Author Archives: ev1

Raimondo picks ex-Thundermist chief to head behavioral healthcare, hospitals department

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PROVIDENCE, R.I. Governor Raimondo has picked Maria Montanaro, the one-time CEO of the Thundermist Health Center, to head the Department of Behavioral Healthcare, Developmental Disabilities and Hospitals (BHDDH).

Montanaro is leaving her post as the chief executive officer of Magellan Behavioral Care of Iowa, and will be joining BHDDH starting on February 2, according to the governors office.

During her time with Magellan, she managed more than $330 million in Medicaid services for 450,000 recipients for the state of Iowa.

Montanaro has a track record of successfully leading innovation and transformation, according to the governors office.

Prior to leaving Rhode Island for Iowa in 2012, the statement said, she worked as a senior adviser for integrated health management services at Blue Cross, Blue Shield of Rhode Island. She was also the chief executive officer of Thundermist Health Center from 1997 to 2011.

Montanaros appointment is subject to Senate confirmation. She is stepping into a role previously held by Craig Stenning, who left after being notified by Raimondo he would not be reappointed.

Rebecca Boss will continue to serve as acting director of BHDDH until February 2.

Montanaro is a first cousin of former AFL-CIO leader Frank Montanaro, according to House spokesman Larry Berman. And she's a second cousin of the former state legislator of the same name who currently runs the General Assembly's Joint Committee on Legislative Service, according to Berman.

Montanaro has a masters degree in social work from the University of Illinois and a bachelor of science degree from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

On Twitter: @kathyprojo

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Raimondo picks ex-Thundermist chief to head behavioral healthcare, hospitals department

Dog-human cooperation is based on social skills of wolves

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IMAGE:Wolves are at least as tolerant and socially attentive as dogs. view more

Credit: Wolf Science Center

Commonly accepted domestication hypotheses suggest: "Dogs have become tolerant and attentive as a result of humans actively selecting for these skills during the domestication process in order to make dogs cooperative partners."

Friederike Range and Zsfia Virnyi from the Unit of Comparative Cognition at the Messerli Research Institute question the validity of this view and have developed the "Canine Cooperation Hypothesis". Their hypothesis states that since wolves already are tolerant, attentive and cooperative, the relationship of wolves to their pack mates could have provided the basis for today's human-dog relationship. An additional selection, at least for social attentiveness and tolerance, was not necessary during canine domestication.

Dogs accept humans as social partners

The researchers believe that wolves are not less socially attentive than dogs. Dogs however cooperate more easily with humans because they more readily accept people as social partners and more easily lose their fear of humans. To test their hypothesis, Range and Virnyi examined the social attentiveness and tolerance of wolves and dogs within their packs and toward humans.

Wolf performance in tests at least as good as dogs

Various behavioural tests showed that wolves and dogs have quite similar social skills. Among other things, the researchers tested how well wolves and dogs can find food that has been hidden by a conspecific or by a human. Both wolves and dogs used information provided by a human to find the hidden food.

In another study, they showed that wolves followed the gaze of humans. To solve the task, the animals may need to be capable of making a mental representation of the "looker's" perspective. Wolves can do this quite well.

Another experiment gave dogs and wolves the chance to observe conspecifics as they opened a box. When it was the observer's turn to do the same, the wolves proved to be the better imitators, successfully opening the box more often than dogs. "Overall, the tests showed that wolves are very attentive to humans and to each other. Hypotheses which claim that wolves have limited social skills in this respect in comparison to dogs are therefore incorrect," Range points out.

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Dog-human cooperation is based on social skills of wolves

3 treatments to fight aging

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Published January 20, 2015

Anti-aging treatments can help solve a wide variety of age-related body changes.

People in their twenties are already getting into the anti-aging trend and they are seeking the help of doctors to preserve their skin.

Gabrielle Garritano, 25, noticed she was getting sun spots around her eyes and fine lines from sun exposure. Now she sees a doctor once a month for a Glytone undereye peel, the only peel of its kind approved for the delicate eye area.

Ive had about three now and I immediately saw a response when I saw some of the spots going away, and also firmness around my eyes, after using just one, Garritano said about her appointments with Dr. Sue Decotiis, board certified internal medicine doctor and member of the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine.

For Susan Gaeta, 44, weight loss was her biggest challenge, especially the stubborn areas around her stomach. With the help of progesterone supplement pills, she lost 30 pounds in one month and then underwent liposonix, an alternative to liposuction.

What this machine is doing is through ultrasound, its heating up the skin. And the heat is so intense that the fat cells actually melt, Decotiis said. And the patient is gonna notice a significant difference usually in about a month.

In two or three months, a patient can drop a full dress size or lose one to two inches off her waist, Decotiis said.

Another anti-aging treatment is Thermage, which boosts collagen production, and lifts and tightens the skin with the help of a radiofrequency current.

Each of these anti-aging measures can be used by women and men, but one way that age impacts men specifically is by reducing their testosterone. Fifty-two-year-old Scott Williford was prescribed a daily testosterone cream.

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3 treatments to fight aging

PreDiabetes Centers Opens New Center in Southeast Houston

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Houston, TX (PRWEB) January 20, 2015

PreDiabetes Centers is pleased to announce the grand opening of a second treatment center in the Greater Houston area. The PreDiabetes Center of Southeast Houston, opening its doors next month in Webster, is led by Lisa Sachdev, DO, a distinguished physician who will direct comprehensive, personalized medical care for patients enrolled in the Centers 12-month prediabetes treatment program.

The PreDiabetes Center of Southeast Houston is located at 711 Bay Area Blvd., Suite 400, in Webster. People interested in learning their risk for diabetes can call (832) 266-0980 to book a complimentary diabetes blood screening. The Center opens on February 10.

The advanced screening measures 15 health markers associated with diabetes, including fasting blood glucose, hemoglobin A1c, C-reactive protein, thyroid hormones, testosterone, vitamin B12, cholesterol levels, insulin, and more.

Dr. Sachdev and the prediabetes health team use medicine, nutritional supplementation, prediabetes diet planning, customized fitness, hormone optimization, and other targeted therapies to stop or slow the progression of type 2 diabetes.

Dr Sachdev is a board-certified family physician with extensive experience in preventive medicine. She graduated from the University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth and completed her residency at San Jacinto Family Practice in Baytown, Texas. A member of the Texas Medical Association, Harris County Medical Society and American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine, Dr. Sachdev is a licensed doctor of osteopathic medicine and specializes in disease prevention and complete, whole-body medical care.

Dr. Sachdev founded a family practice in Pasadena, Texas, in 2003 and has been honored with numerous awards, including a 2011 Patients Choice Award, Compassionate Doctor Award and Americas Top Doctors Award. Diabetes and its related complications have become more common among Dr. Sachdevs patients, and she is excited to provide advanced care and targeted metabolic treatment to help patients reverse the onset of type 2 diabetes.

Dr. Sachdev believes in providing comprehensive, compassionate care to patients with a focus on nutrition and wellness.

Combining conventional medicine with complementary therapies is the best way to prevent diabetes, improve longevity and achieve complete mind-body wellness, says Dr. Sachdev.

Those who feel they may be at risk for diabetes can take the online Diabetes Risk Survey.

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PreDiabetes Centers Opens New Center in Southeast Houston

Couple suing Dr. Atiq Durrani, questioning if he was a licensed doctor – Video

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Couple suing Dr. Atiq Durrani, questioning if he was a licensed doctor
A Taylor Mill couple is suing Dr. Durrani for damages and claims he never went to medical school. The couple #39;s spokesperson, Erik Deters, said there is no record of Durrani at the medical school...

By: WLWT

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Couple suing Dr. Atiq Durrani, questioning if he was a licensed doctor - Video

Please Cry for Me Argentina

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St. Paul glorified Jesus by pointing out that Jesus didn't glorify himself. He did not treat "equality with God as a thing to be grasped," Paul said, so by implication, how could His followers ever pretend to be better than anyone else? In Jesus' words, the greatest are the humblest; in his ministry, he opened himself to the pains of those he encountered on the road.

Though that prescription for radical equality and honest doubt has seldom defined Christianity, it does have its exemplars from time to time, but popes haven't been notably among them. They profess unworthiness and service, but typically soon climb onto the pedestal and stay there enjoying its privileges, including the option of shielding themselves from impolite questions and glaring ugliness.

Not so Pope Francis. The self-effacement and courage to face tough issues has persisted from the day he became pope and, in effect, asked the crowd to join him in a common cause, not one of his own making as CEO. His embrace of the young girl in the Philippines was the latest and most revealing of that commitment.

His encounter with her was (so far as I know) unscripted, but even more remarkably, he was willing to open himself to whatever it might lead him, relating the sadness of her soul to his own, seemingly free of any pretense of knowing all the answers or treating her like a subordinate. He took her seriously; one suspects her question about why God permits so many like her such to suffer so ghastly bothers him too. So it was a good question and the power of that moment made a mockery of pat responses, he added. It was her teaching moment, not his, he realized, and he did not take that away from her.

Instead of trying to paper over her wound with a canned answer, he basically pleaded agnosticism. Tears like hers can bring some relief, he suggested, but didn't supply ready answers to either of him, he acknowledged. Marvelous.

Had he felt inclined, he could have taken that subject in another direction. He might have used the occasion to emphasize that apart from God's possible involvement in the world's wretched affairs, humans had inflicted enormous sufferings on other humans.Under these conditions that would have detracted from the compassion and empathy surrounding the girl's providential moment, but it does repeat a pattern whereby Francis bewails the evil of poverty but refrains from concrete remedies.

By making himself vulnerable, and allowing himself to look "unpapal" the pope continues to right size the office, removing that pedestal to stand aside rather than above fellow seekers. That could presage a wholesale revision of what authority means, easing away from the "infallibility" aura that has encased it. Then again, popes don't live long enough to achieve such amendments by themselves; the bright lights pass with no assurance that the forces that spiked hierarchy won't return. For that moment, at least, the pope and the girl were in common communion, radiating the most mysterious hope that comes from sharing life's hard edges and heartbreak.

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Please Cry for Me Argentina

Morning Star :: 50,000 protest in Berlin to protect farming from big business

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Over 50,000 people took to the streets of the German capital Berlin on Saturday to demand that the government changes its farming policy and halt the increasing industrialisation of agriculture.

The mass protest against factory farming and genetic engineering of crops was timed to coincide with International Green Week, an agricultural trade fair held annually in the city.

Under the slogan: We are sick of agribusiness, protesters called for a worldwide right to food, legal restrictions to protect food and agriculture from genetic manipulation and an end to the establishment of mega-factory farms.

The protesters marched from Potsdam Square to the Federal Chancellery demanding rejection of the planned Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) agreement between the European Union and the US.

Jochen Fritz, spokesman for the alliance of more than 120 environmental, consumer and development organisations behind the protest, said that TTIP would ruin many farmers livelihoods.

TTIP only serves global concerns and will take away the means of existence from many farms here and across the world, he said.

Mr Fritz added that the agreement would also jeopardise consumer standards and that more than three-quarters of German pig farmers had had to give up their businesses since 2000, with large meat companies increasingly taking over livestock farming.

He called for agriculture to be based on regional markets.

Eating is political. Every single decision I make about what to buy is determined by how the animals are kept or

what grows in our fields, he added.

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Morning Star :: 50,000 protest in Berlin to protect farming from big business