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Menstrual Cycle Influences Concussion Outcomes
How well a woman recovers from a concussion may depend on that time of the month.
Researchers found that women injured during the two weeks leading up to their period (the premenstrual phase) had a slower recovery and poorer health one month after injury compared to women injured during the two weeks directly after their period or women taking birth control pills.
The University of Rochester study was published today in the Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation. If confirmed in subsequent research, the findings could alter the treatment and prognosis of women who suffer head injuries from sports, falls, car accidents or combat.
Several recent studies have confirmed what women and their physicians anecdotally have known for years: Women experience greater cognitive decline, poorer reaction times, more headaches, extended periods of depression, longer hospital stays and delayed return-to-work compared to men following Head injury. Such results are particularly pronounced in women of childbearing age; girls who have not started their period and post-menopausal women have outcomes similar to men.
Few studies have explored why such differences occur, but senior author Jeffrey J. Bazarian, M.D., M.P.H.says it stands to reason that sex hormones such as estrogen and progesterone, which are highest in women of childbearing age, may play a role.
"I don't think doctors consider menstrual history when evaluating a patient after a concussion, but maybe we should," noted Bazarian, associate professor of Emergency Medicine at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry who treats patients and conducts research on traumatic brain injury and long-term outcomes among athletes. "By taking into account the stage of their cycle at the time of injury we could better identify patients who might need more aggressive monitoring or treatment. It would also allow us to counsel women that they're more - or less - likely to feel poorly because of their menstrual phase."
Although media coverage tends to focus on concussions in male professional athletes, studies suggest that women have a higher incidence of head injuries than men playing sports with similar rules, such as ice hockey, soccer and basketball. Bazarian estimates that 70 percent of the patients he treats in the URMC Sport Concussion Clinic are young women. He believes the number is so high because they often need more follow-up care. In his experience, soccer is the most common sport leading to head injuries in women, but lacrosse, field hockey, cheerleading, volleyball and basketball can lead to injuries as well.
Sex hormone levels often change after a Head injury, as women who have suffered a concussion and subsequently missed one or more periods can attest. According to Kathleen M. Hoeger, M.D., M.P.H., study co-author and professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, any stressful event, like a hit to the head, can shut down the pituitary gland in the brain, which is the body's hormone generator. If the pituitary doesn't work, the level of estrogen and progesterone would drop quickly.
According to Bazarian, progesterone is known to have a calming effect on the brain and on mood. Knowing this, his team came up with the "withdrawal hypothesis": If a woman suffers a concussion in the premenstrual phase when progesterone levels are naturally high, an abrupt drop in progesterone after injury produces a kind of withdrawal which either contributes to or worsens post concussive symptoms like headache, nausea, dizziness and trouble concentrating. This may be why women recover differently than men, who have low pre-injury levels of the hormone.
Hoeger and Bazarian tested their theory by recruiting144 women ages 18 to 60 who arrived within four hours of a head hit at five emergency departments in upstate New York and one in Pennsylvania. Participants gave blood within six hours of injury and progesterone level determined the menstrual cycle phase at the time of injury. Based on the results, participants fell into three groups: 37 in the premenstrual/high progesterone group; 72 in the low progesterone group (progesterone is low in the two weeks directly after a period); and 35 in the birth control group based on self-reported use.
One month later, women in the premenstrual/high progesterone group were twice as likely to score in a worse percentile on standardized tests that measure concussion recovery and quality of life – as defined by mobility, self-care, usual activity, pain and emotional health – compared to women in the low progesterone group. Women in the premenstrual/high progesterone group also scored the lowest (average 65) on a health rating scale that went from 0, being the worst health imaginable, to 100, being the best. Women in the birth control group had the highest scores (average 77).
"If you get hit when progesterone is high and you experience a steep drop in the hormone, this is what makes you feel lousy and causes symptoms to linger," said Bazarian. "But, if you are injured when progesterone is already low, a hit to the head can't lower it any further, so there is less change in the way you feel."
The team suspected that women taking birth control pills, which contain synthetic hormones that mimic the action of progesterone, would have similar outcomes to women injured in the low progesterone phase of their cycle. As expected, there was no clear difference between these groups, as women taking birth control pills have a constant stream of sex hormones and don't experience a drop following a head hit, so long as they continue to take the pill.
"Women who are very athletic get several benefits from the pill; it protects their bones and keeps their periods predictable," noted Hoeger. "If larger studies confirm our data, this could be one more way in which the pill is helpful in athletic women, especially women who participate in sports like soccer that present lots of opportunities for head injuries."
In addition to determining menstrual cycle phase at the time of injury, Bazarian plans to scrutinize a woman's cycles after injury to make sure they are not disrupted. If they are, the woman should make an appointment with her gynecologist to discuss the change.
The study was funded by the New York State Department of Health, the Academic Health Center Consortium and the Emergency Research Network of the Empire State (ERNIES). ERNIES is supported by the Pilot Research Collaborative Program of the Foundation for Healthy Living, the University of Rochester's Clinical and Translational Science Award, the Upstate New York Translational Research Network (UNYTRN) and the Upstate New York Consortium for Healthcare Research and Quality (UNYCHRQ). University of Rochester medical student and lead author Kathleen Wunderle and doctoral candidate Erin Wasserman contributed to the research.
For Media Inquiries:
Emily Boynton
(585) 273-1757
Email Emily Boynton


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By all the laws of anything, Winston Chen should not have quit his well-paying, midcareer job at a software company at age 40. But one day he was watching a TED Talk, one of those popular online video presentations, delivered by a New York designer.
"He presented this absolutely irresistible idea," Chen says. "He said, 'Why don't we take five years out of retirement and spread them throughout your working life?' "
So Chen told his wife, then 39, about it. At first, convention held them at bay. "We feel the gravitational pull of what you should do as well as anybody," he says.
But two summers ago, they broke that gravitational pull. Chen took his family more than 3,000 miles away from Boston to Rødøy, a small granite island jutting from the Norwegian Sea north of the Arctic Circle. Chen's wife, Kristin Botnen, was born in Norway. But she says the move wasn't about returning home — or leaving home, either.
"For us, this was not an escape. We really liked our lives. But we still wanted a year where we could just do something completely different," she says.
Completely different. Winston and Kristin and their two kids, ages 4 and 6, used the daylight that burns into the wee hours to explore the island of fewer than 200 residents. In their home videos, they discover beaches so pristine, they look tropical — except the water is really cold.
They went out to fish for the big cod that roam the Barents Sea. They made chips by frying fish skin. They picked berries that bulged under the long Arctic sun and plucked eggs from seagull nests to cook for breakfast. It was wild, it was pristine. And then it got dark.
During the deep Arctic winter, the horizon held the sun down for months.
"I say the northern lights are the only consolation for the Arctic winter, which is otherwise dark and stormy and cold," Chen says.
"I don't think the cold got any of us," adds Botnen. "But the darkness — I think that could make any stable soul a little bit shaky."
To keep things stable, Chen mapped out an hourly schedule in a color-coded spreadsheet. It was basically a to-do list for his yearlong early retirement.
"I had oil painting, photography, blogging, learning Norwegian, learning how to play the ukulele, reading long books that I haven't had time to read," Chen explains.
And he also taught himself something new: He wrote an iPhone application that reads text out loud.
"Part of that was occupying my time when it got dark," he says, "so I wrote it without knowing that it would see the light of day."
But it did. Chen posted it on Apple's App Store under the name Voice Dream and people started buying it. Now selling more than 500 copies a week, at $10 each, it's sustaining the family on their return to Boston.
At home in their apartment, Botnen says the app did not make their Arctic adventure. "It's hard to measure success based on the end product," Botnen says, "because the process, and the year that we had, really was a good one."
A good year. A retirement year, inserted into their working ones. One year that helped them find unexpected riches, personal and professional.
Copyright 2013 WBUR

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text: SATA III 6Gb/s SSD230Transcend's SSD230 SATA III 6Gb/s SSD adopts the latest 3D NAND technology that features vertical expansion of storage cells by stacking one cell on top of the other. By using only high-quality flash chips and enhanced firmware algorithms, the SSD230 is guaranteed to deliver greater performance and reliability.3D expansion to break through limitsUnlike the existing planar NAND chips, 3D NAND flash is a type of flash memory in which the memory cells are stacked vertically in multiple layers. 3D NAND is developed to break through density limitations of the 2D planar NAND, and thus can deliver a greater level of performance and endurance.Transfer speed, transfer performanceTranscend's SSD230 is equipped with a DDR3 DRAM cache that provides an incredible 4K random read and write performance of up to 340MB/s, making it the perfect choice as a boot disk for everyday computing tasks and programs. Taking full advantage of the SATA III 6Gb/s interface and built in with SLC caching technology, the SSD230 achieves exceptional transfer speeds of up to 560MB/s read and 520MB/s write.Endurance. Reliability.In addition to blazing-fast transfer speeds, the SSD230 is engineered with a RAID engine and LDPC (Low-Density Parity Check) coding, a powerful ECC algorithm, in order to keep your data secure. Built-in wear-leveling technology ensures data integrity during transmission, prolonging the lifespan of the drive.Save power, save timeWith full support of SATA Device Sleep Mode (DevSleep), the SSD230 can prolong notebook battery life by intelligently shutting down the SATA interface when it is not in use. DevSleep features an ultra-low power state to conserve battery power. With a remarkable response time of less than 20 milliseconds, you can get back to work instantaneously.Take control with SSD ScopeTo keep your Transcend SSD running fast and error-free, Transcend's advanced SSD Scope software application is available for download for use with the SSD230. Monitor your SSD's health status with S.M.A.R.T. technology, enable the TRIM command for optimum write speeds, keep your SSD's firmware up-to-date, and migrate data from your original drive to a new SSD with just a few clicks.Ultra-slim, ultra-portableThe SSD230 features an industry-standard 2.5" form factor. Yet, it measures just 6.8mm in height and weighs in at a mere 63g, making it supremely well-suited for ultra-thin computing devices such as Ultrabooks as well as mainstream PCs.


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Financing Higher Education
On November 8, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed The Higher Education Act of 1965 into law. With a stroke of the pen, he implemented what we know as the financial aid, work study, and student loan programs to help Americans pay for a college education. In his remarks, the President said:
Here the seeds were planted from which grew my firm conviction that for the individual, education is the path to achievement and fulfillment; for the Nation, it is a path to a society that is not only free but civilized; and for the world, it is the path to peace—for it is education that places reason over force.
This Act, he said, "is responsible for funding higher education for millions of Americans. It is the embodiment of the United States' investment in 'human capital'." Since Johnson signed the Act into law, the government has renewed it several times.
The purpose of The Higher Education Act of 1965 was to build the country's human capital by creating educational opportunity for millions of Americans. The three criteria that the government uses to judge eligibility are income, full-time or part-time attendance, and the cost of the institution. According to the 2011–2012 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS:12), in the 2011–2012 school year, over 70% of all full-time college students received some form of federal financial aid; 47% received grants; and another 55% received federal government student loans. The budget to support financial aid has increased not only because of more enrollment, but also because of increased tuition and fees for higher education. The current Trump administration is currently questioning these increases and the entire notion of how the government should deal with higher education. The President and Congress are charged with balancing fiscal responsibility and important government-financed expenditures like investing in human capital.
Introduction to the Impacts of Government Borrowing
In this chapter, you will learn about:
- How Government Borrowing Affects Investment and the Trade Balance
- Fiscal Policy, Investment, and Economic Growth
- How Government Borrowing Affects Private Saving
- Fiscal Policy and the Trade Balance
Governments have many competing demands for financial support. Any spending should be tempered by fiscal responsibility and by looking carefully at the spending's impact. When a government spends more than it collects in taxes, it runs a budget deficit. It then needs to borrow. When government borrowing becomes especially large and sustained, it can substantially reduce the financial capital available to private sector firms, as well as lead to trade imbalances and even financial crises.
The Government Budgets and Fiscal Policy chapter introduced the concepts of deficits and debt, as well as how a government could use fiscal policy to address recession or inflation. This chapter begins by building on the national savings and investment identity, which we first first introduced in The International Trade and Capital Flows chapter, to show how government borrowing affects firms' physical capital investment levels and trade balances. A prolonged period of budget deficits may lead to lower economic growth, in part because the funds that the government borrows to fund its budget deficits are typically no longer available for private investment. Moreover, a sustained pattern of large budget deficits can lead to disruptive economic patterns of high inflation, substantial inflows of financial capital from abroad, plummeting exchange rates, and heavy strains on a country's banking and financial system.


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Focus it the ability to apply yourself to a task without getting distracted. Most people find it difficult to stay focused without getting distracted. People who can sustain their attention for long periods of time score better on a range of cognitive challenges than those who do not. Just like body building, the mind can be strengthened for better attention span through regular mental exercises.
Physical exercise also plays a critical role in oxygenating the brain leading to better attention. Research shows that work productivity and attention to task is sharply increased with regular physical exercise. Its benefits are enhanced when physical exercise is carried out with others rather than alone. Taking part in a well being building program with takeaway activities can assist in developing a consistent team bonding, well being program in the office.
Physical movement or a change of pace plays an important role in keeping energised and focused in meetings and at conferences. Studies also show that immediately after even mild physical activity, problem solving, memory, and attention improve. Astute meeting planners and conference organisers are acutely aware of the critical role of intermittent energising activities to maintaining delegate focus and achieving conference outcomes. Energisers like short, sharp music and rhythm activities bring a total change of pace, invigorating and energising. Well being activities oxygenate the muscles and brain bringing freshness and focus.
Catalyst has a range of energisers and team building programs specifically designed to energise and focus attention. Need help in deciding? Looking for something else? Get in touch.
Look at this selection of related popular programs.
Need help in deciding? Looking for something else?
The Catalyst Teambuilding Model shows how you can elevate a team building program from a reward to an investment in your staff.


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Genetec™, a leading provider of unified IP security solutions and Vidcie, a leading provider of mobile live video streaming services has announced the integration of Vidcie Lookout wearable camera systems with the Genetec unified security platform, Security Centre.
Vidcie on-body cameras provide law enforcement officers and security personnel with on-demand, hands-free live streaming video that can be transmitted from the field over cellular or Wi-Fi networks. When connected to Security Centre, Vidcie cameras extend coverage and add new levels of situational awareness to security operations.
With increased use of wearable cameras by law enforcement and public safety agencies, the integration provides operators with greater awareness of real-time events from agents on patrol, as well as the ability to remotely record video streams from the scene of an incident for evidence. Intelligence built into the Vidcie server software and cameras provides dynamic real-time adaptation of video streams across mobile networks to ensure reliable, low-latency video output for the viewer.
Available in the latest release of Security Centre, the integration allows Vidcie Lookout cameras to be easily enrolled within a Genetec system and seamlessly viewed and recorded alongside other video devices. With the integration of Vidcie cameras in Security Center, organizations can extend their surveillance operations by equipping personnel with wearable, hands-free cameras that offer a first-person point of view, or that can be used as a mobile video device in fixed positions for temporary events that require surveillance. The use of on-body cameras allows law enforcement, emergency response, and corporate security personnel to maintain video communication when either planned or unexpected events go beyond the sight of fixed surveillance perimeters.
"Because Security Centre is based on an open architecture, we are able to forge partnerships with innovative technology developers and integrate new cameras when they are released. With the addition of Vidcie cameras to our ecosystem of partner devices, we can now provide support for purpose-built, wearable cameras for law enforcement, public safety, and corporate organizations that require a mobile, hands-free solution to extend their surveillance operations," said Morgan Pasnon, Senior Technology Alliance Manager at Genetec.
"Vidcie adds real-time point-of-view mobile video to existing fixed surveillance and increases the coverage provided by Genetec Security Centre. Our unique mobile video service enables unprecedented remote visibility and quick, effective situational response by public and private security personnel," said Ron Callison, Director of Channels and Alliances at Vidcie.


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Generations of artisans in Japan have forged and refined their crafts to become the envy of the world. Each of the country's regions are renowned for specific traditions relating to local materials and the natural world in which they are produced. While tourists and design enthusiasts have long acknowledged the unique history and quality of Japanese craftsmanship, very few crafts have made their way outside the country, preventing many from witnessing the quality of Japanese workmanship for themselves.
With the aim of sharing these unseen treasures with the wider world, designers Uwe Röttgen and Katharina Zettl set out to find the finest examples of Japanese craftsmanship, traveling around the country to document the makers, their workshops, and the landscapes that influence them. Craftland Japan is the result of this extraordinary journey into the heart of Japanese culture.
Featuring twenty-five expert artisans, Craftland Japan reveals the techniques and materials that are used to produce a wide variety of beautiful objects, from porcelain bowls to indigo-dyed fabrics to paper. This book is a celebration of how Japan's union of craft, design, materiality, and landscape continue to flourish in contemporary interpretation, however much the world around them has changed.


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Intelligence for Your Life Radio with your host John Tesh. Weeknights @ 9:00 pm
The impetus for "Intelligence for Your Life" was Tesh's wife, actress Connie Sellecca, whose nightstand was covered with issues of Oprah's Magazine, "O". "We wanted to create a show for people like her, who don't have time to read all that, but are interested in being better in everything they do," he says. "There is so much information out there, but not enough information about how to find it, and where to go with it. The idea was to create a business where we could be curators who pick and choose the information that we think our audience would like to hear about. If you couldn't get to those magazines, we, along with the researchers we hired, could do it for you. People have called me the "Oprah of radio", but the difference is that our pieces are sometimes very short, like two minutes, or even 25 seconds—all geared at motivating listeners to move forward…it's all about passion and purpose. If something I share can help save someone's marriage, inspire someone to go to the doctor to get checked out, or spend more time with their kids, I've done my job."


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Renishaw SPRINT contact measurement
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Sprint Blade Application
Global engineering specialist and additive manufacturing champion Renishaw has announced it will be exhibiting its new high-speed contact scanning system for CNC machine tools at Mach 2014.
The show, which takes place from April 7th-11th at the NEC in Birmingham, is a major event in the industry calendar and is the ideal place for the SPRINT system to be demonstrated in front of a discerning audience.
The device incorporates a new generation of on-machine scanning technology that will deliver a step-change in the benefits of process control, allowing for fast and accurate form and profile data capture from both prismatic and complex 3D components.
Drawing on Renishaw's partnerships with major businesses in key industrial sectors, the SPRINT machine tool scanning system has been designed to provide a game-changing capability for high value CNC manufacturing processes.
MACH 2014 visitors will see that for blade manufacture, the SPRINT system provides unprecedented capability for blade tip refurbishment and root blending applications. The high-speed measurement of blade sections coupled with high data integrity (even on leading and trailing edges) ensures the indication of true part condition leading to an adaptive machining capability. Automated routines such as set-up, blade alignment, blade scanning and data collection result in significant accuracy and cycle time improvements over touch-trigger systems.
For multi-task machining applications, the SPRINT machine tool scanning system offers users completely new process control capabilities, including exceptionally repeatable diameter measurement cycles. By employing master part comparison, the SPRINT system becomes an "active" control enabling measure-cut processes to be automated for accurate diameters on large parts. This capability can result in the size of diameters being automatically controlled to within a few microns of tolerance. Measurement functionality such as part run out, machine centreline and circularity, also serves to significantly enhance the manufacturing capability of multi-tasking machine tools.
Additional functionality offered by the SPRINT system provides a rapid health-check of a CNC machine tool's linear and rotary axes in seconds, making it possible to implement a daily machine monitoring regime, with little or no operator involvement.
Each SPRINT application is enabled and supported by a software toolkit package which is dedicated to a specific industrial task, for example, the SPRINT blade toolkit. The toolkits include on-machine data analysis tools which run automatically in-cycle and provide measurement feedback to a CNC machining process.
At the core of the SPRINT system is the revolutionary OSP60 scanning probe. The OSP60 probe has an analogue sensor with 0.1 μm resolution in three dimensions, providing exceptional accuracy and the greatest understanding of workpiece form. The analogue sensor technology in the probe provides a continuous deflection output that is combined with machine position to derive the true location of the part surface. Measuring 1000 true 3D data points per second, the system's superior analytical capabilities provide unparalleled opportunities for workpiece measurement, inspection, adaptive machining and on-machine process control, whilst optimising machine utilisation and cycle time. This new scanning technology opens up new process control methods not previously possible with other measurement methods.
In parallel to extremely fast and accurate 3D measurement the SPRINT scanning system has also been designed to facilitate automated process control with no requirement for operator intervention.
Incorporating multiple patented technologies, the SPRINT system enables unrivalled high-speed, high-accuracy 3D surface data collection through powerful compensation of the static and dynamic volumetric errors that are often associated with high-speed machine movement.
The SPRINT system is a ground-breaking high-speed, high-accuracy tool with an exceptional range of potential applications, enabling a wide range of measurement and process control methods, reducing scrap and rework, while increasing machine capacity by reducing measurement cycle times.


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Whether you are planning a trip or have already booked one, you deserve to know that you are dealing with someone reputable and one that you can rely on every step of the way.
Quality and service go hand-in-hand. Going above and beyond ensure that these two hallmarks are met at every step of your journey.
Finding someone friendly, passionate and who also has extensive firsthand knowledge can help create an unforgettable travel experience. Well, you've come to the right place!
When you compare what you find offered here with what's out there, you'll see that you get more value for your money. It is our belief that a high quality value can be the difference between a good trip and an amazing one.
While on your trip, help is never out of reach. There are multiple ways for you to get in touch and that includes contacting head office.
Travel better with a travel advisor. We are committed to you and you can rely on us to:
Countries and localities may have different policies around COVID-19, which may include vaccination requirements, testing or mandatory quarantines, denying entry to travellers from certain countries and more. Destinations may be open, but attractions may be closed. Hotels may be open, but services may be reduced. We'll work with you every step of the way to take care of details and coordinate all of the components of your trip.
We can share specific measures properties and other travel providers are taking ensure safety while you travel.
Airline, hotel and other travel provider cancellation policies are changing as the situation evolves. We can provide information on those policies and recommend the best options in light of those policies.
We are here to help you through the rebooking or refund process. We can help you decide what options are available to you.
Travel insurance is more important than ever as it can provide an extra level of protection in an uncertain environment. We can recommend a plan that's best suited to your individual needs.
We're here for you before, during and after your trip as your personal advocate to ensure all goes smoothly and safely, and we're ready to jump in to help when needed.
By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from Centre Holidays.


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This original was created by Robert Lyn Nelson at his Maui Hawaii studio. It is a one of a kind piece and available through the artist's studio or one of his authorized dealers.
The image may be offered by the artist as limited edition prints or other products in the future.


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Health Benefits of Pomegranate/ Pomegranate Juice: The Top Ten
1. Antioxidants – These help to wrangle the hoards of free radicals in your system. Free radicals have an uneven number of electrons and like to balance themselves out by stealing from other molecules and cells in your body. These cells are oftentimes very important ones dealing with your DNA, and when they are destroyed, disease steps in. Pomegranate juice is an excellent source of antioxidants that work to help you stay disease-free.
2. Blood Thinner – Pomegranate juice helps your blood circulation, making it easier for blood to travel to your heart, brain, and the rest of your body.
3. Cancer Fighter – Pomegranate has been known to reduce and prohibit the growth of cancer cells and tumors in your body.
4. Digestion Aide – Pomegranate juice is a natural remedy for diarrhea, dysentery, and great number of other digestive problems.
5. Anemia Relief – With a high content of iron, pomegranate juice is a great home cure for anemia because it promotes higher levels of hemoglobin.
6. Anti-Inflammatory – Pomegranate juice has properties that help treat sufferers of arthritis. It can also help cure a cough or sore throat.
7. Neonatal Care – It has been proven that pomegranate juice ingested by pregnant women can help protect the neonatal brain.
8. Artery Protection – It helps keep plaque from building up in your arteries.
9. Cartilage Protection – It works to prevent the deterioration of cartilage in your body.
10. Cholesterol Reducer – Pomegranate juice is capable of lowering blood pressure by as much as 6% in daily drinkers. WWW.RAWFORBEAUTY.COM


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IC1402 Runtime Verification beyond Monitoring (ARVI)
Runtime verification (RV) is a computing analysis paradigm based on observing a system at runtime to check its expected behavior. RV has emerged in recent years as a practical application of formal verification, and a less ad-hoc approach to conventional testing by building monitors from formal specifications.
There is a great potential applicability of RV beyond software reliability, if one allows monitors to interact back with the observed system, and generalizes to new domains beyond computers programs (like hardware, devices, cloud computing and even human centric systems). Given the European leadership in computer based industries, novel applications of RV to these areas can have an enormous impact in terms of the new class of designs enabled and their reliability and cost effectiveness.
Duration: 1-3-2015 to 16-12-2018
EU COST Action IC1402 — project overview at the EU web-site.


text: The Biju Patnaik University of Technology ( BPUT ), Orissa, with its head-quarters in Rourkela came into being in November 2002 through an act of the Government. The main objective of instituting the University was to ensure a high quality of students coming out of the technical colleges through a common curriculum and uniform evaluation. Today, the University has 137 colleges, both constituent and affiliated, with around 100,000 students. The disciplines include engineering and architecture, business management, computer studies and pharmacy. Several of these offer both undergraduate and post graduate studies.


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The built in web search in Apple Mac Safari 2 & 3 web browsers leaves much to be desired in comparison to Firefox 2.0 ( or the new Firefox 3 Betas). This is where a nice little addon called Inquisitor brings in the much needed parity for Apple's Safari web browser. When compared to Firefox's (v2.0) built in search Apple Safari 2.0 and the Safari 3.1 lacks 2 very important features :
- Safari does not allow search engine customization. Only Google search can be used.
- Safari cannot provide live search suggestions like Firefox 2.0/3.0
Get Inquisitor 3 from the developer's site located here [external link]. The developer has made Inquisitor freely available. The developer's web page has link to PayPal for donation.
Installing/Uninstalling Inquisitor 3
Installation is pretty straight forward. The downloaded dmg file contains a installation app. Just execute the app and restart Safari. Inquisitor 3 now also works on OSX 10.5 (Leopard).Inquisitor, does not install in the Application folder, so in case you want to uninstall Inquisitor, you can use the same Install app – which gives an option for uninstalling Inquisitor 3.
Getting Started with Inquisitor 3
Once Inquisitor is installed and Safari is restarted, just try a web search on the Apple Safari's search box on the top right hand corner. I just typed "Gone With the Wind". Pronto, a beautiful pop up appears below the Safari search box with 3 site suggestions and some keyword suggestions. Inquisitor can use both Google or Yahoo to provide search suggestions. Check out the screenshot below. The way the search suggestion are displayed give Safari one up on Firefox 2.0. This looks so beautiful, so very Apple like.
Inquisitor default provides only Google search. New search engines can be easily added from the Inquisitor preference pane located inside the Safari preference pane. I quickly added Yahoo, IMDb and Wikipedia search for the predefined filters already provide by Inquisitor. For each search engine, I was required to provide a keyboard shortcut. All these were done in less than a minute. Inquisitor also allows adding on custom search engine. In my case I added Ask.com by adding the search url- http://www.ask.com/web?q=%@ .
Inquisitor 3 provides some basic configuring options. It also allows previous search history to be used to refine suggestions. With Inquisitor switching the search engine is not easy as in Firefox. The way it works i that the user is required to assign a unique keyboard short cut for each search engine selected. After the user types the search term in the search box, the appropriate shortcut keys needs to be pressed. By default, pressing enter/return results in Google search being used. In the screenshots above, I have assigned Cmd+Y for Yahoo search, Cmd+W for Wikipedia. If someone uses many different search engines, it will be a pain to remember keyboard shortcuts assigned to each search engine.
A work around for it is that as soon as the search key work is typed, wait for the pop-up to appear below the web search box (see screenshot on the left). Here there will be a list of search engines configured, use the mouse to click on the search engine you want to use for this search.
Conclusion & Recommendation
Overall, Inquisitor 3 is an excellent and high quality addon for Apple Safari web browser. It enhances the user experience on Safari web browser in a very neat way. Users should at least give Inquisitor 3 a try.
The reader should also check out the review of Acid Search addon for Apple Safari browser. Like Inquisitor, Acid Search allows customization of search engine in Safari, but cannot do search suggestion.
Test Setup Used for this review:
- Safari 2.0.4 (419.3) Mac OSX Version 10.4.8 (Tiger), iMac 20′ with Intel Core Duo (Early 2006)
- Safari 3.1 (5525.13) Mac OSX Version10.5.2 (Leopard), iMac 20′ with Intel Core Duo (Early 2006)


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CANCUN, Mexico — Security researchers need to shift their attention away from hunting for vulnerabilities and start thinking about ways to make it difficult to create exploits, according to a security expert from Adobe.
There is too much focus on vulnerabilities and defects in software, Brad Arkin, director of product security and privacy at Adobe, said in his keynote speech at the Kaspersky Lab Security Analyst Summit Feb. 2. Instead of vulnerabilities, security researchers should be thinking about how to make it too expensive to target those applications, Arkin said.
Security researchers are typically involved in offensive research, and often provide enough information or a proof-of-concept that makes it easier for attackers interested in developing an exploit, Arkin said. Once the research is published or presented at a conference, the information is readily available without the attacker having to invest in original research. Tweaks to an existing exploit result in malware variants.
If you publish a paper about a new technique, a previously hard technique becomes easy, Arkin said.
To illustrate his point, Arkin discussed the recently disclosed and patched zero-day vulnerability in Adobe Reader. Attacks that exploited that flaw were extremely focused on defense industrial base firms. Fewer than 20 machines, spread across a number of defense companies were targeted in the attacks, according to Arkin.
Despite the sophisticated nature of the attack, the attackers took a shortcut to create the exploit. The zero-day vulnerability was exploited using a three-year-old proof-of-concept code written by a security researcher, according to Arkin. The exploit was publicly available so they didn't have to figure out how to use the vulnerability.
"The skill of writing something first is very high, but it is far easier to adapt an existing code sample, Arkin said.
Arkin was not telling the security researchers in the audience that they shouldn't discuss their discoveries. However, he felt they should stop to consider that cyber-criminals treat the publicly disclosed exploits as free R&D for their purposes.
Offensive researchers need to consider the consequences of what happens once an exploit or technique gets out there, Arkin said.
Arkin said in a perfect world, people would disclose vulnerabilities to only people who would never do anything malicious with the information. However, as this isn't the perfect world, researchers should err on the side of caution and consider how they disclose the information, he said.
Instead of finding new offensive techniques, it is far more valuable to find ways to make it harder to attack vulnerabilities, according to Arkin.
Recent security innovations, such as address space layout randomization and data execution prevention, have been instrumental in driving up the cost of attacking products that use them, Arkin said.
For example, Arkin noted that the exploit that targeted defense companies in the recent attack was blocked in Acrobat and Reader X, which had the Protected Mode sandbox. Adobe had to rush out an out-of-band patch for Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.x for Windows because that version did not have the protection technology built-in. The vulnerability in Reader and Acrobat X for Windows was patched as part of Adobe's scheduled update in January.
Adobe's goal is not to try to address every vulnerability discovered in the software, but to make it harder to drive up the cost of writing exploits by investing in mitigation technologies. Only about two-dozen vulnerabilities in Adobe products identified in the past two years have actually been matched with exploit code, Arkin said.
Finding a bug is fairly straightforward, writing an exploit is harder, and writing a reliable exploit that works all the time is even harder, Arkin said.
Arkin noted that whenever an exploit module is added to the Metasploit penetration-testing suite, attacks targeting that vulnerability skyrocket. There's a clear correlation between the public release of information and people getting attacked, Arkin said.
To read the original eWeek article, click here: Researchers Need to Focus on Defenses, Not Bug Hunting: Adobe


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According to the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, more than 200 million Americans suffer from some degree of inflammation of the gums. Over the past decade, researchers have published studies that link the bacteria involved in periodontal disease to cardiovascular disease. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have connected oral infections to heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and low birth weights.
Studies suggest bacteria that cause periodontal disease are also responsible for causing a thickening of the carotid arteries, which increases the chance of a heart attack or stroke. Further research is being conducted to understand the link between oral health and heart disease better.
What is periodontal (gum) disease?
our doctors and our team at Oak Grove Dentistry hear this question all the time. Periodontal disease is an infection. Our mouths are filled with bacteria, and this bacteria forms plaque. If the plaque is not removed through brushing, flossing, and regular cleanings at the dentist, it hardens into tartar. If gingivitis (gum inflammation) is not treated early, it can advance to periodontitis. Bacteria get under the gum tissue and erode it as well as the bone that supports the teeth. The gums eventually pull away from the teeth, and infected pockets form.
Proving that periodontal gum disease is connected to heart disease has been difficult for researchers. However, there are two theories about to what might connect the processes.
- Bacteria are released in the bloodstream through chewing and tooth brushing. The same species of bacteria that causes gum disease has been discovered in the plaque in arteries in the heart.
- Inflammation in the mouth is a catalyst for inflammation throughout the rest of the body.
Practice good oral health habits
While the link between periodontitis and heart disease is not yet fully understood, you can prevent the possibility of health complications by practicing good oral health. It's recommended that you brush and floss twice a day, as well as visit your dentist twice a year for a cleaning and exam. Oral health should not be taken for granted. By preventing oral diseases, you're also minimizing the risk of having a heart attack or stroke.
To learn more about the connection between heart disease and oral health, or to schedule an appointment with our doctors, please give us a call at our convenient Green Bay office! A clean mouth leads to a happy heart!


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The Republicans used to routinely win Presidential elections. Now the party will have to have a fundamental rethink if it is to win again. The central key to Republican dominance a generation ago was race and demography. The same factors are now the key barrier to the party winning again, argues Sunder Katwala.
The race for the White House in 2012 offers a striking example of a major western election in which a party has destroyed its own prospects of power by going too tough on immigration, by being perceived to adopt so hard a tone on the issue that it has toxified the party brand, particularly with Hispanic voters, who are the fastest-growing section of the electorate, but also with voters under 35 more generally, particularly graduates.
White voters remain by far the largest group of voters, but they are falling, election on election, as a proportion of the overall electorate.
Mitt Romney did more than enough last night to win the 1988 or 1992 Presidential elections – by taking 6 out of 10 white voters last night
In 1992, 6 out of 10 white voters would have given the Republican candidate a majority of all Americans: because 87 per cent of the electorate in 1992 was white, six out of ten white voters would have made up 52.2 per cent of all of those who voted.
If you could only take Romney back two decades and he had enough white voters to win the election, without the need to win a single non-white, Hispanic or black voter at all. But fast forward a quarter of a century, and the Republicans are still campaigning like it is 1988, in an America that looks and so votes rather differently.
Meanwhile, in 2012, only 72 per cent of the electorate is white. It is decreasingly likely that any candidate will ever win a majority of the electorate based on support from white voters alone. That would now take not just six in ten, but seven in ten white voters last night, a feat beyond any candidate in any imaginable competitive US national election.
So the Democrats ought to worry that Barack Obama's share of the white vote fell from 44 per cent in 2008 to 39 per cent according to exit polls this time. But the reason as few as four out of ten white votes were enough for the Democrats is that the Republicans are so bunkered in with non-white voters. As the Hispanic share of the electorate rose again from nine per cent to 10 per cent, the Republican share fell to 29 per cent from the peak of 40 per cent won by George W Bush in 2004, and a worse performance again than the 31 per cent of John McCain in 1988. That cost them Colorado, Nevada and Virginia last night – and kept Florida on a knife-edge again – helping to close off any viable route to the White House through the electoral college. As authoritative analysis of the Latino vote from America's Voice shows, it is hard to see any future Republican majority without addressing this issue head-on. Yet this is just the latest twist in how the ability to appeal to shifting demographic coalitions has reshaped the American political contest and the fortunes of the major political parties.
This 2012 defeat means that the Republicans have now lost the popular vote in five of the last six elections since the end of the Cold War, excepting George W Bush's re-election as a war President in 2004, though they also took the White House by splitting both the electoral college and the Supreme Court down the middle in 2000. The popular vote tallies show again that this has been a closely contested electoral era – a story of the 50:50 nation, split down the middle between red and blue states, so that all eyes so often turn every four years to Ohio and Florida – and yet the fundamentals underpinning that contest have been gradually shifting against the Republicans, unable to unseat a President with economic and jobs data which, historically, has signaled defeat rather than victory.
Yet the Republicans had won five out of the six Presidential elections before that, only losing one of the contests from 1968 to 1988 (and fairly narrowly) in the wake of Nixon's disgrace over Watergate. From 1968, the Republicans benefitted from a kaleidoscope shift in electoral politics because of race and civil rights. They may have been the party of Abraham Lincoln, but it was Democrat LBJ who signed the civil rights act in 1964. It was the greatest single peacetime political achievement in recent US democratic history, and the President's party paid a high price for it.
"There goes the south for a generation", LBJ said as he signed the Civil Rights Bill into law. And he was right. 1964 was the last year that any Democratic Presidential candidate won a majority of white voters, because the opportunity to appeal to the southern Democratic base was skillfully exploited by Richard Nixon, with an appeal to the "silent majority" and a "piano strategy" of appealing to the grievances of white southerners to build a new dominant Presidential coalition.
Many of the same themes were still at play, and effective, during the brutal electoral mugging of Michael Dukakis in 1988. The Democrats' large lead at the time of the conventions eviscerated by Lee Atwater's campaign which successfully portrayed him as weak, soft on crime and too liberal on welfare and tax, with some emotionally resonant appeals to fear, in the infamous Willie Horton advertisement, and grievances, over affirmative action, politics to make the point resonate. Sixty nine per cent of the Hispanic vote for Michael Dukakis couldn't save him from defeat.
But there is nothing inevitable about the Republican party suffering from these demographic shifts. "Demographics is destiny" does not make any sense in politics. What matters is what choices the parties make to respond – just as they have to an expanded franchise, shifting levels of education, and the changing social role of women in the past.
Republican strategists of the Reagan era talked about the question of whether Hispanic voters become like Italian-Americans – so that voting patterns converge on those of the broader electorate, perhaps with conservative social values or pro-business instincts coming to the fore – or like Afro-Caribbeans, where there remains a strong sense of group identity and very distinctive (pro-Democrat) voting behavior.
George W Bush, with a message of "compassionate conservatism" and supporting bipartisan immigration reform including regularization of the undocumented, followed the Reagan strategy – and won 40 per cent too of Hispanic votes in 2004. Everything that that the Republicans have said and done about immigration since 2008 has created more cohesive, and anti-Republican, voting patterns – making the Hispanic vote look less Italian, and more similar to black voting.
British Conservatives face a similar, if less intense, problem than the Republicans – winning just 16 per cent of non-white voters, compared to 37 per cent of white voters, in the 2010 election – and so should now understand the Republican failure with Hispanic voters as an object lesson in what not to do. The US experience strengthens the warnings from influential thinkers such as Paul Goodman, co-editor of ConservativeHome, that "On present voting trends, the party is facing demographic marginalization", based on the evidence on British attitudes among non-white voters compiled by Michael Ashcroft. Britain has changed since the last Tory majority victory in 1992, and the failure to win a majority in 2010 was partly a failure to adapt the right's strategy sufficiently to keep pace with it.
Tory strategists are aware of the need to avoid the same pitfalls as the US right, and are studying how the Canadian Conservatives have also made enormous inroads into traditionally Liberal minority communities, and won a majority as a result. Yet there are bound to be pressures from the growth of UKIP in the run-up to 2014 which could lead them into the same trap as the US right, as long as the need to deal with potential defectors from the anxious right flank is not balanced in the party's internal discussions by the need to reach out to those who were not persuaded in 2010.
In the States, the next generation of Republicans, especially Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush, may need to have quite an argument with the party base over how to take the Republicans out of the bunker of demographic decline. Immigration reform and the "Dreamer generation" of those who were born and bred in America is likely to become a symbolic touchstone. It could split the US right for a generation. Their best argument will be to use the examples of Reagan and Bush to persuade the party that it could retain its values – and compete to get elected in the United States of America of this century as well.
Sunder Katwala
This article was first published by the New Statesman.


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MIG Welding 101 at HIVE13 this weekend
By jim on
nRyan 2.0 (a.k.a. Ryan Hesse) will finish his summer co-op term at GE here in Cincinnati and will return to Montana next week. Before he goes, he will follow through and conduct four MIG welding classes at HIVE13 this weekend.nnFriday, August 9 from 7:30pm to 9:30pm (limit 6 hands-on students)nnSaturday, August 10 from 12:00 noon to 2:00pm (limit 6 hands-on students)nnSaturday, August 10 from 3:00pm to 5:00pm (limit 6 hands-on students)nnSunday, August 11 from 2:00pm to 4:00pm (limit 6 hands-on students)nnClasses are $15.00 each for Elite and non-members, and $5.00 for Full and Student members collected at the door. The fees cover material costs. Classes are limited to six hands-on participants in each session, first come first served. An EventBrite (click here) has been created to reserve class seats. Fees will be collected at the door.nnn


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Emerging from self-imposed political retreat since stepping down in January, former City Councilor Kendra Hamilton has added her voice to the growing calls to reconsider the Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority's plan to build a $143 million mega-reservoir/pipeline system without first exploring dredging, and City Council seemed to listen. On Monday, June 2, they voted unanimously to demand a dredging study.
"I believe the citizens are being asked to pay for a pig in a poke," Hamilton writes in her an open letter [full text RTF] dated May 31, "and I have to speak out."
Like fellow ex-Councilor Kevin Lynch, who has become a leader in questioning the official water wisdom, Hamilton now says she was duped when she voted for the scheme. Last November, while still on Council, the two began suggesting that dredging the Rivanna Reservoir should be much more than the mere "maintenance" strategy now receiving lip service from various pipeline-supporting officials suddenly confronted with unsolicited offers roughly a tenth of the nearly $225 million that the Authority's embattled experts claim dredging would cost.
"There is no way that I would have supported the current water supply strategy without significant changes had I been aware of those numbers," Hamilton writes.
And in a subtle dig at City Manager/Rivanna Authority board member Gary O'Connell, who has steadfastly pursued the pipeline/reservoir strategy on various boards (including the Airport Authority, which has been blasted for failing to explore the use of dredged spoils for a runway expansion), Hamilton points out his latest role: his administration handed City Council a draft resolution that attempts to shut down any consideration of the dredging concept.
"The latest information," Hamilton writes, "indicates that we do have a choice, and that staff is seeking to nullify that choice before Council has an opportunity to fully consider the options."
City officials wanted options. Before a near-capacity crowd in Council chambers Monday night, Mayor Dave Norris offered his dredging amendment, the first official action suggesting that local officials may have been presented a bogus view of dredging by Gannett Fleming, the Pennsylvania firm hired in 2003 to carry out various water supply strategies including a pilot dredging program. With the approval of the Authority board, the company quickly consumed its initial $800,000 fee and will have soon racked up billings of about $5.5 million-- including $3.1 million for designing a dam that critics contend isn't needed.
In recent days, Gannett Fleming's scheme to put a reservoir on both sides of Interstate Highway 64 has been called into question by cost and environmental concerns. And as reported by the Hook last week, contrary to myriad claims by officials that they have a 50-year-plan, no such document has been filed with the state, which must review all water conservation plans. The resolution passed by Council appears to acknowledge the omission by calling on the Rivanna Authority to more fully explore conservation.
The Council heard from worried water user Naomi Roberts, who urged Council not to embark on measures that would drive up her rates and force her from her home. Anoher citizen, a new arrival from Hawaii named Brian Sousa, noted that City Council's so-called "Vision 2025" calls for the City to be a leader in "innovation, environmental sustainability, and social and economic justice."
Economic justice resonates with Councilor Holly Edwards, who often enlivens dry council meetings with literary allusions. "It's a sin to kill a mockingbird," said Edwards. "The mockingbird is the oridinary people who work, go home, and pay the bills and might not even know this conversation is going on."
Authority director Tom Frederick hailed Council's resolution-- which continues to endorse the vast new reservoir and pipeline-- as a victory, calling it a "strong validation" of the process. O'Connell agrees.
"The votes of four public bodies in favor of the plan including the previous City Council, the environmental community's support of the plan, and the turn-out in support of the plan at the recent public hearing obviously demonstrate support for the plan," O'Connell writes in an email, "that goes well beyond the staff."
But "staff" earned a pre-meeting rebuke from Hamilton.
"Staff has been driving the bus on this one," Hamilton writes. "City Council is supposed to have full access to the information. We're not like PR to support their proposals. Four years from now," she says, "Gary will be retired and on a golf course somewhere when those rates go up, and a howl will be heard from here to Richmond."
Hey, Where did all the comments that were made to this same story in slightly different form go? Public comment is a good thing, and a big chunk of that seems to have disappeared.
They're all right here: http://readthehook.com/blog/index.php/2008/06/01/hamilton-reject-pig-in-a-poke-water-scheme/ which is the *preliminary* online version of this story. (We've since stopped this bad practice of duplicating stories.)


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Distinctive baby powder container with a spoon
A great container perfect for taking with you on the road and for travels. Very good sealing capabilities to safely store baby formulas. Avoid moisture and safely store baby food for longer periods of time.
Baby formula container specifications
Container features
Includes a built-in leveler to scoop every spoon of milk powder more accurately with the scraper. The embedded siliconу ring inside tightly covers the seal, ensuring the formula or baby food is kept fresh and clean.
Container details
Safe PP material, BPA free, environmentally friendly and tasteless, suitable for moist-heat sterilization. Easy to carry in hand and bags. Size: 5.1" x 4.3". Capacity: 7.8 fl oz.
Cute looking baby powder container
Make sure your baby is always ready to be fed by bringing this portable baby formula container with you wherever you go. Incredibly convenient to carry with you in a purse, bag or even by its handle. Comes with a spoon to conveniently feed your baby. Completely safe and a perfect gift for families with newborn babies.


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Alex Constantine - August 27, 2008
By James Petras
August 27th, 2008
In recent days there is mounting evidence of the advance of totalitarianism in the political and media mainstream. The entire Western world, led by the United States, has embraced a Georgian regime, which invaded South Ossetia totally demolishing its capital city of 50,000 residents, assassinated 1500 men, women and children and dozens of Russian peace keepers. The US has mobilized a naval and air armada off the Iranian coast, prepared to annihilate a country of 70 million people. The New York Times published an essay by a prominent Israeli historian, which advocates the nuclear incineration of Iran. All the major mass media have mounted a systematic propaganda campaign against China, supporting each and every terrorist and separatist group, and whipping up public opinion in favor of launching a New Cold War. There is little doubt that this new wave of imperial aggression and bellicose rhetoric is meant to deflect domestic discontent and distract public opinion from the deepening economic crises.
The Financial Times (FT), once the liberal, enlightened voice of the financial elite (in contrast to the aggressively neo-conservative Wall Street Journal) has yielded to the totalitarian-militarist temptation. The feature article of the weekend supplement of August 16/17, 2008 — "The Face of 9/11" — embraces the forced confession of a 9/11 suspect elicited through 5 years of hideous torture in the confines of secret prisons. To make their case, the FT published a half-page blow-up photo first circulated by former CIA director George Tenet, which presents a bound, disheveled, dazed, hairy ape-like prisoner. The text of the writer, one Demetri Sevastopulo, admits as much: The FT owns up to being a propaganda vehicle for a CIA program to discredit the suspect while he stands trial based on confessions obtained through torture.
From beginning to end, the article categorically states that the principle defendant, Khalet Sheikh Mohammed, is the "self-confessed mastermind of the September 11 attacks on the US." The first half of the article is full of trivia, designed to provide a human-interest feel to the courtroom and the proceedings — a bizarre mixture discussing Khaled's nose to the size of the courtroom.
The central point of departure for the FT's conviction of the suspect is Khaled's confession, his 'desire for martyrdom', his assumption of his own defense and his reciting the Koran. The crucial piece of the Government's case is Khaled's confession. All the other 'evidence' was circumstantial, hearsay and based on inferences derived from Khaled's attendance at overseas meetings.
The FT's principle source of information, an anonymous informant "familiar with the CIA interrogation program" states categorically two crucial facts: 1. How little the CIA had known about him before his arrest (my emphasis) and (2) that Khaled held out longer than the others.
In other words, the CIA's only real evidence was extracted by torture (the CIA admitted to 'water boarding' — an infamous torture technique inducing near death from drowning). The fact that Khaled repeatedly denied the accusations and that he only confessed after 5 years of torture in secret prisons renders the entire prosecution a case study in totalitarian jurisprudence. Having been subjected to unspeakable torture by US judicial investigators, facing accusations based on a confession extracted through torture, it is no wonder that Khaled refused a court appointed military lawyer — a lawyer who is part of a system of secret prisons, torture and 'show trials'. Rather than portray Khaled as a fanatic seeking martyrdom for rejecting a lawyer, we must recognize that he is completely in his right mind to at least preserve the limited space and time allocated to him to state his beliefs and to relate his willingness to die for those beliefs. Confessions extracted from torture, have no validity in any court, especially after 5 years of solitary confinement. What the FT calls "the super terrorist" based on his stated "desire for martyrdom" is the admission of an individual who has suffered beyond human endurance and looks to death to end his horrible sub-human existence.
The FT's embrace of the CIA and military's coerced evidence and therefore their use of torture, puts them squarely in the camp of the totalitarian state. The right-turn of the FT mirrors the European turn toward US military confrontation with Russia, and the military build-up in Poland, the Czech Republic, Kosova, Iraq and Georgia. The FT by legitimizing torture has opened the door to making totalitarian judicial practices, arbitrary arrests, secret prisons, prolonged solitary confinement, torture, show trials and cover-up feature stories part of normal Western political life. Genteel British fascism is no less ugly than its blustery US version.
James Petras, a former Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York, owns a 50-year membership in the class struggle, is an adviser to the landless and jobless in Brazil and Argentina, and is co-author of Globalization Unmasked (Zed Books). Petras' forthcoming book, Zionism, Militarism and the Decline of US Power, is due from Clarity Press, Atlanta, in August 2008. He can be reached at: firstname.lastname@example.com. Read other articles by James, or visit James's website.


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Ron is now in hospice. On heavy pain meds, he mostly sleeps, but at times wakes up and is able to speak. The women taking (excellent!) care of him are Spanish-speaking, and he has begun to volunteer quite a few Spanish words and phrases, which delights them. Still enjoys eating--his meals are homemade and puréed. We think he would approve of the residence--a ranch house on a dusty road out in the country (fortunately only six miles from our house) with chickens out back and a Fresh Eggs sign on the front fence. Our children and me, though sad beyond words, are utterly relieved that he is in a safe place and not in pain. He wrote of our son on his blog--they were reunited for a few days and got to speak with one another.
Love to all of Ron's friends from Ron and his family.
Ron Scheer's blog is called BUDDIES IN THE SADDLE and is a compendium
of information about Ron's favorite topic and you can guess what it is.
He is also the author of several books about early Western novels.
Sorry to dispense so much sad news. Life is just too hard some days.
Sorry to dispense so much sad news. Life is just too hard some days.


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Mandy Collins lives in Little Mountain, S.C., with her husband and three kids. The 38-year-old never owned a gun before. Her husband doesn't have one either. But after the pandemic hit, she spent $450 on a powerful handgun.
"With all the toilet paper gone and everything, people just started acting crazy," she says. "I guess the fear of the unknown and letting prisoners out of prison, and I just ... decided I wanted to go ahead and just purchase one."
Some states have released prisoners for home detention amid the pandemic who are near the end of their sentences, who are older or who are deemed not dangerous.
"After seeing all the riots and the lack of arrests," Collins says that too made her happy she'd bought the gun. "I am so glad I did."
National protests about police brutality and racial justice have remained largely peaceful.
Fears over the pandemic and protests are driving millions of Americans to buy guns at a record pace. And nearly half of them appear to be first-time gun owners.
David Chipman is a former special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives who is now with Giffords, a gun violence prevention group. The U.S. hit a monthly record for gun sales in March after the virus outbreak, he says.
"You can see again on May 25, when George Floyd was murdered and then the lawful protests and the looting and rioting that followed as well, again saw an enormous spike in gun sales," he says.
Chipman says that lasted all the way through June.
The government doesn't track firearms sales, but it does track background checks that are required to buy guns from licensed dealers. For handguns in June, those were nearly three times higher than a year earlier.
Phillip Levine is an economist and professor at Wellesley College who just co-wrote a reportlooking at gun permit data and Google searches. "The search term 'buy gun' is a really good indicator of gun sales," he says.
Levine estimates that, so far, about 3 million more guns than usual have been sold since the pandemic started.
He also looked at other Google searches that contained racist language. And in his analysis racial tensions are driving at least some of the surge in sales.
The gun industry disputes that.
"I would reject the premise that people who are buying firearms are doing so because they're racist," says Lawrence Keane, the general counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a gun industry trade group.
He says people are buying guns because all the uncertainty and unrest has them concerned about their safety.
Usually, when gun sales spike it's because an event such as a school shooting is seen to make gun control laws more likely. And it's gun enthusiasts, people who already own guns, who are going out and buying more.
But something different is happening now. "We've surveyed retailers who tell us that about 40% of their customers are first-time buyers," Keane says.
Michael Weeks, the owner of the Georgia Gun Store in Gainesville, says from what he's seeing, "most of it is new gun owners." He says he's not doing much business with people who already own guns. And he says his new customers are people of all different races and income levels.
"We see a wide diversity of people come to the door," he says. "It's all over the board."
Kevin Cummins, who runs Advantage Firearms Education and Training in St. Louis, says he's seeing all kinds of people showing up to take classes.
A hospital nurse was a recent customer. "She had just recently purchased a firearm and did not know how to load the firearm, didn't know anything about it, was scared to death of it," Cummins says.
Millions of people suddenly owning a gun for the first time has Chipman, the former ATF agent, worried that many won't get proper training. He says previous spikes in gun sales have resulted in more accidental deaths — including children.
And he says people shouldn't be brandishing and waving guns around like he sees in YouTube videos. He says that can provoke violence. "I was taught that you don't pull your gun unless you intend to use it."
Even though Cummins runs a firearms school, he tells people that before getting a gun, they should get a can of pepper gel. That's similar to pepper spray but it won't blow back in your face. Cummins is also a lieutenant at a local police department.
He says "95% of the situations people are going to encounter with crime do not warrant the use of a firearm." So Cummins says to protect yourself, pepper gel is almost always "a much better tool than a firearm."
Still, the industry group says 2020 is on track to be the biggest year ever for gun sales in America.
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


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What are Drug Reactions
What is an adverse drug reaction?
Medicines can treat or prevent illness and disease. However, sometimes medicines can cause problems. These problems are called adverse drug reactions. You should know what to do if you think that you or someone you take care of is having an adverse drug reaction.
Can adverse drug reactions happen to everyone?
Yes. Anybody can have an adverse drug reaction. However, people who take more than 3 medicines every day are more likely to have an adverse drug reaction. One medicine might cause an adverse reaction if it's taken with another medicine.
One way to reduce your chances of having an adverse drug reaction is to work with your doctor to limit the number of medicines you take. Tell your doctor about all of the medicines you're taking, even if you only take something for a short time. You may also want to use only one drugstore or pharmacy so your pharmacists get to know you and the medicines you take. Pharmacists are trained to look at the medicines you're taking to see whether they might cause an adverse drug reaction.
Are prescription medicines the only cause of adverse reactions?
No. Even medicines that you don't need a prescription to buy (called over-the-counter medicines) can interact with each other or with prescription drugs and cause problems. Supplements, herbal products in teas or tablets, or vitamins may also cause adverse reactions when taken with certain drugs. Be sure to tell your doctor and pharmacist if you're using any of these products.
Some types of food may also cause adverse drug reactions. For example, grapefruit and grapefruit juice, as well as alcohol and caffeine, may affect how drugs work. Every time your doctor prescribes a new drug, ask about possible interactions with any foods or beverages.
What about medicines I've used in the past?
You might be tempted to save money by taking old medicines that you've used before. However, it's likely that you are taking different medicines now than you were when you were taking the old drug. Even though you didn't have an adverse reaction with the old medicine before, you might have a bad reaction when you take it with the medicines you're taking now.
Is it safe to use a friend or relative's medicine?
No. Using medicines that were prescribed for a friend or relative can cause problems and might lead to adverse drug reactions because:
To be safe, never share medicines.
- Your doctor prescribes medicine according to your size, gender and age. The wrong amount of medicine may cause adverse reactions.
- The medicines you're taking are probably different from the medicines the other person takes. This different combination of drugs may also cause an adverse reaction.
- You might react differently to the medicine than the other person did.
How will I know I'm having an adverse drug reaction?
When you're taking any medicine, it's important to be aware of any change in your body. Tell your doctor if something unusual happens.
It may be hard to know if an adverse reaction is caused by your illness or by your medicine. Tell your doctor when your symptoms started and whether they are different from other symptoms you have had from an illness. Be sure to remind your doctor of all the medicines you are taking. The following are some adverse drug reactions that you might notice:
The following are some adverse reactions your doctor might notice during a check-up:
- Skin rash
- Easy bruising
- Bleeding
- Severe nausea and vomiting
- Diarrhea
- Constipation
- Confusion
- Breathing difficulties
- Changes in lab test results
- Abnormal heartbeat
What will my doctor do if I have an adverse drug reaction?
Your doctor might tell you to stop taking the medicine so the adverse reaction will go away by itself. Or your doctor might have you take another medicine to treat the reaction. If your adverse reaction is serious, you might have to go to a hospital. Never stop taking a medicine on your own; always talk with your doctor first.


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All of us who've experienced a back injury of one sort or another have been told at some point to "avoid heavy lifting." That type of advice appears to be a no-brainer or at least redundant, as no one whose back is hurting is going to try to pick up an air conditioner or even a 100-foot reel of garden hose. In this context, it's important to remember the words of Shakespeare's Cassius: "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves". The problem isn't the heavy lifting, as such. The real problem is in us, that is, in our overall level of conditioning or physical fitness.
Most back injuries don't occur as a result of heavy lifting, but rather are caused by a seemingly innocuous event such as bending over in the shower to retrieve a bar of soap that has fallen to the floor. Other likely pain-producing scenarios are bending over to place a bag of groceries in the trunk of a car bending over to tie a loose shoelace. None of these circumstances involved lifting extraordinary weight. Rather, the common elements are lack of flexibility and lack of appropriate muscle tone and strength to support the weight of your body in a forward flexed position.
The problem isn't lack of big muscles. Picking up a bar of soap or positioning a 15-pound grocery bag doesn't require bulging biceps or massive lats. The problem is lack of conditioning. Most of us no longer do actual physical work on a regular basis. We spend the large majority of our day sitting, either working, reading, or watching entertainment on television or other devices. The result of such lack of activity is twofold. Muscles lose strength and muscle fibers are replaced by fat. Additionally, tendons and ligaments contract and become tight, losing their necessary composition of elastic fibers. The functional loss associated with these physiological changes is profound. We experience these change every time we feel a twinge, or worse, in our backs.
The fix is easy and primarily focuses on building up core muscle strength.1,2 Core training is directed toward your deep abdominal muscles. The main such muscle is the transverses abdominis, which surrounds your entire waist, protecting and supporting your lower back. You can think of this critically important structure as your internal weight belt. Activation of the core muscles is required for all effective physical activity.3 Without this essential foundation, any minor attempt at work, even bending over to pick up a pencil, can lead to disaster in the form of excruciating back pain.
Core training includes exercises such as the scorpion, lying windmill with bent legs, pushups, squats, and the plank. Many good books and numerous online videos are available to provide instruction in the performance of core exercises. Your chiropractor is experienced in rehabilitative exercise and will help guide you to the training methods that are best for you.
1Inani SB, Selkar SP: Effect of core stabilization exercises versus conventional exercises on pain and functional status in patients with non-specific low back pain: a randomized clinical trial. J Back Musculoskel Rehabil 26(1):37-43, 2014
2Brumitt J, et al: Core stabilization exercise prescription, part 2: a systematic review of motor control and general (global) exercise rehabilitation approaches for patients with low back pain. Sports Health 5(6):510-3, 2013
3Wang XQ, et al: A meta-analysis of core stability exercise versus general exercise for chronic low back pain. PLoS One 2012;7(12):e52082. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0052082. Epub 2012 Dec 17


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The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) collaborated with the National Environment Commission (NEC), Bhutan, by signing a MoU on May 7, 2012 in Paro, Bhutan.
The MoU was signed between Dr.Ugyen Tshewang, Secretary, NEC and Mr. Chandra Bhushan, Deputy Director General, CSE. The main objectives of the MoU are to assist NEC in capacity building, monitoring and compliance of development projects (i.e. EIA), advocate laboratory support and encourage research and knowledge dissemination. The inaugural remarks were given by Mr. Thinley Dorji, Deputy Chief Environment Officer, NEC. The key note address was given by Dr. Ugyen Tshewang followed by Mr. Chandra Bhushan.
The Centre for Science and Environment in partnership with NEC also conducted a 5 day capacity building training programme on EIA from May 7-11, 2012 followed by stakeholder consultation workshop from May 14-16, 2012. The training programme and workshop was attended by 53 stakeholders from NEC, Department of Industry, Department of Geology and Mines, Department of Cottage and Small Industry and 23 other major departments of the Royal Government of Bhutan (RGoB). The inaugural lecture of the training was given by Mr. Chandra Bhushan who addressed the participants about CSE and Environment Impact Assessment (EIA). The other key speakers of this training programme were Mr. Sujit Kumar Singh and Ms. Swati Singh Sambyal.


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Fourth Quarter and Fiscal 2010 Results to be Released on February 3, 2011 after Market Close
SAN MATEO, Calif.—January 13, 2011—NetSuite Inc. (NYSE: N), the industry's leading provider of cloud-based financials / ERP software suites, today announced that its financial results for the fourth quarter and fiscal 2010 will be released after the market close on Thursday, February 3, 2011. NetSuite will host a conference call to discuss the results at 2:00 p.m. PT (5:00 p.m. ET) on the same day.
Dial-in information for the call and live webcast will be available at www.netsuite.com/investors. An audio replay will be available by phone for three days following the conclusion of the call (between 5:00 p.m. PT, February 3, 2011 and 12:00 a.m. PT February 7, 2011). An internet audio webcast replay will also be available on NetSuite's Investor Relations website.
For more information about NetSuite Inc., please visit www.netsuite.com.au.
NOTE: NetSuite and the NetSuite logo are registered service marks of NetSuite Inc.


text: They were all so young. The youngest looked like she'd just passed her driving test, the oldest as if he was about to graduate college. Kris, in ER, was beautiful. Full lips, average height, ponytail, good English. She'd push me to the bathroom in a wheelchair, and I'd pray she couldn't hear the violent splash of my insides through the door. RJ, in Infectious Diseases, was kind and competent. He once flushed my pick-line without water or saline, merely working his fingers over it, coaxing my veins to re-inhale the thin wave of blood caught in the tube. He always smelled musky, like he'd put deodorant on without showering. He offered to give me a sponge bath the first night, but I said my chills were too bad to leave the bed. Iza was newscaster pretty. She asked me about the States and told me she hoped to get there some day. I told her she should go. She would fly from the islands and fall in love with a white boy like me, start a family, get lost in a medium-sized Midwestern city. JM, the tall one, looked more Indian than Filipino. I didn't like him. One time I told him my pain level was at a 9 out of 10 and he said a 9 is a really excruciating amount of pain you know that sir yes? and I said oh yes, I know, my pain ticking up towards a 10, everything in my guts coiled as he avoided my gaze and I imagined myself strong, throwing dimple-cheeked, probably-still-a-virgin JM out the window, his long body falling sixteen floors before crashing through the chrome roof of a moving jeepney. Leah wore a heavy mask of makeup. She smelled fantastic. She wore layers of body lotion like the kind from one of those stores in the mall. I wanted her to give me a sponge bath, not RJ. But I was on the toilet so much, it felt like my body was trying to turn itself inside out. In bed, half-asleep in the blue-gray dark, I could tell which nurse was on third shift by the smell of their skin. When Leah leaned over me in the night to check my pulse, even though her thumb was cold on my wrist, she left behind a thread of coconut or mango or passionfruit that once or twice made it into my dreams. And while it was less pleasing to the nose when RJ came in at 2:00 a.m. to administer antibiotics, I have to admit, from a purely technical standpoint, he was the best nurse. I trusted him to inject the medicine into the port with assassin precision. Under RJ's care, my IV hand wouldn't swell into a balloon of pain, and I loved him for that. I loved them all. Even JM, who I'd wanted to throw out the window. They coaxed my scalding fever down and my dwindling platelet count up. They dispersed the bees that were crawling inside my bones. I still occasionally witness them on this side of the world, ghosting in through certain smells and gestures, the nurses of my dengue fever.


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This is a minimal, clean and modern WordPress theme with unlimited customizability, built-in mega menu, typographic options with over 1000+ Google fonts, custom page options (for multipage sites), different portfolio types and styles.
The site is mobile friendly and optimized for search engines.
It is highly customizable and packed with advanced features.


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This is a test page
Thank you for signing up! Just one more thing before we can send you the download link:......
Check your email inbox
Go to the inbox of the email address you used to sign up on the previous page.
Open the confirmation email
Find the email sent by us. It has the subject line "Subject Line Here" and is sent from "From Name Here".
Click on the confirmation link
Once you click on the link in the email, your address is confirmed and we'll send your download immediately.
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Please use IE11, or download the latest version of Chrome, Firefox or Edge.
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Oct 18


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Keep Active in Autumn
Don't let that sudden nip in the air put your workout plans into hibernation. Instead take your exercise routine inside. You'll find a substitute for almost every outdoor exercise activity. If you love to swim outdoors during the summer, move your laps into an indoor pool.
Do you treasure summer afternoons biking around the park? During autumn, maintain your fitness levels on a stationary bike until the weather warms up again. Moving into the gym can provide a great opportunity to mix up your training routine. Make use of the wide range of equipment in a gym and include weights as well as cardio into your plan.


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Minima Live Wallpaper brings an endless range of shifting shapes and colors to your homescreen!
Minima Pro Live Wallpaper
+ Goes great with the slick Material Design elements of the newest Android OS version, Lollipop!
+ Shapes tilt and shift in 3D parallax motion as you move and scroll your device!
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Requires :Android 3.1 and Up
Mirror: APK 280 KB


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Perfect fried chicken is the hallmark of this Guatemalan fast-food chain. Coated in seasoned flour—the 11 ingredients are top secret—and sizzled to a gorgeous saffron hue, the chicken ($6.99 for three pieces) comes out tender and juicy, with a perfect meat-to-crust ratio.
Just as good are the beans ($1.89 for a single serving) in a soupy stew studded with sausage and peppers. Spoon them over Spanish rice or into a corn tortilla with a dollop of smoked chipotle salsa. Authentic drinks such as tart tamarindo and milky almond horchata go well with the salty, spicy fare.


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Dear Patients:
We are so very excited to announce that we are once again able to provide dental services for you, our valuable patients.
While things are certainly not "business as usual," we wanted to let you know we are here for you in our clean, comfortable, and safe environment. Our standards are well "above and beyond" what the American Dental Association and Centers for Disease Control recommend. We love what we do and the people we do it for. We are always here for you.
This high level of service is just one of the many ways that we are supporting our community, and it is included in the excellent work that we do…we go through a comprehensive disinfection after every patient is cared for.
Our team members here at Nashua Dental Associates will continue to go above and beyond for our patients…it is second nature. For this and many other reasons, many of our patients have trusted their care with us for years.
We very much look forward to seeing you, your family, and your friends very soon.
Nashua Dental Associates


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Freedom is a funny thing. Too borrow and pervert an aphorism, freedom is like oxygen: most people don't think about it until it's missing. Think of me (and this article) as a canary in a coal mine. I only hope you'll actually notice — and then do something about it.
RFIDs for Everyone!
February 21st, 2009 · 1 Comment
Tags: Constitutional Issues · Privacy · Technology


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By FRANK BAJAK, AP Technology Writer
BOSTON (AP) — Academics, journalists and First Amendment lawyers are rallying behind New York University researchers in a showdown with Facebook over its demand that they halt the collection of data showing who is being micro-targeted by political ads on the world's dominant social media platform.
The researchers say the disputed tool is vital to understanding how Facebook has been used as a conduit for disinformation and manipulation.
In an Oct. 16 letter to the researchers, a Facebook executive demanded they disable a special plug-in for Chrome and Firefox browsers used by 6,500 volunteers across the United States and delete the data obtained. The plug-in lets researchers see which ads are shown to each volunteer; Facebook lets advertisers tailor ads based on specific demographics that go far beyond race, age, gender and political preference.
The executive, Allison Hendrix, said the tool violates Facebook rules prohibiting automated bulk collection of data from the site. Her letter threatened "additional enforcement action" if the takedown was not effected by Nov. 30.
Company spokesman Joe Osborne said in an emailed statement Oct. 24 that Facebook "informed NYU months ago that moving forward with a project to scrape people's Facebook information would violate our terms." The company has long claimed protecting user privacy is its main concern, though NYU researchers say their tool is programmed so the data collected from participating volunteers is anonymous.
The outcry over Facebook's threat was immediate after The Wall Street Journal first reported the news Oct. 23, considering the valuable insights the "Ad Observer" tool provides. It has been used since its September launch by local reporters from Wisconsin to Utah to Florida to write about the Nov. 3 presidential election.
"That Facebook is trying to shut down a tool crucial to exposing disinformation in the runup to one of the most consequential elections in U.S. history is alarming," said Ramya Krishnan, an attorney with the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, which is representing the researchers. "The public has a right to know what political ads are being run and how they are being targeted. Facebook shouldn't be allowed to be the gatekeeper to information necessary to safeguard our democracy. "
"The NYU Ad Observatory is the only window researchers have to see microtargeting information about political ads on Facebook," Julia Angwin, editor of the data-centric investigative tech news website The Markup, tweeted in disappointment.
The tool lets researchers see how some Facebook advertisers use data gathered by the company to profile citizens "and send them misinformation about candidates and policies that are designed to influence or even suppress their vote," Damon McCoy, an NYU professor involved in the project, said in a statement.
After an uproar over its lack of transparency on political ads Facebook ran ahead of the 2016 election, a sharp contrast to how ads are regulated on traditional media, the company created an ad archive that includes details such as who paid for an ad and when it ran. But Facebook does not share information about who gets served the ad.
The company has resisted allowing researchers access to the platform, where right-wing content has consistently been trending in recent weeks. Last year, more than 200 researchers signed a letter to Facebook calling on it to lift restrictions on public-interest research and journalism that would permit automated digital collection of data from the platform.


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Get 10% OFF with promo code WELCOME10
Vintage Radar - Vintage, with a new story!
Vintage Radar
Sale price €10 EUR Regular price €13 EUR
A beautiful set of vintage lapel pins, dating back to the USSR era. The Soviet pins are in mint condition, very well preserved and ready to be part of your vintage collection!
In this set you'll find both gold-tone and silver-tone pieces. A number from 1 to 12 is assigned to each enamel pin, as you can see in the photos. When making your purchase, select the number corresponding to the enamel pin you wish to buy. Please pay attention to the order of the pins, as set in the photos.
When investing in vintage pieces, you're investing in something that will only grow in value, and that you know is of higher quality than fast-fashion products.
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The process behind our brand is a complex one: restoring antique and vintage pieces, making them look flawless, carefully reconstructing what is broken and capturing them as accurately as possible so that these articles get a chance to a second story.
The age, the brand and all the work behind every product, are all reflected in the price of our items. You can read more about the story behind our brand here.
Our vintage watches are extensively verified by local watchmakers that we work with. Any repairs needed are done by professionals, so rest assured, all the watches are in perfect working condition. They are additionally checked for another 24 hours, once the order is placed, before shipping.
The pieces we sell are vintage, so they may present marks of the passage of time. Make sure you have a close look at the photos of each product. We try to capture them as accurately as possible. Colors may differ slightly.
We offer two types of shipping: Free shipping (without tracking number) and Shipping with Tracking Number (20 EUR for the majority of our products).
The items can be shipped worldwide, from Romania.
We advise that you provide your phone number when entering the shipping address so that the post office can contact you if necessary, once the package arrives.
For more information regarding shipping see the Frequently Asked Questions page.
All payments are securely processed through Paypal Express Checkout, which accepts all major credit card networks (Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover). All processing fees are included in the price of the product, no extra taxes will apply.
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