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And you thought holding a Galaxy Note II to your ear made you look like a tool. Meet the Huawei MediaPad 7 Vogue, a tablet from a company that is clearly in touch with the needs of the common man.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/blYMmg-F99Y/
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GOMA, Congo (AP) ? Congo's information minister described a recently published Amnesty International report on working conditions in the country's mines as "unfairly targeting" Chinese companies.
In a media briefing Saturday, Minister Lambert Mende said the government had taken note of the serious accusations in the report and was concerned about conditions for miners, but he questioned why Chinese firms had been singled out for criticism.
He said: "Mining companies in Katanga (the Congo's copper belt province) are of 30 different nationalities, and none of them offer their employees and clients different conditions to the Chinese companies."
The Amnesty report details three case studies including two directly involving Chinese companies. The latter cases involved the forced eviction of 300 families and a confrontation with police in which a protestor was shot dead.
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The Mama's Boyz sixth grade lacrosse team scores big for charity ? raising nearly $4,000 while capturing five wins, two losses and one tie in their first season together and taking first place in their division at a recent Long Island tournament.
North Shore Neighbors Breast Cancer Coalition and members of the community will celebrate Mama?s Boyz LAX?s victory at their year-end party on Wednesday, June 26, 2013 from 6:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 2913 located on Edwards Street in Patchogue.
Mama?s Boyz LAX was formed by Lynn Sommer for 5th & 6th Grade boys in the summer of 2012. This team is much different than any other team. Players didn?t have to try out for this team nor did they have to pay. The only thing they had to do was partake in community service. Sommer received start up assistance from local businesses and partnered up with great coaches Vito DeMola, John Amato and Quentin Sommer. During the season, the boys learned more than just dodging and rolling, poking and scoring. They learned how rewarding it is to help others. And that they did. Players participated in fundraisers and provide simple acts of kindness by helping their neighbors.
Patti Kozlowski of North Shore Neighbors Breast Cancer Coalition said, ?Lynn Sommer contacted me last year in regards to raising funds for our coalition. She asked what our fundraising minimum was and I told her that we didn?t have a minimum. Lynn shared her vision for the team and it certainly sounded like a great idea to me.? Mama?s Boyz players and their families have so much to be proud of ? a lesson in philanthropy and a winning season.
Please join North Shore Neighbors Breast Cancer Coalition and members of the community in congratulating Lynn Sommer, the boys, their families and their coaching staff. To confirm your attendance for more information, please contact Patti Kozlowski of North Shore Neighbors at 631-830-5274 or?Lynn Sommer at (516) 807-1516.
DATE/TIME: Wednesday, June 26, 2013 at 6:30 p.m. ? 10 p.m.
LOCATION: Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 2913 located at 32 Edwards Street in Patchogue NY.
Source: http://insidelacrosse.com/news/2013/06/21/mamas-boyz-raise-money-breast-cancer
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PHOENIX (AP) ? President Barack Obama has championed two sweeping policy changes that could transform how people live in the United States: affordable health care for all and a path to citizenship for the 11 million immigrants illegally in the country.
But many immigrants will have to wait more than a decade to qualify for health care benefits under the proposed immigration overhaul being debated by Congress, ensuring a huge swath of people will remain uninsured as the centerpiece of Obama's health care law launches next year.
Lawmakers pushing the immigration bill said adding more recipients to an already costly benefit would make it unaffordable.
Health care analysts and immigration proponents argue that denying coverage will saddle local governments with the burden of uninsured immigrants. They also fear a crisis down the road as immigrants become eligible for coverage, but are older, sicker and require more expensive care. Those placed on provisional status would become the nation's second-largest population of uninsured, or about 25 percent, according to a 2012 study by the Urban Institute.
"All health research shows that the older you get, the sicker you become, so these people will be sicker and will be more expensive on the system," said Matthew O'Brien, who runs a health clinic for immigrants in Philadelphia and researches health trends at Temple University.
The Affordable Care Act will make health insurance accessible for millions of uninsured people starting in January through taxpayer-subsidized private policies for middle-class families and expanded access to Medicaid, the program for low-income people funded by federal and state dollars. The proposed immigration overhaul explicitly states immigrants cannot receive Medicaid or buy coverage in new health care exchanges for more than a decade after they qualify for legal status, and only after certain financial and security requirements have been met.
Immigrants with provisional status may obtain insurance through employers once they have legal status to work, but many are unskilled and undereducated, and tend to work low-wage jobs at small businesses that don't have to provide the benefit under the health care law. Immigrants illegally in the country also can access community health centers, but the officials who run those clinics said they are overwhelmed by the demand.
"We can't help everybody," said Bethy Mathis, executive director of Wesley Community Center in Phoenix. The clinic serves 7,000 patients a year who seek everything from vaccinations and relief from minor medical problems to care for long-term health conditions such as diabetes.
Debate over whether immigrants illegally in the country should be eligible for federal benefits nearly sank Obama's health care reform before it was passed by Congress in 2010. For lawmakers pushing immigration reform, there was no question that immigrants would continue to be excluded.
"That's one of the privileges of citizenship," said Republican Sen. John McCain, one of the so-called Gang of Eight pushing the immigration bill, during a conference call with reporters. "That's just what it is. I don't know why we would want to provide Obamacare to someone who is not a citizen of this country."
The issue has received more attention in recent weeks. Some House Republicans have threatened to kill the immigration bill unless immigrants are required to pay for all their health care costs even after they receive green cards or become citizens. Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, meanwhile, said she wants the government to distribute at least $250 million to state and local governments because they are the ones who will feel the financial pain of immigrants being left out of the health care law.
Pregnant women, children, seniors and the disabled are eligible for emergency Medicaid services regardless of their immigration status.
The politics behind the bill offer little solace to immigrant families struggling with growing medical bills.
Isabel Castillo came to the U.S. illegally with her parents when she was a child. She's now 28 and has not gone for an annual physical exam since 2007. Every pain triggers debate over whether it's worth a medical visit or not.
"You are like, 'God, should I go, should I wait? The bill is going to be so high,'" Castillo said. "You just wait until you can't tolerate the pain anymore and then you go to the emergency room."
Immigrants who are U.S. citizens are also affected by the limits on health care access if they provide for family members here illegally.
High school student Jacqueline Garcia of Phoenix works two jobs to support her 13-year-old brother and 52-year-old grandmother, who has severe diabetes. The woman's mobility is limited, her vision and memory are fading and she sometimes suffers from seizures. The children were born in the United States and are being raised by the grandmother, who does not have lawful status and as a result does not qualify for Medicaid.
"Every time she gets sick, I have to take her to the doctor. It's really expensive," Garcia said. "What if my grandmother doesn't make it for the 10 years? I mean, I am always going to be struggling. That's too long."
Opponents said they understand the concerns of immigrants not getting health care, but it becomes an issue of the added expense.
"We aren't saying people shouldn't get health care. The question is who is going to pay for it?" said Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a national group that opposes the immigration overhaul. "They would all be on Medicaid or heavily subsidized in some other way."
Critics of the decision said immigrants are eager to pay for affordable health care insurance and already support federal benefits by paying sales and income taxes. They note that adults unable to overcome health emergencies are less likely to contribute to the workforce and society.
"The risk of them being uninsured if they are in the country illegally is the same risk of anyone else in the country not being insured," said Stephen Zuckerman, a health economist for the Urban Institute. "It's always more expensive to treat people at a more advanced stage of disease."
In North Carolina, Jessica Sanchez-Rodriguez said she has undergone a series of surgeries and medicines to treat her spina bifida, a developmental congenital disorder, and an ailment that leads to brain swelling. Her parents brought her illegally from Mexico when she was 11 months old. As a minor, she received subsidized medical care, but she was cut off when she turned 18 in February.
Her family is trying to raise money for a $55,000 surgery to connect a catheter to her bladder.
"It's terrible," Sanchez-Rodriguez said. "I have to go to school with these pains."
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/immigrants-excluded-health-care-overhaul-083920285.html
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June 20, 2013 ? Men who are diagnosed as azoospermic -- infertile because of an absence of sperm in their ejaculate -- are more prone to developing cancer than the general population, a study led by a Stanford University School of Medicine urologist has found. And a diagnosis of azoospermia before age 30 carries an eight-fold cancer risk, the study says.
"An azoospermic man's risk for developing cancer is similar to that for a typical man 10 years older," said Michael Eisenberg, MD, PhD, assistant professor of urology at the medical school and director of male reproductive medicine and surgery at Stanford Hospital & Clinics. Eisenberg is lead author of the study, published online June 20 in Fertility and Sterility.
Diagnoses of male infertility and azoospermia are surprisingly common in the United States. About 4 million American men -- 15 percent of those ages 15-45 -- are infertile. Of these, some 600,000 -- about 1 percent of those of reproductive age -- are azoospermic. "There is evidence that infertility may be a barometer for men's overall health," Eisenberg said, "and a few studies have found an association of male infertility with testicular cancer." The new study, he said, not only assigns the bulk of infertile men's increased cancer risk to those with azoospermia, but also suggests that this risk extends beyond testicular cancer.
Eisenberg conducted most of the analysis for the study at Stanford, using data gathered from the Texas Cancer Registry and the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, where he completed his medical training. The study's senior authors are Larry Lipshultz, MD, and Dolores Lamb, PhD, professors of urology at Baylor.
The study population consisted of 2,238 infertile men who were seen at a Baylor andrology clinic from 1989 to 2009. Their median age was 35.7 when they were first evaluated for the cause of their infertility. Of those men, 451 had azoospermia, and 1,787 did not. There were otherwise no apparent initial differences between the two groups.
Azoospermia can arise for two reasons. Obstructive azoospermia is caused by a blockage that prevents otherwise plentiful, fit sperm produced in the testes from reaching the ejaculate. But a screen of about one-fourth of the azoospermic men in the study population indicated that the vast majority suffered from the non-obstructive variety: Their testes didn't produce enough sperm for any to reach their ejaculate, most likely because of genetic deficiencies of one sort or another. Fully one-fourth of all the genes in the human genome play some role in reproduction, Eisenberg noted, so there are a lot of ways for the capacity to sire offspring to go astray.
After undergoing a semen analysis, the men were followed for an average of 6.7 years to see which of them turned up in the Texas Cancer Registry. (Fortunately for the analysis, most people tend to stay in the state where they've grown up, said Eisenberg.) Their rates of diagnosed cancer incidence were then compared with age-adjusted cancer-diagnosis statistics of Texas men in general.
In all, a total of 29 of the 2,238 infertile men developed cancer over a 5.8-year average period from their semen analysis to their cancer diagnosis. This contrasted with an expected 16.7 cases, on an age-adjusted basis, for the male Texas population in general (which, Eisenberg said, closely reflects cancer incidence rates for the entire U.S. population). This meant that infertile men were 1.7 times as likely to develop cancer as men in the general population. This is considered a moderately increased risk.
But comparing the cancer risk of azoospermic and nonazoospermic infertile men revealed a major disparity: The azoospermic men were at a substantially elevated risk -- nearly three times as likely to receive a diagnosis of cancer as men in the overall population. Infertile men who weren't azoospermic, in contrast, exhibited a statistically insignificant increased cancer risk of only 1.4 times that of men in the overall population.
By excluding men whose cancer diagnosis came within two or three years of their infertility evaluation, the researchers were able to rule out the possibility that azoospermia caused by an undiagnosed cancer had affected the statistics.
While the study wasn't large enough to delineate which specific types of cancer pushed azoospermic men's incidence rates up, the diagnoses they received covered a wide range of cancers: brain, prostate and stomach tumors, as well as melanoma, lymphoma, testicular cancer and cancer of the small intestine. The findings suggest that genetic defects that result in azoospermia may also broadly increase a man's vulnerability to cancer, Eisenberg said, supporting the notion that azoospermia and cancer vulnerability may share common genetic causes.
The study, which was funded by the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development, is the first to examine the cancer risk of azoospermia in particular, or to link it to non-germ-cell cancers. Previous studies have failed to consistently identify any increased risk for nontesticular cancers in infertile men, whether azoospermic or otherwise. In those previous studies, however, azoospermic men couldn't be separately examined because sperm analyses weren't available.
Most striking of all, said Eisenberg, was the cancer risk among azoospermic men who first had their semen analyzed before age 30. They were more than eight times as likely to subsequently develop cancer than Texas males in the general population of the same age. In contrast, there was no relationship between age of semen analysis and risk of cancer for nonazoospermic men.
The good news, Eisenberg said, is that while the cancer risk among young azoospermic men was quite large compared to their same-age peers, their relative youth means that their absolute risk of contracting cancer during the follow-up period remained small. The bad news, he said, is that men in their 30s often don't have a primary health-care provider. He advised that young men who are diagnosed as azoospermic should be aware of their heightened risk and make sure to get periodic checkups with that in mind.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/fdzhd_2xLmQ/130620214033.htm
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Public release date: 21-Jun-2013
Share ] Contact: Mary Beth O'Leary
moleary@cell.com
617-397-2802
Cell Press
The science published in Cell Press journals continues to deliver high impact across the research community as reflected in the measures of citation released this week in the 2012 Journal Citation Reports (JCR) published by Thomson Reuters. Looking across impact factor (IF) and immediacy index as measures of a journal's short-term value as well as 5-year IF and cited half-life as indications of a journal's robustness and longevity, Cell Press journals made significant increases in multiple citation-based measures of impact.
Cell continues to lead in its field with an impact factor of 31.957, and remains the number one research journal in the Cell Biology and Biochemistry & Molecular Biology categories. Currently celebrating 25 years of exciting neuroscience, Neuron has delivered strong growth in impact over the last 3 years, rising from 13.260 in 2009 to 15.766 in 2012. Now in its 50th volume, Molecular Cell's impact factor grew by 8% from 14.178 to 15.280. In just its 6th year of publication, Cell Stem Cell is holding steady with an impact factor of 25.315, having risen rapidly from 16.826 in 2008.
Seven of the fourteen Trends review journals published by Cell Press increased in impact. In particular Trends in Cognitive Sciences grew by 27% from 12.586 to 16.008, Trends in Biochemical Sciences went up from 10.847 to 13.076, an increase of over 20%, and Trends in Endocrinology & Metabolism grew by 10% to 8.901.
Launched in 2007, Cell Host & Microbe increased its immediacy index by 29% up from 2.274 in 2011 to 2.943, and Cell Metabolism's immediacy index increased by 24% from 2.624 to 3.250. Trends in Microbiology's immediacy index went up by 58% from 1.365 to 2.153, and other notable increases include Trends in Cognitive Sciences (64%), Trends in Immunology (24%), and Trends in Pharmacological Sciences (24%).
For many of these journals the trends of increase in the 2-year IF and immediacy index are also reflected in the 5-year IF and cited half-life. These measures reflect that our published articles are cited more frequently in both the shorter- and the longer-term, illustrating the timeliness and longevity of their value and impact. Visit http://www.cell.com/cellpress/impact to see additional metrics which provide a means to assess journal performance.
In 2012 the Cell Press primary research and Trends review journals received over 715,000 citations, representing 6% growth on 2011. As well as considering traditional citation-based measures, several months ago Cell Press added article-level altmetrics to its website so that readers can track the real-time community response to individual papers.
"We're are delighted to see that our editorial efforts in engaging with the scientific community, identifying exciting science, providing a fast, fair, informed peer review, and having a clear editorial vision have paid off in continuing to provide content of high value and impact to the scientific community." said Emilie Marcus - CEO, Cell Press, and Editor-in-Chief, Cell.
Cell Press owes thanks to all the authors who entrusted us with their best research articles and reviews and to the reviewers who helped us understand the strengths and limitations of each paper. Thanks also to all our readers who were inspired by the papers we published in their own research and went on to build on them and cite them.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 21-Jun-2013 Share ] Contact: Mary Beth O'Leary
moleary@cell.com
617-397-2802
Cell Press
The science published in Cell Press journals continues to deliver high impact across the research community as reflected in the measures of citation released this week in the 2012 Journal Citation Reports (JCR) published by Thomson Reuters. Looking across impact factor (IF) and immediacy index as measures of a journal's short-term value as well as 5-year IF and cited half-life as indications of a journal's robustness and longevity, Cell Press journals made significant increases in multiple citation-based measures of impact.
Cell continues to lead in its field with an impact factor of 31.957, and remains the number one research journal in the Cell Biology and Biochemistry & Molecular Biology categories. Currently celebrating 25 years of exciting neuroscience, Neuron has delivered strong growth in impact over the last 3 years, rising from 13.260 in 2009 to 15.766 in 2012. Now in its 50th volume, Molecular Cell's impact factor grew by 8% from 14.178 to 15.280. In just its 6th year of publication, Cell Stem Cell is holding steady with an impact factor of 25.315, having risen rapidly from 16.826 in 2008.
Seven of the fourteen Trends review journals published by Cell Press increased in impact. In particular Trends in Cognitive Sciences grew by 27% from 12.586 to 16.008, Trends in Biochemical Sciences went up from 10.847 to 13.076, an increase of over 20%, and Trends in Endocrinology & Metabolism grew by 10% to 8.901.
Launched in 2007, Cell Host & Microbe increased its immediacy index by 29% up from 2.274 in 2011 to 2.943, and Cell Metabolism's immediacy index increased by 24% from 2.624 to 3.250. Trends in Microbiology's immediacy index went up by 58% from 1.365 to 2.153, and other notable increases include Trends in Cognitive Sciences (64%), Trends in Immunology (24%), and Trends in Pharmacological Sciences (24%).
For many of these journals the trends of increase in the 2-year IF and immediacy index are also reflected in the 5-year IF and cited half-life. These measures reflect that our published articles are cited more frequently in both the shorter- and the longer-term, illustrating the timeliness and longevity of their value and impact. Visit http://www.cell.com/cellpress/impact to see additional metrics which provide a means to assess journal performance.
In 2012 the Cell Press primary research and Trends review journals received over 715,000 citations, representing 6% growth on 2011. As well as considering traditional citation-based measures, several months ago Cell Press added article-level altmetrics to its website so that readers can track the real-time community response to individual papers.
"We're are delighted to see that our editorial efforts in engaging with the scientific community, identifying exciting science, providing a fast, fair, informed peer review, and having a clear editorial vision have paid off in continuing to provide content of high value and impact to the scientific community." said Emilie Marcus - CEO, Cell Press, and Editor-in-Chief, Cell.
Cell Press owes thanks to all the authors who entrusted us with their best research articles and reviews and to the reviewers who helped us understand the strengths and limitations of each paper. Thanks also to all our readers who were inspired by the papers we published in their own research and went on to build on them and cite them.
###
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-06/cp-cpp062113.php
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Oil prices staged a moderate rebound Friday, a day after their sharpest drop in more than seven months.
By early afternoon in Europe, benchmark oil for August delivery was up 41 cents to $95.55 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
On Thursday, the expiring Nymex contract for July settlement sank $2.84, or 2.9 percent, to $95.40 a barrel. The sharp drop was precipitated by weak Chinese manufacturing data and signals that the U.S. central bank is preparing to scale back its stimulus policies.
Thursday's "events mean that oil shed all of the gains of the past two weeks, showing just how susceptible the oil market is to external influences," said a report from Commerzbank in Frankfurt. "There has after all been no change in the fundamentals since the beginning of the month."
Analysts said rising crude output combined with the Fed's signal that it would start tapering down its asset purchases this year have put downward pressure on oil prices. But Syria's civil war and Iran's pursuit of nuclear projects were risks that had the potential to disrupt energy markets and could cause prices to rise.
"The geopolitical premium must not be forgotten, and may not remain muted for long," said analysts at Credit Agricole CIB in Hong Kong.
On Wednesday, Fed chairman Ben Bernanke suggested that he was optimistic about the U.S. economy ? and that the Fed might start scaling back its massive $85 billion-a-month bond-buying program this year if conditions continue to improve. The Fed could end the program by the middle of next year, Bernanke said.
The Fed program has kept borrowing costs near historic lows for consumers and business. It has also helped boost the equities and energy markets.
Brent crude, a benchmark for many international oil varieties, was up 52 cents to $102.67. Brent plunged $3.97, or 3.7 percent, to end on Thursday at $102.94 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in London.
In other energy futures trading on the Nymex:
? Wholesale gasoline rose 1.57 cents to $2.7932 a gallon.
? Heating oil added 1.52 cents to $2.8882 per gallon.
? Natural gas advanced 1.3 cents to $3.89 per 1,000 cubic feet.
___
Pamela Sampson in Bangkok contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/oil-rebounds-remains-above-95-barrel-053721966.html
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Two government reports cite delays in setting up health-insurance exchanges as the Oct. 1 deadline looms.The public is still more negative than positive about reform, but promotion is just starting.?
Senate clerks arrange 95 proposed amendments to the health insurance exchange bill at the statehouse in St. Paul, Minn., earlier this year. Minnesota will set up its own health insurance exchange to comply with Obamacare, but the federal government will do it on behalf of 34 other states.
Glen Stubbe/The Star Tribune/AP/File
EnlargeThe central feature of Obamacare ? getting the uninsured to sign up for health insurance ? is due to start on Oct. 1, less than four months away. But both the federal and state governments are behind in their preparations.
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That?s the conclusion of two reports issued Wednesday by the congressional Government Accountability Office (GAO) looking at the status of government efforts to set up online ?exchanges,? or marketplaces, for both individuals and small businesses.
?Much progress has been made, but much remains to be accomplished within a relatively short amount of time,? said the GAO report on the establishment of ?federally facilitated? health-insurance exchanges for individuals. Those are the exchanges being set up for the 34 states that opted not to set them up themselves.
For example, the report cites a two-month delay in funding awards for ?a key consumer assistance program? known as Navigators, causing delays in training. The report also says that the federally created exchanges rely on the states to implement certain functions, and some are behind schedule.
Passing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), or Obamacare, remains the signature accomplishment of the Obama presidency, and the law?s success is crucial to President Obama?s legacy. One year ago, most of the law survived the scrutiny of the US Supreme Court, but fierce resistance from Republican governors and members of Congress has put a drag on implementation.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which is overseeing implementation, says the new marketplaces will open on time. People who sign up will be covered as of Jan. 1, 2014.
Polls show that a high percentage of Americans ? upwards of 50 percent ? are not aware that the ACA is the law of the land, that it contains a mandate to buy insurance, and that subsidies will be available.
Last month, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius encountered controversy when it was revealed that she had solicited private money for groups that are working to spread public awareness about Obamacare, including information about the new exchanges that will offer federal subsidies to those who qualify.?
At a congressional hearing earlier this month, Secretary Sebelius defended her fundraising calls on behalf of an outside group that is promoting Obamacare. She said she asked the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the tax preparation company H&R Block to donate to the group Enroll America, and contacted three other entities just to describe the group. All of her actions, she said, were legal, noting that previous HHS secretaries took similar action to help with implementation of new programs providing health insurance to children and prescription drugs for seniors.
On Tuesday, Enroll America launched a grass-roots campaign to spread the word about Obamacare, and get people to sign up. The group is closely aligned with the Obama administration and run by Anne Filipic, former deputy director of the White House Office of Public Engagement. ?
Under Obamacare, insurance companies can no longer turn away people with preexisting conditions. And so a crucial aspect of implementation is getting enough young, healthy people to enroll to offset the cost of insuring older, less-healthy enrollees. The Congressional Budget Office expects some 7 million people to sign up when the exchanges open on Oct. 1, eventually reaching 22 million.
But Republicans are jumping on the GAO warnings as evidence that Obamacare isn?t ready for prime time.
?GAO report confirms our suspicions about implementation of health care law #TrainWreck,? Rep. Sam Graves (R) of Missouri, chairman of the House Committee on Small Business, tweeted on Wednesday.
A new poll out Wednesday on health-care reform by the Kaiser Family Foundation demonstrates the Obama administration?s continuing challenges.? Negative views of the law still outweigh the positive, 43 to 35 percent. Though Kaiser points out that the negative views are a mix of people who think the law goes too far in changing the health-care system (33 percent) and those who think it doesn?t go far enough (8 percent).?
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SAO PAULO (AP) ? After a week of mass protests, Brazilians won the world's attention and a pull-back on the subway and bus fare hikes that had first ignited their rage. But now, many say, the real work is only beginning.
Middle-class protesters marching for the first time say the challenge for Brazilians is to keep alive the political spirit that was awakened in the last week, after decades of apathy. They say they hope leaders emerge at the forefront of an eclectic mass movement and present concrete demands to national and state governments.
In short, protesters say it's time to organize around their flurry of grievances, ranging from ending government corruption to improving public education, health care and public safety.
"I think leaders will emerge but in smaller groups," said secretary Juliane Furno, while standing under a banner in Sao Paulo Thursday reading "Only struggle changes life."
"We're all taking the experiences of the past week back to our universities, communities and workplaces. I think things will calm down now but we have politicized Brazil and there's no turning back from that. We won't return to the Brazil of last week."
Despite such enthusiasm, Brazil's protesters face a dilemma that has bedeviled modern social movements in Latin America and beyond. If protests focus too narrowly on single issues such as bus fares, they risk losing steam when the issue is addressed. And if they focus too broadly their movements may become catchalls for everbody's grievances.
The U.S.-based Occupy movement, for example, failed to turn outrage over Wall Street corruption last year into a focused political force. Demonstrators in Egypt did manage to oust leader Hosni Mubarak but have since struggled to stay unified.
On top of that, having emerged from dictatorship only three decades ago, Brazil has no strong national civic groups that could naturally assume leadership of the protests.
"Based on the experiences we had in Chile, it will be key to foment organization," said Gabriel Boric, a former student leader who helped lead protests that forced Chilean President Sebastian Pinera to boost spending on education and social programs.
"In these type of massive movements there is often a rejection toward any sort of representation," Boric said. "But spokesmen will be needed to mediate with authorities and obtain planned goals. The work has to be permanent ? they have to create representation and dispute the power of traditional politicians."
The protests in Brazil are fresh and still running on adrenaline. Some of the biggest actions are planned for Thursday night in dozens of cities across the country.
Only one organized group has shown any control of the mobilizations so far, the Free Fare Movement that has fought since 2006 to make public transportation free across Brazil. The group's first protest in Sao Paulo last Thursday drew such a harsh police crackdown that hundreds of thousands of Brazilians were incited to take to the streets with every lament under the sun.
The Free Fare Movement has stuck to its one issue, and won its demands by putting forth leaders who could negotiate with governments.
The rest of the protesters have coalesced only around a general dissatisfaction with the sorry state of public services versus the high taxes citizens pay, as well as the billions of dollar spent on stadiums for the coming World Cup and Olympics.
But when pressed on how to turn frustration and disparate demands into concrete results, few on the streets could describe a way forward. In Salvador on Thursday, about 5,000 protesters couldn't even agree on a single march route, instead splitting up into two groups.
Ricardo Hammem, a 37-year-old lawyer attending a Sao Paulo rally in a black suit and tie this week, said that despite the amorphous nature of the protests and the lack of central leadership nationwide, the most important step had already been taken.
"It's been a long time coming. Everyone here is unsatisfied, but no one ever complains," he said. "Everyone waits for others to start."
Leonardo Avritzer, a political science professor at the University of Belo Horizonte, said time was short to harness the protests' momentum.
"This movement is like an onion," Avritzer said. "At the heart, there are these well-organized and politicized groups around which there are many external layers. Those external layers are going to disperse very rapidly ? especially if the movement doesn't find a way to turn their demands into a concrete, actionable agenda and particularly if they keep up this rhythm of daily protests."
Clive Bloom, professor emeritus at the U.K.'s Middlesex University and the author of several books on protest movements, said he sees common challenges facing protests in Europe and Latin America.
"Theses protests are made up of alliances of numerous causes and ideas," he said. "The difficulty is getting people to follow one of the ideas and see it through. You have 50,000 people out there, and each has their own agenda."
Bloom said a hallmark of modern protests is their dependence on loosely affiliated groups such as hackers collective Anonymous. Yet those groups by definition don't believe leaders can carry out traditional negotiations with governments, and form and disappear at will.
Such groups have driven the protests in Brazil, where every demonstration has included people donning the mask of British rebel leader Guy Fawkes ? a symbol adopted by hackers and anarchists globally. Brazil's Anonymous wing, however, has taken down several government and corporate websites and issued demands for combatting corruption and implementing government reforms.
For cab driver Roberto Amorim, what Brazilians need now is patience and to not lose hope if the protests die down.
"There are so many faces and voices out here, they're crying out against the same suffering that most in Brazil know," he said. "Nobody is waiting for deep changes today, tomorrow or next week ? I have no idea how it will come about. But the Brazilian people have been so submissive for so long, for now it's good to just see that we're able to put the scare into our leaders."
___
Associated Press writers Luis Henao in Santiago, Chile, and Jenny Barchfield in Rio de Janeiro contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/brazil-protesters-struggle-define-next-steps-210139307.html
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Earlier this year, the Republican National Committee released a 100-page report detailing how the GOP needed to retrofit its agenda and soften its tone. But if Republican officials had wanted to save time, they could have issued a shorthand summary that read: Be less like Steve King.
The Iowa congressman's outspoken conservatism embodies the kind of politics that, in the RNC's own words, alienates minorities, young voters, and moderates, the very people the GOP desperately needs to bring under its tent. That immigration reform brings out King's most incendiary rhetoric is especially troublesome, because regaining popularity among Hispanic voters is the party's biggest priority heading into 2016.
But if distancing themselves from King is the goal, Republicans are off to an uneven start. The party's rank-and-file members have instead sought to emulate him, employing the very kind of agenda and tone on immigration that Republicans once said they needed to distance themselves from. And that has the GOP's political professionals fretting that the party is returning to the old habits that led it to electoral disaster.
There's no better recent example than this month's near-unanimous House Republican vote to support restarting deportations of the children of illegal immigrants?a measure sponsored by King. Ostensibly, the vote would reverse a directive from President Obama last year, when he directed the government to suspend deportations of young men and women brought to the country illegally by their parents, but who had successfully completed school or enrolled in the military. GOP lawmakers cast it as a repudiation of the president, not Hispanics.
But politically speaking, the vote was a slap in the face to the Latino community, Republicans said.
"My biggest worry has always been that, the last few cycles, we've been increasingly defined on issue of immigration solely by what we're against and not enough about what we're for," said Kevin Madden, a former adviser to Mitt Romney who frequently discusses immigration reform with Republicans on Capitol Hill. "I think, when you have votes against the president, and against the executive order, it's not making progress toward defining what an aspirational immigration policy looks like and how it fits into larger kind of economy we're hoping to build in the United States."
King's amendment wasn't unexpected. But what was surprising was that nearly all of his colleagues followed suit. Only six House Republicans opposed it; 221 of them voted for it. The latter group includes House memebrs like Reps. Mike Coffman of Colorado, Gary Miller of California,?and Joe Heck of Nevada, three swing-district members representing large Hispanic constituencies. All three are particularly cognizant about not needlessly alienating Latino voters.
"The problem is that it can clearly be misinterpreted, and that's too bad," said Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart. R-Fla., who said he would have voted against the measure. (He missed the vote.) "Folks that might otherwise vote for the 'dreamers' voted the other way out of frustration with an administration that is out of control. I wish they would have chosen another issue."
House Democrats seized on the vote. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee launched Spanish-language radio ads against nine Republicans?including Coffman, Miller, and?Heck?that charged the GOP had yet to evolve its views toward the Hispanic community.
"The Republican party insists that they have changed, but once again, House Republicans like Gary Miller have betrayed our community, rejecting President Obama's executive order that ended the deportation of Dream Act-eligible young people," the narrator said in one spot that target Miller.
King hasn't let the extra attention over the immigration debate silence him. Last week, King offered his usual controversial take, this time tweeting about an alleged incident in his Capitol headquarters. "20 brazen self professed illegal aliens have just invaded my DC office," he said. "Obama's lawless order gives them de facto immunity from U.S. law."
Those comments are part of a nagging problem for the GOP of tone-deafness toward the Latino community. Republicans voting against a comprehensive immigration-reform package will have a litany of reasons, such as insufficient border security, they can choose from to explain their reasoning. But when the vote's focus is solely about deporting children, there's less political wiggle room.
Republicans, of course, are still debating whether to support an immigration reform plan that includes a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants. And led by Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, the party has given concrete indications it's going to the back the comprehensive measure and fulfill the wishes of its political class.
"We've come a long way in the last year on this issue," said Henry Barbour, one of five committee members to conduct the RNC's autopsy report. "I think we've made a lot of headway. But, like anything, there are ups and downs."
As Barbour said, he wishes some Republicans would "speak in ways that are more unifying than divisive" about immigration. But he's confident that even the party's most strident voices can ultimately come to an agreement.
"It's something the country really needs," he said, "and I hope the Steve Kings and Marco Rubios can sit down at the table together and work out something out that can pass."
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/gops-steve-king-problem-060023062.html
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The World News (WN) Network, has created this privacy statement in order to demonstrate our firm commitment to user privacy. The following discloses our information gathering and dissemination practices for wn.com, as well as e-mail newsletters.
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The security of your personal information is important to us. We follow generally accepted industry standards to protect the personal information submitted to us, both during registration and once we receive it. No method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100 percent secure, however. Therefore, though we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.
If we decide to change our e-mail practices, we will post those changes to this privacy statement, the homepage, and other places we think appropriate so that you are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it.
If we make material changes to our e-mail practices, we will notify you here, by e-mail, and by means of a notice on our home page.
The advertising banners and other forms of advertising appearing on this Web site are sometimes delivered to you, on our behalf, by a third party. In the course of serving advertisements to this site, the third party may place or recognize a unique cookie on your browser. For more information on cookies, you can visit www.cookiecentral.com.
As we continue to develop our business, we might sell certain aspects of our entities or assets. In such transactions, user information, including personally identifiable information, generally is one of the transferred business assets, and by submitting your personal information on Wn.com you agree that your data may be transferred to such parties in these circumstances.
Source: http://article.wn.com/view/2013/06/20/Sunny_Boy_Smart_Energy_from_SMA_Distinguished_With_the_Inter/
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Source: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2013/06/gl_travelessentials/
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June 18, 2013 ? NASA's Cassini spacecraft, now exploring Saturn, will take a picture of our home planet from a distance of hundreds of millions of miles on July 19. NASA is inviting the public to help acknowledge the historic interplanetary portrait as it is being taken.
Earth will appear as a small, pale blue dot between the rings of Saturn in the image, which will be part of a mosaic, or multi-image portrait, of the Saturn system Cassini is composing.
"While Earth will be only about a pixel in size from Cassini's vantage point 898 million [1.44 billion kilometers] away, the team is looking forward to giving the world a chance to see what their home looks like from Saturn," said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "We hope you'll join us in waving at Saturn from Earth, so we can commemorate this special opportunity."
Cassini will start obtaining the Earth part of the mosaic at 2:27 p.m. PDT (5:27 p.m. EDT or 21:27 UTC) and end about 15 minutes later, all while Saturn is eclipsing the sun from Cassini's point of view. The spacecraft's unique vantage point in Saturn's shadow will provide a special scientific opportunity to look at the planet's rings. At the time of the photo, North America and part of the Atlantic Ocean will be in sunlight.
Unlike two previous Cassini eclipse mosaics of the Saturn system in 2006, which captured Earth, and another in 2012, the July 19 image will be the first to capture the Saturn system with Earth in natural color, as human eyes would see it. It also will be the first to capture Earth and its moon with Cassini's highest-resolution camera. The probe's position will allow it to turn its cameras in the direction of the sun, where Earth will be, without damaging the spacecraft's sensitive detectors.
"Ever since we caught sight of the Earth among the rings of Saturn in September 2006 in a mosaic that has become one of Cassini's most beloved images, I have wanted to do it all over again, only better," said Carolyn Porco, Cassini imaging team lead at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. "This time, I wanted to turn the entire event into an opportunity for everyone around the globe to savor the uniqueness of our planet and the preciousness of the life on it."
Porco and her imaging team associates examined Cassini's planned flight path for the remainder of its Saturn mission in search of a time when Earth would not be obstructed by Saturn or its rings. Working with other Cassini team members, they found the July 19 opportunity would permit the spacecraft to spend time in Saturn's shadow to duplicate the views from earlier in the mission to collect both visible and infrared imagery of the planet and its ring system.
"Looking back towards the sun through the rings highlights the tiniest of ring particles, whose width is comparable to the thickness of hair and which are difficult to see from ground-based telescopes," said Matt Hedman, a Cassini science team member based at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., and a member of the rings working group. "We're particularly interested in seeing the structures within Saturn's dusty E ring, which is sculpted by the activity of the geysers on the moon Enceladus, Saturn's magnetic field and even solar radiation pressure."
This latest image will continue a NASA legacy of space-based images of our fragile home, including the 1968 "Earthrise" image taken by the Apollo 8 moon mission from about 240,000 miles (380,000 kilometers) away and the 1990 "Pale Blue Dot" image taken by Voyager 1 from about 4 billion miles (6 billion kilometers) away.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, and designed, developed and assembled the Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras. The imaging team consists of scientists from the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.
To learn more about the public outreach activities associated with the taking of the image, visit: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/waveatsaturn .
For more information about Cassini, visit http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov .
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Rick Perry, the Texas governor and 2012 "oops" presidential candidate, is spending the beginning of this week in Connecticut. Perry, as the governor of Texas, has little on-its-face reason to be in Connecticut. Except, of course, for one: Texas's unemployment rate, which at 6.4 percent in April is significantly lower than the national average, is still not quite ideal. Perry wants to bring jobs to his state. And, as he sees it, some of those jobs could come from Connecticut.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/stranded-teens-rescued-via-helicopter-atop-cliff-175146116.html
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HANOI, Vietnam (AP) ? Vietnamese police have arrested a blogger accused of posting "erroneous and slanderous" information about the communist government, state media reported Monday. The blogger is the third locked up in less than a month in an intensifying crackdown against dissent.
Dinh Nhat Uy was taken into police custody in southern Long An province on Saturday, the state-run Thanh Nien newspaper reported. He is accused of "abusing democratic freedoms," an offense punishable by up to seven years in prison.
Uy was found to have authored and posted on his blog "erroneous and slanderous" articles and photos of the government, the newspaper said.
The 30-year-old is the brother of Dinh Nguyen Kha, a student who was sentenced last month to eight years in jail for spreading propaganda against the state.
Two well-known bloggers have been arrested over the past three weeks on the same charges.
So far this year, 46 bloggers or democracy activists have been convicted and imprisoned, more than the number of people locked up for violating national security laws in the whole of 2012.
Critics accuse the government of using the security laws to silence dissent. Hanoi has said no one has been convicted of peacefully expressing their views, and only lawbreakers are put behind bars.
Foreign governments, led by the United States, and international rights groups have criticized the crackdown and called for the activists' release.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/vietnam-arrests-third-blogger-less-month-024648069.html
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Your mood is greatly affected by your home?s appearance. Your home is a comfortable place of refuge from the world where you relax with your family. Your home reflects your personality and by decorating and arranging it to do so effectively will help improve your overall mood. Here are some tips to guide you in decorating your home so that it is truly a place where your personal taste can be expressed.
Think of your own level of comfort with your home. No home is perfect, but yours may have problems that are making you unhappy. Sometimes little improvements can make a big difference in making your living environment better. You could purchase more comfortable living room furniture, or replace your office furniture with more ergonomic pieces.
Look into expanding the home space you already have. A lack of room will prevent you from reorganizing your items. Solve this with an expansion. A small increase in footage will differentiate between a cramped environment and a spacious area.
By including more recreation areas in your house, you can increase its value quite a bit. Big-ticket additions like spas and swimming pools are certainly appealing, but you can also consider smaller-scale options like a basketball hoop or home gym. Not only will these increase the value of your property, but they will also increase your family?s enjoyment of the area, and your home, more.
An investment in functional lighting that is also beautiful will add enjoyment to your home. Replacing tired fixtures with newer, modern fixtures changes the way your house feels, looks and functions. This is an upgrade well within the skill level of the average homeowner.
Grow something green. By creating a garden in your yard, you will bring a positive force to your home. Even if a gardener tends your precious plants, you will be the one to reap the benefits of a living space full of green life. High quality plants have so many uses, from veggies in your salad to potpourri in your home.
Look for projects that can improve the appearance of your home?s exterior. No matter what changes you make, whether it?s adding a new roof or a fresh coat of paint, it is very easy to improve the look of your residence. It is a wondrous thing to be proud of your home, and that pride will fill you with inner peace. Make sure that you are pleased with the way it looks inside and out.
When your home is your sanctuary, you want it to as beautiful as possible. People spend a majority of their time in their home. Yes, home improvements are a good investment, but they also make your time at home more enjoyable and create a serene mood that carries over beyond your time at home.
Source: http://www.renmenbi.com/working-on-your-home-improvement-skills/
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Public release date: 18-Jun-2013 Share ] Contact: Stephanie Desmon
sdesmon1@jhmi.edu
410-955-8665
Johns Hopkins Medicine
A social media push boosted the number of people who registered themselves as organ donors 21-fold in a single day, Johns Hopkins researchers found, suggesting social media might be an effective tool to address the stubborn organ shortage in the United States.
The gains were made in May 2012 when the social-networking giant Facebook created a way for users to share their organ donor status with friends and provided easy links to make their status official on state department of motor vehicle websites. The findings are being published in the American Journal of Transplantation.
"The short-term response was incredibly dramatic, unlike anything we had ever seen before in campaigns to increase the organ donation rate. And at the end of two weeks, the number of new organ donors was still climbing at twice the normal rate," says study leader Andrew M. Cameron, M.D., Ph.D., an associate professor of surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "If we can harness that excitement in the long term, then we can really start to move the needle on the big picture. The need for donor organs vastly outpaces the available supply and this could be a way to change that equation."
Over the last 20 years, despite many efforts, the number of donors has remained relatively static, while the number of people waiting for transplants has increased 10-fold. There are more than 118,000 people currently on waiting lists in the United States for kidneys, livers and other organs and thousands of these patients will die before they receive transplants. It's estimated that between 5,000 and 10,000 people die every year whose organs would be suitable for transplant, but because they had not consented to be donors, their organs go unused. In the United States, organs may not be removed from a deceased donor without permission from either the individual prior to death or the family at the time of a relative's death. It is believed that over time, roughly 100 million Americans have registered to donate.
By looking at data from Facebook and online motor vehicle registration websites, the researchers found that on May 1, 2012, the day the initiative began, 57,451 Facebook users updated their profiles to share their organ donor status. There were 13,012 new online donor registrations on the first day, representing a 21.2-fold increase over the average daily registration rate of 616 nationwide. Registrations varied by state, with the first-day effect in Michigan rising nearly seven-fold and with nearly 109 times as many online registrations in Georgia as on a typical day. Cameron says it was heartening to see that the states of New York and Texas, where organ donation rates are among the lowest, had some of the biggest bumps on that first day.
While the number of online registrations dropped over the following 12 days, Cameron says it was still twice the normal rate at the end of that study period. "The half-life of a movement online is often just hours," he says. "This had a very powerful, lasting effect. But we need to find a way to keep the conversation going."
While the number of declared organ donors increased, it could be decades before researchers determine whether those people ultimately donate their organs.
The Facebook organ donor project came about after Cameron, a transplant surgeon, and his Harvard University classmate and current Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg began talking about the organ shortage at their 20th college reunion in 2011. Through many conversations, the idea of having a place in the Facebook timeline for users to share organ donor status was born.
Going forward, Cameron says the key to continuing the push for more organ donors is figuring out a way to bring back some of the lost attention of those early days of the campaign and to find a way to get it to again go viral. Cameron says he has spoken to Facebook officials who are discussing relaunching it on its mobile platform, changing its prominence on the Web version or even offering incentives, such as coupons, for people who declare they are organ donors.
Cameron says that in recent years social media has shown it is not only a place for sharing what you ate for lunch or posting cute pictures of your kids. It can be an agent of social change, such as its use during the Arab Spring, after natural disasters such as the recent Oklahoma tornado, and in get-out-the-vote efforts before the recent election, he says.
"This was the first effort like this designed to mobilize people for a public health cause," he says. "Now we want to build on that. Studying the response to the organ donor effort is the next step in the process of using social media for social good."
###
Other Johns Hopkins researchers who contributed to this research include Allan B. Massie, Ph.D.; Robert A. Montgomery, M.D., D.Phil.; and Dorry L. Segev, M.D., Ph.D.
For more information: http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/facebook_to_ask_users_to_share_organ_donor_status
Johns Hopkins Medicine (JHM), headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland, is a $6.5 billion integrated global health enterprise and one of the leading health care systems in the United States. JHM unites physicians and scientists of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine with the organizations, health professionals and facilities of the Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System. JHM's mission is to improve the health of the community and the world by setting the standard of excellence in medical education, research and clinical care. Diverse and inclusive, JHM educates medical students, scientists, health care professionals and the public; conducts biomedical research; and provides patient-centered medicine to prevent, diagnose and treat human illness. JHM operates six academic and community hospitals, four suburban health care and surgery centers, and more than 30 primary health care outpatient sites. The Johns Hopkins Hospital, opened in 1889, was ranked number one in the nation from 1990 to 2011 by U.S. News & World Report.
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 18-Jun-2013 Share ] Contact: Stephanie Desmon
sdesmon1@jhmi.edu
410-955-8665
Johns Hopkins Medicine
A social media push boosted the number of people who registered themselves as organ donors 21-fold in a single day, Johns Hopkins researchers found, suggesting social media might be an effective tool to address the stubborn organ shortage in the United States.
The gains were made in May 2012 when the social-networking giant Facebook created a way for users to share their organ donor status with friends and provided easy links to make their status official on state department of motor vehicle websites. The findings are being published in the American Journal of Transplantation.
"The short-term response was incredibly dramatic, unlike anything we had ever seen before in campaigns to increase the organ donation rate. And at the end of two weeks, the number of new organ donors was still climbing at twice the normal rate," says study leader Andrew M. Cameron, M.D., Ph.D., an associate professor of surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "If we can harness that excitement in the long term, then we can really start to move the needle on the big picture. The need for donor organs vastly outpaces the available supply and this could be a way to change that equation."
Over the last 20 years, despite many efforts, the number of donors has remained relatively static, while the number of people waiting for transplants has increased 10-fold. There are more than 118,000 people currently on waiting lists in the United States for kidneys, livers and other organs and thousands of these patients will die before they receive transplants. It's estimated that between 5,000 and 10,000 people die every year whose organs would be suitable for transplant, but because they had not consented to be donors, their organs go unused. In the United States, organs may not be removed from a deceased donor without permission from either the individual prior to death or the family at the time of a relative's death. It is believed that over time, roughly 100 million Americans have registered to donate.
By looking at data from Facebook and online motor vehicle registration websites, the researchers found that on May 1, 2012, the day the initiative began, 57,451 Facebook users updated their profiles to share their organ donor status. There were 13,012 new online donor registrations on the first day, representing a 21.2-fold increase over the average daily registration rate of 616 nationwide. Registrations varied by state, with the first-day effect in Michigan rising nearly seven-fold and with nearly 109 times as many online registrations in Georgia as on a typical day. Cameron says it was heartening to see that the states of New York and Texas, where organ donation rates are among the lowest, had some of the biggest bumps on that first day.
While the number of online registrations dropped over the following 12 days, Cameron says it was still twice the normal rate at the end of that study period. "The half-life of a movement online is often just hours," he says. "This had a very powerful, lasting effect. But we need to find a way to keep the conversation going."
While the number of declared organ donors increased, it could be decades before researchers determine whether those people ultimately donate their organs.
The Facebook organ donor project came about after Cameron, a transplant surgeon, and his Harvard University classmate and current Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg began talking about the organ shortage at their 20th college reunion in 2011. Through many conversations, the idea of having a place in the Facebook timeline for users to share organ donor status was born.
Going forward, Cameron says the key to continuing the push for more organ donors is figuring out a way to bring back some of the lost attention of those early days of the campaign and to find a way to get it to again go viral. Cameron says he has spoken to Facebook officials who are discussing relaunching it on its mobile platform, changing its prominence on the Web version or even offering incentives, such as coupons, for people who declare they are organ donors.
Cameron says that in recent years social media has shown it is not only a place for sharing what you ate for lunch or posting cute pictures of your kids. It can be an agent of social change, such as its use during the Arab Spring, after natural disasters such as the recent Oklahoma tornado, and in get-out-the-vote efforts before the recent election, he says.
"This was the first effort like this designed to mobilize people for a public health cause," he says. "Now we want to build on that. Studying the response to the organ donor effort is the next step in the process of using social media for social good."
###
Other Johns Hopkins researchers who contributed to this research include Allan B. Massie, Ph.D.; Robert A. Montgomery, M.D., D.Phil.; and Dorry L. Segev, M.D., Ph.D.
For more information: http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/facebook_to_ask_users_to_share_organ_donor_status
Johns Hopkins Medicine (JHM), headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland, is a $6.5 billion integrated global health enterprise and one of the leading health care systems in the United States. JHM unites physicians and scientists of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine with the organizations, health professionals and facilities of the Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System. JHM's mission is to improve the health of the community and the world by setting the standard of excellence in medical education, research and clinical care. Diverse and inclusive, JHM educates medical students, scientists, health care professionals and the public; conducts biomedical research; and provides patient-centered medicine to prevent, diagnose and treat human illness. JHM operates six academic and community hospitals, four suburban health care and surgery centers, and more than 30 primary health care outpatient sites. The Johns Hopkins Hospital, opened in 1889, was ranked number one in the nation from 1990 to 2011 by U.S. News & World Report.
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-06/jhm-tfe061413.php
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