Mayor Jim Kenney wants to clean up 'Filthadelphia' and he's enlisting Penn's help – The Daily Pennsylvanian

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Photo: Matt Rourke

The Philadelphia mayor's office has unveiled an expansive plan to clean up Filthadelphia, and they're enlisting Penn's help.

The Zero Waste and Litter Action Plan, initiated by Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney, aims to reduce litter in the city and end the citys use of landfills and conventional incinerators by 2035. To implement the plan, the Kenney administration partnering with various local institutions including Temple University, Swarthmore College and Penn.

Litter is an issue that has plagued Philly for a very long time, Nic Esposito, the director of Phillys Zero Waste Plan said. Being that we have so much crossover with [Penns] sustainability office and now with some of their research, were exciting to be working with Penn on this issue.

Penn political science professor Dan Hopkins has been enlisted as an academic partner to work on the reduction of litter.

As a member of the projects behavioral science subcommittee, Hopkins conducts experiments throughout the city to better understand what motivates people to recycle and how the placement of trash cans in public spaces can reduce littering.

Ive been excited to see behavioral science integrated in this work from the ground up, Hopkins said. The city had the foresight to bring us in not just on the back end to analyze what happened afterwards, but from the very beginning so we can provide advice about what policies would be more or less useful.

The Kenney administration devised the Zero Waste 2035 campaign late last year, but Penn has been working to clean up its campus for several years now.

In 2014, Penn launched the Climate Action Plan 2.0, which aimed to divert more than 90 percent of Penn's away from landfills. The initiative also aims to increase student awareness on sustainability and climate change, promote sustainable design and reduce solid waste.

College junior Karen Chi is a member of the Eco-Reps program, which engages students to work on small projects that advance the goals of Climate Action Plan 2.0.

Chi said while Penn keeps its campus fairly litter-free, she thinks more trash cans could be placed near food trucks since they generate a large amount of waste. Chi isn't alone; several other student groups on campus say more needs to be done to make Penn a truly clean and green campus.

The Penn Environmental Group advocates for the establishment of a green fund, which would set aside a portion of University revenue for future, large-scale green initiatives such as increasing the use of solar panels around campus, and adding gardens and water-collection technology to buildings.

We want to make sure its targeted and doesnt become another research fund that students dont know about or understand, but specifically a fund that will be making Penn more sustainable and innovative, said Susan Radov, political director of the Penn Environmental Group and College junior.

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Mayor Jim Kenney wants to clean up 'Filthadelphia' and he's enlisting Penn's help - The Daily Pennsylvanian

Nanomedicine Research Journal

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Nanomedicine Research Journal (Abbreviation: Nanomed Res J)

is an international, open access, peer-reviewed, electronic and print quarterly publication released by the Iranian Society of Nanomedicine (ISNM). Nanomedicine Research Journal publishes original research articles, review papers, mini review papers, case reports and short communications covering a wide range of field-specific and interdisciplinary theoretical and experimental results related to applications of nanoscience and nanotechnology in medicine including, but not limited to, diagnosis, treatment, monitoring, prediction and prevention of diseases, tissue engineering, nano bio-sensors, functionalized carriers and targeted drug delivery systems.

* Publication process of manuscripts submitted to Nanomed Res J is free of charge.

To see Acceptance timeline Please follow the link below:

Acceptance Timeline Diagram

About the publisher

Founded in 2011 by the leading ofSchool of Advanced Technologies in medicine (SATiM),Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS) and Iran Nanotechnology Initiative Council, the Iranian Society of Nanomedicine (ISNM) attempts to promote and develop medical nanotechnology in Iran. For more information about the publisher, please visit us at http://isnm.ir/en/.

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Nanomedicine Research Journal

Molecular nanosubmarines can target and kill specific cancer cells – New Atlas

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In 2015, scientists from Rice University revealed they had created light-driven nanosubmarines. These tiny molecular machines were activated by ultraviolet light and based on earlier work from Nobel laureate Bernard Feringa, whose ground-breaking research won the prize for chemistry in 2016. These single-molecule machines have now been shown to be able to target, and drill into, specific cancer cells, paving the way for a variety of highly targeted future nanomedicine treatments.

These molecular machines consist of 244 atoms with a tail-like propeller that creates propulsion when exposed to UV light. After proving the concept worked back in 2015, the team moved on to exploring whether the molecular motor could penetrate an individual cell.

"We thought it might be possible to attach these nanomachines to the cell membrane and then turn them on to see what happened," explains chemist James Tour.

First the team needed to attach the molecular motor to a component that allowed it to target a specific cell. In these early experiments a peptide was utilized that drove the molecule to attach itself to the membrane of human prostate cancer cells. The molecules were shown to effectively locate and attach to the targeted cells, but not drill into them until specifically triggered by UV light. Once triggered, the motors spun up to two to three million rotations per second to break through the cell membrane and kill the cell within one to three minutes.

The obvious challenge that needs to be overcome is to develop an activation trigger other than ultraviolet light, which currently limits the molecular motors to being controllable when concentrated at the surface of tissue. Other triggers are currently being investigated, with near infra-red (IR) light looking like the best option to control these motors when delivered deep into a body.

"In this process, the motor will absorb two photons simultaneously and get enough energy to start the rotor," says Gufeng Wang, a chemist on the Rice University team. "Since near IR light has deep penetration depth, we are no longer limited to the surface of the tissue."

There is much work that still needs to be done before these molecular motors become a real, clinical treatment, but there are a variety of exciting outcomes this technology promises. As well as targeting and destroying cancer cells, the molecular motors could be utilized to deliver drugs directly into diseased cells.

As well as working on additional activation mechanisms, the team is embarking on a series of small animal tests to examine the effectiveness of the molecules on living organisms.

"The researchers are already proceeding with experiments in microorganisms and small fish to explore the efficacy in-vivo," says Tour. "The hope is to move this swiftly to rodents to test the efficacy of nanomachines for a wide range of medicinal therapies."

The research was published in the journal Nature and the video below provides a closer look at the team's breakthrough.

Source: Rice University

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Molecular nanosubmarines can target and kill specific cancer cells - New Atlas

Meditation expert tells us what the science really says and why multitasking is a 'myth' – Southernminn.com

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So you fell asleep easily enough, but now it's 3 a.m. Your mind is spinning, and rest is elusive. You're reliving every foolish or embarrassing thing you did in the past 24 or 48 or 72 hours, and that is a lot of material to run through. And you simply can't stop.

Except maybe you could, if only you knew how to be mindful.

"When you're caught in that loop of rumination, that's very real, and it creates very intense feelings," explains psychologist and journalist Daniel Goleman, who reported on brain and behavioral sciences for the New York Times. "If you're mindful, you realize it's just a thought. You don't have to believe your thoughts. You can question them, and that changes them. It takes energy from the brain that creates the heaviness. Looking at it in a different way makes the rumination less intense."

You might think, on hearing such praises of mindfulness a form of meditative practice that it will solve just about every problem in your life. Meditation can halt the late-night rumination cycle, right? So can't it also make you into a better person? Enlarge your brain? Make you taller and thinner and richer?

Well, no, says Goleman, who's also the author of the best-selling book "Emotional Intelligence." Some claims of meditation's power are overblown. Some studies are less rigorous than they should be. But science has proven that meditation can induce healthy and important physical improvements, such as lowering your blood pressure, decreasing relapses into depression and managing chronic pain.

Which leaves us with a question: As our interest in meditation grows, how do we know what's too good to be true?

Goleman has some answers. With Richard J. Davidson, who directs a brain lab and founded the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Goleman has just published "Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body" (Avery, $27). The book separates truth from fiction, debunking studies and highlighting truth about meditation's startling effects on the brain.

"Altered Traits" also chronicles the authors' decades-long friendship and lifelong interest in the subject of meditation, which began at a time during which scientific circles had little patience or interest in the subject.

The book is important because it represents "the coming together of two very important voices," says Scott Rogers, founder and director of the Mindfulness and Law Program at the University of Miami School of Law. He will be in conversation with Goleman at Miami Dade College.

Rogers, co-founder of UMindfulness, the university's inter-disciplinary collaboration that marries research to training, notes another benefit: Not only are Goleman and Davidson experts in their fields, they're also meditation practitioners.

"We need responsible, reasoned voices speaking from a variety of perspectives, and here we have the hard science and the journalist, and both are practitioners. We need a book we can look to as a reliable source of information," Rogers says. "They both practice and have for a long time. A lot of researchers have been interested in this over the last 10 or 15 years, but they haven't historically practiced mindfulness. There are a bunch of people practicing, but they're not scientists."

"Altered Traits" examines scientific studies on meditation and the benefits of intensive retreats, learning to view our selves and our brains in a whole new light and the importance of a good teacher ("I feel strongly the quality of the teacher is important," Goleman says). The book also challenges notions we (or at least our bosses) hold dear, such as the idea that multitasking is a positive endeavor.

"Multitasking is a myth," Goleman says. "You can't really do two things at once. What happens is your brain switches rapidly. As it switches, you lose the power of your concentration. You do many things at once, you do them less well."

But there is good news for multitaskers, according to "Altered Traits": Cognitive control can be improved. One test of undergrad volunteers tried short sessions of focusing or breath-counting. "Just three 10-minute sessions of breath counting was enough to appreciably increase their attention skills on a battery of tests. And the biggest gains were among the heavy multitaskers, who did more poorly on those tests initially," the authors write.

Which brings up another important question: If the benefits of meditation expand the deeper a person's practice goes, is meditating in short sessions still useful?

"Casual practice helps you in surprising ways, but the deeper you go and the more you practice, the more benefits you get," he says. "The research shows that right from the beginning mindfulness practices counter the ill effects of multitasking. We're all doing so many things a day. But the improvement in attention starts at the beginning."

And if you can only spare 10 minutes at a time for meditation, Goleman suggests spreading your practice throughout the day.

"Intersperse it through the day. Ten minutes in the morning. Ten at lunch. Ten at night. The effect is prolonged. If you can do 20 minutes, even better. If you can do it for a year, that's good. Five years is even better."

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Meditation expert tells us what the science really says and why multitasking is a 'myth' - Southernminn.com

Losing weight for the couch potato and others – The Washington Post – Washington Post

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Over the years, Robert Kushner has seen many obese patients get tripped up trying to keep pounds off because they rely on fast food, juggle too many tasks and dislike exercise.

So Kushner, an obesity expert, began helping patients plan diet and physical activity around their lifestyles and habits.

We dont necessarily put people on any specific diet; it really gets to what is their life, what are their struggles, he said. We believe obesity care cant be inconsistent with culture, family or how you lead your life.

He recently suggested that a patient split meals with his wife when they dined out, rather than each having large portions or avoiding restaurants entirely. When the man said he was uncomfortable sharing a meal with his wife when the couple was out with friends, Kushner said to do it anyway.

I said, Its a strategy that works whether youre with other people or not. ... Be assertive, said Kushner. I think people dont think about it because they just arent raised to share.

The patient kept track of the foods he was eating, learning to avoid larger portions and fattening dishes. He has lost 15 pounds in six months, cutting about 500 to 700 calories per day.

More than a third of U.S. adults are obese, according to a 2015 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Kushner, who directs the Center for Lifestyle Medicine at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago, said he realized in the 1980s that obesity was a looming problem. He started combining diet, nutrition, exercise and behavioral changes into a plan for patients.

Since then, whats changed is the maturity of the area, understanding more about the effects of stress and sleep on body weight, and some of the behavioral-change techniques have expanded, he said.

In addition to promoting good sleep habits and stress management techniques such as meditation, Kushner and his colleagues suggest bariatric surgery for patients with a body mass index of 40 or more and for some who are less obese but who have medical problems such as Type 2 diabetes, sleep apnea and heart disease. They also recommend medication for patients with BMIs as low as 30 who have additional medical problems or have failed to lose weight despite lifestyle changes.

Kushner said patients often have trouble shedding pounds unless problems like stress are managed.

Kushners approach proposes gentler, moderate changes. Rather than tell patients to cut out every unhealthy food they love, Kushner suggests focusing on alternatives with higher fiber and water content but fewer calories. (Think beans, vegetables, salads, fruits, broth-based soups and whole grains such as oatmeal.)

For the couch potato who finds exercise overwhelming, Kushner advises walking for short periods, building up to three 10-minute brisk walks daily to boost your energy level and mood while you also burn calories.

He also suggests that dog owners walk their pet for 30 minutes daily rather than leave Fido in the back yard. Kushner found that dog-walking helped overweight and obese people lose weight in a study, and he wrote a book about it Fitness Unleashed!: A Dog and Owners Guide to Losing Weight and Gaining Health Together with veterinarian Marty Becker.

I call it an exercise machine on a leash, Kushner said. It is a way for people to think about moving their body around in a fun way.

Most of his patients lose about 10 percent of their body weight (some more than 20 percent) after six months and keep it off during the program, Kushner said.

Patients say they feel understood and more motivated as they are given personalized direction to make positive changes in their lifestyle, he said.

Kushner created a questionnaire to screen patients for traits that prevent weight loss such as eating whats convenient rather than planning healthy meals or having an all-or-nothing mentality traits that Kushner and colleagues found in a study to be strongly linked with obesity.

Once you take the quiz and know your factor type, I can personalize a plan to help you lose weight and keep it off, Kushner said.

Another way Kushner hopes to help patients tackle obesity is by teaching medical students about treating and preventing it. He found in a recent study that the U.S. Medical Licensing Examination was focusing much more on diagnosing and treating obesity-related illnesses, such as Type 2 diabetes and sleep apnea, than on how to counsel patients on diet, physical activity, behavior changes, the use of medications and bariatric surgery.

But Kushner said his approach isnt only about weight loss.

We know that as little as 5 to 10 percent weight loss will improve the health and well-being of individuals and can also improve blood sugar, blood pressure, the fats in your blood, arthritis or reflux symptoms, as well as your mood and energy level.

Read more

Changing your perspective about weight loss may change the outcome, too

A weight-loss expert changes his tune: Focus on enjoyment, not perfection

Weight loss, especially with surgery, tied to lower risk of heart failure

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Losing weight for the couch potato and others - The Washington Post - Washington Post

Self-driving cars still can't mimic the most natural human behavior – Quartz

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What do you need to build a self-driving car? Roboticists and computer scientists have generally settled on similar requirements. Your autonomous vehicle needs to know where the boundaries of the road are. It needs to be able to steer the car and hit the brakes. It needs to know the speed limit, be able to read street signs, and detect if a traffic light is red or green. It needs to be able to react quickly to unexpected objects in its path, and it gets extra points if it knows where it is on a map.

All of those skills are important and necessary. But by building from a list of technical requirements, researchers neglect the single most important part of real-world driving: our intuition. Using it to determine the motivations of those around us is something humans are so effortlessly good at that its hard to even notice were doing it, nonetheless program for it.

A self-driving car currently lacks the ability to look at a personwhether theyre walking, driving a car, or riding a bikeand know what theyre thinking. These instantaneous human judgments are vital to our safety when were drivingand to that of others on the road, too.

As the CTO and cofounder of Perceptive Automata, an autonomous-vehicle software company started by Harvard neuroscientists and computer scientists, I wanted to see how often humans make these kinds of subconscious calls on the road. I took a camera out to a calm intersection near my former lab at Harvard with no traffic signals. It is not by any stretch of the imagination as congested or difficult as an intersection in downtown Boston, let alone Manhattan or Mexico City. But in 30 seconds of video, it is still possible to count more than 45 instances of one person intuiting whats in the mind of another. These non-verbal, split-second intuitions could be that person is not going to yield, that person doesnt know Im here, or that person wouldnt jaywalk while walking a dog. Is that bicyclist going to turn left or stop? Is that pedestrian going to take advantage of their right-of-way and cross? These judgments happen instantaneously, just watch.

We have lots of empirical evidence that humans are incredibly good at intuiting the intentions of others. The Sally-Anne task is a classic psychology experiment. Subjectsusually childrenwatch a researcher acting out a scene with dolls. A doll named Sally hides a marble in a covered basket. Sally leaves the room. While Sally is gone, a second dollAnnesecretly moves the marble out of the basket and into a closed box. When the first doll comes back, children are asked where she will look for the marble. Its easy to say, Well, of course shell still look in the basket, as Sally couldnt have known that the marble had moved while she was gone. But that of course is hiding an immensely sophisticated model. Children have to know not only that Sally is aware of some things and not of others, but that her awareness only updates when she is able to pay attention to something. They also have to know that her mental state is persistent, even when she leaves the room and comes back. This task has been repeated many times in labs around the world, and is part of the standard toolkit researchers use to understand if somebodys social intuitions are intact.

The ability to predict the mental state of others is so innate that we even apply it to distinctly non-human objects. The Heider-Simel experiment shows how were prone to ascribe perceived intent even to simple geometric shapes. In this famous study, a film shows two triangles and a circle moving around the screen. With essentially no exceptions, most people construct and elaborate narrative about the goals and interactions of the geometric shapes: One is a villain, one a protector, the third a victim who grows courageous and saves the dayall these mental states and narratives just from looking at geometric shapes moving about. In the psychological literature, this is called an impoverished stimulus.

Our interactions with people using the road are an example of an impoverished stimulus, too. We only see a pedestrian for a few hundred milliseconds before we have to decide how to react to them. We see a car edging slightly into a lane for a half second and have to decide whether to yield to them. We catch a fleeting glimpse of a cyclist and judge whether they know were making a right turn. These kinds of interactions are constant, and they are at the very core of driving safely and considerately.

And computers, so far, are hopeless at navigating them.

The perils of lacking an intuition for state of mind are already evident. In the first at-fault crash of a self-driving vehicle, a Google self-driving car in Mountain View incorrectly assumed that a bus driver would yield to it, misunderstanding both the urgency and the flexibility of a human driver trying to get around a stopped vehicle. In another crash, a self-driving Uber in Arizona was hit by a turning driver who expected that any oncoming vehicles would notice the adjacent lanes of traffic had slowed down and adjust its expectations of how turning drivers would behave.

Why are computers so bad at this task of mind reading if its so easy for people? This circumstance comes up so often in AI development that it has a name: Moravecs Paradox. The tasks that are easiest for people are often the ones that are the hardest for computers. Were least aware of what our minds do best, said the late AI pioneer Marvin Minsky. Were more aware of simple processes that dont work well than of complex ones that work flawlessly.

So how do you design an algorithm to perform a task if you cant say with any certainty what the task entails?

The usual solution is to define the task as simply as possible and use what are called deep-learning algorithms that can learn from vast quantities of data. For example, when given a sufficient number of pictures of trees (and pictures of things that are not trees), these computer programs can do a very good job of identifying a tree. If you boil a problem down to either proving or disproving an unambiguous fact about the worldthere is a tree there, or there is notalgorithms can do a pretty good job.

The only way to solve these problems is to deeply understand human behavior by characterizing it carefully using the techniques of behavioral science.But what to do about problems where basic facts about the world are neither simple nor accessible? Humans can make surprisingly accurate judgments about other humans because we have an immensely sophisticated set of internal models for how those around us behave. But those models are hidden from scrutiny, hidden in the black boxes of our minds. How do you label images with the contents of somebodys constantly fluid and mostly nonsensical inner monologue?

The only way to solve these problems is to deeply understand human behaviornot just by reverse-engineering it, but by characterizing it carefully and comprehensively using the techniques of behavioral science. Humans are immensely capable but have opaque internal mechanisms. We need to use the techniques of human behavioral research in order to build computer-vision models that are trained to capture the nuances and subtleties of human responses to the world instead of trying to guess what our internal model of the world looks like.

First, we need to work out how humans worksecond comes training the machines. Only with a rich, deep characterization of the quirks and foibles of human ability can we know enough about the problem were trying to solve in order to build computer models that can solve it. By using humans as the model for ideal performance, we are able to gain traction on these difficult tasks and find a meaningful solution to this intuition problem.

And we need to solve it. If self-driving cars are going to achieve their promise as a revolution in urban transportationdelivering reduced emissions, better mobility, and safer streetsthey will have to exist on a level playing field with the humans who already use those roads. They will have to be good citize
ns, not only skilled at avoiding at-fault accidents, but able to drive in such a way that their behavior is expected, comprehensible, and clear to other vehicles drivers and the pedestrians and cyclists sharing space with them.

Follow Sam on Twitter. Learn how to write for Quartz Ideas. We welcome your comments at ideas@qz.com.

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Brain researchers in uproar over NIH clinical trials policy – Nature.com

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Scientists studying human behaviour and cognitive brain function are up in arms over a plan by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) to classify most studies involving human participants as clinical trials.

An open letter sent on 31 August to NIH director Francis Collins says that the policy could unnecessarily increase the administrative burden on investigators, slowing the pace of discovery in basic research. It asked the NIH to delay implementation of the policy until it consulted with the behavioural science community. As this article went to press, the letter had garnered 2,070 signatures.

Every scientist I have talked to who is doing basic research on the human mind and brain has been shocked by this policy, which makes no sense, says Nancy Kanwisher, a cognitive neuroscientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, who co-wrote the letter with four other researchers.

The policy is part of an NIH clinical trial reform effort started in 2014 to ensure that all clinical results were publicly reported. The policy is scheduled to go into effect in January 2018. Its definition of a clinical trial included anything involving behavioural interventions, such as having participants perform a memory task or monitor their food intake. Such studies would need special evaluation by NIH review committees and institutional ethics review boards; and the experiments would need to be registered online in the clinicaltrials.gov database.

But many researchers believe that studies of normal human behaviour intended to discover new phenomena rather than alter them should not be classified in this way. Among other concerns, small institutions that do not normally perform clinical trials may not have the resources or knowledge to fully comply.

These concerns are overblown, said Michael Lauer, NIH deputy director for extramural research at a 1 September NIH advisory council meeting in Bethesda, Maryland. The only regulation were talking about is reporting that the trial exists and telling the world about the results. It is as simple as this and as profound as this. He said that his office would work with behavioural scientists to ensure their studies were getting the proper review and that their research could be properly registered.

But advisory council member Terry Jernigan, a cognitive scientist at the University of California San Diego, told Lauer that it was not as simple as that. She said the policy has already caused problems for a study shes leading that tracks normal brain development in adolescents. When her group had the parents sign the required clinical trial consent form, some expressed concerns that the language indicated that something was being done to their children, rather than just having researchers observe them.

The NIH, in response to some of those concerns, will release a list of study examples that qualify as clinical trials under the new policy next week. The NIH definition of a clinical trial may be broader than other clinical trial definitions because it reflects NIH's mission, encompassing biomedical and behavioral outcomes as they pertain to human health, said the NIH in a statement to Nature News. This definition does not encompass all psychological and cognitive research that is funded by NIH.

Jeremy Wolfe, a vision researcher at Brigham and Womens Hospital in Boston, says he is encouraged to hear Lauer say the NIH plans to work with researchers in his field, but says that the details of the policy will be key. Were worried about whether those details can be worked out by the January deadline, he says.

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Brain researchers in uproar over NIH clinical trials policy - Nature.com

The Good Catholic – slantmagazine

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Paul Shoulberg's The Good Catholic is billed as a romantic comedy between a young priest, Daniel (Zachary Spicer), and a depressive agnostic musician, Jane (Wrenn Schmidt), but the film's light surface belies a darker confrontation with religious doubt. For a faith-based film, it's notable for giving equal narrative weight to the beliefs and emotions of its only non-Christian character, resisting the urge to patronize Jane by suggesting that her sorrow is symptomatic of her agnosticism and can be cured if she simply found her faith. Certainly it's refreshing to see a film aimed at the Christian community present the allure of the secular world in an unbiased way and allow Daniel to truly struggle to determine his future within the church.

Despite The Good Catholic's interesting macro approach compared to other films of its ilk, it's far less successful on a micro level. The foundation of Jane and Daniel's blooming relationship is particularly contrived, relying on the improbable conceit of a non-Catholic woman not only showing up for confession once but continuing to do so for no plausible reason until she falls in love with the priest. As Jane's fascination with death never materializes into an active interest in Daniel's own all-encompassing spiritual journey, it remains a nagging mystery both why she relentlessly pursues such a deeply devout man, especially given his vow of chastity, and why Daniel is so enamored with someone who's so unconcerned with his own core beliefs.

Despite its interesting macro approach compared to other films of its ilk, its far less successful on a micro level.

Since Jane's emotional struggles aren't rendered sharply enough to ever fully reveal her interior world, the character operates more like a catalyst for Daniel, causing him to vacillate between embracing the priesthood and abandoning his position for love. The relationships between Daniel and the fellow priests in his parish, Victor (Danny Glover) and Ollie (John C. McGinley), are thus left to pick up the slack, and to middling results. McGinley brings a relaxed, off-the-cuff humor to Ollie that feels lived-in, but his character's function is too limited; Ollie is little more than the sardonic, hip, and well-rounded priest who's meant to starkly contrast the traditionally ascetic vision of men of the cloth that Victor upholds. Together, Victor and Ollie are largely symbolicriffs on the shoulder-perched angel and devilone man giving Daniel the space to find his own way, the other constantly intervening to make certain he stays true to his commitment to the church.

The Good Catholic is admirable for its willingness to question the strict methodology of the church, but it still paints its characters, and specifically Daniel's crisis of faith, in very broad strokes. Shoulberg's failure to provide a compelling love story causes Daniel's decision to potentially leave his life's calling behind to feel particularly labored. And because Daniel carries his emotions so close to the vest, his seemingly torturous existential struggle remains as opaque and inscrutable as the reasons behind his burgeoning feelings for Jane. The film may succeed at expanding the boundaries of faith-based cinema, but it still feels obligatory in its approach.

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The Good Catholic - slantmagazine

Roy Moore claims he didn’t know about DACA because he ‘doesn’t speak the language of Washington’ – Washington Examiner

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How much do you really need to know to serve in the Senate? The world's greatest deliberative body takes up complicated policy questions daily. Of course, there's going to be a learning curve, and senators have staff to aid in their decision-making.

On day one though, even the freshest senators should have a familiarity with the biggest political issues facing the nation. And that means Judge Roy Moore has some catching up to do.

Moore is currently the front-runner in a special Alabama Senate Republican primary runoff, and until recently he wasn't aware of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival program, let alone President Trump's long-standing promise to end a program that gives legal reprieve to hundreds of thousands of young illegal immigrants.

"Pardon?" Moore asked during a July WVNN local interview first unearthed by the Washington Examiner. "The Dreamer program?" After two more cringe-worthy minutes, Moore finally settles on agnosticism. Running for Senate in deep-red Alabama, the former state Supreme Court justice didn't come down one way or the other on a marquee immigration policy.

The judge was just lost in translation, campaign spokeswoman Katie Frost, tells the Washington Examiner. "Moore doesn't speak the language of Washington," she says clarifying her boss' position, "he speaks the language of the Constitution. Judge Moore opposes amnesty under any name."

According to Frost, the acronym is just "Washington-speak." If that's true, every radio shock jock, tea partier, and Republican north and south of the Mason-Dixon is fluent in swamp-speak. They've been railing against the program since former President Barack Obama bypassed Congress to create the program via executive order in 2012.

With three weeks ahead of the Sept. 26 primary, it's still too early to tell what Moore's gaffe might mean at the ballot box. Politics seems to eclipse more and more policy each day, so it's possible the Alabama Aleppo moment won't matter. Then again, Moore has positioned himself as an immigration hardliner, and he's running for Attorney General Jeff Sessions' old seat.

Sessions made a name for himself in the Senate as a Southern immigration hawk. It was the issue that catapulted him to prominence and sent him into Trump's orbit. More than embarrassing, Moore's ignorance on the marquee immigration issue has been picked up by everyone from the Associated Press to The Washington Post.

Moore's opponent, incumbent Sen. Luther Strange, quickly pounced on the blunder and reupped the former Alabama attorney general's past experience fighting the Obama administration in court.

"While career politician Roy Moore doesn't even know what DACA is," a campaign spokeswoman told the Washington Examiner, "Luther stands with President Trump, and has fought against Obama's illegal amnesty plan and won."

Regardless of who wins, whether Moore or Strange advances to the general election ballot, where they'll be heavily favored against a Democrat, they better get smart and fast.

Philip Wegmann is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.

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Roy Moore claims he didn't know about DACA because he 'doesn't speak the language of Washington' - Washington Examiner

Bruno Major Completes ‘A Song For Every Moon’ Project – Clash Magazine

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Bruno Major has shared the final part of his new project 'A Song For Every Moon'.

The composer kicked off the project earlier this year, sharing new material bit by bit, piece by piece.

The final piece of the puzzle is new track 'On Our Own', a song partly prompted by the death of the songwriter's grandmother.

A hushed and tender ballad, it's an intimate offering from Bruno Major. He explains: I wrote this after a conversation with my mother when my Granny died. Her death sparked a personal journey through Agnosticism, Atheism and through the other side, and writing 'On Our Own' helped me understand how I felt about existence and religion. I think this is the song that I am most proud of.

Check out 'A Song For Every Moon' in its entirety below.

Related: Full Moon - The Songwriting Quest Of Bruno Major

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Taconic Biosciences Sponsors Custom Model to Support Kabuki Syndrome, a Rare Disorder Causing Intellectual … – GlobeNewswire (press release)

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HUDSON, N.Y., Aug. 31, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Taconic Biosciences, a global leader in genetically engineered rodent models and associated services, is funding the development of a custom mouse model to study Kabuki syndrome, a rare genetic disorder. Taconic is donating model generation services as a third-time sponsor of the Rare Disease Science Challenge, BeHEARD. Hosted by the Rare Genomics Institute, the Rare Disease Science Challenge is an annual event in which industry sponsors donate services to accelerate rare disease research.

Characterized by mild to moderate intellectual disability, stunted growth, immune dysregulation, and hearing loss, Kabuki syndrome is caused by mutations in the KMT2D or KDM6A genes. Taconic will use CRISPR/Cas 9 gene editing technology to develop the first Kmt2d missense mouse model of Kabuki syndrome and generate a cohort of mice for study. In parallel, Taconic will cryopreserve and store the mouse line.

Taconic recognizes the vital role mouse models play in understanding the mechanisms of rare diseases and the challenges of funding their research, said Bob Rosenthal, CEO, Taconic Biosciences. Taconic is committed to advancing rare disease research through efforts such as sponsorship of the BeHEARD challenge and donation of an integrated solution of model generation, breeding and cryopreservation capabilities.

Teresa Luperchio, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Hans Bjornsson, MD, PhD, director of the Epigenetics and Chromatin Clinic, McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, will employ the Taconic model. Dr. Bjornssons lab previously characterized a mouse model carrying a loss-of-function variant of the Kmt2d gene and demonstrated reversal of some learning and memory deficits using therapeutic strategies. However, the initial mouse line models only a subset of individuals with Kabuki syndrome. Taconic will generate a Kabuki syndrome mouse model based on a patient-specific missense mutation. This will enable investigators to assess whether therapies they are developing can reverse disability in a wider spectrum of the Kabuki syndrome patient population.

The model will be invaluable in moving the field closer to treating what has been viewed as an untreatable disorder. Experience with our first mouse model showed that for patients with the KMT2D mutation, the disease may be treatable in humans, Dr. Bjornsson said. We hope the Taconic model will demonstrate this capability in an expanded patient population, allowing us to employ a single therapeutic strategy for all Kabuki syndrome type 1 patients.

Taconics ability to develop a patient-specific model was essential. Generating a model that closely represents what is seen in patients is critical for translating our findings from the bench to the clinic, Dr. Luperchio says.

To learn more about Taconics custom model generation, please call 1-888-TACONIC (888-822-6642) in the US or +45 70 23 04 05 in Europe, or email info@taconic.com.

To learn about the BeHEARD Project, visit http://www.raregenomics.org/beheard-competition/.

About Taconic Biosciences, Inc.Taconic Biosciences is a global leader in genetically engineered rodent models and services. Founded in 1952, Taconic helps biotechnology companies and institutions acquire, custom generate, breed, precondition, test, and distribute valuable research models worldwide. Specialists in genetically engineered mouse and rat models, precision research mouse models, and integrated model design and breeding services, Taconic operates three service laboratories and six breeding facilities in the U.S. and Europe, maintains distributor relationships in Asia and has global shipping capabilities to provide animal models almost anywhere in the world.

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Taconic Biosciences Sponsors Custom Model to Support Kabuki Syndrome, a Rare Disorder Causing Intellectual ... - GlobeNewswire (press release)

Climate Smart Crops: A Necessity for Future Food & Nutrition Security – Inter Press Service

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Development & Aid, Economy & Trade, Editors' Choice, Featured, Food & Agriculture, Global, Green Economy, Headlines, Poverty & SDGs, TerraViva United Nations | Opinion

Bev Postma is CEO of HarvestPlus

Golden rice is fortified rice to reduce shortage of dietary vitamin A

WASHINGTON DC, Aug 31 2017 (IPS) - Climate change is taking a severe toll on farmers, as they watch their livelihoods disappear with the onslaught of floods, droughts and rising sea levels and temperatures. With agriculture currently employing over 1.3 billion people throughout the world, or close to 40 percent of the global workforce, it is imperative that we incorporate climate resilience into all aspects of crop breeding and food innovation.

Developing ways to improve staple crops so that they can withstand some of the adverse effects of climate change will ensure food security and agricultural livelihood for generations to come.

A recent report from the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) found that at current rates of climate change, it is likely that global food production will decline by two percent every decade until at least 2050, just as the worlds population is expected to reach 9.7 billion people.

As a result of these factors, people may be forced to eat fewer fruits, vegetables, and red meat products because their availability may be scarce and prices may rise accordingly. Access to food may also be limited by climate-related vulnerabilities in transportation, storage, and processing.

Projection models from the World Bank likewise show that by the 2030s-2040s, between 40 to 80 percent of cropland used to grow staple crops like maize, millet and sorghum could be lost due to the effects of higher temperatures, drought and aridity.

At the same time, increased levels of CO2 in the atmosphere are already decreasing the nutritional quality of crops lowering their concentrations of vital micronutrients like zinc and iron. In a 2014 study on CO2 and crop nutrition, Samuel Myers of Harvard University and his colleagues determined that the CO2 levels in the second half of this century would likely reduce the levels of zinc, iron, and protein in wheat, rice, peas, and soybeans.

Some two billion people live in countries where citizens receive more than 60 percent of their zinc or iron from these foods. Many already suffer from diets that lack enough of these important minerals, and increased deficiencies of these vital nutrients would have even more devastating health consequences.

A new technology known as biofortification the process of increasing the nutrient content of staple food crops is a promising tool in the global effort to mitigate these trends.

Many of the effects of climate change are already being felt. Increased drought and aridity are now a reality in Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia, leading to widespread harvest losses and livestock death. As a result, malnutrition levels in the area have skyrocketed. In Somalia alone, the UN says more than six million people are in need of urgent help.

Though climate change continues to progress at an advanced pace, researchers and policymakers can help offset some of the negative impact on farmers by focusing on crop adaptation strategies. Organizations like HarvestPlus and our global partners recognize the necessity of climate resilience and our scientists, plant breeders and country teams are working daily to scale out more climate-resilient crops.

At the International Center for Tropical Agriculture in Palmira, Colombia, researchers are developing beans that can beat the heat. Often referred to as the meat of the poor, beans offer a crucial source of vitamins and protein as well as income for millions of people, particularly in Africa and Latin America.

But climate modeling suggests that, over the coming decades, higher temperatures will threaten bean production, reducing yields and quality. Moreover, heat stress could diminish the area for growing beans by up to 50% in eastern and central Africa by the year 2050.

By identifying elite lines of beans that show strong tolerance to heat up to 30 degrees Celsius breeders can develop more productive, nutritionally improved beans that are resilient even in harsh growing conditions.

Indeed, climate resistant traits are integral to all 150 varieties of the 12 staple crops we and our partners have developed. We run extensive tests to ensure crops will be successful, from stress tests in the field mimicking intense climate conditions, to studies in laboratories.

Under repeatable stress conditions, we generate an environment for testing which allows breeding for climate smart, robust varieties with high micronutrient and high yield stability.

The traits bred into our crops are virus, disease and pest resistance, as well as drought and heat tolerance. These selective plant breeding techniques are just one means of securing agriculture in areas vulnerable to climate change, but we have to do more.

As climate change continues to play a dominant role in agriculture and food security, we have to remain committed to continued research to be sure people in rural communities receive the most nutritious and resilient crop varieties available.

With ongoing crises of famine in five countries stretching from Africa to the Middle East, farmers and vulnerable populations are relying on policymakers, scientists and aid workers to provide the necessary tools to mitigate hunger and prevent additional harvest losses.

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Balance and Gait Problems can be Improved using Avatars – Anti Aging News

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Use of brain-computer interface, virtual avatar could help people with gait disabilities

World Health and A4M have been following gait problems for years in terms of the way balance effect falling and the progression of aging. The role of the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine is to support investigators in their goal of attenuation and/or reversing some of the aging process.

The study, funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disease and Stroke, was published this week inScientific Reports. Senior author and researcher Jose Luis Contreras-Vidal is the professor of electrical and computer engineering at University of Houstons Noninvasive Brain-Machine Interface System Laboratory. He is also the site director of the BRAIN Center (Building Reliable Advances and Innovation in Neurotechnology), a National Science Foundation Industry/University Cooperative Research Center. His teams studies are the first to prove that using an interface between a proprietary computer program and a human brain depicting another person walking (avatar) may help balance patients improve gait and return to normal walking following spinal cord or other injury or cerebral vascular injury (stroke). He says that this is the first to involve humans, even though other studies on other primates have been perform previously.

Contreras-Vidal and researchers performed the study by using three trials with 80 healthy graduate students in the UH Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering to provide baseline data. The subjects walked on a treadmill while watching the avatar on a large screen in order to provide increased visual input while wearing a 64-channel EEG skull cap in addition to sensors on ankle, knee and hip joints. The non-invasive brain monitoring helped determine what parts of the brain are involved in walking. They then created an algorithm for a computer-brain interface.

His team wrote. "Voluntary control of movements is crucial for motor learning and physical rehabilitation," "Our results suggest the possible benefits of using a closed-loop EEG-based BCI-VR (brain-computer interface-virtual reality) system in inducing voluntary control of human gait." Up till this point, no one had researched whether a computer assisted algorithm and avatar might actually be effective in promoting better gait, balance and stability.

The subject was connected to the computer via the skull cap and sensors so that the interface caused the avatar on the screen to mimic the subject. The study reported increased activity in the posterior parietal cortex and the inferior parietal lobe, as well as the anterior cingulate cortex; all of which are involved in motor memory. Eventually the subject was actually able to control the avatar with their own brain although much less accurately. Future studies will likely be more accurate as software and interfaces improve. Contreras-Vidal said, "It's like learning to use a new tool or sport," he said. "You have to understand how the tool works. The brain needs time to learn that." The subject of Contreras-Vidal upcoming Ph.D. dissertation is the use of this protocol with actual patients. "The appeal of brain-machine interface is that it places the user at the center of the therapy," Contreras-Vidal said. "They have to be engaged, because they are in control."

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White Lotus Products Available on CompleteBeautyStore.com – Benzinga

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White Lotus, a company known for its products that adhere to the principles of ancient Chinese medicine to provide anti-aging solutions, announced its products are now ready to be ordered from CompleteBeautyStore.com.

Boca Raton (PRWEB) August 29, 2017

White Lotus, a company known for its products that adhere to the principles of ancient Chinese medicine to provide anti-aging solutions, announced its products are now ready to be ordered from CompleteBeautyStore.com.

The company focuses on producing and distributing holistic anti-aging products. Founded in 2007, White Lotus is different from mainstream beauty companies in that its products are all based on principles of ancient Eastern medicine. Anthony and Kamila Kingston started the Australia-based company after traveling around the world to learn about Chinese medicine. The company's products are now on specialty beauty sites as well as major retail platforms like Amazon.com and Jet.com.

"We're excited to announce White Lotus products will be available from CompleteBeautyStore.com," said Anthony Kingston. "As we focus on expanding our reach in the US market, we want to make our products available to all consumers. White Lotus offers a unique approach in the crowded beauty and cosmetics sector by offering holistic anti-aging solutions that have stood the test of time."

White Lotus is filling a demand in the market for Chinese medicine and acupuncture products. These are designed to enhance skin health, resolve chronic pain problems, prevent hair loss, and eliminate signs of aging such as scars, marks, and wrinkles. The company has developed a reputation for holding impeccable standards of research and testing of its products. Therefore, it can deliver on its promise to provide users with healthier, smoother skin.

White Lotus has a popular line of anti-aging serums. These products are designed to remove aging signs such as cellulite and stretch marks. The jade product line is also popular and gaining traction in the US market. For instance, the jade roller improves lymphatic drainage, skin smoothness and microcirculation, offering users the kind of luxury and relaxation typically reserved for people who come to one of Australia's White Lotus clinics.

"It's our goal to introduce more customers to tried-and-true Eastern principles of skin care," said Kingston. "This new partnership with CompleteBeautyStore.com will help us reach a broader audience."

For more information about White Lotus and its products, visit http://www.whitelotusantiaging.com.

For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2017/08/prweb14635833.htm

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White Lotus Products Available on CompleteBeautyStore.com - Benzinga

Discovery of a New Compound Turns on a Longevity Gene in Mice – Anti Aging News

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New compound provides an observed 90% increase in the activation of the gene's activation in the animal's heart tissue

The University of Hawaii Cancer Center has developed a compound called Astaxanthin that turns on whats called the FOX03 'Longevity Gene' in mice. Their scientists measured an almost a 90% increase in the activation of the gene in the animals' heart tissue.

In a joint venture, The University of Hawaii John A. Burns School of Medicine ("JABSOM") and Cardax, Inc. ("Cardax") (OTCQB:CDXI), a Honolulu based life sciences company revealed their promising results toward a new anti-aging therapy

Dr. Bradley Willcox, MD, Professor and Director of Research at the Department of Geriatric Medicine, JABSOM, and Principal Investigator of the National Institutes of Health-funded Kuakini Hawaii Lifespan and Healthspan Studies states, "All of us have the FOXO3 gene, which protects against aging in humans," said. "But about one in three persons carry a version of the FOXO3 gene that is associated with longevity. By activating the FOXO3 gene common in all humans, we can make it act like the "longevity" version. Through this research, we have shown that Astaxanthin "activates" the FOXO3 gene," said Willcox.

"This preliminary study was the first of its kind to test the potential of Astaxanthin to activate the FOXO3 gene in mammals," said Dr. Richard Allsopp, PhD, Associate Professor, and researcher with the JABSOM Institute of Biogenesis Research.

Experiments with the mice the control group was fed regular food and the other group was either a low or high amount of Astaxanthin compound CDX-085 provided by Cardax. As expected the group with higher doses gained the greatest increase in the FOXO3 gene in their heart tissue. "We found a nearly 90% increase in the activation of the FOXO3 "Longevity Gene" in the mice fed the higher dose of the Astaxanthin compound CDX-085," said Dr. Allsopp.

"This groundbreaking University of Hawaii research further supports the critical role of Astaxanthin in health and why the healthcare community is embracing its use," said David G. Watumull, Cardax CEO. "We look forward to further confirmation in human clinical trials of Astaxanthin's role in aging."

"We are extremely proud of our collaborative efforts with Cardax on this very promising research that may help mitigate the effects of aging in humans," said Vassilis L. Syrmos, Vice President of Research at the University of Hawaii. "This is a great example of what the Hawaii Innovation Initiative is all about -- when the private sector and government join forces to build a thriving innovation, research, education and job training enterprise to help diversify the state's economy."

Life sciences company Cardax, Inc. looks forward to further confirmation in human clinical trials of Astanxanthin's potential role as an anti-aging therapy.

Dr. Michael J. Koch, Editor withwww.WorldHealth.net and for Dr. Ronald Klatz, DO, MD President of the A4M has 28,000 Physician Members, has trained over 150,000 Physicians, health professionals and scientists in the new specialty of Anti-aging medicine. Estimates of their patients numbering in the 100s of millions World Wide that are living better stronger, healthier and longer lives. A4M physicians are now providing advanced preventative medical care for over 100 Million individuals worldwide who now recognize that aging is no longer inevitable.

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First genetic engineering therapy approved by the FDA for leukemia – Ars Technica

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Enlarge / Scanning electron micrograph of a human T cell.

For the first time, the Food and Drug Administration has approved a therapy that involves genetically engineering a patients own cells, the agency announced Wednesday.

The therapy, called Kymriah (tisagenlecleucel) by Novartis, will be used to reprogram the immune cells of pediatric and young adult patients with a certain type of leukemia, called B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. During a 22-day out-of-body retraining, patients immune cellsspecifically T cells that patrol the body and destroy enemiesget a new gene that allows them to identify and attack the leukemia cells.

Such therapies, called CAR-T therapies, have shown potential for effectively knocking back cancers in several trials, raising hopes of researchers and patients alike. But they come with severe safety concernsplus potentially hefty price tags.

Nevertheless, the FDA announced its approval with fanfare and optimism, calling it a historic action. In the announcement, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said:

Were entering a new frontier in medical innovation with the ability to reprogram a patients own cells to attack a deadly cancer. New technologies such as gene and cell therapies hold out the potential to transform medicine and create an inflection point in our ability to treat and even cure many intractable illnesses. At the FDA, were committed to helping expedite the development and review of groundbreaking treatments that have the potential to be life-saving.

Like all CAR-T therapies, Kymriah involves reprograming body-guard T cells to contain a gene that codes for a protein called chimeric antigen receptor or CAR. This protein allows the T cells to recognize and attack cells that have a protein called CD19 hanging off themwhich leukemia cells do.

In the Kymriah procedure, researchers first harvest T cells from a patient and then send them to a manufacturing center. There, researchers insert the CAR gene into the immune cells using a virus. The process takes 22 days, Nature reported.

In an earlier trial, 52 of 63 participants (82.5 percent) achieved overall remission after undergoing the therapy. The trial is unpublished and lacked controls, so its not possible to determine Kymriahs influence. But trials of other CAR-T therapies have shown similarly high rates of remission. And the early results were enough to sway an external panel of FDA scientific advisors in July. In a unanimous vote on July 12, the panel recommended that the FDA approve Kymriah.

This is a major advance and is ushering in a new era, panel member Malcolm Smith, a pediatric oncologist at the US National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, told Nature at the time.

But, the story isnt all rosy. CAR-T therapies are known to cause life-threatening immune responses called cytokine storms or cytokine release syndrome (CRS). This can lead to systemic full body inflammation, with organ failure, seizures, delirium, and brain swelling. Several trials of therapies similar to Kymriah have reported deaths.

In the Kymriah trial, 47 percent of patients experienced some level of CRS, but none died. Novartis reported that it was able to manage all the cases of CRS.

The FDA noted the risk in todays announcement and also revealed that it had expanded the approved use of a drug called Actemra, which treats CRS, so it can be used in patients who receive CAR-T therapy. The FDA also approved Kymriah with a risk evaluation and mitigation strategy or (REMS). This involves additional safeguards such as extra training and protocols for healthcare providers.

For now, though, Kymriah is only approved for use in patients aged 25 or younger who have failed conventional therapies or relapsed since undergoing those therapies. Of the roughly 3,100 patients aged 20 or younger who are diagnosed each year with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, about 15 to 20 percent will fail treatment. For these patients, Kymriah may be a literal life-saver, as there are few alternatives.

But along with the frightening side effects, gene therapy may also come with a hefty price tag. UK experts have appraised one round of therapy at $649,000. Its still unclear what the actual cost will be and what patients will end up having to pay.

In a press release, Novartis announced that its working with Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to come up with outcomes-based pricing. Also in the release, Bruno Strigini, CEO of Novartis Oncology, added:

We are so proud to be part of this historic moment in cancer treatment and are deeply grateful to our researchers, collaborators, and the patients and families who participated in the Kymriah clinical program. As a breakthrough immunocellular therapy for children and young adults who desperately need new options, Kymriah truly embodies our mission to discover new ways to improve patient outcomes and the way cancer is treated.

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Nanomedicine Market Growth Opportunities for Distributers 2017 – Equity Insider (press release)

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Global Nanomedicine Market Research Report 2017 to 2022 provides a unique tool for evaluating the market, highlighting opportunities, and supporting strategic and tactical decision-making. This report recognizes that in this rapidly-evolving and competitive environment, up-to-date marketing information is essential to monitor performance and make critical decisions for growth and profitability. It provides information on trends and developments, and focuses on markets and materials, capacities and technologies, and on the changing structure of the Nanomedicine Market.

Companies Mentioned are GE Healthcare, Johnson & Johnson, Mallinckrodt plc, Merck & Co. Inc., Nanosphere Inc., Pfizer Inc., Sigma-Tau Pharmaceuticals Inc., Smith & Nephew PLC, Stryker Corp, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., UCB (Union chimique belge) S.A.

Primary sources are mainly industry experts from core and related industries, and suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, service providers, and organizations related to all segments of the industrys supply chain. The bottom-up approach was used to estimate the global market size of Nanomedicine based on end-use industry and region, in terms of value. With the data triangulation procedure and validation of data through primary interviews, the exact values of the overall parent market, and individual market sizes were determined and confirmed in this study.

Sample/Inquire at: https://www.marketinsightsreports.com/reports/08308548/global-nanomedicine-market-research-report-2017/inquiry

This report segments the global Nanomedicine market on the basis of types Regenerative Medicine, In-vitro & In-vivo Diagnostics, Vaccines, Drug Delivery. On the basis of application Clinical Cardiology, Urology, Genetics, Orthopedics, Ophthalmology.

Essential points covered in Global Nanomedicine Market 2017 Research are:-

This independent 116 page report guarantees you will remain better informed than your competition. With over 170 tables and figures examining the Nanomedicine market, the report gives you a visual, one-stop breakdown of the leading products, submarkets and market leaders market revenue forecasts as well as analysis to 2022.

The global Nanomedicine market consists of different international, regional, and local vendors. The market competition is foreseen to grow higher with the rise in technological innovation and M&A activities in the future. Moreover, many local and regional vendors are offering specific application products for varied end-users. The new vendor entrants in the market are finding it hard to compete with the international vendors based on quality, reliability, and innovations in technology.

Browse Full Report at: https://www.marketinsightsreports.com/reports/08308548/global-nanomedicine-market-research-report-2017

Geographically, this report is segmented into several key Regions, with production, consumption, revenue (million USD), and market share and growth rate of Storage Area Network Switch in these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), covering

by Regions

The report provides a basic overview of the Nanomedicine industry including definitions, classifications, applications and industry chain structure. And development policies and plans are discussed as well as manufacturing processes and cost structures.

Then, the report focuses on global major leading industry players with information such as company profiles, product picture and specifications, sales, market share and contact information. Whats more, the Nanomedicine industry development trends and marketing channels are analyzed.

The research includes historic data from 2012 to 2016 and forecasts until 2022 which makes the reports an invaluable resource for industry executives, marketing, sales and product managers, consultants, analysts, and other people looking for key industry data in readily accessible documents with clearly presented tables and graphs. The report will make detailed analysis mainly on above questions and in-depth research on the development environment, market size, development trend, operation situation and future development trend of Nanomedicine on the basis of stating current situation of the industry in 2017 so as to make comprehensive organization and judgment on the competition situation and development trend of Nanomedicine Market and assist manufacturers and investment organization to better grasp the development course of Nanomedicine Market.

The study was conducted using an objective combination of primary and secondary information including inputs from key participants in the industry. The report contains a comprehensive market and vendor landscape in addition to a SWOT analysis of the key vendors.

There are 15 Chapters to deeply display the global Nanomedicine market.

Chapter 1, to describe Nanomedicine Introduction, product scope, market overview, market opportunities, market risk, market driving force;

Chapter 2, to analyze the top manufacturers of Nanomedicine, with sales, revenue, and price of Nanomedicine, in 2016and 2017;

Chapter 3, to display the competitive situation among the top manufacturers, with sales, revenue and market share in 2016and 2017;

Chapter 4, to show the global market by regions, with sales, revenue and market share of Nanomedicine, for each region, from 2012to 2017;

Chapter 5, 6, 7,8and 9, to analyze the key regions, with sales, revenue and market share by key countries in these regions;

Chapter 10and 11, to show the market by type and application, with sales market share and growth rate by type, application, from 2012 to 2017;

Chapter 12, Nanomedicine market forecast, by regions, type and application, with sales and revenue, from 2017to 2022;

Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe Nanomedicine sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data source.

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Nanomedicine Market Growth Opportunities for Distributers 2017 - Equity Insider (press release)

Daily Corinthian – What still unites us – Daily Corinthian (subscription)

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Decades ago, a debate over what kind of nation America is roiled the conservative movement.

Neocons claimed America was an "ideological nation" a "creedal nation," dedicated to the proposition that "all men are created equal."

Expropriating the biblical mandate, "Go forth and teach all nations!" they divinized democracy and made the conversion of mankind to the democratic faith their mission here on earth.

With his global crusade for democracy, George W. Bush bought into all this. Result: Ashes in our mouths and a series of foreign policy disasters, beginning with Afghanistan and Iraq.

Behind the Trumpian slogan "America First" lay a conviction that, with the Cold War over and the real ideological nation, the USSR, shattered into pieces along ethnic lines, it was time for America to come home.

Contra the neocons, traditionalists argued that, while America was uniquely great, the nation was united by faith, culture, language, history, heroes, holidays, mores, manners, customs and traditions. A common feature of Americans, black and white, was pride in belonging to a people that had achieved so much.

The insight attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville -- "America is great because she is good, and if America ceases to be good, she will cease to be great" -- was a belief shared by almost all.

What makes our future appear problematic is that what once united us now divides us. While Presidents Wilson and Truman declared us to be a "Christian nation," Christianity has been purged from our public life and sheds believers every decade. Atheism and agnosticism are growing rapidly, especially among the young.

Traditional morality, grounded in Christianity, is being discarded. Half of all marriages end in divorce. Four-in-10 children are born out of wedlock. Unrestricted abortion and same-sex marriage -- once regarded as marks of decadence and decline -- are now seen as human rights and the hallmarks of social progress.

Tens of millions of us do not speak English. Where most of our music used to be classic, popular, country and western, and jazz, much of it now contains rutting lyrics that used to be unprintable.

Where we used to have three national networks, we have three 24-hour cable news channels and a thousand websites that reinforce our clashing beliefs on morality, culture, politics and race.

Consider but a few events post-Charlottesville.

"Murderer" was painted on the San Fernando statue of Fr. Junipero Serra, the Franciscan who founded the missions that became San Diego, San Francisco, San Juan Capistrano and Santa Clara.

America's oldest monument honoring Columbus, in Baltimore, was vandalized. Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia called for Robert E. Lee's statue to be removed from Capitol and replaced by -- Pocahontas.

According to legend, this daughter of Chief Powhatan saved Captain John Smith from being beheaded by throwing herself across his neck. The Chief was a "person of interest" in the disappearance of the "Lost Colony" of Roanoke Island, among whose missing was Virginia Dare, the first European baby born in British America.

Why did Kaine not call for John Smith himself, leader of the Jamestown Colony that fought off Indian attacks, to be so honored?

In New Orleans, "Tear It Down" was spray-painted on a statue of Joan of Arc, a gift from France in 1972. Besides being a canonized saint in the Catholic Church and a legendary heroine of France, what did the Maid of Orleans do to deserve this?

Taken together, we are seeing the discoverers, explorers and missionaries of North America demonized as genocidal racists all. The Founding Fathers are either slave owners or sanctioners of slavery.

Our nation-builders either collaborated in or condoned the ethnic cleansing of Native Americans. Almost to the present, ours was a land where segregationists were honored leaders.

Bottom line for the left: Americans should be sickened and ashamed of the history that made us the world's greatest nation. And we should acknowledge our ancestors' guilt by tearing down any and all monuments and statues that memorialize them.

This rising segment of America, full of self-righteous rage, is determined to blacken the memory of those who have gone before us.

To another slice of America, much of the celebrated social and moral "progress" of recent decades induces a sense of nausea, summarized in the lament, "This isn't the country we grew up in."

Hillary Clinton famously described this segment of America as a "basket of deplorables ... racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic ... bigots," and altogether "irredeemable."

So, what still unites us? What holds us together into the indefinite future? What makes us one nation and one people? What do we offer mankind, as nations seem to recoil from what we are becoming, and are instead eager to build their futures on the basis of ethnonationalism and fundamentalist faith?

If advanced democracy has produced the disintegration of a nation that we see around us, what is the compelling case for it?

A sixth of the way through the 21st century, what is there to make us believe this will be the Second American Century?

Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of a new book, "Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever."

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Mnoa volcanologists receive top international awards – UH System Current News

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Two volcanologists from the University of Hawaii at Mnoas Department of Geology and Geophysics have received two of the top three awards from the International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earths Interior (IAVCEI). Bruce Houghton, the Gordon A. MacDonald Professor of Volcanology and science director of the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center at UH Mnoa was honored recently with the IAVCEI Thorarinsson Medal. Sbastien Biass, a post-doctoral researcher, was honored George Walker Medal.

Bruce Houghton near Ruapehu, New Zealand.

The Thorarinsson Medal is awarded only once every four years by IAVCEI for outstanding contributions to volcanology, and is the highest award in international volcanology.

A giant of volcanology, Bruce has tackled big problems in geology with innovative approaches and technologies, and is truly a scientist of outstanding distinction, stated University of Tasmanias Rebecca Carey in her nomination letter. His research has not only generated a wealth of new scientific understanding, but also critically Thorarinsson-type pioneering advances in long-standing cornerstone volcanologic concepts.

Further, Houghton has pioneered research across the interface of fundamental volcanological science and hazards, social and behavioral science, leading to a world-first detailed training course for scientists, first responders and emergency managers, titled the U.S. FEMA Volcanic Crisis Awareness course.

Houghton and his predecessor at UH Mnoa, George Walker, are among the only nine volcanologists to-date given the Thorarinsson award, an award named for the noted Icelandic geologist and volcanologist Sigurdur Thorarinsson.

Houghton reflected on becoming a Thorarinsson Medalist; I was delighted and surprised by the award. All my research is collaborative and, since moving to UH 70 percent of my papers have been first-authored by my students or postdocs, and these are not the type of statistics that usually lead to such awards. I was particularly pleased because allthree of my mentors in volcanology are in the list of eight prior winners of the medal; it is quite humbling to be joining them. For UH to have been awarded two of the nine Thorarinsson Medal to-date is, I think, a sign that volcanology is in excellent health here in Hawaii. The challenge now is to find ways to build on this reputation and capture for UH some of the wonderful crop of young volcanologists on the market.

Sbastien Biass

The George Walker Awardis given every two years to a young scientist up to seven years after acquiring a doctoral degree. The award recognizes achievements of a recent outstanding graduate in the fields of research encompassed by IAVCEI.

Biass, post-doctoral researcher working with Houghton at UH Mnoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, was honored for achievements that are all deeply rooted in field studies and because of his unique appreciation with the importance of statistical and critical treatment of field data within the growing field of numerical modelling, cited professor Costanza Bonadonna of the University of Geneva. His unique approach, stems from combining thorough field studies with state-of-the-art numerical modeling, furthering both deposit characterization and the newly-born discipline of hazard and risk assessment that he is pioneering. What makes Sbastien unique in his science is his open mind and multidisciplinary approach, his scientific curiosity and enthusiasm and his dedication to going beyond his own limits.

Biass commented, My vision of the IAVCEI George Walker Award for early career scientist is closely tied to my vision of scientific research, which contains three components. First, scientific curiosity is one of the greatest source of pleasure in life and provides the motivation to attempt understanding the unknown. Second, luck, in the selection of work colleagues, has been an integral part of my research. Specifically, Costanza Bonadonna and Bruce Houghton, both part of the UH family in either past or present, have shown me how working on interesting science with bright people is an invaluable source of satisfaction. Thirdly, I see research as having a global objective of the wellbeing of society, which in volcanology translates to a better understanding of the physics of hazardous processes occurring during eruptions in order to mitigate better the impacts on exposed communities. This award therefore represents a success on these three levels and belongs as much to everyone I have ever looked up to as it does to me. Having been picked amongst a long list of such successful young scientists humbles me and gives great motivation to pursue my scientific career.

The award honors the memory of former UH Mnoa geology professor George Walker, whose discoveries pioneered a modern quantitative approach to physical volcanology and greatly accelerated understanding of volcanic processes.

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Mnoa volcanologists receive top international awards - UH System Current News

Developing technology with advisors at heart – Financial Planning

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DALLAS They are young and committed to the technology they've spent years and their own money developing. But unlike some other fintech entrepreneurs, they have no ambition to upend wealth management.

Assembled at the annual conference for the XY Planning Network, some of the finalists vying for top prize in its fintech competition are in fact RIAs themselves.

Mark Friedenthal is both president of an eponymously-named RIA firm in New Jersey and CEO of Tolerisk, a startup he launched to develop better risk assessment software for advisors.

Jantz Hoffman runs his Washington-state based RIA, a non-profit and a startup called CSLA Tech, developing a tool for advisors to better help clients struggling with student debt.

They balance the multiple roles, driven by common beliefs that advisors need better technology to stay competitive and that they can help them better than anyone else.

"The top of the class understands they need to embrace technology," Friedenthal says. "It's very difficult to provide competitive advice without technology. But it is easier and becoming more intuitive to use for advisors and clients."

Hoffman agrees, adding that advisors will need new tech tools to address the needs of the next generation of wealth management clients. "We want to teach others what I've learned," he says. "We want to be able to provide them with a tool to do the work."

Friedenthal, who says one of the key innovations in his software is its ability to perform two levels of risk tolerance, sees all advisors working for the best interests of clients.

"We've made a big bet that the future of advice and planning is entrenched in the fiduciary standard and culture," he says. "If you believe that's the future, everybody is going to need technology to do that."

Motivating Hoffman is his idea that RIAs are best situated to help young investors burdened by large amounts of student debt, a client that the industry has traditionally shunned, he says.

"It's short-sighted, as everyone now has student loans," he says. "The old guard doesn't see the big picture. The assets will come. I have nurses, teachers, doctors, lawyers, all have tons of debt. But if I can help them minimize that, I'll have built those relationships, and that will help me build assets."

LABOR OF LOVEThe effort to bring better behavioral science to advisors is partly a personal mission for Sarah Stanley Fallaw, whose platform DataPoints is based on the work done by her father, Thomas J. Stanley, which he used to write his best-selling book The Millionaire Next Door.

"It's a labor of love, it is something he would've been proud of," Fallaw says. "He would want to get this in the hands of people to improve the way they live their lives."

Fallaw sees advisors opening up to the potential of behavioral finance tools and data as they look for ways to provide more insightful advice.

"They are slowly changing to where they value science," she says. "You can pinpoint behaviors that an advisor can use to help coach clients. Talking about spending is not as exciting as investment returns, but it gets at the heart of how well an individual is managing their life."

Advisors can better manage their practices too, says Elsa Chan, senior vice president of business development at Vestwell, a digital retirement platform.

Coming to wealth management, Chan realized how much advisors have to take on and why they need better tools.

"They are all entrepreneurs themselves, all working for commissions," Chan says. "I was amazed at the amount of work that they have to do just to set up and build the business. Helping them grow their business is very rewarding."

She hopes that the advisor tech industry can adopt the collaborative tone she found among her competitors, particularly around integration.

"There are different options out there for advisors, but a lot of tools are siloed," she says. "Advisors do not want a login for every tool; they want a single dashboard to their clients and to be able to efficiently manage those assets through one platform."

Suleman Din is managing editor of SourceMedia's Investment Advisor Group. Follow him on Twitter at @sulemandn

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Developing technology with advisors at heart - Financial Planning