How customer demographics drives your business! Customer trends futurist lecture – Video

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How customer demographics drives your business! Customer trends futurist lecture
Keynote Presentation by Patrick Dixon the shifting global demographic. Demographics are the biggest driver of modern medicine, 1bn children globally soon to ...

By: Patrick Dixon Futurist Keynote Speaker for Industry Conference

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How customer demographics drives your business! Customer trends futurist lecture - Video

Noted satirist brings 'interplanetary journey' to CU

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If You Go

What: Bestselling author Gary Shtyengart will read from his new memoir, "Little Failure," and engage in a conversation with CU's Sasha Senderovich

When: 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 20

Where: Room 235, University Memorial Center, University of Colorado-Boulder campus

Tickets: Event is open to the public. Admission is free, but RSVPs are suggested. Email cujewishstudies@colorado.edu

Info: jewishstudies.colorado.edu or email cujewishstudies@colorado.edu

Looking at comic novelist Gary Shteyngart's life and career through a science-fictional prism, he sort of has it all, at least metaphorically: futurism, "time travel," technophilia. He's even an alien. Or as close to it as you can come.

Born in the former Soviet Union in 1972, he immigrated with his Jewish parents to the United States in 1979, that pivotal year in which, some argue, the Communist world began its final collapse, courtesy of Thatcher, Reagan, Gorbachev and Pope John Paul II.

"The experience of being born in the Soviet Union and coming to America, that's kind of science fiction right there," a buoyant Shteyngart says by phone from New York. "We took an interplanetary journey. We left a world that was struggling and slowly sliding into a Third World country. America had its problems, but it looked like the future to me ... I saw a Corvette and I thought, 'This thing can fly, surely!' It looked like it could take off to the stars."

Gary Shteyngart says he wrote "Little Failure" because it's time to leave behind his "Russian American experience." (Brigitte Lacombe / Courtesy photo)

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Noted satirist brings 'interplanetary journey' to CU

Freedom Industries cleanup advances

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This aerial photograph shows the Freedom Industries tank farm along the Elk River in Charleston. The arrow identifies Tank 396, which leaked the coal-cleaning chemical Crude MCHM into the river on Jan. 9, contaminating the drinking water of 300,000 West Virginians for weeks.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Cleanup crews at Freedom Industries are still several weeks away from emptying all of the site's chemical storage tanks, and still don't have a clear idea of how much of which materials could have contaminated soil at the site.

The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection is overseeing the cleanup, which is being carried out by Freedom Industries and contractors for the chemical company.

Mike Dorsey, director of emergency response and homeland security for the DEP, said he hopes remediation of the facility might be completed by late spring. However, state and federal government officials remain unsure of the extent of contamination in a key part of the site.

The area around the chemical tanks in the northern end of the site -- including Tank 396, which leaked Crude MCHM into the Elk River on Jan. 9 -- has yet to be fully investigated, largely because the eight chemical tanks there haven't been removed.

U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin is conducting a criminal investigation of the leak. The U.S. Chemical Safety Board also is examining the incident. Neither agency has completed its work in that area, Dorsey said, but those investigators should finish in the area soon.

"The sooner we can get in there, the better," Dorsey said in an interview last week.

Until the tanks are removed, he said, it's impossible to judge the extent of soil contamination or to know how much remediation must be done to clean up the area.

"The stuff was flowing around underground and who knows where," Dorsey said. "I don't expect to find large quantities of it, but I expect to find some."

The presence of more MCHM in the soil at the site not only will require additional cleanup, but that work likely will bring with it more of the licorice-like smell Charleston residents have become familiar with since the Freedom Industries leak.

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Freedom Industries cleanup advances

Scientific racism's long history mandates caution

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

14-Feb-2014

Contact: A'ndrea Elyse Messer aem1@psu.edu 814-865-9481 Penn State

Racism as a social and scientific concept is reshaped and reborn periodically through the ages and according to a Penn State anthropologist, both medical and scientific researchers need to be careful that the growth of genomics does not bring about another resurgence of scientific racism.

"What we are facing is a time when genomic knowledge widens and gene engineering will be possible and widespread," said Nina Jablonski, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology. "We must constantly monitor how this information on human gene diversity is used and interpreted. Any belief system that seeks to separate people on the basis of genetic endowment or different physical or intellectual features is simply inadmissible in human society."

What worries Jablonski and the sociologists, psychologists and evolutionary biologists in her session at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, today (Feb. 14) in Chicago, are people who believe that they can use genetic traits to describe races and to develop race-specific interventions for each group. One particularly disturbing approach, although currently suggested as beneficial, is application of genetics to create special approaches to education. The idea that certain individuals and groups learn differently due to their genetic makeup, and so need specialized educational programs could be the first step in a slippery slope to recreating a new brand of "separate but equal."

Similar approaches in medicine that are based not on personal genetics but on racial generalizations can be just as incorrect and troubling, especially because human genetic admixture is so prevalent.

"Our species is defined by regular admixture of peoples and ideas over millennia," said Jablonski. "To come up with new reasons for segregating people is hideous."

Classification of humans began innocently enough with Carl Linnaeus and Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, who simply classified humans into races in the same way they classified dogs or cats -- by their physical characteristics. These were scientists classifying the world around them and realizing that the classifications were not immutable but had a great deal of diversity and overlap. However, in the last quarter of the 18th century, philosophers, especially Immanuel Kant, looked to classify people by behavior and culture as well as genetics. Kant suggested that there were four groups of people, three of which because they existed under conditions not conducive to great intellect or achievement were inferior. Only the European race was capable of self-improvement and highest level of civilization.

Kant's ideas, widely accepted during his lifetime, set up the idea of European superiority in the future. Coupled with the great rise and profitability of slavery at the time, his views were adopted and morphed to legitimize the slave trade.

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Scientific racism's long history mandates caution

ETCIO.com – Understanding Today’s Threat Landscape in the IT Eco System – Video

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ETCIO.com - Understanding Today #39;s Threat Landscape in the IT Eco System
Parag Deodhar, Chief Risk Officer, Vice President - Process Excellence Program Mgmt with Bharti AXA General Insurance is playing the role of Editor of Econ...

By: ET CIO

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ETCIO.com - Understanding Today's Threat Landscape in the IT Eco System - Video

Open, eco-friendly crematorium under PPP mode

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While the GHMC is struggling to get its electric crematoriums functioning, a private-public initiative has opened a modern eco-friendly crematorium complex, markedly different in terms of upkeep and ambience.

Swarg Vatika has come up near an old open cremation ground on the road leading to Manasarovar Heights, the housing complex off RTC colony at Tirumalgiri, Secunderabad. It has gassifier/bio-gas and LPG/CNG crematoriums, both located in a neatly kept building inside the walled facility.

The complex has a 30-ft high chimney, and the machinery is equipped with a wet scrubber pollution control system to prevent soot and foul odour from going out. More importantly, the entire area has pleasant environs, with trees and plants, paved pathways, covered shelters, chairs, clean changing rooms and a parking lot.

Our idea is to have a facility serving as an abode of peace and tranquillity unlike what we usually encounter, says D.N. Gauri, chairman, Swarg Vatika Trust, and the man behind the project, which is said to have cost more than Rs. 2.5 crore. Over the last four years, he had been liaising with the authorities and then Collector Navin Mittal for delineating the land. He also roped in top industrialists, doctors and eminent citizens to contribute towards the project spread across 13,000 square metres.

There is no such PPP facility in any other city. I want it to be the best in the country. We will run the crematorium on a secular basis and is open to all castes and communities at a nominal cost. The poor will get free service, affirms Mr. Gauri, an ex-IAF officer, philanthropist and industrialist. Contact him at dayanand@gauries.com or 23778803.

The facility has servant/staff quarters, mortuary, cold store, ashes room and vehicles to transport the dead. For those opting for conventional firewood funeral, the trust has developed five platforms. The donors include K. Satish Reddy of Dr. Reddys Lab, J. Ranjith Rao of My Home Group, C. Malla Reddy of Malla Reddy Group of Institutions, Sunil Talwar of Talwar Hyundai and doctors Somaraju, Mohana Vamsy, Guruva Reddy, Kasu Prasad Reddy, Gokhale and B. Narsaiah.

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Open, eco-friendly crematorium under PPP mode

Millionaire footballer gets 10,000 FREE mansion insulation while frail 98-year-old widow left to freeze

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The Premier League star, who is said to be on 150,000 a week, applied for the work under Energy Companies Obligation system introduced by the Coalition last year

A millionaire footballer got 10,000 worth of wall insulation for his mansion for FREE under a Government scheme while a frail 98-year-old widow was left to freeze in her home nearby .

The Premier League star, who is said to be on 150,000 a week, applied for the work under the Energy Companies Obligation system introduced by the Coalition last year.

Under the so-called energy efficient scheme, the football aces three-storey pad was classed as hard-to-treat, which meant he got all the work done for free as it would save on future bills.

But the hard-up pensioner living on benefits in the same area in a three-bedroom semi was left out in the cold.

A disgusted insulation firm boss called to work for the lady and then the footie star just 24 hours later explained: ECO is an umbrella scheme based on different pots of money paid out for homes which are hard-to-treat, in low-income areas and judged fuel poor.

But the money available for the fuel poor has plummeted since December because energy companies have hit their targets on reducing carbon emissions.

Contractors could earn 12,000 on a job which only cost 1,200 because the payment is based on future carbon saving at the property.

But most of those suffering from fuel poverty are in small houses and are not going to make those kinds of savings on fuel emissions.

The man, who asked to remain anonymous, went on to attack the ludicrous inequality of system.

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Millionaire footballer gets 10,000 FREE mansion insulation while frail 98-year-old widow left to freeze

Injustice: Gods Among Us – PS4 – Part 6 – Cyborg (Let’s Play, Walkthrough, Gameplay) – Video

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Injustice: Gods Among Us - PS4 - Part 6 - Cyborg (Let #39;s Play, Walkthrough, Gameplay)
I am doing a let #39;s play on the PlayStation 4 version of Netherrealm Studio #39;s Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition video game. This is a walkthrough of t...

By: Reign_Of_Rain

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Injustice: Gods Among Us - PS4 - Part 6 - Cyborg (Let's Play, Walkthrough, Gameplay) - Video