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INTRODUCTION {#s1}
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With the ever increasing cost and time-consuming process of drug development, new strategies for drug development are highly demanded. Drug repurposing, which aims for identifying novel indications for existing drugs, attracts a lot of attention since the toxicity of known drugs is already understood \\[[@R1]\\]. For example, Metformin has been widely used for more than 30 years for the treatment of type 2 diabetes, but extensive preclinical and clinical studies over the past decade have demonstrated the antitumor effects of the drug \\[[@R2]\\]. It has been reported that Metformin was able to lower the risk of cancer mortality and incidence in patients with diabetes \\[[@R3]\\]. Nowadays, drug repurposing has been considered as an effective approach in drug development. However, identifying novel indications with drug repurposing is highly challenging since the novel indications of one drug may have no obvious relationship with its initial purpose.
During the past decade, much effort has been made to develop new computational approaches for the purpose of repositioning drugs and elucidating the molecular mechanisms of drugs. For example, Wang *et al* proposed a novel method to predict drug target proteins based on drug-domain interactions \\[[@R4]\\], and Zhang *et al* constructed a post-translational regulatory network to explore network motifs as potential drug targets which can help design multi-component or combinatorial drugs \\[[@R5]\\]. With the popular deep learning (DL) techniques, Kadurin *et al* proposed a DL-based model for screening potential anti-cancer compounds \\[[@R6]\\]. Recently, the network pharmacology approaches have been widely employed for understanding the mechanisms of drug actions, resistance and side effects \\[[@R7]--[@R9]\\]. At the same time, some network pharmacology approaches have been proposed to predict the associations between drugs and diseases. For instance, Martinez *et al* developed DrugNet to prioritize drugs for certain diseases by integrating complex associations among disease, drugs and proteins \\[[@R10]\\]. Besides, Alaimo *et al* also introduced a method that can be used to integrate biological knowledge and bipartite interaction network to predict new indications of drugs \\[[@R11]\\].
As multi-target or multi-component therapies gain increasing attention recently, Traditional Chinese Medicines (TCMs) are being re-evaluated and becoming important resources for the discovery of alternative treatments for certain diseases, where various network pharmacology approaches have been proposed for this purpose \\[[@R12]--[@R15]\\]. For example, Qing Luo Yin (QLY) is an effective formula in the treatment of arthritis and antiangiogenic. With the target network of QLY, not only the diseases related key biological processes including angiogenesis, inflammatory and immune response were revealed, but also the active ingredients and synergistic combinations of this herbal formula were identified \\[[@R16]\\]. Another example is Liuwei Dihuang Wan (LDW), which shows potential for regulating the imbalance of hormones and metabolism \\[[@R17]\\]. Therefore, the network pharmacology approaches are capable of providing insights into the mechanisms of actions of known drugs and identifying new indications of those drugs \\[[@R18]--[@R20]\\]. However, current network pharmacology methods for repurposing drugs are mainly based on the target proteins of active compounds, whereas the target information may not be indicative of diseases that the drugs can be used for.
In this paper, we investigate the mechanisms of drug actions based on the pathways modulated by the drugs. By further integrating pathway profiles with chemical structures as well as disease phenotypes, we present a network pharmacology approach namely PINA (Predicting new Indications of compounds with a Network pharmacology Approach) as shown in Figure [1](#F1){ref-type="fig"}, to predict potential indications of old drugs. Benchmark results on FDA approved drugs have proven the superiority of our method over traditional network pharmacology approaches, as regard to revealing new associations between compounds and diseases. We further extend PINA to predict the novel indications of Traditional Chinese Medicines (TCMs) with Liuwei Dihuang Wan (LDW) as a case study. The predicted indications, including immune system disorders and tumor, are validated by expert knowledge and evidences from literature, demonstrating the effectiveness of our proposed computational approach.
{#F1}
RESULTS {#s2}
=======
Identification of the pathway profiles associated with diseases {#s2_1}
---------------------------------------------------------------
In this work, given a disease, we assume that the compounds that can significantly affect the pathway profiles associated with the disease can be used for the disease. With 4,774 known drug-disease associations composed of 928 compounds and 608 diseases extracted from CTD database \\[[@R21]\\], we first identified the pathways that are dysfunctional in diseases. Assuming that diseases with similar pathway profiles should have similar mechanisms, based on the pathways we identified a disease-disease association network was constructed, where two diseases were linked if they shared at least one pathway. We further detected modules from the network with density-based MCODE \\[[@R22]\\] tool ([Supplementary Figure 2](#SD1){ref-type="supplementary-material"}). Table [1](#T1){ref-type="table"} listed the 14 modules and the corresponding average similarities among diseases within the module as well as the most enriched disease class. [Supplementary Table 2](#SD3){ref-type="supplementary-material"} has shown the detailed information of the 14 modules. If the pathway profiles we identified are indeed associated with diseases, we expected that the diseases belonging to the same module should have similar mechanisms. It could be seen that the diseases grouped into the same module based on pathway profiles tended to have similar symptoms, where the disease similarity was calculated as described in \\[[@R23]\\]. Furthermore, the diseases can be grouped into 22 classes based on the physiological systems affected by the diseases as defined in \\[[@R24]\\]. By investigating the diseases belonging to same module, we found that the diseases in the same module tend to be in the same class as shown in Table [1](#T1){ref-type="table"}, indicating that the diseases from the same module have similar mechanisms. In addition, by investigating the number of disease classes that the pathway profiles were associated with, we found that each of more than 79% pathways was associated with only one specific disease class, implying that each pathway profile is specifically associated with a certain type of diseases ([Supplementary Figure 3](#SD1){ref-type="supplementary-material"}).
###### The modules detected by MCODE from the disease association network generated with disease related pathway profiles
Modules Number of diseases Average similarity^\\#^ Disease class (Coverage)^\\*^
--------- -------------------- ------------------------ -------------------------------------
1 16 0.1623 Psychiatric (0.625)
2 9 0.3210 Neurological (0.67)
3 7 0.2448 Ophthamological (0.71)
4 5 0.3294 Connective tissue (0.6)
5 5 0.6367 Cardiovascular (1.0)
6 4 0.4166 Endocrine (1.0)
7 4 0.2861 Neurological (0.5), Metabolic (0.5)
8 4 0.2427 Neurological (0.5), Cancer (0.5)
9 3 0.5193 Neurological (1.0)
10 3 0.3635 Bone (1.0)
11 3 0.2281 Immunological (1.0)
12 3 0.4612 Metabolic (1.0)
13 3 0.4284 Multiple (1.0)
14 3 0.5407 Gastrointestinal (1.0)
^\\#^Average similarity means the average of similarities over all disease pairs in each module detected in disease associated network.
^\\*^Coverage means the number of the diseases in the most enriched class divided by the number of disease in the module.
By further investigating the pathway profiles that were associated with one disease class, we found that those pathways were indeed related to the disease class. For instance, the calcium signaling pathway played a crucial role in the control of neuronal functions and plasticity by regulating members of the neuronal calcium sensor (NCS) proteins \\[[@R25]\\]. It was reported that the deregulation of calcium signaling pathway was one of the key processes in the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative disorders \\[[@R26]\\]. In our study, the neurological class consists of 48 diseases while the calcium signaling pathway was predicted to be related with 18 out of them. Besides, the transmission across chemical synapses pathway we identified was related to more than 20% of neurological diseases, where the chemical synapses were specialized junctions used for communications between neuron \\[[@R27]\\]. Furthermore, the GPCR ligand binding pathway was predicted to be associated with all psychiatric diseases, where the G protein-coupled receptors have been found to play important roles in major psychiatric disorders, such as depression and schizophrenia \\[[@R28]\\].
From the findings shown above, we can see that the pathway profiles identified here are indeed related to the corresponding diseases.
Prediction of potential indications for FDA approved drugs {#s2_2}
----------------------------------------------------------
With the pathway profiles identified above, the potential associations between compounds and diseases could be predicted. Based on the FDA approved drugs with target information and their known associations with diseases obtained from the CTD database, PIPP, NP~\\_C~ and NP~\\_D~ were respectively applied to predict potential compound-disease associations.
By comparing the three approaches, we noticed that many of the predictions by pathway profile approach (PIPP) could be validated with those predicted by chemical structures and disease similarities based on the 'guilt by association' rule, where drugs with similar structures were assumed to be able to treat the same disease while similar diseases could be treated with the same drug. For example, the compound Nortriptyline (CID: 4543) was originally used as an anti-depressive agent \\[[@R2]\\], and it was predicted for the treatment of schizophrenia (OMIM: 603176) with a score of 0.9985 by PIPP. In fact, the drug Nortriptyline had similar structure with Amitriptyline (CID: 2160), which was used for schizophrenia \\[[@R9]\\], with a similarity score of 0.92. On the other hand, schizophrenia was similar with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity (ADH) disorder (OMIM: 143465), and Nortriptyline have already been reported for treating ADH in the CTD database, which validated that Nortriptyline could be used for schizophrenia. Moreover, we noticed that the pathway profile approach could successfully recover known associations that were missed by the chemical or disease similarity based approach. For example, the compound Retinoic Acid was used for femur head necrosis, which was successfully identified by our pathway profile method with a score of 1.0. However, the nearest profile approach based on chemical and disease similarity failed to identify this association with scores of 0.0 and 0.27, respectively.
The results shown above demonstrate that the pathway profile approach can complement with other approaches, e.g. chemical or disease similarity based ones, very well. Therefore, we further proposed an ensemble approach named as PINA that combines the pathway profile method with chemical and disease similarity based methods to predict potential compound-disease associations. The novel potential indications of all compounds are list in [Supplementary Table 4](#SD5){ref-type="supplementary-material"}. We also compared PINA with three existing methods from literature, including DrugNet \\[[@R10]\\], HGBI \\[[@R29]\\] and NBI \\[[@R30]\\]. DrugNet is a network-based drug repositioning method, which integrates the information of diseases, drugs and proteins to prioritize drug-disease associations. HGBI and NBI have been originally developed for predicting drug-protein interactions, and can also be used for the prediction of drug-disease associations. HGBI predicts the drug-disease associations with the guilt-by-association principle based on the drug-disease heterogeneous graph, while NBI can predict new drug-disease associations based on a two-step diffusion model on a drug-disease bipartite graph. To evaluate the performance of our approach, PINA was compared with the other three approaches on the same benchmark drug-disease associations from the Comparative Toxicogenomics Database, where the same pre-process was used for all the four computational approaches. The chemical similarities between compounds were calculated based on their fingerprints by using the Single Linkage algorithm \\[[@R31]\\] while the disease similarities were defined as described in \\[[@R23]\\]. All the four approaches were evaluated with 5-fold cross-validations. Table [2](#T2){ref-type="table"} shows the performances of different methods, from which we can see that PINA has the highest AUC (0.8969) and F1 (0.3833) and significantly outperforms the other approaches.
###### The performances of different methods which were obtained with 5-fold cross-validation
Method AUC Precision Recall F1 score
------------- ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------
*PIPP* 0.8515 0.1517 0.4899 0.2313
*NP*~*\\_C*~ 0.8132 0.0873 **0.6511** 0.1539
*NP*~*\\_D*~ 0.8633 0.3005 0.4760 0.3684
*PINA* **0.8969** **0.4325** 0.3446 **0.3833**
*DrugNet* 0.8034 0.3411 0.3923 0.3568
*HGBI* 0.8125 0.3867 0.3639 0.3752
*NBI* 0.7983 0.3297 0.3321 0.3308
AUC - Area under ROC curve;
Precision - TP/(TP+FP), positive predictive value;
Recall - TP/(TP+FN), true positive rate;
F1 score - Harmonic mean of precision and recall.
Prediction of potential indications for LDW {#s2_3}
-------------------------------------------
In this part, we further extended PINA to predict the novel indications of Traditional Chinese Medicines (TCMs) with Liuwei Dihuang Wan (LDW) as a case study. With the known compound-disease associations from the CTD database, we built a model as described in Equation [(4)](#eq004){ref-type="disp-formula"} and identified 59 diseases that LDW can be used for. Among the 156 compound components of LDW, only the eight compounds that can be found new indications with PINA were considered here, where the eight compounds were further required to be drug-like. Table [3](#T3){ref-type="table"} shows the detailed information about the eight compounds. By investigating the indications of the eight compounds obtained from CTD, we found that LDW, as a mixture of multiple compounds, achieves its therapeutic effects through its individual components. For example, LDW was used for anti-aging, delayed development and blurred vision, whereas Retinol, also known as vitamin A, plays an essential role in anti-aging, promoting bone growth and the treatment of various eye conditions. Moreover, it was found that LDW was useful for decreasing blood sugar, suppressing blood pressure and improving the renal function. Another compound component Quercetin, an antioxidant, was reported to treat many LDW associated disease, such as acute kidney injury, diabetes mellitus and hypertension. The combination of Nicotinamide and Retinol could be effective for acne treatment for which LDW has been used for \\[[@R32]\\].
###### The detail information about eight compounds belonging to LDW
Compound ID Name FDA Status Part of known indications obtained from CTD database
---------------- -------------- -------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CID000445354 Retinol Approved Acne Vulgaris; Acute Kidney Injury; Adrenal Insufficiency; Carcinoma, Hepatocellular; Colonic Neoplasms; Diabetes Mellitus, Type 1; Fatty Liver; Hypertension, Portal; Hypertriglyceridemia; Liver Cirrhosis; Nephrosis;
CID000024360 Camptothecin Experimental Neoplasms; Leukemia, Lymphoid
CID027237R1936 Nicotinamide Experimental Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2; Hypercholesterolemia; Hyperglycemia; Hyperlipoproteinemias; Hypertension; Hypertriglyceridemia; Kidney Diseases; Nerve Degeneration; Ventricular Dysfunction, Left;
CID000006137 L-methionine Approved Carcinoma, Hepatocellular; Fatty Liver; Kidney Diseases; Memory Disorders;
CID005280343 Quercetin Experimental Acute Kidney Injury; Autoimmune Diseases; Breast Neoplasms; Cognition Disorders; Diabetes Mellitus; Fatty Liver; Hypertension; Kidney Diseases; Memory Disorders; Ovarian Neoplasms; Prostatic Neoplasms;
CID000005641 Urethane Withdrawn Arrhythmias, Cardiac; Hypertension; Liver Neoplasms; Ovarian Neoplasms;
CID027237R1305 Choline Approved Amnesia; Cognition Disorders; Fatty Liver; Memory Disorders;
CID027237R1681 Dopamine Approved Acute Kidney Injury; Arrhythmias, Cardiac; Central Nervous System Diseases; Heart Failure; Hypertension; Learning Disorders; Nerve Degeneration; Nervous System Diseases; Parkinson Disease;
With the findings above, we assumed that the new indications we predicted for LDW can be validated with the indications of its component compounds. Figure [2](#F2){ref-type="fig"} shows a compound-disease association network constructed with the associations between diseases and compounds we have predicted, where the 59 diseases that LDW has been predicted to be used for were linked to the eight individual compounds based on PINA. Among the 104 compound-disease associations shown in Figure [2](#F2){ref-type="fig"}, 21 of them have been reported in CTD. For example, Quercetin could inhibit the growth of MCF-7 breast cancer cell line and promoted apoptosis by reducing G0/G1 phase arrest \\[[@R33], [@R34]\\]. Besides, it was widely accepted that the compound could be used to treat a certain disease if it targeted the disease related genes. With the known target and disease genes information, we also found there are another 27 predicted compound-disease associations which can be validated by sharing same genes. For instance, dopamine D2 receptor (DRD2) played an essential role in dopamine signaling which was strongly implicated in the etiology of schizophrenia (SZ) \\[[@R35]\\], and was also one of the targets of Dopamine. By targeting the gene DRD2, Dopamine may be used for schizophrenia. As a result, 48 compound-disease associations can be validated by difference evidence while the rest associations need further experimental validation.
{#F2}
By considering the indications (59 diseases) we predicted for LDW, we further investigated whether LDW has been reported to be effective for some of these diseases in literature by expert knowledge. As a result, 14 of them have been known to be associated with LDW as shown in [Supplementary Table 3](#SD4){ref-type="supplementary-material"}. For example, it was found that LDW could significantly inhibit the breast cancer tumor growth and progression, and promoted the recovery of breast ducts in mice \\[[@R36], [@R37]\\]. Likewise, LDW decoction could exert therapeutic effects on liver cancer in mice by affecting tumor cell cycle and down-regulate serum VEGF level \\[[@R38]\\]. Moreover, it was well accepted that LDW could counteract the adverse effect of steroid and immunosuppressive agents, significantly improving the therapeutic effectiveness in the treatment of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) \\[[@R39]\\]. Besides, many other predicted diseases, i.e. diabetes mellitus, hypertension and so on \\[[@R40]--[@R43]\\], were also known to be associated with LDW.
Previously, Li *et al* predicted new indications for LDW based on drug targets and disease genes \\[[@R17]\\]. We further investigated how many of our predictions could be validated by those reported in their work, and the new indications found by both works for LDW would be more convincing. Consequently, 7 of our predictions were also reported by Li *et al,* including atherosclerosis, retinoblastoma, rheumatoid arthritis, esophageal neoplasms, uterine cervical neoplasms, familial combined hyperlipidemia and panic disorder. For example, it was found that LDW had already been reported for treating esophageal neoplasms \\[[@R44]\\]. In addition, studies have shown that LDW pills could effectively inhibit the expression of IL-beta, MMP-1 and MMP-3, thus protecting and repairing the articular cartilage which had significant therapeutic effects on Osteoarthritis \\[[@R45]\\].
Moreover, we also performed text mining by querying the PubMed database to see whether LDW have been reported effective for the rest of our predictions. As a result, except the diseases mentioned above, 12 diseases have been reported to be treated by LDW in literature as listed in [Supplementary Table 3](#SD4){ref-type="supplementary-material"}. For instance, it was found that LDW could simultaneously disturb the regulations of apoptosis and protein ubiquitination among biological processes, such as RPS6KA1, FHIT and AMFR, which may be the therapeutic targets of Alzheimer Disease \\[[@R46], [@R47]\\]. Moreover, traditional Chinese doctors have already used LDW to treat asthma patients based on the cytokine gene expression perturbed by LDW \\[[@R48]\\].
Taken together, 33 out of 59 diseases we predicted to be treated by LDW have been validated in different ways, where the known indications with direct evidences tend to rank top. These results demonstrate that LDW can really work for those diseases. The detailed results with corresponding evidences were presented in [Supplementary Table 3](#SD4){ref-type="supplementary-material"}.
DISCUSSION {#s3}
==========
Repurposing old drugs has drawn increasing attention, since they could serve as the effective and cost-saving strategies for drug discovery. In this study, we first introduce pathway profiles associated with diseases and affected by compounds. By integrating the pathway profiles with chemical structure as well as disease phenotype, we present PINA to predict new indications of compounds. Benchmark results on FDA approved drugs have demonstrated the predictive power of PINA. We further extended PINA to predict the potential indications of traditional Chinese medicine with LDW as a case study. The new indications we predicted for LDW have been validated with expert knowledge and evidences from literature.
We also noticed that improvement of our PINA approach is possible when predicting novel indications of TCMs. For example, a TCM formula is typically composed of multiple herbs or hundreds of chemical compounds. Here, the indications of a TCM formula were predicted with a Bayesian model, where the compound components were regarded to be independent with each other. Although the synergistic effects among compounds cannot be explicitly described in the Bayesian model, the good performance on LDW shows the effectiveness of the model. In the future, more efficient models should be developed to take into account the synergistic effects among compounds. Another concern is that many compound components of TCMs are not known while it is expensive and time-consuming to determine all bioactive compounds of TCMs, a comprehensive knowledgebase about compound components of TCMs is highly demanded.
MATERIALS AND METHODS {#s4}
=====================
Data sources {#s4_1}
------------
The FDA approved human drugs used in our study were retrieved from the DrugBank database (Version 4.3) \\[[@R49]\\], of which we only focused on the 932 compounds that had target information according to the DrugBank and STITCH databases (Version 4) \\[[@R50]\\] which provides a confidence score for each interaction. Here, a score of 700 was used as threshold to choose the high-confidence interactions \\[[@R51]\\]. Specifically, the interactions marked with prediction or text mining were removed to make sure high-quality interactions used in this paper. The LDW was composed of *Rehmannia glutinosa Libosch.*, *Cornus officinalis Sieb. et Zucc., Paeonia suffruticosa Andr., Dioscorea opposita Thunb., Poria cocos (Schw.) Wolf and Alisma orientalis (Sam.) Juzep.* In our work, the chemical constituents of LDW were mainly obtained from the TCM Database\\@Taiwan \\[[@R52]\\] by searching the herb names. Meanwhile, the other constituents were also collected manually from published articles by text mining. Then we transformed all constituents into mol2 format with ChemDraw software (<http://www.cambridgesoft.com/software/ChemDraw/>), and the chemicals were then converted into the canonical SMILES format. We downloaded all known chemicals with each of them annotated with PubChem identity from STITCH database (version 4.0). By querying the known compounds with the chemical SMILES files, the chemical constituents of LDW can be identified. Here, we only picked up the chemicals that had target information according to DrugBank and STITCH databases. Consequently, 156 compounds of LDW ([Supplementary Table 1](#SD2){ref-type="supplementary-material"}) were finally collected.
The disease-gene associations were obtained from the Comparative Toxicogenomics Database (CTD) \\[[@R21]\\]. As a result, the associations between 4937 diseases and 8536 genes were collected. We further collected compound-disease associations from the CTD database, and the 4774 associations with direct evidence (therapeutic/maker) between 928 compounds and 608 diseases were used as the positive set while the other possible compound-disease associations were used as the negative set.
All predefined biological pathways used in this study were obtained from the Molecular Signatures Database (Version 5.0) \\[[@R17]\\], where the canonical pathways from the curated (c2) gene sets were adopted. The physical protein-protein interactions were obtained from HPRD \\[[@R53]\\], BioGRID \\[[@R54]\\], IntAct \\[[@R55]\\], MINT \\[[@R56]\\] and DIP \\[[@R57]\\] databases.
Predicting new indications of compounds with a network pharmacology approach {#s4_2}
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
### Predicting indications of compounds based on pathway profile {#s4_2_1}
We assumed that the occurrence of a disease was due to the aberrant functions of certain pathways. Accordingly, to treat a disease, the drugs should affect the dysfunctional pathways that were associated with the disease. With this assumption, for each drug and its related disease, the pathways linking the pair of drug and disease were firstly identified. For this, the pathway profiles associated with a drug and a disease were respectively identified, where the drug related pathways were enriched by its target proteins while the disease associated pathways were enriched by its related genes \\[[@R58]\\]. Given a pair of pathways respectively associated with a drug and a disease, we only considered the pathways that met one of the following conditions: (1) the two pathways are the same one (common pathway); (2) the two pathways share at least one gene (cross-talking pathways); (3) there are protein interactions between the two pathways (interacting pathways) (As shown in [Supplementary Figure 1](#SD1){ref-type="supplementary-material"}). To avoid possible false positives, the cross-talking or interacting pathways were required to have correlated activities based on the gene expression data obtained from 36 normal tissues \\[[@R59]\\]. Here, the pathway activity in a tissue was defined as the average expression value of all genes within the pathway and only the pathway pairs with a significant correlation coefficient (p-value \\<0.01) in 36 tissues were kept for further analysis.
Here, the pathway profile method named PIPP (predicting indications based on pathways profile) were proposed. Given one disease and related drugs as well as the pathways associated with any pair of drug and disease as defined above, the score of a pathway pair associating a drug with the disease it could be used for was defined as follows:$$P\\left( {p_{i}\\_ D} \\right) = \\frac{N\\left( C \\middle| p_{i} \\right)}{N\\left( C^{\\prime} \\middle| D \\right)}$$where *N*(*C* \\| *p*~*i*~) is the number of compounds treating disease *D* and the pathway pair *p*~*i*~ is the one that occurs commonly between compound set C and the disease D, and *N*(*C*′ \\| *D*) is the number of all compounds used for disease *D*. If *P*(*p*~*i*~\\_*D*) is above a certain threshold, the pathway pair *p*~*i*~will be regarded as the pathway profiles for associating a disease with the drugs treating the disease.
Given a new drug, the score of the drug used for treating the disease D can be defined as below:$$P\\left( {C_{i}\\_ D} \\right) = 1{\\sum\\limits_{m = 1}^{3}{\\alpha_{m}{\\prod\\left( {1 - P\\left( {p_{m}\\_ D} \\right)} \\right)}}}$$where *m* represents one of the three types of pathway profiles, i.e. common, cross-talking and interacting pathway(s), *P*(*p*~*m*~\\_*D*) is the score of the *m*th type of pathway profiles associated with disease *D,* and *α*~*m*~ is the weight for the *m*th type of pathway profiles. To determine the weights for the three types of pathway profiles, the 5-fold cross validation was employed and the AUC was used to choose the proper values. As a result, the weights in Equation [(2)](#eq002){ref-type="disp-formula"} were determined as: *α*~1~ = 0.5, *α*~2~ = 0.3, *α*~3~ = 0.2, where the best results were obtained.
### Predicting new indications of compounds based on the nearest neighbor profile {#s4_2_2}
It has been found that similar drugs tend to have similar mechanism and can be used to treat similar diseases, and *vice versa* \\[[@R24]\\]. Therefore, given a new drug, the new indications of the drug can be predicted based on its similarity with other drugs. Here, the nearest neighbor profile approach proposed by Yamanishi *et al* \\[[@R26]\\], *i.e.* nearest profile based on chemical similarity and nearest profile based on disease similarity we named as NP\\_~C~ and NP\\_~D~, was adopted to predict whether a new drug could be used for a certain disease. The chemical similarity between compounds is calculated based on their fingerprints by using the Single Linkage algorithm \\[[@R31]\\]. The disease similarities are defined in \\[[@R23]\\], where the similarity was calculated based on disease descriptions from the OMIM database \\[[@R60]\\].
### Predicting new indications of compounds based on an ensemble method {#s4_2_3}
The three independent methods mentioned above, i.e. PIPP, NP~\\_C~ and NP~\\_D~, showed different performance on different datasets. Here, we further proposed an ensemble approach named PINA to predict the compound-disease associations by integrating the pathway profile, chemical similarity and disease similarity. In particular, a weight was set for each method based on its performance on a benchmark dataset, and the ensemble learner was constructed as follows:$$P\\left( {C\\_ D} \\right) = {\\sum\\limits_{i = 1}^{n}{W_{i} \\cdot M_{i}}}$$where *w*~*i*~ is the weight for each method, and *M*~*i*~ is the output of the *i*th method. Here, the weight for each method is set to the AUC (area under the curve) score of a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. For a given compound, we can use the ensemble approach to predict whether the drug can be used for the disease.
### Predicting new indications of LDW {#s4_2_4}
To evaluate the performance of our proposed approach, the PINA method was applied to infer the therapeutic indications of TCM and investigate the curative effect between TCM and its individual components. To this end, we chose the LDW as a case study since its chemical constituents and indications were well known. Subsequently, we proposed PINA to the 156 chemical constituents to predict compound-disease associations, where a score was calculated based on Equation [(3)](#eq003){ref-type="disp-formula"} as the confidence score of the prediction. To determine the threshold above which a prediction is regarded as positive, the 5-fold cross-validation was employed on the known drug-disease associations, i.e. training set. Especially, the threshold that can lead to the highest F1 score was chosen, where the F1 score can evaluate the overall performance of the learner and is a tradeoff between Precision and Recall. Here, the threshold of 0.6 that can lead to the highest F1 score in the cross-validation was chosen. Then we defined an efficacy score for LDW to a certain disease by considering the synergistic effect of all compounds based on Bayesian models. The efficacy score could be described as follows:$$P\\left( {LWDH\\_ D} \\right) = 1 - {\\prod\\limits_{C_{i} \\in LWDHW}\\left( {1 - P\\left( {C_{i}\\_ D} \\right)} \\right)}$$where *C*~*i*~ is the component of LDW. *P*(*C*~*i*~\\_*D*) is the association score between compound *C*~*i*~ and disease *D* calculated with Equation [(3)](#eq003){ref-type="disp-formula"}.
SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS FIGURES AND TABLES {#s5}
==========================================
**Author contributions**
Y.Y.W. and X.M.Z. conceived and designed the study. Y.Y.W. and R.Z. conducted the data analysis. Y.Y.W. and K.N. drafted the manuscript. X.M.Z., H.Y. and H.B. revised the manuscript. All authors contributed to writing and finalizing the manuscript.
**CONFLICTS OF INTEREST**
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
**FUNDING**
This work was partly supported by National Nature Science Foundation of China (61772368, 61572363, 91530321, 61602347, 81573702 and 31671374), Ministry of Science and Technology's high-tech (863) grant (2014AA021502), Sino-German Research Center grant (GZ878), and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation Funded Project (2016M601647), and City University of Hong Kong (Project 7004707).
[^1]: These authors have contributed equally to this work
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Amy E. Keating
We are studying the specificity of protein-protein interactions in a research program that combines bioinformatic analysis, structural modeling, computational design and experimental characterization. Our aim is to understand, at a high level of detail, how the interaction properties of proteins are encoded in their sequences and structures. Most of our work is focused on two protein families that are important for human health: the α-helical coiled coil and the Bcl-2 family of apoptosis-regulating proteins.
Protein-protein interactions establish the architecture of the cell, regulate biological signaling, underlie the assembly of macromolecular machines and mediate chemical transformations. Although we now have fairly complete lists of the proteins found in various organisms, our knowledge of which proteins interact with one another, as well as how and why they interact as they do, is limited. In the Keating lab, we are particularly interested in the question of interaction specificity, i.e. how a protein selects a particular interaction partner out of a large number of closely related alternatives. Both computational and experimental methods are needed to accelerate discovery and understanding in this area. Our lab integrates both approaches, tackling the complex problems of characterizing, analyzing, designing and predicting protein-protein interaction specificity by studying domains with relatively simple structures. Three goals are: (1) to develop and apply techniques to assess the interaction specificity of biologically interesting protein families in vitro, (2) to achieve an understanding of how specificity is encoded biophysically, through the analysis of protein sequence and structure, and (3) to develop and test computational methods for predicting and designing specific protein-protein interactions.
Coiled coils
The α-helical coiled coil is the simplest of all protein-protein interaction motifs. Coiled coils consist of two or more α-helices that wrap around each other with a superhelical twist. They are characterized by a repeating sequence of seven amino acids, (abcdefg)n, in which the a- and d-position residues are predominantly hydrophobic and the e- and g-position residues are usually polar or charged. The regular sequence makes it possible to predict the occurrence of coiled coils in genomic sequence data. We estimate that >5% of all proteins in S. cerevisiae, C. elegans,A. thaliana and D. melanogaster contain a coiled-coil region. It is likely that many of these coiled coils mediate protein-protein interactions or oligomerization. An important, unanswered question about coiled coils is how their interaction specificity is encoded in their sequences. We call this the “partnering problem” for coiled coils and are studying it using both computational and experimental approaches.
Our experimental approach to the partnering problem started with an analysis of human bZIP transcription factor interactions. In these proteins, the coiled-coil region determines the homo- or heterodimerization specificity of the transcription factor, which in turn influences its DNA-binding properties and biological function. To determine how sequence encodes interaction preferences in the bZIPs, we used protein microarray technology to measure all of the pair-wise interactions between 48 human and 10 yeast bZIP peptides. We found that the interactions are very specific, and that interaction profiles are largely, but not universally, conserved within bZIP subfamilies. This work established the protein microarray as a powerful method for generating large amounts of high quality interaction specificity data. We continue to develop techniques that can increase the throughput and improve the reliability of protein-protein interaction measurements.
In addition to providing a wealth of data about important transcription factor interactions, the bZIP microarray data provided an opportunity to test and improve computational models. We have used this information to develop and/or test several different methods for predicting coiled-coil interactions. A machine-learning algorithm trained on the literature shows excellent performance in detecting correct bZIP pairings. We have also used structure-based methods for prediction. Because the coiled coil has a very simple structure, it is particularly amenable to molecular modeling. We have shown that structural modeling can be used in conjunction with learning models to provide good predictions of bZIP coiled-coil interactions. We are now applying structure-based methods more broadly to the problem of predicting interaction specificity, with recent work focused on predicting parallel vs antiparallel helix orientation preferences.
Another way to understand factors that mediate protein association is through the process of design. The field of protein design has seen exciting advances in the past ten years with the application of fast search algorithms to the problem of side-chain selection and positioning. This has allowed the design of proteins with new folds and functions. We are applying methods developed for the computational design of stable protein folds to the study of protein interaction specificity. In one study we designed and characterized a mini-protein heterotetramer in collaboration with Barbara Imperiali’s group at MIT. More recently, we have designed coiled-coil peptides that bind specifically to native bZIP transcription factor targets, and validated these using the protein microarray assay. Designed coiled coils could not only serve as research tools for probing the cell and disrupting native interactions, but also hold significant promise for applications in the emerging area of synthetic biology.
Bcl-2 family proteins
The Bcl-2 family comprises ~25 proteins important for controlling apoptosis. Critical junctures that govern cellular life-vs-death decisions are regulated by specific interactions among pro- and anti-apoptotic members of this family. The delicate balance between these is often disrupted in cancers. Five mammalian anti-apoptotic family members have a conserved structure with a surface binding cleft, and all known family members share a weakly conserved short BH3 (Bcl-2 homology 3) sequence. Peptides corresponding to the BH3 region have been shown in several instances to bind as alpha helices into the hydrophobic groove on the surface of the anti-apoptotic proteins (see figure). We are interested in how the interaction specificity of Bcl-2 family proteins is determined by sequence and structure and are exploring this using x-ray crystallography, mutational analysis, selection experiments and computational protein design. Using new computational methods for varying the backbone structure of α-helices, we designed several novel ligands to bind the anti-apoptotic protein Bcl-xL. Solution binding studies confirm that many of these designed peptides bind with low- to mid- nanomolar affinity and have specificity profiles that differ from those of known native BH3s. More recently we have solved crystal structures that provide additional insights into the structural plasticity of Bcl-2 complexes, and we have selected BH3 peptides with novel sequences and specific binding behaviors out of libraries.
Computational methodology
We apply a wide range of computational tools to the analysis of protein interactions, including structure-based modeling, sequence analysis and machine learning. Some projects in the lab are focused on developing or improving computational methods, and a recent exciting advance was our collaboration with the Ceder group (MIT Materials Science) to adapt the technique of cluster expansion for use in protein modeling. Cluster expansion allows the energy of a protein folded into a certain structure to be expressed directly as a function of sequence. The approach brings dramatic speed-ups to modeling calculations while retaining many of the benefits of physical, structure-based approaches. We have also explored many methodological aspects of computational protein design (including the use of cluster expansion in design). |
The invention relates to an apparatus for detecting objects formed by labels on a carrier material, and sheets, particularly sheets of paper.
An apparatus of this type is known from German Patent DE-PS 195 21 129. This apparatus includes a capacitive sensor having two adjacent capacitor elements, which are spaced from one another opposite a capacitor plate. The carrier material with the labels is guided in the air gap between the capacitor plate and the capacitor elements.
For detecting the labels on the carrier material, a timing element that generates a pulse sequence and a low-pass filter are disposed downstream of each capacitor element. The outputs of the low-pass filters are guided to the inputs of a differential amplifier. This circuit can detect labels on the carrier material, even if the labels and the carrier material comprise transparent materials.
A disadvantage, however, is that such apparatuses are extremely sensitive to temperature influences, and humidity in particular. They also encounter difficulties in detecting metallized materials. Furthermore, the two capacitor elements can only detect the signal flanks occurring in the detection of a label edge. A prerequisite of this is that the labels and the carrier material be moved past the capacitor elements at a predetermined speed. Static detection with a stationary carrier material is not possible. A further drawback is that a reliable label detection is only possible if the label edges travel along a straight line transverse to the transport direction of the carrier material, so that an at least approximately constant spacing between adjacent labels must be maintained over the label width. |
U NITED S TATES AIR F ORCE
C OURT OF C RIMINAL APPEALS
________________________
No. ACM S32554
________________________
UNITED STATES
Appellee
v.
Eric R. PROCTOR
Technical Sergeant (E-6), U.S. Air Force, Appellant
________________________
Appeal from the United States Air Force Trial Judiciary
Decided 4 June 2020
________________________
Military Judge: Christina M. Jimenez.
Approved sentence: Bad-conduct discharge and reduction to E-3. Sen-
tence adjudged 24 August 2018 by SpCM convened at Schriever Air
Force Base, Colorado.
For Appellant: Major David A. Schiavone, USAF.
For Appellee: Lieutenant Colonel Joseph J. Kubler, USAF; Lieutenant
Colonel Brian C. Mason, USAF; Major Jessica L. Delaney, USAF; Mary
Ellen Payne, Esquire.
Before J. JOHNSON, POSCH, and KEY, Appellate Military Judges.
Judge POSCH delivered the opinion of the court, in which Chief Judge
J. JOHNSON and Judge KEY joined.
________________________
This is an unpublished opinion and, as such, does not serve as
precedent under AFCCA Rule of Practice and Procedure 30.4.
________________________
POSCH, Judge:
A special court-martial composed of officer and enlisted members found Ap-
pellant guilty, contrary to his pleas, of six specifications of willfully disobeying
a lawful command from his squadron commander, one specification of assault
United States v. Proctor, No. ACM S32554
consummated by a battery, and one specification of wrongfully communicating
a threat, in violation of Articles 90, 128, and 134, Uniform Code of Military
Justice (UCMJ), 10 U.S.C. §§ 890, 928, 934. 1 Appellant was sentenced to a bad-
conduct discharge, hard labor without confinement for three months, and re-
duction to the grade of E-3. The convening authority approved the bad-conduct
discharge and the reduction in grade, and disapproved the hard labor without
confinement.
Appellant raises four issues on appeal: (1) whether the military judge erred
when she found six no-contact orders to be lawful; (2) whether the military
judge erred in denying Appellant’s request for an instruction on self-defense to
the assault consummated by a battery offense; (3) whether the military judge’s
failure to sua sponte instruct on defense of property as a defense to the assault
consummated by a battery offense was plain error; and (4) whether there was
evidence of unlawful command influence (UCI) when Appellant’s commander
held a commander’s call to address his squadron’s noncommissioned officer
(NCO) “problem” just over one year before Appellant’s court-martial.
We find no prejudicial error and affirm.
I. BACKGROUND
Appellant’s convictions are the result of his conduct with Airmen who were
assigned with Appellant to the security forces squadron at Schriever Air Force
Base, Colorado, to include interactions he had with his girlfriend, Staff Ser-
geant (SSgt) CM.
Appellant, his three children, and SSgt CM shared an off-base apartment
in Colorado Springs, Colorado. On Thanksgiving Day in 2016, SSgt CM invited
SSgt AG and junior Airmen assigned to her flight to celebrate the holiday in
her home. Appellant returned to the apartment after his shift and drove out
the Airmen, angry that guests were in his home. While doing so, Appellant
strangled SSgt AG by grabbing his throat with Appellant’s hand after SSgt AG
came to the defense of an Airman whose presence Appellant found especially
provoking. In a second incident, in December 2016, after SSgt CM and Appel-
lant separately returned home from a squadron Christmas party, SSgt CM
came towards Appellant with a knife and Appellant responded by drawing a
gun before the incident deescalated.
1 All references in this opinion to the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), Rules
for Courts-Martial (R.C.M.), and Military Rules of Evidence are to the Manual for
Courts-Martial, United States (MCM) (2016 ed.).
2
United States v. Proctor, No. ACM S32554
Appellant’s commander, Lieutenant Colonel (Lt Col) MS, was unaware of
Appellant’s conduct on Thanksgiving and after his squadron’s Christmas party
when he issued Appellant an order to refrain from having any contact or com-
munication with SSgt CM. 2 That first no-contact order was given in February
2017 after Lt Col MS received a report from his NCOs that Appellant had
strangled SSgt CM in their apartment and threatened to kill her. In time,
Lt Col MS issued an additional six commands in succession, continuing his or-
der that Appellant refrain from communicating and having contact with SSgt
CM when a preceding order was about to expire. Appellant willfully disobeyed
each of the six orders, including during the time that Lt Col MS had ordered
Appellant into pretrial confinement, and after Appellant’s release from pretrial
confinement over a year before trial.
II. DISCUSSION
A. Legality of the No-Contact Orders
The Government charged Appellant with disobeying the six orders, and
grouped the violations under six specifications, one for each order it alleged
Appellant disobeyed. At trial, Appellant challenged the six orders claiming
they did not serve a valid military purpose and were thus unlawful. The mili-
tary judge found the orders were lawful and issued a written ruling denying
Appellant’s motion to dismiss the six specifications. 3 Appellant renews his
challenge in this appeal.
1. Additional Background
In February 2017, SSgt CM contacted her supervisor because she and Ap-
pellant were in a physical altercation and she needed help. Her supervisor and
first sergeant, both senior NCOs, responded to the shared residence and ob-
served Appellant was emotionally distraught. SSgt CM reported Appellant had
strangled her and she had scratched Appellant’s face trying to get away. She
further stated Appellant had threatened to kill her. Civilian law enforcement
personnel were called to respond to the incident, but neither Appellant nor
SSgt CM were willing to cooperate with the police. On 21 February 2017, their
squadron commander, Lt Col MS, issued no-contact orders to both Appellant
2Lt Col MS issued a reciprocal order and subsequent orders to SSgt CM to refrain from
all communication and contact with Appellant.
3Appellant was convicted of violating six orders issued on 22 March 2017, 19 May
2017, 19 June 2017, 1 August 2017, 31 August 2017, and 22 September 2017.
3
United States v. Proctor, No. ACM S32554
and SSgt CM. Appellant’s order expired on 7 March 20174 and was not con-
tested at trial or on appeal.
After the order expired, on 18 March 2017 local police responded to Appel-
lant’s residence in response to an allegation that Appellant had choked or
beaten SSgt CM’s nine-week-old puppy after she left for work. Lt Col MS was
briefed on the incident by the NCOs and then spoke with SSgt CM. She related
the February incident was “not the first time [Appellant] put his hands on
[her]” and she “can’t count how many times that [Appellant] choked [her] out
until [her] eyes were blood red.” Lt Col MS recalled seeing SSgt CM on duty
and observing her eyes were unusually red, which at the time she attributed
to a sneeze. 5
On 22 March 2017, Lt Col MS issued a second order to Appellant command-
ing him to have no communication or contact with SSgt CM for two months.
He based his decision to issue this and subsequent orders on his years of lis-
tening to victims of domestic violence, concluding that SSgt CM was caught in
a cycle of violence and Appellant would “harm things that are precious to [her]”
such as her puppy. Lt Col MS saw a pattern whereby neither NCO was willing
to cooperate with civilian police, and the harm done to SSgt CM’s puppy
showed an “escalation of the domestic violence” in their relationship “and it’s
just going to get worse.” Lt Col MS explained he issued the order for SSgt CM’s
protection and for good order and discipline, noting he was aware of “two vio-
lent interactions that are happening in [his] unit by two people that are sup-
posed to be NCOs leading [his] [A]irmen.”
Before the second no-contact order was set to expire on 22 May 2017, Lt Col
MS learned Appellant posted a message on Facebook, sometime between 10
and 21 May 2017, that read:
What ether should I drop first? Shots Fired or Officer Down?
Once them shi[*]s drop then I’ll go ahead and drop that joint I
got . . . . Had to kick Lee Lee out for flaugin and workin for 12.
Appellant’s friend, SSgt JP, who was also a member of the squadron, saw Ap-
pellant’s Facebook post and responded, “some mofos only got a few hours left”
followed by an image of three skulls. After SSgt JP’s post, Appellant responded
indicating he “liked” SSgt JP’s post via Facebook.
4Lt Col MS testified he allowed the order to expire because “there was no police action
being taken downtown” or “other incidents of violence,” and he learned from NCOs in
the squadron that Appellant and SSgt CM “were working through their situation.”
5 Lt Col MS acknowledged in his testimony that after he met with SSgt CM in regard
to the puppy incident he had “seen her come to work with burst capillaries in her eyes.”
4
United States v. Proctor, No. ACM S32554
Lt Col MS did not initially understand Appellant’s Facebook post, but found
it unusual that a security forces NCO would post “Shots Fired,” and “Officer
Down.” He soon learned “Lee Lee” was the nickname for Mr. LA, a former Air-
man and one-time friend of Appellant who was married to an NCO in his
squadron. Lt Col MS was aware that Mr. LA, his wife, and several members of
the squadron had written statements that were used as evidence in nonjudicial
punishment proceedings alleging that Appellant had violated the second no-
contact order. 6 Lt Col MS learned “flaugin” was slang for lying or snitching,
and “workin for the 12” meant working for the police. Mr. LA’s wife understood
“Shots Fired” and “Officer Down” as “referring to [her] husband” who was a
civilian member of law enforcement. Mr. LA considered the posts to be a threat
directed at him and was concerned to the point that he retrieved and loaded
his gun and then stayed up late in the event that Appellant or someone on
Appellant’s behalf might act on the threat.
Lt Col MS understood the Facebook post as an escalation of threats towards
members of his squadron for cooperating and making statements against Ap-
pellant. On 19 May 2017, Lt Col MS continued the no-contact order and ex-
panded its scope to include additional personnel. 7 Lt Col MS was concerned
Appellant “would reach out to intimidate, threat[en] or harass either [SSgt
CM] or any of these people if [Lt Col MS] didn’t have a no-contact order in
place.” Around the same time he issued the expanded order, he learned of other
allegations of violent acts that Appellant had committed against SSgt CM and
threats Appellant made against others. This included the allegation of violence
on Thanksgiving and that SSgt CM pulled a knife on Appellant and Appellant
in turn pulled a gun on her after the squadron’s Christmas party. Lt Col MS
had also heard that Appellant had made threats to “go after” members of the
squadron who had made statements against Appellant.
Lt Col MS continued the series of no-contact orders until Appellant’s legal
proceedings concluded. 8 Lt Col MS testified he issued the orders because of the
ongoing court-martial proceedings and to protect SSgt CM because “their toxic,
6Before the Facebook post, on 10 May 2017, Lt Col MS offered nonjudicial punishment
to Appellant under Article 15, UCMJ, 10 U.S.C. § 815, for allegedly violating the sec-
ond no-contact order on divers occasions. Appellant declined nonjudicial punishment
and demanded trial by court-martial.
7Lt Col MS expanded the order to include ten named individuals for the preservation
of good order and discipline of his unit.
8 Lt Col MS preferred the original charges on 7 June 2017. Although those charges
were subsequently withdrawn and dismissed by the convening authority on 1 August
2017, he preferred charges anew on 14 August 2017; an additional charge was pre-
ferred on 28 September 2017, and a second additional charge was preferred on 6 No-
vember 2017.
5
United States v. Proctor, No. ACM S32554
violent relationship was affecting the good order and discipline in the unit.”
Among the considerations in reissuing the orders was that Lt Col MS became
aware of a reason SSgt CM gave to co-workers for continuing to violate recip-
rocal orders he gave to SSgt CM to refrain from all communication and contact
with Appellant. SSgt CM told others she felt that she had no choice but to vio-
late Lt Col MS’s orders: “I have to stay with [Appellant]. I have to violate the
orders, because my life is more important.” Lt Col MS believed that continuing
the reciprocal orders would mitigate the violence in their relationship.
Appellant acknowledged receipt and understanding of each order.
2. Law
We review de novo the lawfulness of a military order. United States v. New,
55 M.J. 95, 106 (C.A.A.F. 2001) (citation omitted). The critical “attributes of a
lawful order include: (1) issuance by competent authority—a person authorized
by applicable law to give such an order; (2) communication of words that ex-
press a specific mandate to do or not do a specific act; and (3) relationship of
the mandate to a military duty.” United States v. Deisher, 61 M.J. 313, 317
(C.A.A.F. 2005) (citations omitted).
Orders are presumed to be lawful, and an appellant bears the burden of
demonstrating otherwise. New, 55 M.J. at 106 (citation omitted); United States
v. Hughley, 46 M.J. 152, 154 (C.A.A.F. 1997) (citations omitted). Thus, “a sub-
ordinate disobeys an order at his own peril,” though they may challenge the
lawfulness of the order when it is given or in later proceedings. United States
v. Kisala, 64 M.J. 50, 52 (C.A.A.F. 2006) (footnotes omitted). Our evaluation of
the lawfulness of an order includes consideration of the criteria from the Man-
ual for Courts-Martial, United States (2016 ed.) (MCM), pt. IV, ¶ 14.c.(2)(a)(iv),
which states as follows:
Relationship to military duty. The order must relate to military
duty, which includes all activities reasonably necessary to ac-
complish a military mission, or safeguard or promote the morale,
discipline, and usefulness of members of a command and directly
connected with the maintenance of good order in the service. The
order may not, without such a valid military purpose, interfere
with private rights or personal affairs. However, the dictates of
a person’s conscience, religion, or personal philosophy cannot
justify or excuse the disobedience of an otherwise lawful order.
Disobedience of an order which has for its sole object the attain-
ment of some private end, or which is given for the sole purpose
of increasing the penalty for an offense which it is expected the
accused may commit, is not punishable under this article.
6
United States v. Proctor, No. ACM S32554
To be presumed lawful, an order must also be clear, specific, and narrowly
drawn. United States v. Moore, 58 M.J. 466, 468 (C.A.A.F. 2003) (citing United
States v. Womack, 29 M.J. 88, 90 (C.M.A. 1989)).
3. Analysis
At the outset, we reject Appellant’s assertion at trial that Lt Col MS was
without authority to issue the six no-contact orders Appellant was convicted of
violating without first obtaining Appellant’s and SSgt CM’s consent. 9 We find
no authority for this assertion and Appellant cites none. So long as a com-
mander relies on a “valid military purpose” in issuing an unambiguous no-con-
tact order that is narrowly drawn, any consequential “interfere[nce] with pri-
vate rights or personal affairs” is nonetheless lawful without more. MCM, pt.
IV, ¶ 14.c.(2)(a)(iv); see also Moore, 58 M.J. at 467–68.
On appeal, Appellant does not contest whether the six orders were issued
by a competent authority or if they were sufficiently clear, specific, or narrowly
drawn, see Moore, 58 M.J. at 468 (citing Womack, 29 M.J. at 90). Rather, Ap-
pellant claims the orders served no valid military purpose because Lt Col MS’s
justification for issuing the orders was inadequate. To this end, Appellant gives
three bases for challenging lawfulness: (1) the orders appear to have been
based on Lt Col MS’s dislike for the relationship between Appellant and SSgt
CM, and a paternalistic belief that he knew what was best for SSgt CM; (2)
“assuming arguendo that the altercation in February was a sufficient military
purpose to justify the initial no-contact order, that justification dissipated
quickly. Lt Col MS could point to no other acts of violence between Appellant
and SSgt CM that occurred after February 2017;” and (3) the only purpose of
the orders was to enhance Appellant’s punitive exposure. We consider each
contention in turn including an examination of “the conduct at issue.” United
States v. Padgett, 48 M.J. 273, 278 (C.A.A.F. 1998) (citing Womack, 29 M.J. at
91); see generally Moore, 58 M.J. at 468 (focusing on the “specific conduct at
issue in the context of the purposes and language of the order”).
As to Appellant’s first contention, Lt Col MS’s orders directed Appellant
not to contact, communicate, or interact in any way with SSgt CM. As found
by the military judge, each order “was thought out and thoughtful as to pur-
pose and its parameters.” The military judge also found that Lt Col MS sought
to ensure that Appellant did not tamper with or improperly influence SSgt CM,
and thus the orders were “connected or related to military duty.” We find the
9The military judge asked defense counsel if it was “the [D]efense’s position that the
commander was required to ask [Appellant] and/or [SSgt CM] whether or not they
wanted a no-contact order?” Defense counsel replied it was “[i]f he’s going to interfere
with their personal rights.”
7
United States v. Proctor, No. ACM S32554
military judge’s factfinding was not clearly erroneous. Thus, we decline to ac-
cept Appellant’s contrary assertions that Lt Col MS’s purpose in issuing the
orders was his dislike of Appellant’s relationship with SSgt CM or Lt Col MS
being unduly protective of what he thought was in SSgt CM’s best interests.
Lt Col MS was clear that it was not the relationship he disapproved of; rather,
“[w]hat [he] disapprove[d] of [wa]s the violence in their relationship” and he
“never interfered with their relationship . . . until [he] . . . was made aware of
violence.”
The evidence of record demonstrates Lt Col MS genuinely sought to prevent
harm to SSgt CM and issued the series of orders to protect her safety, 10 see
Padgett, 48 M.J. at 278 (upholding order intended to protect individuals from
servicemember), as well as for the good order and discipline of his unit. He also
sought to safeguard the ongoing investigation of Appellant. See United States
v. Nieves, 44 M.J. 96, 99 (C.A.A.F. 1996) (citation omitted) (declining to find an
order prohibiting discussions with witnesses unlawful, in part because there
was “no evidence that appellant ever requested permission to interview [a wit-
ness] or that such permission was denied”). Lt Col MS stated that he had a
concern about Appellant contacting witnesses to threaten them or to influence
their testimony. This was a valid concern, and was also related to Lt Col MS’s
duty to maintain good order and discipline in his unit.
As to Appellant’s second contention, Lt Col MS believed the no-contact or-
ders reduced the level of violence between Appellant and SSgt CM even as he
suspected Appellant of violating his orders. He also continued the orders, ex-
panding them to apply to other named individuals, out of concern that Appel-
lant would contact SSgt CM and witnesses to threaten them or influence their
testimony. As the investigation of Appellant proceeded, Lt Col MS’s reasons
for issuing the orders did not diminish. Under the circumstances, we conclude
the commander possessed a valid military purpose for issuing the series of no-
contact orders.
Lastly, we reject Appellant’s third contention—that the only purpose of the
orders was to enhance Appellant’s punitive exposure because contacting wit-
nesses to influence an investigation is already prohibited by the UCMJ—as
contrary to the military judge’s findings of fact. We recognize the “ultimate
offense doctrine” prohibits “the escalation in severity of minor offenses ‘by
charging them as violations of orders or the willful disobedience of superiors.’”
United States v. Phillips, 74 M.J. 20, 22 (C.A.A.F. 2015) (quoting United States
v. Hargrove, 51 M.J. 408, 409 (C.A.A.F. 1999)). Our superior court has similarly
10Lt Col MS explained there were “many reasons for the no-contact orders,” “[o]ne of
them to protect [SSgt CM].” One of the commander’s concerns he related to SSgt CM
early on was that he “d[id]n’t want to have a funeral in [his] unit.”
8
United States v. Proctor, No. ACM S32554
interpreted this doctrine to prohibit commanders from ordering a member to
“follow the law” and to then punish the member for both the underlying crim-
inal offense and the failure to follow the order. See Padgett, 48 M.J. at 278.
However, Appellant was not charged with both obstruction of justice and the
violation of a no-contact order. Thus, we find no reason to conclude that Lt Col
MS issued no-contact orders to increase Appellant’s punitive exposure.
B. Self-Defense and Defense of Property
Appellant contends the military judge erred by failing to consider the pos-
sibility that Appellant acted in self-defense and that the evidence raised de-
fense of property when Appellant committed the offense of assault consum-
mated by a battery against SSgt AG. 11 Appellant claims the military judge was
required to instruct on self-defense because there was evidence Appellant’s
contact with SSgt AG was a response to SSgt AG’s use of force against Appel-
lant. Appellant also claims the military judge was required to instruct, sua
sponte, on defense of property because there was evidence the conduct in issue
was a result of Appellant’s attempt to lawfully remove trespassers from his
home.
1. Additional Background
a. Thanksgiving Day
SSgt CM shared an off-base residence with Appellant and his children. In
November of 2016, SSgt CM invited Airmen from her flight to her home for
Thanksgiving dinner. Among the invited guests were SSgt AG, Senior Airman
(SrA) JT, and SrA KJ, who testified at trial about an incident between Appel-
lant and SSgt AG after dinner. Appellant was working a swing shift and was
not at the apartment when guests arrived. When Appellant returned home at
around 2300 hours, he changed his clothes and, according to SSgt AG, told her
guests to “get the hell out of my crib.” Appellant turned off the music and eve-
ryone began to leave. Appellant began cursing the Airmen, calling them
“pu[**]ies,” and claiming “you guys are just waiting to f[**]k my girl,” in refer-
ence to SSgt CM.
SSgt AG testified he saw a “glare come across [Appellant’s] face” the mo-
ment Appellant entered the residence. Appellant aired “frustration” that oth-
ers were in his home, and his voice was loud enough to “mean[ ] business.” As
others were making their way out, SSgt AG stayed back because he was one of
the more senior-ranking Airmen and he wanted to make sure all of the other
guests left first, including one of his troops, SrA JT, who was standing “right
by the doorway.” As SrA JT was “about to leave” by crossing “the door seal or
As charged in Specification 2 of Charge II, Appellant did “unlawfully strangle [SSgt
11
AG] by grabbing his throat with his hand.”
9
United States v. Proctor, No. ACM S32554
the doorway,” Appellant was yelling at SrA JT and “went charging right after
him” with a movement that SSgt AG described “was like a really brisk walk in
[SrA JT’s] direction,” and Appellant’s “hands were up” in the air. SSgt AG
“stepped in between the two of them” and “was able to cut [Appellant] off right
by the doorway.” SSgt AG intervened to prevent a fight as he knew there was
a long history of “bad blood” between Appellant and SrA JT.
SSgt AG further testified that as soon as he was between the two, Appel-
lant’s “right hand immediately went straight toward [SSgt AG’s] throat and
[Appellant’s] left hand went towards [SSgt AG’s] right arm to try and move
[SSgt AG] out of the way.” Appellant’s grip on his throat “started getting
tighter and tighter” as SSgt AG told Appellant to “relax” and “let go.” Appel-
lant’s children were by the door and pleaded with Appellant to stop. SSgt AG
stayed between Appellant and SrA JT, but as Appellant’s grip got tighter it
was harder for him to breathe, and he knew he was “going to pass out” if he
did not push back. He “decided to keep trying to push [Appellant] back into the
household,” and as soon as he did, Appellant’s focus changed from SrA JT to
SSgt CM, and Appellant let go of SSgt AG’s throat. SSgt AG departed after
SrA JT and was the last guest to leave.
SrA JT 12 testified the Thanksgiving dinner party was a “family” setting
that ended the moment Appellant arrived home from his shift. While Appellant
and SSgt CM spoke in private, the guests looked at each other and asked if
anyone knew “[w]hat’s going on?” They wondered if they had offended Appel-
lant and did not know what to do. Eventually, Appellant came out of a room
and told SrA JT to “get the F out of [Appellant’s] house.” SrA JT understood
the demand was addressed to him personally, but all of the flight members
began leaving as SrA JT put on his hat and started making his way to the door.
Appellant followed and SrA JT was “[r]ight outside the doorway” when he saw
SSgt AG and a second guest “kind of holding [Appellant] back, stopping [Ap-
pellant] from coming towards” SrA JT who at that point was “already outside.”
SrA JT observed Appellant flailing his left arm “up and down” but did not ob-
serve Appellant choking SSgt AG.
Lastly, SrA KJ testified. She was among seven or eight Airmen from her
flight whom SSgt CM invited to Thanksgiving dinner. SrA KJ was standing on
a balcony outside the living area when Appellant arrived home. When she came
back inside she noticed the mood of the party had changed for the worse. Ap-
pellant and SrA JT “started arguing with each other” and “the situation got
kind of heated, and everyone started to walk out.” Appellant was “looking di-
rectly at” SrA JT, using profanity, and speaking in an angry tone of voice. SrA
12 SrA JT had separated from the military when he testified.
10
United States v. Proctor, No. ACM S32554
KJ was one of the first to leave. SrA JT “was walking out as well” when Appel-
lant “charged toward” SrA JT with his hands raised. She observed SSgt AG get
between Appellant and SrA JT to try to calm Appellant down and prevent
harm to SrA JT and further escalation of the situation. From her vantage of
about 20 to 30 feet outside the residence she looked back and saw SSgt AG
holding back Appellant and the contact she witnessed lasted a matter of sec-
onds. She did not see Appellant choking SSgt AG, but heard SSgt AG repeating
in disbelief, “I can’t believe [Appellant] choked me. [Appellant] choked me.”
b. Trial
The evidence at trial did not touch on Appellant’s and SSgt CM’s property
rights or, more generally, their respective legal interests in the residence they
shared on Thanksgiving Day in 2016 when Appellant cast out SSgt CM’s
guests. There was no testimony as to any verbal agreement, custom, or practice
about the presence of guests in their home. However, in her trial testimony
about violating their commander’s no-contact orders by remaining in the same
residence four months later, on 22 March 2016, SSgt CM explained “[w]e both
had our names on the lease, [and] it was both of our apartment.” Lt Col MS
testified in findings that he was aware their lease expired on or about June
2017, but his testimony did not address when the lease began, its terms, or
who was bound by the lease contract on Thanksgiving in 2016. 13
After the close of evidence, the military judge held an Article 39(a), UCMJ,
10 U.S.C. § 839(a), session with the parties and listed instructions she thought
were raised by the evidence. The military judge acknowledged “there has been
a great deal of discussion as to self-defense,” but defense of property was not
among the instructions she identified. The military judge asked counsel for
both parties if they had “[a]ny objections right now to those [instructions] as
outlined,” noting counsel would have an opportunity to read her proposed in-
structions and make objections later. Defense counsel replied, “Not at this
time, Your Honor.” Later in the session the military judge asked counsel for
both parties if there were “[a]ny other instructions” they wanted. Defense coun-
sel mentioned only an unrelated instruction that no adverse inference should
be drawn from Appellant’s pretrial confinement status when he was alleged to
have violated one of the orders. After a short discussion, the military judge
asked if there were “[a]ny additional special instructions, Defense Counsel?”
who replied, “Not at this moment, Your Honor, thank you.”
13Although not admitted in findings, pages of a lease contract were included as attach-
ments to Appellate Exhibits III and IV. The lease identified both SSgt CM and Appel-
lant as tenants for the term 25 June 2016 through 25 June 2017.
11
United States v. Proctor, No. ACM S32554
Before instructing the members, counsel for both parties reviewed the mil-
itary judge’s proposed instructions in another Article 39(a), UCMJ, session.
Defense counsel asked for an instruction on “self-defense of others” that im-
pacted a specification for which Appellant would be acquitted, but did not raise
defense of property to the specification at issue. At the end of the session, the
military judge asked, “Anything else, Defense?” and the defense counsel re-
plied, “Nothing additional, Your Honor.” At the end of the session after a brief
discussion about answering a member’s question, the military judge asked if
there was “[a]nything else we need to take up in this [Article] 39(a), [UCMJ,
session],” and defense counsel replied, “No, Your Honor.”
After the military judge instructed the members on the law, and prior to
argument, defense counsel asked for an Article 39(a), UCMJ, session and the
members left the courtroom. During the session, and for the first time on the
record, the Defense requested the military judge instruct on self-defense for
the Thanksgiving incident; however, the Defense did not also request a defense
of property instruction. The military judge denied the request for the self-de-
fense instruction, the members were seated, and counsel for both parties pre-
sented argument.
At the conclusion of argument, the military judge instructed the members
on the procedural rules for their deliberations and voting, and then asked
whether “[c]ounsel object to the instructions given or request additional [in-
struction]?” Defense counsel replied, “No, Your Honor.” The military judge re-
cessed the court for the evening. The next morning, the military judge gave a
copy of her instructions to each member and closed the court for deliberations
and voting on findings.
2. Law
“Whether a panel was properly instructed is a question of law reviewed de
novo.” United States v. Medina, 69 M.J. 462, 465 (C.A.A.F. 2011) (citation omit-
ted). “A military judge must instruct members on any affirmative defense that
is ‘in issue.’” United States v. Schumacher, 70 M.J. 387, 389 (C.A.A.F. 2011)
(quoting Rule for Courts-Martial (R.C.M.) 920(e)(3)). An affirmative defense is
“‘in issue’ when ‘some evidence, without regard to its source or credibility, has
been admitted upon which members might rely if they chose.’” Id. (quoting
United States v. Lewis, 65 M.J. 85, 87 (C.A.A.F. 2007)). The Schumacher court
explained “‘some evidence’ entitling an accused to an instruction, has not been
presented until ‘there exists evidence sufficient for a reasonable jury to find in
[the accused’s] favor.’” 70 M.J. at 389 (quoting Mathews v. United States, 485
U.S. 58, 63 (1988)).
12
United States v. Proctor, No. ACM S32554
a. Self-Defense
Self-defense is an affirmative defense to a charge of assault consummated
by a battery, see generally R.C.M. 916(a) and Discussion, and has two elements.
First, the accused must have “[a]pprehended, upon reasonable grounds, that
bodily harm was about to be inflicted wrongfully on” him; and second, the ac-
cused must have believed that the force used was “necessary for protection
against bodily harm” and “that the force used by the accused was less than
force reasonably likely to produce death or grievous bodily harm.” See R.C.M.
916(e)(3); see also United States v. Yanger, 67 M.J. 56, 57 (C.A.A.F. 2008). Be-
cause the defense involves more than one element of proof, the record must
contain some evidence upon which members could reasonably rely to find each
element before the military judge is required to instruct the members on it.
Schumacher, 70 M.J. at 389–90.
The right to self-defense is not available to an accused who “was an aggres-
sor, engaged in mutual combat, or provoked the attack which gave rise to the
apprehension, unless the accused had withdrawn in good faith after the ag-
gression, combat, or provocation and before the offense alleged occurred.”
R.C.M. 916(e)(4). However, an accused who starts an affray is entitled to use
reasonable force in self-defense to defend against an opponent who escalates
the level of the conflict. United States v. Dearing, 63 M.J. 478, 484 n.24
(C.A.A.F. 2006) (citations omitted).
b. Defense of Property
Defense of property is also an affirmative defense to a charge of assault
consummated by a battery, although “it is more accurate to refer to defense of
property as a ‘special defense,’ and that the prosecution continuously bears ‘the
burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the defense did not exist.’” 14
United States v. Davis, 73 M.J. 268, 271 n.3 (C.A.A.F. 2014) (quoting R.C.M.
916(b)(1)). Among the means by which an accused may lawfully defend his
property, an accused has a right to eject a trespasser. Id. at 271–72. However,
the right is circumscribed as an
accused may only use as much force as is reasonably necessary
to remove an individual from his property after requesting that
the individual leave and then allowing a reasonable amount of
time for the individual to leave. A person or invitee who refuses
to leave after being rightfully asked to do so becomes a tres-
passer and may not resist if only reasonable force is employed in
14Although the defense supposes an accused has a legal right to defend the property
at issue, whether real or personal, it is not among the defenses that R.C.M. 701(b)(2)
requires notice to the Government before the beginning of trial.
13
United States v. Proctor, No. ACM S32554
ejecting him. However, a property owner may not purposely pro-
voke a disturbance on his property and then use his ownership
of the property as an excuse for an unnecessary assault in eject-
ing another person. If more force is used than is reasonably nec-
essary to remove a trespasser, this force constitutes assault and
battery.
Id. at 272 (citing United States v. Regalado, 33 C.M.R. 12, 14 (C.M.A. 1963))
(additional citations and internal quotation marks omitted). A military judge
has a duty to sua sponte instruct on the defense of property when “some evi-
dence, without regard to its source or credibility, has been admitted upon
which members might rely if they choose.” Id. (quoting R.C.M. 920(e), Discus-
sion).
c. Waiver
“Whether an appellant has waived an issue is a legal question that this
Court reviews de novo.” United States v. Rich, ___ M.J. ___, No. 19-0425, 2020
CAAF LEXIS 240, at *8 (C.A.A.F. 28 Apr. 2020) (citing United States v. Davis,
79 M.J. 329, 332 (C.A.A.F. 2020)). In United States v. Gutierrez, the Court of
Appeals for the Armed Forces (CAAF) rejected plain error review of a required
instruction under R.C.M. 920(e)(3), observing that its “jurisprudence allows af-
firmative waiver of affirmative defenses.” 64 M.J. 374, 376 n.3 (C.A.A.F. 2007).
The trial judge in Gutierrez stated “there doesn’t appear to be any mistake of
fact instruction with regard to battery,” and then pointedly asked the Defense,
“Are you requesting one?” Id. at 376. The court found waiver in defense coun-
sel’s equally pointed response, “I simply do not want to request one for the
battery.” Id. The Gutierrez court explained, “In making waiver determinations,
we look to the record to see if the statements signify that there was a ‘purpose-
ful decision’ at play.” Id. at 377 (citing United States v. Smith, 50 M.J. 451, 456
(C.A.A.F. 1999)). The court found waiver, reasoning, “[d]efense counsel was
presented with the opportunity to request or decline the mistake of fact in-
struction as to assault consummated by battery. He chose to decline it, and in
doing so he affirmatively waived his right to the instruction.” Id. at 377–78.
In Davis, the CAAF again rejected plain error review of a findings instruc-
tion. 79 M.J. at 332. The Davis court found waiver when an appellant argued
for the first time on appeal that the mens rea of “knowingly” applies to the
consent element of Article 120c.(a)(2), UCMJ, 10 U.S.C. § 920c.(a)(2). Davis, 79
M.J. at 331–32. At trial, before instructing the members, the military judge
identified the instructions he intended to give including the consent element
that the appellant raised as an issue on appeal. Id. at 330. After instructing
the members, the military judge “asked whether the defense had any objections
or requests for additional instructions,” and the defense counsel replied, “No
14
United States v. Proctor, No. ACM S32554
changes, sir.” Id. After marking his written instructions as an appellate ex-
hibit, the military judge again asked if there were any objections, and the de-
fense counsel replied, “No, Your Honor.” Id. The Davis court found, “By ex-
pressly and unequivocally acquiescing to the military judge’s instructions, Ap-
pellant waived all objections to the instructions, including in regards to the
elements of the offense.” Id. at 331 (citations and internal quotation marks
omitted).
In Rich, the CAAF again found waiver of a mistake of fact defense instruc-
tion as the court had found in Gutierrez, explaining “when counsel affirma-
tively decline[s] to object and offer[s] no additional instructions, counsel ex-
pressly and unequivocally acquiesce[s] to the military judge’s instructions, and
his actions thus constitute waiver.” Rich, 2020 CAAF LEXIS 240, at *9 (alter-
ations in original) (internal quotation marks omitted) (citing Davis, 79 M.J. at
332). In Davis, the CAAF observed, “[W]hile we review forfeited issues for plain
error, ‘we cannot review waived issues at all because a valid waiver leaves no
error for us to correct on appeal.’” Davis, 79 M.J. at 331 (quoting United States
v. Campos, 67 M.J. 330, 332 (C.A.A.F. 2009)). Nonetheless, pursuant to Article
66(c), UCMJ, 10 U.S.C. § 866(c), the Courts of Criminal Appeals have the
unique statutory responsibility to affirm only so much of the sentence that is
correct and “should be approved.” Thus, we retain the authority to address er-
rors raised for the first time on appeal despite waiver at trial. See, e.g., United
States v. Hardy, 77 M.J. 438, 442–43 (C.A.A.F. 2018); United States v. Chin,
75 M.J. 220, 223 (C.A.A.F. 2016) (citation omitted) (addressing this court’s re-
sponsibility to “assess the entire record to determine whether to leave an ac-
cused’s waiver intact, or to correct the error”).
3. Analysis
a. Self-Defense
Although the three witnesses testified somewhat differently, the rapid on-
set of violence at the Thanksgiving party is uncomplicated and the essential
facts are not open to question. Appellant charged toward SrA JT 15 who was a
guest in the home Appellant and his three children shared with SSgt CM. SrA
JT’s presence, and possibly the presence of others, stirred Appellant’s anger,
but there is no evidence of any particular words SrA JT uttered or conduct SrA
JT engaged in that might cause Appellant to apprehend, upon reasonable
15 Appellant was not charged with assaulting SrA JT. “An ‘assault’ is an attempt or
offer with unlawful force or violence to do bodily harm to another, whether or not the
attempt or offer is consummated. It must be done without legal justification or excuse
and without the lawful consent of the person affected.” MCM, pt. IV, ¶ 54.c.(1)(a).
15
United States v. Proctor, No. ACM S32554
grounds, that bodily harm was about to be inflicted wrongfully on Appellant,
as might raise the defense of self-defense. R.C.M. 916(e)(3)(A).
Appellant alludes to SrA KJ’s testimony that Appellant and SrA JT
“started arguing with each other” and “the situation got kind of heated.” How-
ever, Appellant cites no authority, and we are aware of none, that justifies a
resort to violence and entitles an aggressor to a self-defense instruction from
an argument in which the words that were exchanged, by whom, and the back-
ground or context are not evident from the record. Considering SrA KT’s testi-
mony alone or with the testimony of other witnesses, there is no evidence SrA
JT manifested any threat of attack or intent to start a fight. There was no
evidence upon which members might rely to find that either SSgt AG or SrA
JT, and not Appellant, started the affray. See Schumacher, 70 M.J. at 389. It
follows that SSgt AG’s intervention and physical contact with Appellant when
he came to SrA JT’s defense was in every respect a response to an unjustified
attack. 16 Appellant had no right to self-defense when he rushed at SrA JT be-
cause the uncontradicted evidence at trial was that Appellant was the initial,
unprovoked aggressor. R.C.M. 916(e)(4).
As SSgt AG stepped between Appellant and SrA JT, and Appellant then
made contact with SSgt AG’s body, Appellant’s assault consummated in bat-
tery. 17 SSgt AG was legally justified to defend both himself, R.C.M. 916(e)(3),
and SrA JT, R.C.M. 916(e)(5), with force necessary for protection against bodily
harm under the principles of self-defense and defense of another. Only if SSgt
AG used unlawful force, and thereby escalated the level of the conflict, would
Appellant then be justified to use force to defend against the escalation. See
generally Dearing, 63 M.J. at 484 n.24 (citing United States v. Cardwell, 15
M.J. 124, 126 (C.M.A. 1983)). This is so because “[e]ven a person who starts an
affray is entitled to use self-defense when the opposing party escalates the level
of the conflict.” Cardwell, 15 M.J. at 126 (citing United States v. Acosta-Vargas,
32 C.M.R. 388 (C.M.A. 1962); United States v. Straub, 30 C.M.R. 156 (C.M.A.
1961)) (“The theory of self-defense is protection and not aggression, and to keep
the two in rough balance the force to repel should approximate the violence
threatened.”).
16A bystander acts at his own peril when he “goes to the aid of an apparent assault
victim” because he assumes the legal status of the defended person. R.C.M. 916(e)(5),
Discussion. If, unbeknownst to the bystander, the apparent victim was in fact the ag-
gressor, the bystander has no right to self-defense. Id. In the instant case, as discussed,
there is no evidence on which a rational factfinder could conclude SrA JT was an ag-
gressor or a provocateur.
“A ‘battery’ is an assault in which the attempt or offer to do bodily harm is consum-
17
mated by the infliction of that harm.” MCM, pt. IV, ¶ 54.c.(2)(a).
16
United States v. Proctor, No. ACM S32554
Appellant was entitled to a self-defense instruction tailored to include the
principle of escalation of force if there was “some evidence” in the record which
the members could rely upon that placed escalation in issue. United States v.
Stanley, 71 M.J. 60, 63–64 (C.A.A.F. 2012) (failure to instruct on the principle
of escalation of force was not error because the record lacked any evidence that
would trigger a duty to instruct). In the instant case, it was Appellant who
abruptly escalated the level of force in the conflict and intensified the violence
by immediately grabbing SSgt AG’s throat and using Appellant’s own power
and strength to try to force his way around SSgt AG and threaten harm to SrA
JT. While SSgt AG overcame Appellant’s force by holding Appellant back and
stopping Appellant from reaching SrA JT, there is no evidence SSgt AG esca-
lated his use of force beyond that which was necessary to fend off Appellant’s
continued unlawful assault and battery. In particular, Appellant’s strangling
SSgt AG at the same time Appellant continued to manifest unprovoked aggres-
sion toward SrA JT was unnecessary for his own defense. See, e.g., United
States v. Ginn, 4 C.M.R. 45, 50 (C.M.A. 1952) (“Self-defense is a defensive, not
an offensive act; and it cannot exceed the bounds of mere protection of one’s
self.”).
We find the issue of self-defense was not reasonably raised by the evidence,
see Schumacher, 70 M.J. at 389–90, and the military judge did not err in de-
clining to instruct the members on self-defense or give a tailored instruction
that included the principle of escalation of force in self-defense.
b. Defense of Property
Appellant also claims the military judge was required to instruct, sua
sponte, on defense of property as a defense to Appellant strangling SSgt AG.
The law recognizes that “individuals may protect their place of abode against
unlawful intrusion. When one with the right to do so has ordered another from
the premises, the latter has no right to refuse or resist.” Regalado, 33 C.M.R.
at 15 (citing United States v Adams, 18 C.M.R. 187, 194 (C.M.A. 1955) (appel-
lant occupying government tent had right to protect himself from trespasser);
United States v Berry, 20 C.M.R. 354 (C.M.A. 1956)).
We find Appellant affirmatively waived a defense of property instruction.
We reach this conclusion from defense counsel’s discussions with the military
judge in three Article 39(a), UCMJ, sessions held to discuss proposed findings
instructions. Considered together, these sessions included a discussion of ap-
plicable defenses to include self-defense as a complete defense to the specifica-
tion at issue. In each session, defense counsel neither objected nor requested a
defense of property instruction. After the conclusion of the findings arguments,
the military judge again asked if the Defense had any objections or requests
for additional instructions. The Defense replied it had no objections to the in-
structions as given, and did not request any additional instructions.
17
United States v. Proctor, No. ACM S32554
On these facts, Appellant expressly and unequivocally acquiesced to find-
ings instructions that did not include the defense of property instruction Ap-
pellant claims should have been given. See Davis, 79 M.J. at 332 (citing United
States v. Wall, 349 F.3d 18, 24 (1st Cir. 2003) (“[C]ounsel twice confirmed upon
inquiry from the judge that he had ‘no objection and no additional requests
[regarding the instructions].’ Having directly bypassed an offered opportunity
to challenge and perhaps modify the instructions, appellant waived any right
to object to them on appeal.” (alteration in original))). Appellant thus waived
the objection he raises on appeal.
We find no reason to pierce Appellant’s waiver in this case, see Hardy, 77
M.J. at 442–43; see also Chin, 75 M.J. at 223, because the military judge com-
mitted no error. Appellant’s claim supposes he had a right to an instruction
that he could oust SSgt CM’s guests from their shared residence. 18 However,
Appellant points to no evidence at trial upon which members might have relied
to find Appellant had a right he asserts for the first time on appeal. Appellant’s
lease was not admitted in evidence. No evidence suggests Appellant’s property
rights under Colorado law were superior to SSgt CM’s own, that Appellant was
at liberty to force SSgt CM’s guests to leave, or that SSgt CM acceded to the
removal of her guests on Appellant’s terms.
Even if we were to assume Appellant had the requisite property rights and
legal interest to demand SSgt CM’s guests leave their shared residence, the
evidence does not suggest that Appellant gave them reasonably adequate time
to comply and that Appellant used no more force than was reasonably neces-
sary. Instead, the evidence indicates Appellant did what the law disallows: he
“purposely provoke[d] a disturbance on his property and then use[d] his own-
ership of the property as an excuse for an unnecessary assault in ejecting an-
other person.” Davis, 73 M.J. at 272. Defense of property simply was not in
issue given the facts of this case and the military judge did not err in failing to
sua sponte instruct the members that it was.
C. Allegation of Unlawful Command Influence
Appellant renews his claim at trial that over a year before Appellant’s
court-martial, Lt Col MS orchestrated a commander’s call message to discour-
age Appellant’s coworkers from providing character letters or testifying on Ap-
18Appellant’s claim is, to some extent, contrary to the position taken by the civilian
defense counsel who argued in findings that Appellant and SSgt CM “lived together,”
“were on a lease together,” and “they both have rightful legal access to that property.”
(Emphasis added).
18
United States v. Proctor, No. ACM S32554
pellant’s behalf. Appellant requests this court set aside and dismiss the find-
ings and sentence on the basis of apparent UCI in the adjudicative stage of his
court-martial.
1. Additional Background
Lt Col MS released Appellant from pretrial confinement on 1 August 2017
after the convening authority withdrew and dismissed Appellant’s original
charges, and before Lt Col MS preferred charges anew on 14 August 2017. A
week earlier, on 7 August 2017, and just over a year before Appellant’s trial
and sentencing, Lt Col MS held a commander’s call as was his practice every
six months. The topics covered at the commander’s call included military
awards and recognition, civilian achievements, sexual assault, and NCOs be-
having poorly and making bad decisions. 19
Lt Col MS encouraged the squadron to “support” Airmen, no matter what
process or difficulty the Airman may be going through, but not “enable” bad
behavior. He also addressed the impropriety of spreading rumors, stating met-
aphorically, “You guys may know what your friends are telling you, but you
don’t have the big picture,” and that there was “more than one chapter in the
book.” He testified,
My goal was to get NCOs to start acting like NCOs, and other
NCOs who were holding the line, to call the other NCOs out.
They should be embarrassed when their NCOs are acting a cer-
tain way and giving their corps a bad name. Just like we get
embarrassed when officers misbehave.
Lt Col MS told a story from when he was enlisted and a junior Airman
under his supervision asked him to provide a character letter. The Airman was
undergoing nonjudicial punishment proceedings for breaking curfew in a de-
ployed location. At the commander’s call, Lt Col MS explained why he declined,
reasoning that the Airman not only disobeyed the order of the mission com-
mander, but Lt Col MS had looked the Airman in the eye and told him to make
sure he was back on time. Lt Col MS related he was there to support the Air-
man but that he could not write a letter advocating that his commander not
take a stripe over the good order and discipline of the unit. Lt Col MS explained
at the commander’s call about his “commitment to the Air Force” then, noting
his commander at the time would question Lt Col MS’s judgment if Lt Col MS
signed a letter advocating that the commander not take a stripe.
19Lt Col MS addressed the squadron, and afterwards the senior NCOs separately ad-
dressed the NCOs to reinforce the commander’s message and answer questions. Ap-
pellant was not in attendance at the commander’s call or the meeting of NCOs.
19
United States v. Proctor, No. ACM S32554
Lt Col MS’s comments did not mention anyone by name or reference alle-
gations or incidents of misconduct in the unit. Even so, his remarks were
prompted by knowledge of issues involving Appellant and SSgt CM, and other
NCOs in the squadron. Lt Col MS was aware that Appellant’s friend, SSgt JP,
had responded to Appellant’s Facebook post with a message that Lt Col MS
viewed as a continuation of Appellant’s Facebook threat. The catalyst for mak-
ing NCO behavior a topic of the commander’s call was SSgt JP’s reaction to
Appellant’s recent release from pretrial confinement at the same time the orig-
inal charges that Lt Col MS had preferred against Appellant were withdrawn
and dismissed by the convening authority. Lt Col MS testified he knew at the
time of the convening authority’s disposition he would prefer charges anew. 20
Around this time Lt Col MS learned from his NCOs that Appellant and SSgt
CM continued to contact each other in violation of his orders, including during
the time when Appellant was in pretrial confinement. He felt the squadron
took a negative turn when charges were withdrawn and dismissed because the
Airmen were wondering what was going on and had lost faith in the system. 21
Lt Col MS’s remarks were prompted also by matters unrelated to Appellant,
including that SSgt JP had been found in his vehicle outside a club with over
twice the legal limit of alcohol in his blood, an NCO had operated a motorcycle
in a manner that caused injury to a junior Airman who was a passenger, and
several NCOs had recently failed their physical fitness assessments.
After the commander’s call, a junior NCO 22 who was Appellant’s friend
asked to meet with the commander. Lt Col MS was aware that the NCO had
previously given a statement to law enforcement stating he “thought that the
unit and the Air Force were after [Appellant] and [Appellant] wasn’t that bad.”
Lt Col MS met with the NCO who assured the commander he was friends with
Appellant, but understood the commander’s perspective and “everything that’s
20Lt Col MS was concerned about the effect on his unit of SSgt JP “[w]alking around
just talking real loud saying, ‘My homey’s getting released. He’s getting out. We are
going to throw a barbecue,’” with the implication that Appellant was in the clear. Lt Col
MS was concerned also because two individuals around whom SSgt JP revelled in Ap-
pellant’s seeming good fortune were individuals SSgt JP disliked and were witnesses
in the Government’s case. Lt Col MS believed SSgt JP knew they were witnesses be-
cause SSgt JP was friends with Appellant.
21 Lt Col MS testified he knew of an instance of NCOs discussing Appellant’s orders
violations in front of a junior Airman. He explained, “When you are in command . . .
[y]ou can feel your unit start to question and doubt what is going on. Why is leadership
not taking care of things?” In response to the military judge’s questions, he added, “A
unit that had high morale and doing very well was starting to go flat.”
22The junior NCO did not testify at the hearings. However, Lt Col MS testified about
their conversations.
20
United States v. Proctor, No. ACM S32554
going on.” Because the NCO was close friends with Appellant, Lt Col MS rein-
forced his expectation “to support [Appellant] when he needs something. Just
do not enable him.” Lt Col MS testified in general about other exchanges he
had with the junior NCO in which the commander encouraged the NCO to con-
tact Appellant’s defense counsel because the NCO was not following through
on returning calls by Appellant’s defense counsel. Lt Col MS told him, “You call
the defense” because “[t]hat’s part of the process. You call them. They are going
to interview you. All I ever expect anybody to do in this unit is just tell the
truth.” The squadron’s first sergeant testified he was aware the junior NCO
was visiting Appellant when Appellant was in pretrial confinement, and
thanked him for supporting Appellant every time the first sergeant and the
NCO talked.
Both the Defense and trial counsel called Airmen who were present for the
commander’s call to testify on the motion. The Defense called SSgt JP and a
senior airman, both of whom understood the commander’s message to be that
those who support an NCO in trouble need to rethink their careers in the Air
Force. 23 While SSgt JP initially understood that the commander’s message was
to not support Appellant, when he sought clarification from a senior NCO, he
was told that the message was not about avoiding the Defense or withholding
support for Appellant. Ultimately, SSgt JP did not believe the commander’s
message was to stay away from Appellant or avoid speaking with Appellant’s
defense counsel. Two senior NCOs testified they understood the commander’s
message to be to support, and not enable, Airmen in trouble. SSgt AG, who was
later the victim of Appellant’s assault consummated by a battery, also attended
the commander’s call. He understood the message to be: if you support certain
individuals, you need to rethink your position in the Air Force. SSgt AG was
confused by the message and believed Lt Col MS was not clear on what “sup-
port” meant. He believed the overall message was to rethink one’s position in
the Air Force so as not to follow a bad path. SSgt AG did not seek to clarify the
message with anyone in his chain of command. Ultimately, he did not believe
he would be punished for his testimony or that the commander threatened
punishment if he supported troubled NCOs.
23The senior airman understood his commander’s message to be “[i]f you’re supporting
an NCO that’s in trouble, you might want to rethink your career. . . . [I]t might put you
in a negative light . . . or you might be looked at as the problem, also.” He testified he
thought it might rub the commander the wrong way to write a character statement
“because [Lt Col MS] never really made it clear what he meant by that statement, so
he left a lot of room for imagination.” He believed there would not be ramifications to
his testimony on the motion because he intended to separate from active duty.
21
United States v. Proctor, No. ACM S32554
2. Law
“Allegations of unlawful command influence are reviewed de novo.” United
States v. Salyer, 72 M.J. 415, 423 (C.A.A.F. 2013) (citations omitted). Where an
assertion of unlawful command influence is litigated at trial, we review the
military judge’s findings of fact for clear error, but we review de novo the legal
question whether those facts constitute unlawful command influence. United
States v. Ayers, 54 M.J. 85, 95 (C.A.A.F. 2000) (citing United States v. Wallace,
39 M.J. 284, 286 (C.M.A. 1994)). “On appeal, the accused bears the initial bur-
den of raising unlawful command influence.” Salyer, 72 M.J. at 423.
“Two types of unlawful command influence can arise in the military justice
system: actual unlawful command influence and the appearance of unlawful
command influence.” United States v. Boyce, 76 M.J. 242, 247 (C.A.A.F. 2017).
Unlike actual UCI, a meritorious claim of an appearance of UCI does not re-
quire prejudice to an accused. Boyce, 76 M.J. at 248 (footnote omitted). “[W]hen
an appellant asserts there was an appearance of unlawful command influ-
ence[,] [t]he appellant initially must show ‘some evidence’ that unlawful com-
mand influence occurred.” Id. at 249 (quoting United States v. Stoneman, 57
M.J. 35, 41 (C.A.A.F. 2002)) (additional citation omitted). This initial showing
requires an accused to demonstrate:
(a) facts, which if true, constitute unlawful command influence;
and (b) this unlawful command influence placed an intolerable
strain on the public’s perception of the military justice system
because an objective, disinterested observer, fully informed of all
the facts and circumstances, would harbor a significant doubt
about the fairness of the proceeding.
Id. (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Though the burden of this
threshold showing on an accused is low, the evidence presented must consist
of more than “mere allegation or speculation.” Salyer, 72 M.J. at 423 (citation
omitted).
“Once an appellant presents ‘some evidence’ of unlawful command influ-
ence, the burden then shifts to the government to . . . prov[e] beyond a reason-
able doubt that either the predicate facts proffered by the appellant do not ex-
ist, or the facts as presented do not constitute unlawful command influence.”
Boyce, 76 M.J. at 249 (citing Salyer, 72 M.J. at 423) (additional citation omit-
ted). If the Government fails to rebut the appellant’s factual showing, it may
still prevail if it proves “beyond a reasonable doubt that the unlawful command
influence did not place ‘an intolerable strain’ upon the public’s perception of
the military justice system and that ‘an objective, disinterested observer, fully
informed of all the facts and circumstances, would [not] harbor a significant
22
United States v. Proctor, No. ACM S32554
doubt about the fairness of the proceeding.’” Id. at 249–50 (quoting Salyer, 72
M.J. at 423) (internal quotation marks omitted).
3. Analysis
The military judge found Appellant did not meet his threshold burden to
demonstrate “some evidence” of UCI and denied the motion. Boyce, 76 M.J. at
249. On appeal, Appellant asserts the Defense did present “some evidence” of
at least an appearance of UCI in three respects, specifically: (1) that Lt Col MS
made comments about his “NCO problem” in large part because of Appellant’s
case; (2) that Lt Col MS attempted but failed to distinguish supporting Airmen
from enabling Airmen; and (3) that Lt Col MS told the story about declining to
provide a character letter for an Airman on deployment, because of the duty he
felt to the Air Force and the negative consequences it could have had to his
career. Appellant contends this evidence was a sufficient showing of apparent
adjudicative UCI to shift the burden to the Government, which cannot prove
beyond a reasonable doubt that the appearance did not create an intolerable
strain on the public’s perception of the fairness of the military justice system.
Accordingly, Appellant urges us to set aside and dismiss the findings and sen-
tence.
Although the record is unclear as to the exact words Lt Col MS spoke at the
commander’s call or the message that was conveyed, we find Appellant met his
initial showing of “some evidence” of apparent UCI. See Boyce, 76 M.J. at 249.
Even if we accept the military judge’s factfinding that Lt Col MS did not or-
chestrate a message to discourage members of his squadron from providing
character letters or testifying on Appellant’s behalf as Appellant contends he
did, there is no question Lt Col MS had Appellant in mind when he made his
comments, and members of the squadron who knew Appellant well would rec-
ognize Appellant was among the Airmen who were the focus of his remarks.
The commander’s recitation of the personal story illustrated reasons not to pro-
vide a requested character statement for an Airman facing discipline that was
heavy on repercussions and less so on providing information to assist with dis-
position and discipline of the offender. Lt Col MS knew he was going to reprefer
charges on Appellant when he made his remarks.
Nonetheless, we conclude that the evidence of apparent UCI was rebutted
by the Government’s proof that there was no intolerable strain upon the pub-
lic’s perception of the military justice system beyond a reasonable doubt. The
commander’s call, held over a year before Appellant’s trial, addressed multiple
topics; one of which was NCO misconduct, which the commander spoke about
in general terms without identifying either Appellant, the facts underlying the
investigation of Appellant’s misconduct, or repreferral of charges that would
be forthcoming. While the commander told a personal story about refusing to
write a character letter to an Airman who committed misconduct under his
23
United States v. Proctor, No. ACM S32554
supervision, importantly none of the witnesses testified that they understood
his commander’s call message as one discouraging them from writing character
letters for Appellant.
Although charges were preferred one week after the commander’s call, trial
on the merits was not held until more than a year later. No members of the
squadron testified that Lt Col MS would take any action against them for their
participation in the court-martial, and there is no evidence in the record that
any Airman refused to testify or write a character letter in support of Appellant
for sentencing. There is no evidence that a witness once supportive of Appel-
lant later withdrew or changed any assurance of support. We conclude these
facts demonstrate that the Government met its burden to demonstrate beyond
a reasonable doubt that no fully-informed, disinterested, objective observer
would doubt the fairness of Appellant’s court-martial. Boyce, 76 M.J. at 249–
50 (citation omitted).
III. CONCLUSION
The approved findings and sentence are correct in law and fact, and no er-
ror materially prejudicial to the substantial rights of Appellant occurred. Arti-
cles 59(a) and 66(c), UCMJ, 10 U.S.C. §§ 859(a), 866(c). Accordingly, the find-
ings and the sentence are AFFIRMED.
FOR THE COURT
CAROL K. JOYCE
Clerk of the Court
24
|
package client // import "github.com/docker/docker/client"
import (
"context"
"net/url"
"github.com/docker/docker/api/types"
)
// NodeRemove removes a Node.
func (cli *Client) NodeRemove(ctx context.Context, nodeID string, options types.NodeRemoveOptions) error {
query := url.Values{}
if options.Force {
query.Set("force", "1")
}
resp, err := cli.delete(ctx, "/nodes/"+nodeID, query, nil)
defer ensureReaderClosed(resp)
return wrapResponseError(err, resp, "node", nodeID)
}
|
Q:
Scala Spark type missmatch found Unit, required rdd.RDD
I am reading a table from a MySQL database in a spark project written in scala. It s my first week on it so I am really not so fit. When I am trying to run
val clusters = KMeans.train(parsedData, numClusters, numIterations)
I am getting an error for parsedData that says:"type mismatch; found : org.apache.spark.rdd.RDD[Map[String,Any]] required: org.apache.spark.rdd.RDD[org.apache.spark.mllib.linalg.Vector]"
My parsed data is created above like this:
val parsedData = dataframe_mysql.map(_.getValuesMap[Any](List("name", "event","execution","info"))).collect().foreach(println)
where dataframe_mysql is the whatever is returned from sqlcontext.read.format("jdbc").option(....) function.
How am I supposed to convert my unit to fit the requirements to pass it in the train function?
According to documentation I am supposed to use something like this:
data.map(s => Vectors.dense(s.split(' ').map(_.toDouble))).cache()
Am I supposed to transform my values to double? because when I try to run the command above my project will crash.
thank you!
A:
Remove the trailing .collect().foreach(println). After calling collect, you no longer have an RDD - it just turns into a local collection.
Subsequently, when you call foreach it returns Unit - foreach is for doing side-effects like printing each element in a collection. etc.
|
The comedy film "Muppets Most Wanted" takes the entire Muppets gang on a global tour, selling out grand theaters in some of Europe’s most exciting destinations, including Berlin, Madrid and London. But mayhem follows the Muppets overseas, as they find themselves unwittingly entangled in an international crime caper headed by Constantine — the World’s Number One Criminal and a dead ringer for Kermit — and his dastardly sidekick Dominic, also known as Number Two, portrayed by Ricky Gervais. The film also stars Tina Fey as Nadya, a feisty prison guard, and Ty Burrell as Interpol agent Jean Pierre Napoleon. Here is what Gervais, Fey and Burrell said in interviews at the Los Angeles press junket for "Muppets Most Wanted.'
Getty Images
Interview With Ricky Gervais
How would you describe your role in “Muppets Most Wanted”?
Gervais: It’s about me and Constantine infiltrating those gullible Muppets. And I pretend to think they’re really brilliant. And I want to manage them and take them on a world tour, but really it’s just to get close to things like bank vaults and the crown jewels.
That’s what happens when two master criminals. We [Constantine and I] working together in the movie. In real life, we’re sort of friends. We’re chums. In the movie, we’re sort of at each other’s throats.
How long have you been a fan of the Muppets?
Gervais: I’ve loved the Muppets for about 35 years … But when I met [Constantine], he is now my favorite Muppet of all time and one of my best pals, really. He had a really hard upbringing, born in the pond in Russia, one of eight siblings.
What was your favorite part of filming “Muppets Most Wanted”?
Gervais: My favorite was filming in Pinewood Studios in England. [Constantine] is amazing in the movie. He’s sings, dances, and is a great impressionist …
Just wait for the sequel: “Muppets Least Wanted.” It’s just going to be us two. We’re going to get rid of all the other Muppets.
Interview With Tina Fey
How long have you been a fan of the Muppets?
Fey: I have been a fan of the Muppets since I was a little girl. And then I really like the reboot movie that Disney did a few years ago. I thought it was really good, and I took my daughter to see it, and she really liked it. So I was just thrilled to be asked to continue on the tradition.
How would you describe “Muppets Most Wanted”?
Fey: “Muppets Most Wanted” is kind of a jewel-heist adventure caper. The Muppets get tricked by an evil frog named Constantine, who happens to look a lot like Kermit, except [Constantine] has a mole. He tells them he is Kermit and that he’s going to take them on a world tour, but he’s maybe secretly really robbing all the world’s greatest jewels. Meanwhile, poor Kermit has been put in jail, where Constantine should be, in Russia, and I am in charge of that jail. I portray a woman named Nadya, and I am a Russian Gulag warden.
What was it like for you to sing and dance in “Muppets Most Wanted”?
Fey: It was really fun to sing and dance in the movie. Bret McKenzie writes great songs, and he wrote all the songs from the [previous “Muppets”] movie. And, obviously, he was in Flight of the Conchords and stuff. And they were really fun, catchy songs.
You get to pre-record the songs in the studio, so you get as many tries as you need to get it right. And then they fix it up a little more, and then you get to lip sync when you film it. It’s not so much hard. I’m not an amazing singer, so it was probably harder for Bret to listen to me sing then for me to try to do it.
[Says jokingly] Do you have a crush on Kermit?
Fey: I do. And I was able to channel through my character Nadya and pretend it wasn’t really me who has a crush on Kermit and pretend it was Nadya.
[Says jokingly] Were you worried about getting the wrath of a jealous Miss Piggy?
Fey: Miss Piggy and I shot only one day together, at the very end of the movie, n the roof of the Tower of London. My character enters, and she realizes that Kermit and I know each other, and she did shoot me the hot bacon look of death. Sizzling bacon dagger!
Did you do anything special to prepare for Nadya’s Russian accent?
Fey: I worked with a woman named Jill McCullough who is a dialect coach, who worked with me and Ty [Burrell]. She taught Ty his French dialect. She taught Ricky [Gervais] how to pretend to be English, because Ricky is actually from outer space. [She laughs.]
So I would Skype with her, and she would actually go through the script with me before I went to London. And then when we went to London, she would be on set. She would talk to us in whatever dialect we were supposed to do. She’s a crazy, crazy dialect genius.
What’s your first memory of the Muppets?
Fey: My first memory of the Muppets is Kermit in his reporter’s outfit on “Sesame Street.”
Why should people see “Muppets Most Wanted”?
Fey: I think “Muppets Most Wanted” is a really, really funny movie. It has lots of heart, but it also has lots of great comedy in it. And it has really great music and adventure spirit.
Interview With Ty Burrell
How long have you been a fan of the Muppets?
Burrell: I grew up watching the Muppets. I’m sure it’s subconscious, but I’m sure they had a huge influence on my sense of humor in general. It’s the same creative team as “Sesame Street.” Whatever eccentricities I have are due to the Muppets and “Sesame Street.”
I was really giddy when I got a phone call about this [movie]. I definitely lost all my negotiating power immediately upon receiving this phone call, because I giggled and whooped and said, “It can’t be true!” Like many Americans or people all over the world, it [“The Muppet Show”] was just a huge part of my childhood.
How did you feel about doing a French accent for your role in “Muppets Most Wanted”?
Burrell: Luckily, I was given license for it to be terrible. I was like, “Well, gosh, I haven’t really done a French accent before, but I’m excited about getting a shot to do it. James [Bobin, the director of “Muppets Most Wanted”] was very nice from the very beginning. H just said, “Look, it’s the Muppets. We’re looking for a comedy version of an accent,” which was a huge amount of pressure off.
But I also had a really good dialect coach called Jill McCullough, who was such a good sport and very kind to me as I botched this French accent. And also, I think it was a fun part of the process for me, because our running joke between Jean Pierre and Sam Eagle is that it’s a war of cultures between Europe and America. And the accent just a part of me getting a chance to be extremely smug and very self-righteous.
What did you think of the Sam Eagle character?
Burrell: We got along so well. I didn’t even so well until after the movie, but Sam Eagle is my favorite Muppet. He’ll sneak up on you. He’s that Muppet. There’s Miss Piggy, there’s Kermit, there’s Fozzie Bear. After spending a few months with Sam Eagle, you can’t not love him. He’s grumpy and sarcastic and also has a heart of gold.
What advice would you give to any actor who’s going to do a “Muppets” movie?
Burrell: Don’t be concerned with subtlety. Really, it was just a feeling that there’s nothing that the Muppets can’t hold. You can’t do anything too weird or broad that won’t fit into the Muppets. As long as it’s hopefully funny, which is just an awesome thing. It’s really an incredible thing.
I don’t think “Modern Family” is the most subtle thing ever, but it’s attempting to kept things in the realm of reality. So getting a chance to do something where I’m essentially the closest thing to a Muppet that there is, I am barely a human in this [movie].
What was it like filming the “Interrogation Song” scene?
Burrell: The “Interrogation Song” is basically a patter song. I didn’t have to hit too many notes. You’re welcome, America.
It was challenging because that stuff is very fast and also super-technical. The folks with the Muppets are so used to that. It’s incredible.
They’re the nicest, most patient people. And also, they’re good at it. They’re good at all the technical stuff, working out all the kinks.
They’re used to shoots being long. I was the weak one. I was the one having to down fluids and stretch. I’m so spoiled on my show. But it was a very cool thing. It took a while to make that song, but it was a very cool experience.
What’s your first memory of the Muppets?
Burrell: My first memory of the Muppets is roughly Statler and Waldorf around the opening sequence and hearing my dad laugh at it, which is a cool memory, because there aren’t that many things that you watch with your parents when you’re that age. But hearing my dad laugh at that stuff, it’s a very fond memory.
Can you compare and contrast 2011’s “The Muppets” to 2014’s “Muppets Most Wanted”?
Burrell: I think the reboot was, in a way, perfectly true to the original. And I can’t even put my thumb on it, but there is its own style with what James [Bobin] and Bret McKenzie and what those guys have done with this new iteration. This one [“Muppets Most Wanted”] is an expansion of that. It’s an even bigger iteration of the last one. We’re going all over Europe. It’s an homage to the Muppet caper.
But I just loved the [2011 “Muppets” movie] so much. I paid money to go see that movie with no kids. I just thought it was so funny. I think they are so funny and so smart, but [“Muppets Most Wanted"] also incorporates this huge European tour.
Share this article
Carla Hay has been an entertainment writer or editor at People magazine, Lifetime's website and Billboard magazine. Based in New York City, she is a graduate of Stanford University and the University of Southern California. |
Big Bang experiment may reveal dark universe: CERN
Geneva: Dark matter, which scientists believe makes up 25 percent of the universe but whose existence has never been proven, could be detected by the giant particle collider at CERN, the research center`s head said Monday.
Rolf-Dieter Heuer told a news conference some evidence for the matter may emerge even in the shorter term from mega-power particle collisions aimed at recreating conditions at the "Big Bang" birth of the universe some 13.7 billion years ago.
"We don`t know what dark matter is," said Heuer, Director-General of the European Organization for Nuclear Research on the Swiss-French border near Geneva.
"Our Large Hadron Collider (LHC) could be the first machine to give us insight into the dark universe," he said. "We are opening the door to New Physics, to a discovery period."
Astronomers and physicists say that only 5 percent of the universe is known currently, and that the invisible remainder consists of dark matter and dark energy, which make up some 25 percent and 70 percent, respectively.
"If we can detect and understand dark matter, our knowledge will expand to encompass 30 percent of the universe, a huge step forward," Heuer said.
The LHC, the world`s largest scientific experiment centered in a16.78 mile oval-shaped tunnel deep underground, is presently moving to colliding particles by the end of the month at the highest energy ever achieved.
These multiple collisions at a total of 7 tera-electron volts, or TeV, will each create mini-Big Bangs, producing data that thousands of scientists at CERN and in laboratories around the globe will analyze.
One widely publicized aim of the LHC is to try to find the theoretical particle that gave mass to the matter that spewed out after the primeval explosion and thereby made possible the emergence of stars, planets and eventually life -- on earth and perhaps elsewhere.
The mysterious particle has been dubbed the Higgs boson after the Scottish physicist who three decades ago proposed it to explain the origin of mass in the universe.
"We know everything about this particle. The only thing we don`t know is if it exists," said Heuer, a German physicist who took over at CERN 14 months ago. "And if it does not exist, we are bound to find something that is very much like it."
Once collisions in the LHC are begun at 7 TeV, they will continue with only very brief breaks until the end of 2011, and then the machine will be shut down for a year to prepare it for years more of experiments at 14 TeV. |
Market Segment by Regions (provinces), covering
South China
East China
Southwest China
Northeast China
North China
Central China
Northwest China
Split by product Type, with production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, can be divided into
Portable Water Quality Analyzer
Benchtop Water Quality Analyze
Split by Application, this report focuses on consumption, market share and growth rate of Water Quality Analyzers in each application, can be divided into
Laboratory
Industrial
Government
Table of Contents
China Water Quality Analyzers Market Research Report 2017
1 Water Quality Analyzers Market Overview
1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Water Quality Analyzers
1.2 Water Quality Analyzers Segment by Type
1.2.1 China Production Market Share of Water Quality Analyzers Type in 2015 |
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