, and toxicity. Proper therapy for anaerobic infections often requires intensive antimicrobial therapy for a prolonged period. Surgical intervention, including drainage of abscesses and excision of necrotic tissue, is important."

"The commonly used drugs that have a major effect on the colonic flora are ampicillin, cefoperazone, clindamycin and oral neomycin or kanamycin, used together with either tetracycline, erythromycin or metronidazole."

"The bacteria typically described from biliary tract infection include Escherichia coli, Klebsiella, Enterobacter, and enterococci. It has also been recognized for some time that Clostridium perfringens may occasionally be involved in serious complications of biliary tract infection such as sepsis and emphysematous cholecystitis. Other anaerobes, including various Bacteroides and Fusobacterium sp, clostridia other than C perfringens, anaerobic cocci and streptococci, and Actinomyces have been reported from a variety of biliary tract infections, usually as single case reports ... More recently, several reports indicate that anaerobes, and especially B fragilis, may be more common in biliary tract infections than had been appreciated ... Anaerobes have been recovered in approximately 40% of such infections; B fragilis is the most common anaerobe encountered. Anaerobes may also be found, as aerobes are, in asymptomatic bactibilia."

"The most clinically important anaerobes are the five genera of Gram-negative rods. Bacteroides, especially the B. fragilis group (made of up ten species, one of which is the species B. fragilis), is particularly important. The other Gram-negative genera are Prevotella, Porphyromonas, Fusobacterium, and Bilophila. Among the Gram-positive anaerobes, there are cocci (primarily Peptostreptococcus) and sporeforming (Clostridium) and non-sporeforming bacilli (especially Actinomyces and Propionibacterium)."

"... a recent study of ours employing the powerful pyrosequencing technique on stools of subjects with regressive autism showed that Desulfovibrio was more common in autistic subjects than in controls. We subsequently confirmed this with pilot cultural and real-time PCR studies and found siblings of autistic children had counts of Desulfovibrio that were intermediate, suggesting possible spread of the organism in the family environment. Desulfovibrio is an anaerobic bacillus that does not produce spores but is nevertheless resistant to aerobic and other adverse conditions by other mechanisms and is commonly resistant to certain antimicrobial agents (such as cephalosporins) often used to treat ear and other infections that are relatively common in childhood. This bacterium also produces important virulence factors and its physiology and metabolism position it uniquely to account for much of the pathophysiology seen in autism."

"Much of the available data on the incidence of anaerobic infections is not reliable. Bacteriologic data without clinical correlation are not adequate, since the organisms are not necessarily significant. Similarly, clinical data with fragmentary bacteriological information are not ideal. In both types of papers, one often finds data on specimens cultured for anaerobes that clearly must have been contaminated with normal flora (for example, coughed sputum and voided urine). The exact specimen type and source is not always indicated or recognizable."

"Anaerobic or mixed anaerobic-aerobic pulmonary infection is important both in community-acquired disease and in the hospital setting. Its principal causes are aspiration of oral or gastic contents and of organisms involved in periodontal disease. Indeed, pneumonia following aspiration is undoubtedly the most common type of hospital-acquired pneumonia and as such is a major cause of death and disability in hospitalized patients. Both endogenous oral flora (primarily anaerobes and viridans streptococci) and hospital-acquired oral or gastric flora (such as Staphylococcus aureus, various members of the Enterobacteriaceae family, and Pseudomonas) may be involved in the infections. The principal complications are tissue destruction (necrotizing pneumonia), abscess formation, and thoracic empyema."

"... (1) What is the clinical relevance of anaerobic bacteriology? (2) How can the microbiologist, with limited and decreasing resources, perform reliable, detailed studies of anaerobic bacteriology? (3) When and how should susceptibility testing be done with anaerobes? If the clinician knows the usual bacteriology of various types of infection and how this may be modified by pathophysiologic processes in the host or by prior therapy, he/she can use a logical empiric approach to treatment of the patient. As to the microbiologist's dilemma, it is not realistic or rational for a microbiologist in a nonteaching hospital to do detailed bacteriologic studies and routine anaerobic susceptibility testing. The resources available should be committed primarily to the patient who is seriously ill. Such allocation of resources, of course, requires repeated and effective communication between microbiologist and clinician."

"Anaerobic bacteria currently demonstrate increased resistance to antimicrobial agents, primarily by the production of beta-lactamase. A number of species of Bacteroides, most notably those in the Bacteroides fragilis group, produce these enzymes. A few species of Fusobacterium and Clostridium produce beta-lactamase as well. Fortunately, this mechanism of resistance is readily overcome by administering beta-lactamase inhibitors coupled with a beta-lactam antibiotic that would otherwise be inactivated. Other types of resistance encountered in anaerobic bacteria include inactivating enzymes such as chloramphenicol acetyltransferase, plasmid-mediated transferable multiple-drug resistance, changes in porin molecules in the outer membrane of the bacterial cell, decreased uptake of drug by other mechanisms, changes in the target organs such as penicillin-binding proteins, and decreased reduction of the antibiotic to an active intermediate product. In many institutions, certain drugs such as cefoxitin, clindamycin, and piperacillin, which were previously active against almost all strains of B. fragilis, are now effective against only 70 to 85% of this group of anaerobes."

"Most gastrointestinal infections secondary to the use of antimicrobial agents that have been documented are related to overgrowth of Clostridium difficile which produces a spectrum from severe pseudomembranous colitis to mild diarrhea or asymptomatic carriage. The most common inducers of pseudomembranous colitis or antimicrobial agent-associated diarrhea are ampicillin, clindamycin, and various cephalosporins, but almost all antimicrobials may cause this problem. Symptoms vary from watery to bloody diarrhea; the extent and severity of the diarrhea, fever, and abdominal cramps and the incidence of complications (such as toxic megacolon and perforation of the bowel) and of fatality are variable. Normal carriage of C. difficile in infants and asymptomatic carriage in adults who have received antimicrobial therapy make it impossible to rely on culture for diagnosis. The presence of cytotoxin or enterotoxin produced by C. difficile is much more reliable diagnostically, but there may be false-positives with this as well, particularly in infants."

"It has been a hundred years since the role of anaerobic bacteria and, especially, non-spore-forming anaerobes in infections began to be appreciated."

"I don't come from a well-off family. We're very middle-class, lower-middle-class, so that's something I cherish."

"I grew up in a unique environment where I was immersed in both Japanese and American cultures equally."

"But looking back on it, maybe that was just me being this Asian actor who’s used to not being given a story of her own. A lot of times, you’re right, the trope of silent Asian characters is very much a thing. And so I guess a part of me didn’t want to ask for too much, or I didn’t even think about asking for more because she was already given so much. But perhaps that it is the conditioning—that I have been conditioned to think in that way, if you get my drift."

"Upon graduation, I hit a wall. All of my good friends from UCLA were taking on jobs they were passionate about, and I felt left behind. It took a bit of soul searching, but in the end, I finally had the guts to pursue acting."

"Here's what I love about social media: You get to peer into people's lives that you normally wouldn't be able to."

"My mom suggested studying acting in college, but I was a bit scared to choose that path because I couldn't wrap my head around the drama school audition process."

"The main issue when it comes to hiring someone from Asia is the language barrier. It's difficult to book someone when they don't speak the language and they can't deliver the lines or even speak to the director. But in terms of Asian-American actresses, we all speak it fluently!"

"I believe film and television should reflect our society, and the reality is that there are people in many different shapes and sizes, ethnicities, sexual orientation - the list goes on."

"It was really fun! It’s definitely difficult when you can’t say what you want to say, [but] she [Kimiko] says a lot without uttering a word. Portraying that has been a challenge but I really don’t know how to explain it; it just comes to me and I kind of become that."

"Even if we didn’t have our current political climate, I think it would be very satisfying to beat up a Nazi. I think when that happened, it was really—it’s satisfying to see onscreen. I was watching it with my boyfriend yesterday and he was like, ‘Yeah, it’s so good. It’s so satisfying, I’ve been wanting this all season.’ But obviously, me as Kimiko, I’ve always wanted to do that."

"New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman said that the Intel competition "identifies and honors the top math and science students in America, based on their solutions to scientific problems.""

"In case after case, we see tech titans and entrepreneurs misbehaving or breaking the law. They push the boundary of acceptable or ethical behavior that most of us have to play by. Even if some of them provide the technologies of tomorrow, it doesn’t mean they can operate under different set of rule"

"Three of the president’s proposals target tech. This is especially true in that the foreign workers are overwhelmingly young, thus exacerbating the rampant age discrimination that we already have in the tech world"

"The H-1B program authorizes non-immigrant visas under which skilled foreign workers may be employed in the U.S., typically in computer-related positions. Congress greatly expanded the program in 1998 and then again in 2000, in response to heavy pressure from industry, which claimed a desperate software labor shortage. After presenting an overview of the H-1B program in Parts II and III, the Article will show in Part IV that these shortage claims are not supported by the data. Part V will then show that the industry's motivation for hiring H-lBs is primarily a desire for cheap, compliant labor. The Article then discusses the adverse impacts of the H-1B program on various segments of the American computer-related labor force in Part VI, and presents proposals for reforms in Part VII."

"A past winner ... told the STEM education newsletter Metroplex Math Circle about choosing among projects offered by her university mentor"

"Professor Miriam Rafailovich... told me ...that the contestants "get massive coaching from the schools"

"Project-oriented contests such as Intel aren't measures of scientific brilliance"

"There is even a how-to book, "Success With Science: The Winners' Guide to High School Research,""

"The contest doesn't rank talent in the same way we identify the fastest hurdlers or longest jumpers."

"many contestants have immigrant parents"

"most top science and math students don't participate in such national contests."

"When you’re a voice actor, it’s not about you, it’s about the character. If there’s a history of that character, you want to be as true to that as you possibly can be without voice matching. Just keep the spirit alive and have it come out in your own voice. I know that’s what I did."