Monthly Archives: September 2013

Minister Ambrose Visits Leading Edge Infectious Diseases Research Laboratory in Canada

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WINNIPEG, MANITOBA--(Marketwired - Sep 17, 2013) - The Honourable Rona Ambrose, Minister of Health, and Member of Parliament Joyce Bateman, Winnipeg South Centre, today visited the Public Health Agency of Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory (NML) to meet with scientists and see first-hand the latest leading edge research and innovation contributing to protecting the health of Canadians.

"Our Government understands the importance of scientific research," said Minister Ambrose. "Scientific research and innovation will continue to be a priority because they make advances in healthcare possible and ultimately make our health system more efficient, more sustainable and more productive."

Highlights of the Minister's tour included:

The Public Health Agency of Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory is a Level 4 laboratory that is dedicated to the protection of Canadians and global public health. Through internationally recognized leadership, scientific excellence and public health innovation, the NML conducts research on established, emerging and rare pathogens. Its activities include disease surveillance; reference microbiology services; and emergency preparedness and response.

For well over a decade, the NML has played a leading role in Canada's response to several public health challenges both domestically and internationally, including the appearance of West Nile virus in 1999, SARS in 2003 and H1N1 in 2009.

The NML is internationally renowned among laboratories for safety and security systems. The lab continues to meet or exceed all national and international standards for biocontainment. It is also a world leader when it comes to strong connections with the community and the lab's Community Liaison Committee is a role model for other high containment laboratories.

"Our Government is pleased to support Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory," said Minister Ambrose. "We are a world leader in innovation and research and this leading edge laboratory demonstrates what we have to offer Canada and the world."

Minister Ambrose is also holding a roundtable meeting with health leaders to explore the role of technological innovation in improving the efficiency and productivity of the healthcare system. The Minister will be holding similar roundtable sessions in various locations across Canada. Each roundtable meeting will include researchers, healthcare practitioners, IT innovators, and system management experts.

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Public Health Agency of Canada news releases are available on the Internet at: http://www.phac.gc.ca

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Minister Ambrose Visits Leading Edge Infectious Diseases Research Laboratory in Canada

TriLUG Meeting 12 September 2013 – Open Source: the Nanotechnology of the Cloud – Video

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TriLUG Meeting 12 September 2013 - Open Source: the Nanotechnology of the Cloud
TriLUG Meeting 12 September 2013 - Open Source: the Nanotechnology of the Cloud Presenter: Michael Tiemann http://trilug.org/2013-09-12/cloud.

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TriLUG Meeting 12 September 2013 - Open Source: the Nanotechnology of the Cloud - Video

Hydrocarbon Problem Solver- IIT-JEE Kota Faculty (Chemistry topic solution) – Video

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Hydrocarbon Problem Solver- IIT-JEE Kota Faculty (Chemistry topic solution)
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Hydrocarbon Problem Solver- IIT-JEE Kota Faculty (Chemistry topic solution) - Video

#04 Adventure Travel: Round the World Travel Tips for the Adventurous Traveller – Video

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#04 Adventure Travel: Round the World Travel Tips for the Adventurous Traveller
http://www.careerbreak360.com Great video if you #39;re into adventure travel. Duncan gives great round the world travel tips from his own experience of adventure travel when he was an overland...

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#04 Adventure Travel: Round the World Travel Tips for the Adventurous Traveller - Video

The Phoenician Named "North America’s Leading Resort 2013" At World Travel Awards

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Scottsdale, AZ (PRWEB) September 16, 2013

The Phoenician, Arizonas premier AAA Five Diamond destination, was named "North Americas Leading Resort 2013" at the 20th World Travel Awards. The announcement was made on Saturday, Sept. 14, at the Sandals Grande Antigua Resort & Spa in the Caribbean.

The World Travel Awards, which serves to acknowledge, reward and celebrate excellence across all sectors of the global travel and tourism industry, is voted on by travel agents worldwide. This is the sixth such award for The Phoenician, which was also named "North Americas Leading Resort" in 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002 and 2003. The luxury property was selected as "North Americas Leading Golf Resort" in 2001, 2005 and 2007.

"We are very honored and proud to receive this recognition from the World Travel Awards and our travel agent partners around the world," said Mark Vinciguerra, managing director. "Celebrating our 25th anniversary on Oct. 1, 2013, this award serves as a testament to our legendary guest experience and exceptional service culture."

Located at the base of Camelback Mountain, the 250-acre Phoenician offers two exquisite experiences a 583-room AAA Five Diamond luxury resort hotel and Arizonas only Five-Star/Five Diamond boutique hotel, The Canyon Suites at The Phoenician at one magnificent destination. The property features elegant, residential-style accommodations, distinctive and tantalizing cuisine across such restaurants as Il Terrazzo, J&G Steakhouse and Relish Burger Bistro, a championship 27-hole golf course, 11 tennis courts, nine swimming pools, The Centre for Well-Being and Salon Mila spa complex, a recently expanded activities program and Funicians Club, numerous boutique shops, a $25 million art collection and the premier 15,000 square-foot Camelback Ballroom. In addition to these offerings, the 60-room Canyon Suites provides more intimate surroundings and enhanced services, creating an atmosphere of uncompromising splendor. Both The Phoenician and The Canyon Suites at The Phoenician are owned and operated by Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc., as part of The Luxury Collection. For additional information, please call (480) 941-8200; (800) 888-8234 or visit http://www.thephoenician.com and http://www.canyonsuites.com.

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The Phoenician Named "North America’s Leading Resort 2013" At World Travel Awards

World Travel Holdings and Its Brands Receive Six Prestigious 2013 Travel Weekly Magellan Awards

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Wilmington, MA (PRWEB) September 17, 2013

World Travel Holdings and three of its 13 brands including CruiseOne, Cruises Inc. and Villas of Distinction have been recognized again this year by Travel Weekly for their exceptional training, creative consumer marketing campaigns, community involvement and innovative web advertising. Multiple gold and silver rankings were awarded as part of the publications annual Magellan Awards program.

As a company, we know that creativity and innovation are critical ingredients to our success, said Brad Tolkin, co-chairman/CEO for World Travel Holdings. I am proud that our team of training and marketing professionals support this vision and continuously pioneer inventive ideas. I am honored that we have been recognized with these awards.

World Travel Holdings, one of the nations top travel agencies, won gold in the Training Program category for COMPASS Creating Outstanding Memories through Passion, Accountability, Sales & Service. COMPASS is a six-week branded on-boarding program for new travel professionals joining the companys direct-to-consumer customer care team. The creatively-themed training takes new hires around a compass to signify a passion for travel and includes embarkation, welcome aboard, set sale, service immersion and bon voyage sessions, and culminates with an all-expenses paid cruise to the top class performer.

Villas of Distinction, a premier luxury villa rental provider, won both gold and silver rankings. The first award in the Online Travel Services category recognized the companys marketing campaign, Barbados Pick Your Perk that allowed travelers the opportunity to add value to their Barbados vacation by choosing one of three complimentary perks a free rental car, catamaran day cruise or a grocery pre-stock package. The second ranking in the Hospitality category gave Villas of Distinction silver for its status in the villa rental market as a leading premier luxury villa rental company with the largest portfolio of vacation homes and world-class customer service that creates unique experiences for its clients.

CruiseOne and Cruises Inc., one of the nations top travel retail networks, received a silver award in the Community Involvement category for the companys support of Make-A-Wish. Some of the many fundraising activities recognized included hosting a Bon Voyage party for Make-A-Wish child Santiago, participating in the charitys Southern Floridas Walk for Wishes 5K, raising more than $60,000 at its 2012 annual National Conference and being on target to beat last years fundraising donation.

CruiseOne also secured two silver rankings. The first is in the Web Marketing/Advertising category for its web advertising campaign which includes an innovative display advertising program that is the only one of its kind in the travel retail industry when compared to true competitors. This program tracks people who visited the CruiseOne website and posts targeted display advertisements on any future web page they visit based on their previously searched vacation interests. The second silver recognizes the companys Video Asset Sharing Program that enables franchise owners to use professionally created videos to educate potential clients about their brand and service. Franchise owners can personalize the video by adding their contact information and using it on their websites and social media pages, at special events and on television.

Travel Weeklys annual Magellan Awards recognize the travel industrys leaders and are judged on a 10-point performance scale. Nominees are chosen based upon appeal, design and functionality by top travel industry professionals. This is the fourth consecutive year in a row that CruiseOne & Cruises Inc. have been awarded Magellan Awards and the third consecutive year in a row for Villas of Distinction.

For more information on World Travel Holdings and any of its brands please visit http://www.WorldTravelHoldings.com. World Travel Holdings is currently hiring virtual travel agents. For more information on joining this award-winning team, please visit the World Travel Holdings careers page.

About World Travel Holdings World Travel Holdings is the world's leading cruise agency and award-winning leisure travel company with a portfolio of more than 35 diverse brands. In addition to owning some of the largest brands distributing cruises, villas, hotels, resort vacations and luxury travel services, World Travel Holdings has a vast portfolio of licensed private label partnerships comprised of top leisure travel providers, almost every U.S. airline, leading hotel brands and prominent corporations. The company also operates a top-rated travel agency franchise and the country's original host agency. Its global presence in the United Kingdom includes operating two cruise agencies and multiple private-label brands. World Travel Holdings has offices in Long Island, NY, Wilmington, Mass., Ft. Lauderdale and Orlando, Fla., Virginia Beach, Va., and Chorley, United Kingdom. For more information, visit http://www.WorldTravelHoldings.com.

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World Travel Holdings and Its Brands Receive Six Prestigious 2013 Travel Weekly Magellan Awards

Stem cell therapy control sought

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Manila, Philippines More health groups are supporting the stand of the Philippine College of Physicians (PCP) to strengthen government control against the unapproved use of stem cell therapy until conclusive trials had proven its safety and efficacy.

The University of the Philippines-National Institutes of Health (UP-NIH) released a statement stressing the importance of clinical trials in proving the efficacy of stem cell treatments.

Aside from the NIH, the other medical societies opposing the highly advertised unproven treatments are the Philippine College of Geriatric Medicine, Philippine Society of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology, Philippine Society of Hematology and Blood Transfusion, Philippine Society of Nephrology, Philippine Neurological Association, Philippine Society of General Surgeons, Philippine College of Surgeons, Philippine Heart Association, Philippine Society of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Philippine Society of Medical Oncology, Diabetes Philippines, Philippine Society of General Internal Medicine, Philippine Society for Vascular Surgery, Philippine Urological Association, Philippine College of Chest Physicians, Philippine Rheumatology Association, Philippine Society of Gastroenterology, Philippine Society for Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, Philippine Academy of Rehabilitation Medicine, Philippine Society of Nuclear Medicine, Academy of Filipino Neurosurgeons, and the Philippine Dermatological Society.

The NIH said stem cell therapy, in all its stages collecting, processing, cryopreservation, and delivery of stem cells, must undergo clinical trials.

Dr. Marita V.T. Reyes of the Philippine Health Ethics Research Board emphasized that experimental therapy is not considered a standard therapy.

Reyes said experimental therapy may lead to unidentified harms that will cause probable risks on the patients.

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Stem cell therapy control sought

The spirituality of booze: transcendentalism and the art of..: Steven Grasse at TEDxWilmington – Video

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The spirituality of booze: transcendentalism and the art of..: Steven Grasse at TEDxWilmington
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The spirituality of booze: transcendentalism and the art of..: Steven Grasse at TEDxWilmington - Video

A leading voice for women in church, human rights, spirituality

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For most of my life, I have walked two different paths: one foot on the social activist path, the other on a spiritual path. This has not always made for the most graceful journey. Sometimes Ive tried to stay true to both and failed both watering down passionate truths into an indecisive, spineless soup.

But most of the time, having my feet in two worlds has given me the gift of balance.

When this balancing act gets the better of me, I look for inspiration. For me, there has long been a saint in sensible shoes, a person who encourages me to stay close to my spiritual core, yet eschew complacency. Her name is Sister Joan Chittister, and she is a living exemplar of courage. For more than half a century, she has been one of the countrys most prominent spiritual visionaries.

I turn to Sister Joan because she lives between water and fire between the tenderness of love and the fierceness of conviction. She gives us permission to be both devout and probing, to be a believer and seeker. Her faith is unshakable. Yet she has unapologetically assailed the church as sexist, and says it is shameful that the secular world is leading the development of women in society and not the church.

As I rose through the leadership ranks of an organization, I often found it challenging to find the equilibrium between maintaining my ideals and effecting change in a male-dominated environment. Sister Joan would help me discover my own voice and style of communication while keeping my hand on the souls rudder.

We need a new worldview that puts the old one in a new light, she says. And we need the enduring commitment to say it where it is least welcome to be heard: In every office, at every cocktail party, at every family gathering, in every conference, no matter who gets bored with us, no matter who gets tired of hearing us, no matter who gets angry at us for doing it one more time.

Sister Joan became a Benedictine nun at the Mount St. Benedicts Monastery in Erie, Pa., at the young age of 16. She served as the orders prioress for 12 years, and throughout it all, she has emerged as a leading voice for women in the church, human rights and spirituality.

She is a founding member of the Global Peace Initiative of Women, a partner organization of the United Nations, she works to develop a worldwide network of women peace-builders. She is based in a monastic community in Erie, Pa., where her order of Benedictine nuns runs a huge food pantry, an after-school program and one of the largest education programs for the unemployed in the state.

If you want to be a leader, you must refuse to tell the old lies, she told Stanford University graduates last year. You must learn to say that the emperor has no clothes. You must see what you are looking at and say what you see.

She took her own advice when Pope Benedict issued a stinging reprimand of American nuns and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the organization that represents 80 percent of them and which she once led. He accused the nuns of spending too much time working for social justice and not enough time speaking out against abortion and gay marriage. The sisters have listened to every side of every question in an attempt to discern their best role in the church, their best gift to these people at this time, Sister Joan wrote in defiance of the pope. This has apparently made them, in the minds of some, a danger to the faith. How sad.

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A leading voice for women in church, human rights, spirituality

Chocolate coming from Wallops to space station

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A Virginia company makes its debut this week as a space station delivery service, and the lone American aboard the orbiting lab is counting on a fresh stash of chocolate.

In an interview Monday with The Associated Press, NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg said she can't wait for this weekend's arrival of a new cargo ship named Cygnus. It will be the first shipment by Orbital Sciences Corp. to the International Space Station.

"You know that there's something packed away in that vehicle, something special for you ... We're human beings and we get very excited about the packages from home and some of the treats that we might get," said Nyberg.

Orbital Sciences is scheduled to launch an unmanned Antares rocket containing Cygnus on Wednesday morning from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia's eastern shore. It's where NASA launched a moon spacecraft 1 weeks ago.

NASA is paying Orbital Sciences and the California-based SpaceX company to keep the space station well stocked in the shuttle-less era.

Orbital Sciences conducted a practice Antares launch in April with a mock payload. This will be its first space station run, coming more than a year after the initial SpaceX delivery.

Because this is considered a test flight, the Cygnus will carry up mostly food and other nonessential items. That suits Nyberg and her two male crewmates an Italian and a Russian. They have been in orbit since the end of May, with two more months to go. Three more residents arrive later next week.

Nyberg's husband NASA astronaut Douglas Hurley put together the care package that's already stowed on the Cygnus capsule. They have one child, 3-year-old Jack.

"It would be really nice to have some fresh home-baked goods, but the fresh part doesn't work very well when it takes a couple days to get here," Nyberg said. "So anything chocolate usually does it for me."

Given a Wednesday launch, the Cygnus should arrive at the space station on Sunday. Unlike the SpaceX Earth-returning Dragon, it will be filled with trash and, once cut loose, burn up during descent.

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Chocolate coming from Wallops to space station