Nations reveal plans to rake in more tourism revenue in 2015

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Malaysia, which was hit by the mysterious disappearance of a flight in March, has listed the tourism industry as a key player in its drive to join the ranks of developed countries by 2020. Malaysia aims for 36 million visitors in 2020, up from 25 million last year and 29 million expected next year.

After "Visit Malaysia Year 2014", the next national campaign will be called "Malaysia Year of Festivals", with many events lined up around the country throughout next year including a rainforest festival, shopping festival, major sales fairs, and sports events, including motor racing under the new Formula E.

In May, British Airways will resume daily flights to Kuala Lumpur.

Pham Ha, founder and chief executive officer of Luxury Travel Vietnam, said next year would be a good time for Southeast Asia and Vietnam as Britain is still a strong market, Latin America is emerging, the English- and German-speaking markets continue increasing, and France is recovering.

"Vietnam is now offering world-class products - hotels, golf courses, helicopter tours, exclusive cruises and great air links. These are what tourists should visit in Vietnam," he said.

Experience North Korea, a Shanghai-based travel agency, said North Korea was now opening up more and recently promoted specialised travel such as surfing and skiing tours. However, with its poor international image, North Korea will likely find it hard to boost arrivals. The country welcomed fewer than 5,000 visitors last year.

Simon Press, senior exhibition director of World Travel Market 2014, said the industry could benefit from the opening of North Korea.

Andrew Phua, director for exhibitions and conferences at the Singapore Tourism Board, has said it is targeting business travellers and meeting, incentive, convention and exhibition (MICE) participants from overseas. The STB's tourism demographic shows that business and MICE travellers are 30 per cent of the 14 million arrivals last year. It is targeting 15 million international visitors this year.

Thailand is one of the targeted countries as it contributes a higher proportion of business visitors than leisure tourists. Last year, Thai business travellers to Singapore spent about Bt39,000 per trip, while leisure travellers spent Bt26,000.

The Philippines is also stepping up efforts directed at the regional market to boost international arrivals from other Asean states through confirmed musical, sports and world conferences.

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Stem cell therapy for sidelined star Smoko

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Magnifisio dashed home strongly over 1400m to win Saturdays Lee-Steere Stakes at Ascot. Picture: Westernracepix

Sprinter Smoko will have stem cell therapy at Murdoch Veterinary Hospital to a strained suspensory ligament in his off-foreleg.

Vets found Smoko had strained the ligament when he pulled up sore following his shock sixth as a $2 favourite to Shining Knight in last Tuesday's Colonel Reeves Stakes (1100m) at Ascot.

Co-trainer Ross Price said Smoko would be sidelined for months.

"He will go to Murdoch where they will look at him and see about stem cell therapy," he said.

"In about 10 days we will take him up there and see what they can do. It is then going to be five months off and hoping."

Smoko was a $6.50 chance in Saturday week's Winterbottom Stakes (1200m) before he was scratched. WA's hopes of winning back the Group 1 weight-for-age hinge on Magnifisio, Shining Knight and Testamezzo, with Barakey in doubt after struggling to recover from a virus.

"He is still feeling flat and I will have to wait and see if he improves over the next few days," trainer Jim Taylor said.

Magnifisio firmed from $12 into $8 on the TAB yesterday following her strong win at her debut over 1400m in Saturday's Group 2 Lee-Steere Stakes at Ascot.

Melbourne sprinters Angelic Light, Moment Of Change and reigning champion Buffering dominate betting at $4.30, $6.50 and $7.50.

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Stem cell therapy for sidelined star Smoko

Production of human motor neurons from stem cells is gaining speed

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

10-Nov-2014

Contact: Ccile Martinat CMARTINAT@istem.fr 33-603-855-477 INSERM (Institut national de la sant et de la recherche mdicale) @inserm

This news release is available in French.

The motor neurons that innervate muscle fibres are essential for motor activity. Their degeneration in many diseases causes paralysis and often death among patients. Researchers at the Institute for Stem Cell Therapy and Exploration of Monogenic Diseases (I-Stem - Inserm/AFM/UEVE), in collaboration with CNRS and Paris Descartes University, have recently developed a new approach to better control the differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells, and thus produce different populations of motor neurons from these cells in only 14 days. This discovery, published in Nature Biotechnology, will make it possible to expand the production process for these neurons, leading to more rapid progress in understanding diseases of the motor system, such as infantile spinal amyotrophy or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Human pluripotent stem cells have the ability to give rise to every cell in the body. To understand and control their potential for differentiation in vitro is to offer unprecedented opportunities for regenerative medicine and for advancing the study of physiopathological mechanisms and the quest for therapeutic strategies. However, the development and realisation of these clinical applications is often limited by the inability to obtain specialised cells such as motor neurons from human pluripotent stem cells in an efficient and targeted manner. This inefficiency is partly due to a poor understanding of the molecular mechanisms controlling the differentiation of these cells.

Inserm researchers at the Institute for Stem Cell Therapy and Exploration of Monogenic Diseases (I-Stem - Inserm/French Muscular Dystrophy Association [AFM]/University of vry Val d'Essonne [UEVE]), in collaboration with CNRS and Paris-Descartes University, have developed an innovative approach to study the differentiation of human stem cells and thus produce many types of cells in an optimal manner.

"The targeted differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells is often a long and rather inefficient process. This is the case when obtaining motor neurons, although these are affected in many diseases. Today, we obtain these neurons with our approach in only 14 days, nearly twice as fast as before, and with a homogeneity rarely achieved," explains Ccile Martinat, an Inserm Research Fellow at I-Stem.

To achieve this result, the researchers studied the interactions between some molecules that control embryonic development. These studies have made it possible to both better understand the mechanisms governing the generation of these neurons during development, and develop an optimal "recipe" for producing them efficiently and rapidly.

"We are now able to produce and hence study different populations of neurons affected to various degrees in diseases that cause the degeneration of motor neurons. We plan to study why some neurons are affected and why others are preserved," adds Stphane Nedelec, an Inserm researcher in Ccile Martinat's team.

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Production of human motor neurons from stem cells is gaining speed

Family's desperate bet on a diabetes cure

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The day Olivia Cox was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at age 16, her mother vowed to find a cure.

"I said to her, "there's someone walking this Earth who has been cured of diabetes, and I'm going to find him," Ruth Cox said.

Cox's search started with a call to Harvard University and ended with a family trip to Lima, Peru. It was at a clinic there that now 18-year-old Olivia and her father, Jeff, 54, who also has diabetes, received an infusion of stem cells designed to wipe out diabetes in their bodies or, at the very least, lessen its impact. The treatment illegal in the United States cost $70,000 for both father and daughter. Two months later, the Niskayuna family is waiting for a transformation and wondering if, in their desperation for a cure, they were snookered by false promises.

Because stem cells can be programmed to become anything from heart muscle to toenails, stem cell therapy can hypothetically be used to treat anything, from baldness to Lou Gehrig's Disease. But the study of regenerative medicine is still nascent in the United States, where it is restricted to procedures that use the patient's own cells, and it has been primarily used in treating cancer a procedure that saved Ruth Cox 13 years ago, when she had breast cancer.

Stem cell treatment using donor cells is more common elsewhere in the world, but with varying results and none that could be described as a cure. An executive order from President Barack Obama opened up funding for stem cell research and there are now more than 4,000 clinical trials under way, some on animals and some recruiting people with various ailments.

The American Diabetes Association strongly supports stem cell research, according to a statement posted on its website, which reads in part:

"Scientists from across the United States and throughout the world, including those involved with the American Diabetes Association believe that stem cell research, especially embryonic stem cell research, holds great promise in the search for a cure and better treatments for diabetes."

Jeff Cox, diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when he was 11, has suffered none of the complications that often come with the disease neuropathy, loss of vision and heart disease. But Cox said living with diabetes is hell. He pricks his finger at least a dozen times a day to check his blood sugar level, because it is a more precise reading than the glucose monitor he wears. He also wears a pump that he programs to inject him with insulin automatically based on his diet and exercise each day. All the therapies used to treat diabetes are designed to intervene where the pancreas has gone awry.

In Type 1 diabetes, the pancreas doesn't produce insulin due to an autoimmune attack against the beta cell that produces insulin the hormone that converts glucose into energy our bodies need to survive. The Coxes didn't want their daughter to face a lifetime of managing her diabetes. They wanted a cure, and they were willing to take a risk to find it.

In order to treat diabetes with stem cell therapy, pancreatic stem cells isolated from umbilical cord blood that are programmed to produce insulin, plus autologous mesenchymal stem cells from the patient's bone marrow, are injected. Once in the pancreas, the cells are supposed to replicate themselves, gradually replacing the non-insulin producing cells in the host's pancreas. The treatment is conducted in Peru, China, Russia and India and elsewhere, but Zubin Master, a bioethicist at Albany Medical College, said the risks of traveling abroad for stem cell therapy range from paying for an expensive treatment that doesn't work, to cancer and death.

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Family's desperate bet on a diabetes cure

Production of human motor neurons from stem cells gaining speed

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4 hours ago Neurons (green) are detected by TuJI whereas motoneurons are revealed in red by the visicular transporter of acetylcholine. Credit: Inserm/Martinat, Ccile

The motor neurons that innervate muscle fibres are essential for motor activity. Their degeneration in many diseases causes paralysis and often death among patients. Researchers at the Institute for Stem Cell Therapy and Exploration of Monogenic Diseases (I-Stem - Inserm/AFM/UEVE), in collaboration with CNRS and Paris Descartes University, have recently developed a new approach to better control the differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells, and thus produce different populations of motor neurons from these cells in only 14 days. This discovery, published in Nature Biotechnology, will make it possible to expand the production process for these neurons, leading to more rapid progress in understanding diseases of the motor system, such as infantile spinal amyotrophy or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Human pluripotent stem cells have the ability to give rise to every cell in the body. To understand and control their potential for differentiation in vitro is to offer unprecedented opportunities for regenerative medicine and for advancing the study of physiopathological mechanisms and the quest for therapeutic strategies. However, the development and realisation of these clinical applications is often limited by the inability to obtain specialised cells such as motor neurons from human pluripotent stem cells in an efficient and targeted manner. This inefficiency is partly due to a poor understanding of the molecular mechanisms controlling the differentiation of these cells.

Inserm researchers at the Institute for Stem Cell Therapy and Exploration of Monogenic Diseases (I-Stem - Inserm/French Muscular Dystrophy Association [AFM]/University of vry Val d'Essonne [UEVE]), in collaboration with CNRS and Paris-Descartes University, have developed an innovative approach to study the differentiation of human stem cells and thus produce many types of cells in an optimal manner.

"The targeted differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells is often a long and rather inefficient process. This is the case when obtaining motor neurons, although these are affected in many diseases. Today, we obtain these neurons with our approach in only 14 days, nearly twice as fast as before, and with a homogeneity rarely achieved," explains Ccile Martinat, an Inserm Research Fellow at I-Stem.

To achieve this result, the researchers studied the interactions between some molecules that control embryonic development. These studies have made it possible to both better understand the mechanisms governing the generation of these neurons during development, and develop an optimal "recipe" for producing them efficiently and rapidly.

"We are now able to produce and hence study different populations of neurons affected to various degrees in diseases that cause the degeneration of motor neurons. We plan to study why some neurons are affected and why others are preserved," adds Stphane Nedelec, an Inserm researcher in Ccile Martinat's team.

In the medium term, the approach should contribute to the development of treatments for paralytic diseases such as infantile spinal muscular amyotrophy or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. "Rapid access to large quantities of neurons will be useful for testing a significant number of pharmacological drugs in order to identify those capable of preventing the death of motor neurons," concludes Ccile Martinat.

Explore further: Team finds a better way to grow motor neurons from stem cells

More information: Combinatorial analysis of developmental cues efficiently converts human pluripotent stem cells into multiple neuronal subtypes, Nature Biotechnology, 17 Nov 2014. DOI: 10.1038/nbt.3049

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Production of human motor neurons from stem cells gaining speed

The University leads research and teaching into spirituality in health care

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

10-Nov-2014

Contact: Nicola Werritt n.c.werritt@hud.ac.uk 01-484-473-315 University of Huddersfield @HuddersfieldUni

THE term 'spirituality' is now widely used to describe the qualities that give people hope, meaning and purpose. In the case of patients, it can aid their recovery. The University of Huddersfield has become a key centre for research into spirituality and how it can be integrated into health care teaching and practice.

Articles, overseas conference presentations and now close links with an NHS trust are among the recent outputs and activities of the University's Spirituality Special Interest Group, based in the School of Human and Heath Sciences. Established for ten years, the group has also run a series of master classes for health and social care practitioners.

Spirituality is embedded in a wide range of undergraduate courses - covering subject areas such as psychology, social work, nursing, physiotherapy and occupational therapy - and four PhD students are currently carrying out research on spirituality in health care. Also, plans are being made for a 2015 conference on the subject.

Melanie Rogers is a Senior Lecturer and Advanced Nurse Practitioner at the University and one of the leaders of the special interest group, alongside Professor John Wattis and Senior Lecturer Janice Jones. She admits that many people regard spirituality as a nebulous term, or one that is often conflated with religion. However, she says, spirituality is intensely practical.

"It helps to sustain health care workers and patients by recognising and supporting a sense of meaning and purpose in life. It can improve resilience in patients and practitioners alike, in addition to improving the experience of illness and crisis in patients."

She acknowledges that for some people, spirituality derives from religious beliefs. But for many others it stems from factors such as their relationships, community connections and special interests.

The University's special interest group is now a "spiritual partner" of the South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, which provides community, mental health and learning disability services in Barnsley, Calderdale, Kirklees and Wakefield. It has embedded spirituality into its work.

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Rapper, musicians talk spirituality in Vatican conference

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Initiative aimed at students, both atheists and believers

(ANSA) - Rome, November 10 - The Catholic Church used rap and rock artists Monday to bring together young believers and non-believers alike for a conference on spirituality. 'Music: Listening and Vision' held at Rome's MAXXI museum was part of its Cortile dei Gentili initiative, a program to create dialog among atheists and non-believers by involving notable people in various fields from art, politics, religion and education. Students heard from Italian musicians on the spiritual power of music. Renowned composer Nicola Piovani, who won an Oscar for his work on the soundtrack to the film 'Life is Beautiful', joined with Rome singer-songwriter Antonello Venditti, Dire Straits guitarist Phil Palmer, and Italian rapper Er Piotta, who received the most applause from the student audience. The event was hosted by Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, and MAXXI Foundation president, former Italian culture minister Giovanna Melandri. Ravasi said that a dialog around music is fundamentally about addressing communication. "The issue of language is fundamental, as shown by the effectiveness of a pope like Francis, who is connected not only to the message but also to how it's communicated," Ravasi said.

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Carl Sagan: the spiritual scientist

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Sunday marked the 80th birthday of Carl Sagan, the spiritual scientist. Author James Croft writes that Sagan, who died in 1996 at age 62, found science to be a profoundly spiritual pursuit.

For Sagan, science was not just a technical pursuit, nor was it simply about the discovery of new facts, Croft writes.

I would suggest that science is, at least in my part, informed worship, Sagan wrote in The Varieties of Scientific Experience.

Croft writes, "This may be surprising to some, but one of the foremost icons of todays rationalist movement believed passionately that to preclude spirituality from a relationship with science was to demean science, as well as spirituality."

But here is Sagan's definition of Nature (with a capital N): reverence; awe; celebration; magnificence; intricacy; beauty; soaring; elation; humility; joining and merging with the Cosmos.

Sagans spiritual approach to science, Croft writes in a Religion News Service piece, is important for atheists, skeptics, and Humanists to rememberbecause it offers a different view of the relationship between science and religion than the battleground itis so often portrayed as today.

Read the rest of the story here: http://chrisstedman.religionnews.com/2014/11/09/atheists-carl-sagan-lead/

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PETERBOROUGH -- Four experts will gather to share their ideas to help survivors of trauma.

The Kawartha Sexual Assault Centre is hosting Spirituality and Trauma on Nov. 19. The event is for practitioners, spiritual leaders and survivors of trauma. It will include a presentation, panel and table discussions on the intersections of spirituality and trauma for healing and change.

The following is the list of speakers who will be at the Spirituality and Trauma event:

Barb Woolner: Ms Woolner is a clinical counsellor at the Kawartha Sexual Assault Centre where she supports clients who have experienced sexual violence. She is the second Buddhist to graduate from Waterloo Lutheran Seminary with a Masters in Spiritual Care and Psychotherapy. Barb also holds a Master of Arts in Religion & Culture from Wilfrid Laurier University and a BA in Anthropology from Trent.

Glenn Duncan: Mr. Duncan has been married to Sheila for 29 years. The Duncans came to Peterborough to pastor Gilmour Memorial Baptist Church in 1991 and continued in that ministry until early 2004. After resigning from Gilmour Memorial, Glenn joined the staff of Kawartha Youth Unlimited to help develop a prayer base for Youth Unlimited in Peterborough and the surrounding communities.

Paul Fox: Mr. Fox is a Family Counsellor, Psychotherapist and Reiki Master who has been working with clients in Peterborough and surrounding area since the late 1990s. Over the years he has been involved in family and individual counselling and has received training in diverse and esoteric practices such as Hypnosis, Shamanic Journey-ing, Remote Viewing, Reiki, Philosophy, Integral Theory, and Spirituality, to name a few.

Reverend Julie Stoneberg: Rev. Stoneberg began her ministry with the Unitarian Fellowship of Peterborough in August 2007. Hailing from Minneapolis, Julie obtained a Masters of Divinity from Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California, and previously served Lakehead Unitarian Fellowship in Thunder Bay, Ontario.

Spirituality and Trauma is a fundraiser for the local United Way. It's being held at George Street United Church from 1:30 to 4 p.m. on Nov. 19. Tickets are $20 at the door or in advance at the Kawartha Sexual Assault Centre office on Water Street.

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