Plenary: National Assembly, 25 February 2014 (afternoon session)
National Assembly Plenary 14:00 -- 19:19 5. Members #39; statements 6. Consideration of Report of PC on Police on Private Security Industry Regulation Amendment...
By: Parliament of the Republic of South Africa
Continue reading here:
Plenary: National Assembly, 25 February 2014 (afternoon session) - Video
TEDMED Great Challenges: X = : The Potential of New Crowdsourcing Research Platforms
TEDMED Great Challenges hangouts are moving to a new time: Tuesdays at noon EST! Jessica Richmond #39;s uBiome project asks "citizen scientists" to submit body ...
By: TEDMED
The rest is here:
TEDMED Great Challenges: X = : The Potential of New Crowdsourcing Research Platforms - Video
The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control is touting the new health care data website launched in late January, saying it will help promote transparency. Regional health officials, however, say more work remains.
The new, easily navigable website, SCHealthData.org, features five years worth of profitability and occupancy data for the states 60 hospitals, from 2008 to 2012. The data includes how much each hospital collected from Medicaid for treating uninsured patients.
People can search for hospitals by name, find them on a map or compare up to four at a time from a list. The websites expected audience includes legislators and journalists as part of Phase One.
Its really targeted toward them because its higher-level data from hospitals like overall profitability, costs and occupancy rates. It doesnt tell you how much will be charged for an MRI or hip replacement. That will be in the second phase, said Tony Keck, director of the South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.
We expect by sometime in mid-March that we will start doing hospital comparisons of prices for certain common procedures and other types of work done in hospitals, Keck said. Well be able to look at not only state Medicaid data, but state employee health plan data which is administered by Blue Cross and Blue Shield and, once we get federal approval, Medicare data, too.
Keck said the website is a good first step forward in making data more user-friendly.
I think theres a general consensus around the country that better transparency into pricing and quality for all health care services is really required if were going to get better value out of health care, he said. The South Carolina Health Data site is our first phase in helping people understand how much health care costs.
The SCDHHS reports that, on average, 17 percent of the states hospitals occupied bed days in 2012 were for Medicaid patients.
Twenty-three percent of the occupied beds at the Regional Medical Center in Orangeburg were for Medicaid patients in 2012. Eight percent of the occupied beds at the Southern Palmetto Hospital, formerly Barnwell County Hospital, were for Medicaid patients. Sixteen percent of the Colleton Medical Centers occupied beds were also for Medicaid patients during the same time period.
South Carolina hospitals 2012 bottom lines varied widely by hospital, with profits (or revenues in excess of expenses for nonprofit hospitals) as high as $159,745,573 and losses as much as $20,556,997. The RMC had a profit of $6,178,113 in 2012. Barnwell County Hospital showed a profit of $1,004,8446, while Colleton County Hospital had a profit of $3,365,011.
Continued here:
Good first step Officials: New health care data website promotes transparency
Health care workers who routinely come in contact with hazardous chemicals lack training and awareness of employer procedures to adequately protect themselves from exposure, according to a new NIOSH study.
The survey of more than 12,000 health care workers found that workers administering aerosolized antibiotics were the least likely to have received training on their safe use, followed closely by those exposed to surgical smoke.
Conducted in 2011, the Web-based survey is the largest federally sponsored study of health care workers that addresses safety and health practices and use of hazardous chemicals, according to NIOSH. The study results are published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine.
"Safeguarding health care workers from potential occupational hazards is an essential part of providing good jobs for these dedicated men and women, and furthering high-quality patient care," NIOSH Director Dr. John Howard said. "The limited information available on safe-handling practices associated with use of hazardous chemicals makes our work even more important."
The study is the first in a series of reports describing current practices used by health care workers to minimize chemical exposures as well as barriers to using recommended personal protective equipment. The chemical agents under study included antineoplastic agents, high-level disinfectants, aerosolized medications, anesthetic gases, surgical smoke and chemical sterilants.
Among the highlights, the study found that:
NIOSH said the surveys findings will help the agency and other health care stakeholders better understand current health and safety practices related to working with hazardous chemical agents; identify gaps in current knowledge about those practices; and design further research in collaboration with partners for addressing those gaps.
More:
NIOSH: Health Care Workers Lacking in Training on Hazardous Chemicals
14 hours ago
Researchers from LSTM have found that a single genetic mutation causes resistance to DDT and pyrethroids (an insecticide class used in mosquito nets). With the continuing rise of resistance the research, published in the journal Genome Biology, is key as scientists say that this knowledge could help improve malaria control strategies.
The researchers, led by Dr Charles Wondji, used a wide range of methods to narrow down how the resistance works, finding a single mutation in the GSTe2 gene, which makes insects break down DDT so it's no longer toxic. They have also shown that this gene makes insects resistant to pyrethroids raising the concern that GSTe2 gene could protect mosquitoes against the major insecticides used in public health.
Mosquitoes (Anopheles funestus) are vectors of malaria, and most strategies for combating the spread of the disease focus on control of mosquito populations using insecticides. The spread of resistance genes could hold back efforts to prevent the disease. The authors say that knowing how resistance works will help to develop tests, and stop these genes from spreading amongst mosquito populations.
Charles Wondji said: 'We found a population of mosquitoes fully resistant to DDT (no mortality when they were treated with DDT) but also to pyrethroids. So we wanted to elucidate the molecular basis of that resistance in the population and design a field applicable diagnostic assay for its monitoring.'
They took mosquitoes from Pahou in Benin, which were resistant to DDT and pyrethroids, and mosquitoes from a laboratory fully susceptible strain and did a genome wide comparison study. They identified the GSTe2 gene as being upregulated - producing a lot of protein - in Benin mosquitoes.
They found that a single mutation (L119F) changed a non-resistant version of the GSTe2 gene to a DDT resistant version. They designed a DNA-based diagnostic test for this type of resistance (metabolic resistance) and confirmed that this mutation was found in mosquitoes from other areas of the world with DDT resistance but was completely absent in regions without. X-ray crystallography of the protein coded by the gene illustrated exactly how the mutation conferred resistance, by opening up the 'active site' where DDT molecules bind to the protein, so more can be broken down. This means that the mosquito can survive by breaking down the poison into non-toxic substances.
They also introduced the gene into fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) and found they became resistant to DDT and pyrethroids compared to controls, confirming that just this single mutation is enough to make mosquitoes resistant to both DDT and permethrin.
Wondji says: 'For the first time, we have been able to identify a molecular marker for metabolic resistance (the type of resistance most likely to lead to control failure) in a mosquito population and to design a DNA-based diagnostic assay. Such tools will allow control programs to detect and track resistance at an early stage in the field, which is an essential requirement to successfully tackle the growing problem of insecticide resistance in vector control. This significant progress opens the door for us to do this with other forms of resistance as well and in other vector species.'
Explore further: Second door discovered in war against mosquito-borne diseases
See more here:
Researchers crack the genetic secret of mosquito resistance to DDT and ITNs
Interview with T. Michael Redmond, Ph.D.
National Eye Institute (NEI) Scientist Dr. Redmond talks about the combination of luck and persistence that drives the scientific process and ultimately lead...
By: National Eye Institute, NIH
See the original post:
Dizelkraft - Futurist (Original Mix)
Dizelkraft - Futurist (Original Mix) ------------------------------------------------ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Dizelkraft?ref=ts fref=ts Soundcloud...
By: Alexey Sadovnikov
Excerpt from:
TheLoverofClassical - A Short Futurist Robotic Piece for piano
By: TheLoverofClassical
Excerpt from:
TheLoverofClassical - A Short Futurist Robotic Piece for piano - Video
Philadelphia, PA (PRWEB) February 25, 2014
Global futurist and Entrepreneur, Jack Uldrich will be kicking off the 2014 Allan P. Kirby Center Lecture Series. The series, which offers two lectures annually, "brings leading voices in free enterprise and entrepreneurship to the Wilkes University campus and Northeastern Pennsylvania. These forums give students and the community insight into the creative process and drive of the entrepreneur." Uldrich's talk takes place Tuesday, February 25, 2014 at 7:30 p.m. at the Dorothy Dickson Darte Center for the Performing Arts.
Jack Uldrich, a former naval intelligence officer and Defense Department official, also served as the Director of the Minnesota Office of Strategic and Long Range Planning under Governor Jesse Ventura. Uldrich is a renowned business trend expert and the author of eleven books, including: The Next Big Thing is Really Small: How Nanotechnology will Change the Future of Your Business; and Jump the Curve: 50 Strategies to Help Your Company Stay Ahead of Technology. He is also the founder and "chief unlearning officer" of The School of Unlearning - an international leadership, change management and technology consultancy dedicated to helping business, governments, and non-profit organizations prepare for and profit from periods of profound transformation.
His lecture for the evening is entitled "Why Future Trends Will Demand Unlearning." He will be sharing insights from his most recent book is:" Foresight 20/20: A Futurist Explores the Trends Transforming Tomorrow", as well as highlights from "Higher Unlearning: 39 Post-Requisite Lessons for Achieving a Successful Future." A synopsis of some of Uldrichs ideas on tomorrows transformational technologies can be found in this article, 10 Game-Changing Technological Trends Transforming the World of Tomorrow.
Uldrich is a frequent speaker on the technology, change management and leadership lecture circuits, and has addressed numerous businesses, trade associations, educational and investment groups around the world. A video of his TED Talk on unlearning can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR9fdhJGxtI.) His clients include: IBM, Cisco, USAA, General Electric, Wipro, PepsiCo, United Healthcare, Southern Company, Novo Nordisk, Verizon, General Mills, Pfizer, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He is also a regular guest on CNBC, MSNBC and CNN, and a regular contributor on emerging technologies and future trends for a number of publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Leader to Leader, The Futurist, Businessweek, The Scientist, CityBusiness, The Futures Research Quarterly, and TechStation Central.
Parties interested in learning more about Jack Uldrich, his books, his daily blog or his speaking availability are encouraged to contact Catherine Glynn.
Jack Uldrich is a renowned global futurist, technology forecaster, best-selling author, editor of the quarterly newsletter, The Exponential Executive, and host of the award-winning website, http://www.jumpthecurve.net. He is currently represented by a number of professional speakers' bureaus, including Leading Authorities, Convention Connection, Gold Star Speakers Bureau and Executive Speakers Bureau.
Visit link:
(PRWEB) February 25, 2014
On March 1st, International Futures Day, six international futurist organizations will come together to conduct a 24-hour conversation about the worlds potential futures, challenges, and opportunities. This online conversation will be moving across the world with people entering and leaving the conversation whenever they want. The six organizations will provide facilitators for each of the 24 timezones as possible. In addition to The Millennium Project, they are: the Association of Professional Futurists, Club of Amsterdam, Humanity+, World Future Society, and the World Futures Studies Federation.
Two years ago Humanity+ initiated Future Day as March 1st for their members and anyone else - to host some activity locally to celebrate a positive future brought about by accelerating technology the focus of their organization. This year, Jerome Glenn, CEO of The Millennium Project, decided to help make it a global online event and start a new tradition that could eventually help humanity think itself together for a more beautiful future.
Wherever you are in the world, you are invited at 12:00 noon in your timezone to click on the Future Day button at http://www.millennium-project.org or http://www.themp.org to join this global conversation about the future", says Jerome Glenn. If the limit of interactive video conference participation is reached, new arrivals will be able to see and hear, but not have their video seen and voice heard, but they can type in their questions and comments at: https://twitter.com/MillenniumProj that the facilitators can read live in the video conference. As people drop out, new video slots will open up. This is an open, no-agenda discussion about the future, but in general people will be encouraged to share their ideas about how to build a better future, notes Jerome Glenn.
The contacts for the leaders of the collaborating organizations are:
The Millennium Project is a global participatory think tank connecting 50 Nodes around the world that identify important long-range challenges and strategies, and initiate and conduct foresight studies, workshops, symposiums, and advanced training. Over 4,500 futurists, scholars, business planners, and policy makers who work for international organizations, governments, corporations, NGOs, and universities have participated in The Millennium Projects research since its inception, in 1996. The Projects mission is to improve thinking about the future and make it available through a variety of media for feedback to accumulate wisdom about the future for better decisions today. It produces the annual "State of the Future" reports, the "Futures Research Methodology" series, the Global Futures Intelligence System (GFIS), and special studies. The Millennium Project was selected among the top ten think tanks in the world for new ideas and paradigms by the 2013 University of Pennsylvanias GoTo Think Tank Index, and 2012 Computerworld Honors Laureate for its contributions to collective intelligence systems. The forthcoming 2013-14 "State of the Future" will be available in March 2014.
See more here:
The Guggenheim Museum opened their comprehensive retrospective of Italian Futurism on Friday, the avant-garde art movement of the early 20th century that everyone is talking about. The exhibition contains 300 pieces created from 1909 to 1944, but what is Futurism and why should you care?
What is Futurism? Why is it Italian? Those questions are two sides of the same coin. In 1909 the Italian poet and writer Filippo Tommaso Emilio Marinetti published the Futurist Manifesto, a youthful celebration of technology, dynamism, speed, and violence. Marinetti condemns museums and the academy because of their associations with the elderly bourgeoise and, as is to be expected, fetishizes the metropolitan laborer and the glory of hard, industrial toil. It's an art movement that indicts art and celebrates war as "the only cure for the world."
The Italian connection is because it was founded by an Italian and concentrated mostly in Italy. There was some Futurist activity in Moscow, though the Russian Futurism was primarily a literary practice, and had the most impact during Lenin's rise before dying out in the late 1920s. Futurism was so closely linked with Italian politics, nationalism, and industrialization that it didn't gain a lot of traction elsewhere, and most of the folks practicing it were of Italian descent. By the end of World War I and the advent of a second wave of Futurism, the movement was essentially inextricable from the burgeoning fascist regime of Benito Mussolini.
Was it fascist? Basically. The infamous phrase from Marinetti's first manifesto claiming war as "the world's only hygiene" is a pretty direct line to the pro-war, anti-history politics that were foundational to the movement (and vital to fascist doctrine). The Italian Futurists were also active and vocal proponents in the lead-up to World War I. Though the movement in it's original formation had mostly fizzled out by the end of the war, Marinetti revived the movement and stayed active in the fascist political climate of post-war Italy, advocating for Futurism as the state art and becoming closer with Prime Minister Benito Mussolini (Il Duce).
What was their art like? As previously stated, in Russia Futurism was poetic and literary. In Italy, it took forms as diverse as architecture, music, literature, and film. With the development and proliferation of flight technology, aeropainting emerged as a primary expression of the form from the 1920s to the 1940s. Futurism was a contemporary of the more Paris-centered Cubism, and some artists merged the styles into Russian Cubo-Futurism.
Aesthetically, Futurism was a lot of primary colors and hard lines, infected by the disjointed perspective of Cubist portraiture, while also embracing the brushwork of Impressionism. We mentioned some of the subject matter above: war, machinery, modernization, urbanism, vertigo, construction, flight, youth, labor, and revolt. You can find a nice assembly of paintings here.
We can see the legacy of Futurism all over contemporary culture: graphic design, illustration, cyberpunk, science-fiction and film (notably in Blade Runner), futurists, biotechnology or "the metallization of the human body," manga, and art deco, as well as the more direct impact it had on the subsequent movements of Surrealism and Dada.
How Does It Make You FEEL? Ideologically, Futurism had elements of anarchism and communism, was overtly patriarchal and misogynist, and emerged as arguably the first modernist (art) movement that united a philosophy of the future with anti-intellectual, anti-cultural (establishment) politics, justified by blind nationalistic faith in the classically fascist model of a highly politicized militant government.
Like the best Soviet art, German expressionist film, and science fiction, Futurism is full of dynamic motion and achieves a kind of perpetual reverse-anachronismit always evokes a time-not-yet-arrived or a past-that-never-was through a visual language of the present moment. Like the best art, it attempts to inspire action, civic and political. Like the best (read: most nefarious) ideologies, it was driven by a compelling and authoritative leading voice that thrived on complex symbols, xenophobic fears, and conservative values masked by a rabid support of the chaos of modernization.
As the movement of Futurism is now relegated to history, this is obviously a part of a process of forcefully divesting the toxic convictions from the artistic products. It is a part of the endless art/ethic dialectic. A modern audience can look on Futurism artwork and likely enjoy and understand it naturally and acutely, perhaps more-so than other movements before or after, but that understanding also comes at a cost.
Read more:
Know Before You Go: The Guggenheim's Italian Futurism Exhibit
Museums USA A group of activists took to the museum this weekend to raise awareness about working conditions in Abu Dhabi, before its new branch has broken ground
By Julia Halperin. Web only Published online: 24 February 2014
A group of activists descended on the Guggenheim Museum in New York on 22 February to protest the museums planned branch on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi. On a crowded Saturday evening during the museums pay-what-you-wish hours, protesters fanned out around the Guggenheims Frank Lloyd Wright rotunda, sounded a bugle, unfurled signs, passed out flyers and began chanting phrases including, Who is building the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi? and Art should not violate human rights.
The protest, which coincided with the opening weekend of the exhibition Italian Futurism, 1909-1944: Reconstructing the Universe, lasted for about 20 minutes. The group had planned to hold an assembly in the lobby where visitors could ask questions about the Guggenheim project, but it was cut short when police arrived and told participants that they would be arrested if they did not leave the museum, according to Andrew Ross, a New York University (NYU) professor who helped organise the event. Some protestors told the guards that their actions were part of a museum-sanctioned performance in conjunction with the Futurism exhibition. After the protest, the guards closed the museum to new visitors for the rest of the evening.
The action was the first in a planned series to raise awareness about working conditions on Saadiyat Island. Three advocacy groups are participating: the Occupy Wall Street-affiliated Occupy Museums, the museum-focused collective Gulf Labor and a group of activists from NYU, which is building a satellite campus in Abu Dhabi. The next event will take place on Wednesday at NYU, where a representative from the non-profit Human Rights Watch will present findings from a recent visit to Saadiyat Island.
Until now, most of the advocacy surrounding the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi has been relatively understated. Weve been holding off on forms of direct action for a while now to see how the conversations and diplomacy would proceed, Ross says. The decision to transition from letter-writing and discussion to live protest was inspired in part by recent reports in the Guardian that detailed migrant workers continued abuse, squalid living conditions and low wages, Ross said.
A representative from the Guggenheim did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the protest, however in a statement to other media, the museums director Richard Armstrong said, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation is engaged in ongoing, serious discussions with our most senior colleagues in Abu Dhabi regarding the issues of workers rights. As global citizens, we share the concerns about human rights and fair labor practices and continue to be committed to making progress on these issues. At the same time, it is important to clarify that the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi is not yet under construction.
Ross said that the Guggenheim was complicit in the human rights violations on Saadiyat Island despite the fact that the museum has yet to formally break ground on its new facility. The Guggenheim may be the last of these big brand buildings to be constructed but all the infrastructure is there, Ross said. To our mind, it is just a way of passing on the buck.
All comments are moderated. If you would like your comment to be approved, please use your real name, not a pseudonym. We ask for your email address in case we wish to contact you - it will not be made public and we do not use it for any other purpose.
Want to write a longer comment to this article? Email letters@theartnewspaper.com
Read more from the original source:
Protest at Guggenheim over labour conditions on Saadiyat Island
Chaotic Subversion - Searching for freedom
Snotty Anarcho HC/Punk of the split with The disturbed.. -uploaded in HD at http://www.TunesToTube.com.
By: ruidoydesmadre soundsofobscurity
See the original post:
2-20-2014 - The Freedom to Fly
message preached by Rev. Lamar Chapman - Captured Live on Ustream at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/ocoeecog.
By: ocoeecog
Read this article:
Freedom Beyond Comprehension part 1 Joan Hunter, Voices in the Wilderness
Joan Hunter Ministries is here to equip believers to take the healing power of God outside the 4 walls of the church and into the 4 Corners of the World. Voi...
By: Rev. Maria Goldstein
Visit link:
Freedom Beyond Comprehension part 1 Joan Hunter, Voices in the Wilderness - Video
Let #39;s play Assassins Creed 4:Freedom Cry DLC Part 3
Game: assassins creed4 black flag Gameplay License: http://help.ubi.com/video.
By: KaSperminator
Follow this link:
Book - Financial Freedom Through Real Estate Investing in Toronto
I am very excited to announce the launch of my new book: One, Two, Free. Financial Freedom Through Real Estate Investing in Toronto. You can download your FR...
By: beachinvesting
Continued here:
Book - Financial Freedom Through Real Estate Investing in Toronto - Video
Abortion - modernization freedom and democracy
mainstream media "freedom and democracy it just a Politics delusion" is the society. I give up to modernization freedom and democracy. Culture lost destroyed...
By: loveofpeace
Excerpt from:
Is a new Arizona bill discrimination or religious freedom?
CNN #39;s Jeffrey Toobin debates Arizona #39;s controversial bill with attorney Kellie Fiedorek. More from CNN at http://www.cnn.com/ To license video from CNN/HLN g...
By: CNN
Read more from the original source:
Is a new Arizona bill discrimination or religious freedom? - Video
Roesirus Plays Oblivion: Freedom!
Out of the first dungeon, and off to our first quest. Mods Being Used: Nexus Mod Loader Natural Weather Unofficial Oblivion Patch OBGE-Liquid Water.
By: RnEminecraft
See the original post here: