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Super Slim Portable DLP Projector From Casio
The latest projector combine water-cooling with heatpipe technology, owing to Casio's super slim manufacturing technologies, as well as four different patent technologies make this super-slim projector even unique. No words on pricing. ViaAving News network........ Posted by: Ethen Permalink Source Is workers' comp fair?
The study, which reinforced prior research showing blacks receive less therapy for their back pain than whites, was published online this month in the Journal of Pain. The new research is among the first to examine the relationship between Workers' Compensation settlements for back pain and long-term functional outcomes. "A disability rating is supposed to reflect the amount of impairment a person has at the time that a case is closed. The presumption is that levels of impairment are stable and correlation to day-to-day levels of function. I was shocked that the associations between disability rating and subsequent levels of function weren't stronger," said Raymond Tait, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry at Saint Louis University School of Medicine. Disability ratings also differed between African-Americans and Caucasians. As per Tait, those differences probably reflected differences in therapy: whites were four times more likely to have surgery than blacks. Thos who had surgery received larger settlements for their injuries, Tait said. "While surgery inflated disability ratings, there appeared not relationship between surgery outcomes and how a person did thereafter," he said......... Posted by: Ethen Permalink Source Frankincense Trees Overexploited For Christmas Scent
Frankincense is an aromatic hardened wood resin obtained by tapping Boswellia trees. For thousands of years, frankincense has been hugely important both socially and economically as an ingredient in incense and perfumes. But, say the ecologists, its production in the Horn of Africa is declining because Boswellia woodlands are failing to regenerate. The ecologists hypothesised that poor regeneration was due to the fact that intensive tapping meant that the trees were diverting too much carbohydrate into resin, at the expense of reproductive organs, such as flowers, fruit and seeds. Working in south-western Eritrea, they tested the hypothesis by looking at how many seeds intensively tapped trees produced, and their germination rates, compared with untapped trees. According to one of the authors of the study, Professor Frans Bongers of Wageningen University: "This study strongly suggests that there is competition between investment of carbohydrates in sexual reproductive structures and synthesis of frankincense in Boswellia papyrifera. At all study sites, trees subject to experimental tapping produced fewer flowers, fruits and seeds than trees that were exempt from tapping. Furthermore, tapped trees produced smaller fruits with seeds of lower weight and reduced vitality than non-tapped trees"......... Posted by: Ethen Permalink Source Christmas Dinners Depend On Control Of Plant Diseases
Why? Because the 12,000 tonnes or so of potatoes eaten have to be protected against the devastating potato blight, likewise Brussels sprouts from ring spot and white blister, carrots from cavity spot. Even the stuffing is under threat with blight of chestnut trees. Less obvious accompaniments include the wine (grape mildew), beer (barley mildew), coffee (coffee rust), and if there is any room left after the meal, the chocolates are from cocoa bushes that survived or were protected from the well-named witches broom or black pod diseases. These "basics" are all taken for granted but are only there by controlling a whole range of diseases. Also our homes really wouldn't be complete at Christmas without the 'trimmings' of 7.5 million conifer trees, potentially susceptible to Dothistroma needle blight; this would cause needles to drop even before you collected the tree! These comments apply of course to any meal, celebratory or not and is applicable worldwide. A number of cultures are heavily dependent on rice for example, which succumbs to Magnaporthe rice blast, arguably of equivalent importance in those producing countries to potato blight. Our research makes sure that only high quality produce, free from diseases, makes it into your home and onto your plate......... Posted by: Ethen Permalink Source Japan Tobacco Agrees to Takeover Gallaher
However, the real strategy of Japan Tobacco is to strengthen its global market share with single big takeover what is widely seen as a strategy to survive. Under the arrangements of the deal Japan Tobacco has agreed to pay 11.40 pounds in cash per share for Gallaher, valuing it for 7.5 billion pounds excluding debt or 9.75 million pounds including debt. Following the news, the shares of Japan Tobacco rose by 3.1 percent showing the upbeat mood of the investors. However, this gives an ample room for speculation that a rival bid cannot be ruled out. Moreover, the offer extended by Japan tobacco to the share holders has been kept a fair price and the shareholders will, in all probability, accept the offer, in case a rival bid does not appear on the scene......... Posted by: Ethen Permalink Source Ebola-Outbreak Kills 5000 Gorillas
Protected areas with major ape populations
Lossi was just one in a series of large gorilla and chimpanzee die-offs caused by Ebola over the last twelve years. Accurate figures on exactly how many apes have died are not yet available. But given the large amount of prime habitat affected, these Ebola outbreaks may have killed as much as 25% of the world gorilla population. Particularly troubling has been the concentration of Ebola impact on large, remote protected areas that were designed to be the bulwarks of ape conservation efforts. Ebola has not totally made apes totally extinct from these areas but it has pushed once huge populations down to smaller sizes at which they are dramatically less resilient to illegal hunting and other looming threats......... Posted by: Ethen Permalink Source Punishment May Be Reduced To The Extreme Cases
To study such social dilemmas, experimental researchers use so-called "public goods games" as a testing ground. In a typical set up, four players are asked to contribute one Euro each to a common pool of funds. The experimenter then doubles the amount in the pool and distributes it equally among all participants - irrespective of whether they have actually made a contribution or not. If all players donated e.g. one Euro, they will end up with two Euros each. But with just one player defecting, the average dividend is reduced to 1.50 Euros each; a net profit of 1.50 Euros for the "free rider" and 0.50 Euro for the co-operator. At the end of the game, each participant will be paid his or her actual earnings in cash. While such experiments commonly start out cooperatively, co-operation typically breaks down after only a few repetitions, with everyone ceasing to contribute to the public good, just as in real life. Any attempt to co-operate would entail a financial loss, since the investment of one Euro yields only a return of 50 Cents to the investor......... Posted by: Ethen Permalink Source gun 'buyback' doubled fall in Australian gun deaths
The study tracks the 10 years following the introduction of gun law reform in Australia between 1996 and 1998. The legislation was prompted by a firearm massacre in Tasmania in 1996, when 35 people were killed and a further 18 seriously wounded. The reforms banned the use of semi automatic and pump action shotguns and rifles, destroying more than 700,000 weapons taken from a population of 12 million adults. The study shows that in the 18 years before the legislation was passed, there were 13 mass shootings in Australia, in which 112 people died and 52 were wounded. There have been no mass shootings since the law came into force. The fall in the number of deaths associated with the use of firearms, including suicides, rapidly accelerated after the law took effect. The decline was at least twice as high (6%) as it had been before the reforms were introduced. In the 18 years prior to the legislation, on average, 491 people took their lives, using a firearm. After the legislation, this fell to an average of 246......... Posted by: Ethen Permalink Source Tobacco Prevention Ads May Backfire
Results from the study also show that tobacco industry-sponsored prevention ads aimed at parents often have harmful effects on students, also increasing their likelihood of smoking. "We suspected this the minute we saw the kind of ads the tobacco companies were creating," said Brian Flay, a professor in the Department of Public Health at Oregon State University. "Their objective is to get customers, not to stop customers from finding them". The study appears in the recent issue of American Journal of Public Health. Flay was one of nine scientists from Bridging the Gap, a policy research program based at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Michigan, who worked on this study, which is the first to examine how youth are affected by parent-targeted ads sponsored by the tobacco industry. More than 100,000 students from all areas of the country in 8th, 10th and 12th grades were surveyed to assess the relationship between exposure to tobacco company prevention advertising and youth smoking-related beliefs, intentions and behaviors. Scientists linked these data with Nielsen Media Research data on the exposure of youth to smoking-related ads that appeared on network and cable stations in the 75 largest United States media markets from 1999 to 2002......... Posted by: Ethen Permalink Source Doha Talks High on Priority
The President of US has proposed a separate regional free trade zone. This idea has received mixed reactions. The leaders think that the failure of the Doha round will have a grave influence on the global multilateral trading system as well as their economies. The members of APEC account for nearly half of the global trade. They are using the planned free trade zone to pressurize the European Union to improve its offer on farm subsidies. Let's see whether the rich nations will be successful in pressurizing the third world countries......... Posted by: Ethen Permalink Source Older Blog Entries |
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