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May 31
2018Tuesday, July 12, 2005
Doctors at the regional burn center at St. Joseph Hospital in Fort Wayne, Indiana are treating a patient flown in from war-torn Afghanistan.
U.S. Army’s 113th Battalion, which is made up of Indiana National Guardsman, discovered five-year-old Zia after a propane explosion in suburban Kabul earlier this year destroyed homes and killed six of the boy’s family members.
The blast left Zia with third degree burns on his arms, torso and legs. Guardsmen, familiar with the Fort Wayne burn center, worked with non-profit group, Northeast Indiana Burn Council to raised $18,500 to fly Zia, accompanied by his father Abdul Qahir, to Fort Wayne for treatment.
Upon arrival, he was rushed to the St. Joseph burn unit, where after a few days of recovery fromtravel, underwent his first surgery June 23. The second and final surgery was postponed ninedays from an original date of July 2 because the boy developed an infection in one of his wounds,which is common for burn patients.
The second surgery grafted skin onto burn wounds on Zia’s arm, chest and the second toe on hisright foot. Tuesday, doctors said Zia was recovering and appeared to be in good spirits. Inpreparation for their planned return trip to Afghanistan in September, doctors are teaching Zia’sfather physical therapy techniques needed for further recovery. “Without good therapy, he couldbe right back where we started,” Dr. John Mancoll, the lead surgeon on the case, said in aninterview with the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette newspaper.
May 31
2018Friday, November 3, 2006
On November 13, Torontonians will be heading to the polls to vote for their ward’s councillor and for mayor. Among Toronto’s ridings is Don Valley West (Ward 26). Four candidates responded to Wikinews’ requests for an interview. This ward’s candidates include Muhammad Alam, Bahar Aminvaziri, Orhan Aybars, Michele Carroll-Smith, Mohamed Dhanani, Abdul Ingar, Geoff Kettel, Debbie Lechter, Natalie Maniates, John Masterson, John Parker, David Thomas, Csaba Vegh, and Fred Williams.
For more information on the election, read Toronto municipal election, 2006.
May 31
2018
Submitted by: Web Onise
The best interfaces leave tech behind and address larger systems of interaction. – Helen Waters, 4 Elements That Make A Good User Experience Into Something Great
It has long been acknowledged that user goals are entirely different from business goals. Butbecause of their inevitable involvement and indispensability in the delivery of web design and development services, there is a need to set a balance, to create equilibrium between the two of them. Creating a complimentary relationship between the user experience and business objectives ensures that the product we arrive at will not only provide customer satisfaction but prove to be of value to the business as well. The question is: How do we do that?
The Great Divide: Are you user centered or business centered?
There is a strong notion that User Experience Design is, in general, user-centric; UX designers prioritize user experience that satisfies user goals more than the accomplishment of business objectives. Being user-centric isnt really a bad thing; in fact it makes UX designers good at what they are do. Through being user-centered with their designs, they can successfully give users a platform that provides the ease of use and usability that they expect and would like to experience. But what makes it disadvantageous at some points? Along with the satisfaction of the user goals, business objectives need to be meet to adequately sustain the continued operation of the product. Without achieving set goals directed at returning the clients investment, theres a chance the project will end up failing.
Through these clashing ideas and beliefs, where do we establish a truce? A meeting point where both ends meet and agree on amicable yet workable terms?
How to Create a Balanced and Symbiotic Relationship Between User Goals and Business Objectives through Empathy
There is no one-size-fits-all methodology in achieving a balance between the user goals and business objectives, just like there are no two projects (and clients) alike in software product development. Through empathy, youre taking the first few steps towards a better relationship with your client, a necessary step to ensure you are developing UX design solutions that are directed at pleasing not just the users but the business owners as well.
1. Setup a planning session with the client.
Before the commencement of a project, set up a planning session aimed at understanding the client and the business, their business objectives, the products most critical requirements along with how you can reach a consensus on the projects design and development approach. This is also a great opportunity to discuss assumptions about users that may not be entirely at par with how the business understands their customers behavior.
2. Communicate openly, ask questions all the time and never assume.
Its worth emphasizingthat without an open communication with your client, youll most likely be making mistakes and assumptions that should have been prevented if you only knew them better.Take into account the history of the product involved; did they have previous ideas that didnt work out? What led to its failure? What were the consequences of such events? What is the reason behind certain features of their products current design? The key is to ask first. Business owners are humans as well; they do have emotional and personal preferences that may affect their decisions and choices in business. Knowing if a certain aspect of the product has a personal significance to the client, would help you understand why fighting for a certain aspect of the design is already a lost battle. Thus, before presenting anything, before recommending drastic changes, it would be worth it to stop for a minute and ask.
3. Encourage a constant communication.
Change is inevitable and encouraging a constant communication with your client ensures that you are updated with any changes that may have occurred within their business, whichmay have a subsequent effect on the product.
4. Hold one-on-one interviews with business owners.
Not everyone is comfortable to voice out their opinions in group discussions, especially if its in disagreement with what the majority thinks. Holding one-on-one interviews with the client and other stakeholders, AKA your development partners,gives you a more individualized perspective of the business and provide you the opportunity to established a more personal connection with the stakeholders, in turn helping you build a trusting relationship with each one of them. Investing your time in holding these interviewsdisplays your dedication in knowing each stakeholders opinion, however their influence may be in making decisions regarding the project.
5. Identify expectations and define success.
Each stakeholder has different expectations and views on how they measure the success of the project. Help them determine which metrics to measure and encourage them to ponder in terms of real numbers and timelines. The numbers do not need to be realistic; the objective is to understand their expectations and what success means for them.
6. Encourage a more involved client role.
Innovation takes many forms but the most brilliant and innovative products are created through the collaborative work of creative minds. With your design experience and your clients expertise in the field, there is no doubt youll be creating a great product. But the less you know your client, the more you are prone to mistakes and assumptions, which renders your time and effort worthless. Giving your client a more involved role, hastens feedback generation, lets you develop better ideas, alongside your client instead of for your client and helps them think critically of the project while revealing individualized concerns and pain points.
Empathy is a trait inherent to UX Designers. But the best ones know how to empathize and put themselves in the shoes of not only the end-users but into their clients as well. Empathy lets designers go the extra mile in developing a deeper understanding of the business behind the project and of the very people in charge of the business. It urges them to reach out to better comprehend each of these business owners individual goals, concerns, needs and apprehensions, which ultimately help them visualize the project in a more diverse perspective. Just like how Leon Ho, founder of Lifehack, has narrated in one of his posts on Quora,
Empathy gives you the reasoning, the information, and sometimes reduces the negativity and lets you get a glimpse of the whole story. Without empathy, you may create a product that no one wants, a business proposal that no one agrees with, or assess a situation that looks pretty different from the actual truth.
About the Author: Webonise Lab is a development and design company. Our mission is to transform great digital ideas into a reality, all driven by the concept to launch methodology. Our passion? Building web and mobile apps that we believe in, clients love and people can use in the real world. Through our wildly talented team of 200 (and counting!) talented software engineers, usability experts and business analysts, we bring innovation to life.
Webonise.com
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May 30
2018Friday, November 2, 2007
Two scientists working at McGill University in Canada, reporting on their research and the research of other scientists, state in Scientific American that Vitamin D may have many uses in the human body besides building strong bones.
According to the scientists, Luz E. Tavera-Mendoza and John H. White, Vitamin D intake may also be beneficial in the prevention of cancer, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, and fighting tuberculosis, influenza and inflammatory bowel disease. The researchers say that there is an emerging “widespread consensus” among experts that a large part of the population has levels of Vitamin D in their bodies that is well below optimal concentrations for health, particularly in temperate regions, due to decreased sunlight and or less time outdoors, and during or just after the winter months. One study indicated that as many as 92% of adolescent girls in Northern Europe may have deficient levels of Vitamin D and 37% have severely deficient levels.
The problem is far worse among African-Americans than Americans with lighter skin. Almost half of African-American women may be seriously Vitamin D deficient, with presumably still another fraction deficient. Furthermore, the authors say researchers at Harvard University and elsewhere believe the FDA minimum recommended daily allowance of Vitamin D is far too low. The Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) ranges from 200 to 600 International Units (IU). In fact, the authors themselves take Vitamin D supplements. The first author takes 1000 IU during wintertime and the second author takes 5,000 IU in wintertime. They do caution, however, that there is a level at which Vitamin D becomes toxic.
Similar research has also been recently performed by researchers at the Queensland University of Technology who found that many elderly were likely not getting sufficient Vitamin D due in part to insufficient exposure to the sun.
May 30
2018Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Last night HBO premiered I Am An Animal: The Story of Ingrid Newkirk and PETA. Since its inception, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has made headlines and raised eyebrows. They are almost single-handedly responsible for the movement against animal testing and their efforts have raised the suffering animals experience in a broad spectrum of consumer goods production and food processing into a cause célèbre.
PETA first made headlines in the Silver Spring monkeys case, when Alex Pacheco, then a student at George Washington University, volunteered at a lab run by Edward Taub, who was testing neuroplasticity on live monkeys. Taub had cut sensory ganglia that supplied nerves to the monkeys’ fingers, hands, arms, legs; with some of the monkeys, he had severed the entire spinal column. He then tried to force the monkeys to use their limbs by exposing them to persistent electric shock, prolonged physical restraint of an intact arm or leg, and by withholding food. With footage obtained by Pacheco, Taub was convicted of six counts of animal cruelty—largely as a result of the monkeys’ reported living conditions—making them “the most famous lab animals in history,” according to psychiatrist Norman Doidge. Taub’s conviction was later overturned on appeal and the monkeys were eventually euthanized.
PETA was born.
In the subsequent decades they ran the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty against Europe’s largest animal-testing facility (footage showed staff punching beagle puppies in the face, shouting at them, and simulating sex acts while taking blood samples); against Covance, the United State’s largest importer of primates for laboratory research (evidence was found that they were dissecting monkeys at its Vienna, Virginia laboratory while the animals were still alive); against General Motors for using live animals in crash tests; against L’Oreal for testing cosmetics on animals; against the use of fur for fashion and fur farms; against Smithfield Foods for torturing Butterball turkeys; and against fast food chains, most recently against KFC through the launch of their website kentuckyfriedcruelty.com.
They have launched campaigns and engaged in stunts that are designed for media attention. In 1996, PETA activists famously threw a dead raccoon onto the table of Anna Wintour, the fur supporting editor-in-chief of Vogue, while she was dining at the Four Seasons in New York, and left bloody paw prints and the words “Fur Hag” on the steps of her home. They ran a campaign entitled Holocaust on your Plate that consisted of eight 60-square-foot panels, each juxtaposing images of the Holocaust with images of factory farming. Photographs of concentration camp inmates in wooden bunks were shown next to photographs of caged chickens, and piled bodies of Holocaust victims next to a pile of pig carcasses. In 2003 in Jerusalem, after a donkey was loaded with explosives and blown up in a terrorist attack, Newkirk sent a letter to then-PLO leader Yasser Arafat to keep animals out of the conflict. As the film shows, they also took over Jean-Paul Gaultier‘s Paris boutique and smeared blood on the windows to protest his use of fur in his clothing.
The group’s tactics have been criticized. Co-founder Pacheco, who is no longer with PETA, called them “stupid human tricks.” Some feminists criticize their campaigns featuring the Lettuce Ladies and “I’d Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur” ads as objectifying women. Of their Holocaust on a Plate campaign, Anti-Defamation League Chairman Abraham Foxman said “The effort by PETA to compare the deliberate systematic murder of millions of Jews to the issue of animal rights is abhorrent.” (Newkirk later issued an apology for any hurt it caused). Perhaps most controversial amongst politicians, the public and even other animal rights organizations is PETA’s refusal to condemn the actions of the Animal Liberation Front, which in January 2005 was named as a terrorist threat by the United States Department of Homeland Security.
David Shankbone attended the pre-release screening of I Am An Animal at HBO’s offices in New York City on November 12, and the following day he sat down with Ingrid Newkirk to discuss her perspectives on PETA, animal rights, her responses to criticism lodged against her and to discuss her on-going life’s work to raise human awareness of animal suffering. Below is her interview.
May 29
2018Click Here For More Specific Information On:
byalex
When the house down the street or the business in the next block is robbed or burglarized, the natural tendency is to worry who might be next. No one is exempt from the risk of being victimized. However, everyone can reduce the risk of being a victim by taking advantage of a security service. Security Guard Kansas City can provide a layer of protection from a variety of losses. The question is not really who needs a security service, it is which type of security service is needed to best protect all types of assets?
Homeowners often leave their residences empty for hours or even days at a time. Empty dwellings provide a great opportunity for burglars to take their time entering the property and selecting items to take that are easily sold. Electronics, jewelry and weapons are prime targets for theft. All can easily be disposed of quickly with little risk to the thief. A home security system, combined with Security Guard Kansas presence, can significantly reduce the risk of being victimized. In addition, modern security providers are now utilizing real-time video to prevent false alarm responses and improve identification and apprehension of anyone actually entering a property.
Business owners can tailor systems to significantly reduce shrinkage from normal business traffic or from employee theft. Loss prevention specialists can monitor the site and alter programs as needed to meet changing needs. Security Guard Kansas City works with business owners to determine the most effective services to fit each business need. In addition, services can be designed to meet the budget of each business. As profit margins continue to shrink for many businesses, loss prevention will become increasingly more important. No business can afford to ignore losses.
As with any service, selection of a provider should not be done haphazardly. It is important to look for security providers with experience, preferably in law enforcement. Providers with a knowledge of law enforcement practices and procedures can generally be expected to provide more effective services. In addition, if there is an incident, that law enforcement experience can result in a higher likelihood of prosecution and conviction. Everyone with a risk of loss must consider using a security service. It is simply some of the best insurance against loss that is available.
May 29
2018Thursday, August 12, 2010
A new study suggests that plants can adapt to changing climatic conditions more efficiently than previously thought, making the onset of climate change less of a concern for plant species around the world. Jodrell Laboratory in the London Botanical Gardens has discovered that plants can alter specific components of their genetic make-up to suit rising temperatures and varying levels of rainfall that would otherwise take hundred of years to develop through natural selection, via a process known as epigenetics.
This newly discovered ability suggests that mass plant extinction brought on by climate change may not happen to the extent that scientists previously predicted. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change claimed in 2007 that “20 to 30 per cent of species assessed so far are likely to be at increased risk of extinction if increases in global average warming exceed 1.5C to 2.5C”, a statement that now needs re-evaluating.
The study focused on three species of common spotted orchid that grow in varying environments. These plants had nearly identical genetic heritage, but thrived under very different conditions. Mark Chase of Jodrell Laboratory claims that “[their] results are particularly relevant in the present context of widespread environmental challenges and give us more hope in the adaptive potential of organisms […] it is not instantaneous, but it is much faster than we thought previously”.
It is still unclear whether plants would adapt in the same way under “extreme” climate change.
May 28
2018Monday, November 19, 2007
Drag—dressing in the clothing atypical of your born gender—in recent years has found mainstream success. Films such as Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar have prominently featured drag performers. But they have all focused on men in drag as women.
Murray Hill is a comedian, emcee and performer. He is also a drag king. Called “The Hardest Working Middle-aged Man in Show Business”, The New York Times christened him “the current reigning patriarch of the downtown performance community.” He is seemingly everywhere, emceeing a bingo night at the now closed, Jimmy Fallon-backed Mo Pitkins’ House of Satisfaction on Avenue A, or hosting the Polyamorous Pride Day in Central Park. Hill has become a legend in New York’s “anything goes” counterculture theater scene who is beginning to find mainstream success; which would be a first for a drag king.
David Shankbone’s examination of New York City‘s culture has brought him to the whip’s end of a BDSM dungeon, on the phone with RuPaul, matching wits with Michael Musto, grilling Gay Talese, eating dinner with Augusten Burroughs and quizzing the bands that play the Bowery Ballroom. In this segment he talks to downtown legend Murray Hill, former New York City mayoral candidate and comedian, on the last night of Mo Pitkins’ House of Satisfaction.
May 28
2018
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Online Bus Ticket Booking from Mumbai to Pune
by
Ayush Aggarwal
Pune is between 160 and 180 km from Mumbai by road, depending on your point of starting in Mumbai. The Mumbai-Pune section of National Highway Number 4 is the busiest in the country and often has terrible traffic jams that extend tens of kilometers. This is especially so in the monsoon months. The new six-lane expressway connecting the two cities is the shortest road link.
Mumbai: About:
Mumbai, a cosmopolitan metropolis, earlier known as Bombay, is the largest city in India and the capital of Maharashtra state. Mumbai was originally a conglomeration of seven islands on the Konkan coastline which over time were joined to form the island city of Bombay. The island was in turn joined with the neighboring island of Salsette to form Greater Bombay. The city has an estimated metropolitan population of 21 million (2005), making it one of the largest cities (ranked by population) in the world.
Places to Visit:
By Indian standards, Mumbai is a young city and much of the land comprising the city did not exist until it was claimed from the sea over three centuries ago. It is therefore, a pleasant surprise to find rock cut caves such as the Elephanta, Kanheri, and Mahakali within city limits.
Zoos, parks and gardens: The city zoo (Veermata Jijabai Udyan) is in Byculla and is a colonial relic which is surprisingly well-preserved. The “Hanging Gardens” on Malabar Hill offers stunning vistas of the Marine Drive. Further in South Mumbai, the Mumbai Port Trust Garden, is another hidden gem. This is set off a small side street off the Colaba Causeway 2-3 kms south of the main section. Once again, lovely views of the port, the naval yards, and sunset.
Pune:
Pune, also known as Punya-Nagari, is the eighth largest metropolis in India, the second largest in the state of Maharashtra after Mumbai, and the largest city in the Western Ghats. Once the center of power of the Maratha Empire, it is situated 560 metres above sea level on the Deccan plateau at the confluence of the Mula and Mutha rivers. Pune city is the administrative capital of Pune district.
Pune is known to have existed as a town since 937 AD. Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, the founder of the Maratha Empire, lived in Pune as a young boy, and later oversaw significant growth and development of the town during his reign. In 1730, Pune became an important political center as the seat of the Peshwa, the prime minister of the Chhatrapati of Satara. After the town was annexed to British India in 1817, it served as a cantonment town and as the “monsoon capital” of the Bombay Presidency until the independence of India.
Bus tickets are readily available as well, with both government tourism boards and private operators offering bus bookings through a variety of means. Additionally in Mumbai, there are several cheap packages available from budget to luxury and star rated hotels, and you can make reservations for most of these via online booking at via.com
Travel by Bus:
Bus tickets are readily available as well, with both government tourism boards and private operators offering bus bookings through a variety of means. Additionally in Mumbai, there are several cheap packages available from budget to luxury and star rated hotels, and you can make reservations for most of these via online booking at via.com. Now in the era of internet, you can check and book online
bus tickets from Mumbai to Pune
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bus booking from Mumbai to Pune
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Via.com is a leader in travel automation and technology. With a vision to provide seamless service to it s’ customer and provide best service at cheapest rate, via.com has evolve a new era of technologies in travel industry. Now cheap air ticket, online bus ticket booking, railway reservation; through IRCTC is easy and accessible from web and mobile aArticle Source: ArticleRich.com
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