2,646 Matching Annotations
  1. Jun 2016
    1. What is development? How does it happen? How have ideas on development changed since the Second World War? This study guide to International Development: Ideas, Experience, and Prospects will help dig deeper into these questions. Each chapter features a summary of the main conclusions, discussion questions, and suggested readings. The Study Guide Quick Finder is at the bottom of each page.

      If you work in international development? If you are interested in learning more about the history and evolution of the thinking driving international cooperation. This is a site for you.

      The site offers the pre-print version of an IDRC publication entitled International Development: Ideas, Experience, and Prospects, edited by Bruce Currie-Alder, Ravi Kanbur, David M. Malone, and Rohinton Medhora.

      This is an interesting book brings together the voices of over ninety authors, which include international development practitioners, experts and policy makers.

      The site contains a study guide comprised by eight sections of the book, each with a number of chapters. Ideal to use for beginner or advanced courses in universities and as reference for day to day work in the field.

  2. May 2016
    1. kids are led to believe all the marketing and advertising on TV,

      Is it just the kids? What role do teachers, doctors, and parents play? And older siblings?

    1. that doesn't mean the drugs can't be immensely profitable. Treanda is an orphan drug but also Teva's second-best seller, racking up $740 million in sales last year, according to Teva's annual report.

      Isn't the whole point of an orphan drug classification that of limited commercial viability? So if they're not commercially viable how are they profitable?

    1. Then, as the Sun of Know-ing begins to rise on the horizon of your consciousness;Then, will you feel the swell of a wondrous strange Breath filling you to the extreme of all yourmortal members, causing your senses almost to burst with the ecstasy of it; then, will there comesurge after surge of a mighty, resistless Power rising within you, lifting you almost off the Earth;then, will you feel within the Glory, the Holiness, the Majesty of My Presence;And then, then you will KNOW, I AM, God.You, -- when you have felt Me thus in such moments within, when you have tasted of MyPower, hearkened to My Wisdom, and know the ecstasy of My all-embracing Love, -- no diseasecan touch, no circumstance can weaken, no enemy can conquer you. For now you KNOW I AMwithin, and you always hereafter will turn to Me in your need, putting all your trust in Me, andallowing Me to manifest My Will.You, when you turn thus to Me, will always find Me an unfailing and ever present help in timeof need; for I will so fill you with a Realization of My Presence and of My Power, that you needonly Be Still and allow Me to do whatever you want done -- heal your ills and those of others,illumine your mind so you can see with My eyes the Truth you seek, or perform perfectly thetasks which before seemed almost impossible of accomplishmen

      To come to truly Know that God is within me, to Know it as a felt Reality............ And in all and every circumstances turn within to Me... turn to God and trust that support will unfailing...

  3. Apr 2016
  4. Feb 2016
  5. Jan 2016
    1. Getting and staying healthy involves tending to the people-oriented aspects of leading an organization, so it may sound “fluffy” to hard-nosed executives raised on managing by the numbers. But make no mistake: cultivating health is hard work. And it shouldn’t be confused with other people-related management concepts, such as employee satisfaction or employee engagement.

      I am looking forward to what these authors will provide as a recipe for cultivating health, and how they define organizational health.

  6. Nov 2015
    1. They have helped people reduce chronic pain, improve psoriasis, and increase their immune response to the flu shot. One study of mindfulness/compassion meditation out of Emory University showed reductions in stress markers, and even a simple long exhale (ahhhh) increases vagal tone. And – last but not least – a three-month meditation training program boosted telomerase activity, indicating longer telemores and perhaps a longer life expectancy.
    1. Experiments on humans have found that laughter can increase blood flow and strengthen the heart, much like aerobic exercise does. Laughter also helps decrease one’s threshold for pain, although not all humor is the same in this respect. According to Weems, positive humor—humor that looks for the bright side of troubling situations—is beneficial to our health, while darker, sardonic humor is not.
    2. laughing, probably through its effects on breathingwhich makes you breathe more deeply, actually calms your cardiovascular system. So, it reallyseems to be altering your stress profile as a pathway to physical health.
    3. Hirosaki, for example, has found in a review that bursts of laughterdecrease blood pressure, they enhance your immune function. In certain contexts, for example,when combined with exercise, they will reduce levels of chronic pain. They will improvethe physical health of elderly populations. Other studies by Ko, for example, find laughterimproves depressive symptomatology, how well elderly patients are sleeping.
    1. PAUL: Thank you. How does Substance relate to health? RAJ: Health is the constituting Wholeness of Being, the Orderliness, Integrity, Indivisibility and, therefore, the Perfection of all Conscious Being. Being omnipotent in Its ability to fulfill Its Intent or Purpose, there is no delay or obstacle to that fulfillment. It is this unimpeded Omnipresencing of Substance which constitutes Supply in what is called health or Wholeness.

      "Health is the constituting Wholeness of Being, the Orderliness, Integrity, Indivisibility and, therefore, the Perfection of all Conscious Being."

      "Being omnipotent in Its ability to fulfill Its Intent or Purpose, there is no delay or obstacle to that fulfillment. It is this unimpeded Omnipresencing of Substance which constitutes Supply in what is called health or Wholeness."

    1. In answer to why awe would be a potent predictor of reduced pro-inflammatory cytokines, this latest study posits that “awe is associated with curiosity and a desire to explore, suggesting antithetical behavioral responses to those found during inflammation, where individuals typically withdraw from others in their environment,” Stellar said.
    2. In addition to autoimmune diseases, elevated cytokines have been tied to depression. One recent study found that depressed patients had higher levels of the pro-inflammatory cytokine known as TNF-alpha than their non-depressed counterparts. It is believed that by signaling the brain to produce inflammatory molecules, cytokines can block key hormones and neurotransmitters—such as serotonin and dopamine—that control moods, appetite, sleep and memory.
    3. There are new psychophysiological findings finding that cytokine levels, cytokinesreally reflect an inflammation in response in your body, which is very tough news onyour health, the only positive emotion that really lowers levels of cytokines is provingto be awe.
    1. research by my colleagues, has linked gratitude to a host of psychological, physical, and social benefits: stronger immune systems, lower blood pressure, more feelings of joy, and a greater sense of social connection, among many others.
    1. people who practice gratitude consistently report a host of benefits: Psychological Higher levels of positive emotions More alert, alive, and awake More joy and pleasure More optimism and happiness Physical Stronger immune systems Less bothered by aches and pains Lower blood pressure Exercise more and take better care of their health Sleep longer and feel more refreshed upon waking Social More helpful, generous, and compassionate More forgiving More outgoing Feel less lonely and isolated.
  7. Oct 2015
    1. research has also shown that it’s possible to slow the loss of our brain cells. Normally, we lose about 10,000 brain cells a day. That may sound horrible, but we were born with 1.1 trillion. We also have several thousand born each day, mainly in the hippocampus, in what’s called neurogenesis. So losing 10,000 a day isn’t that big a deal, but the net bottom line is that a typical 80 year old will have lost about 4 percent of his or her brain mass—it’s called “cortical thinning with aging.” It’s a normal process. But in one study, researchers compared meditators and non-meditators. In the graph to the left, the meditators are the blue circles and the non-meditators are the red squares, comparing people of the same age. The non-meditators experienced normal cortical thinning in those two brain regions I mentioned above, along with a third, the somatosensory cortex. However, the people who routinely meditated and “worked” their brain did not experience cortical thinning in those regions.
    1. “One of the important foci in our research is looking at inflammation, which has been implicated in many chronic illnesses,” Davidson says. “And there’s now increasing evidence to suggest that at a very basic biological level, certain kinds of meditation practices seem to modulate inflammatory systems. They down-regulate particular molecules—we call these proinflammatory cytokines—which are directly implicated in inflammation.”
    2. And what they found was that the individuals who participated in the meditation programhad longer telomeres than the individuals who were in the control group after a three-monthexperience. This was first finding in that vein. Elissa Epel and her colleague did anotherresearch project where they looked at a mindfulness-based program for people with eating disorders andshowed that people who did the mindfulness had a 39% increase in telomerase activitywhich corresponds to lengthened telomeres and that this telomerase activity actuallypredicted benefits in other aspects of their treatment program having to do with the people’seating habits. So there’s this interesting effect that is being reiterated that mindfulnessactually seems to make people age more gracefully.
    1. during periods of mind-wandering, regions of the brain’s default mode network were activated. Then when participants became aware of this mind-wandering, brain regions related to the detection of salient or relevant events came online. After that, areas of the executive brain network took over, re-directing and maintaining attention on the chosen object. And all of this occurred within 12 seconds around those button presses.

      Link

      I'd be interested to see how sleep deprivation relates to this; I find my mind wanders easily when I haven't had enough sleep. Yet another reason to get more sleep to be happy and healthy.

    2. the Killingsworth and Gilbert study I mentioned earlier found that when people’s minds were wandering, they tended to be less happy, presumably because our thoughts often tend towards negative rumination or stress. That’s why mindfulness meditation has become an increasingly important treatment of mental health difficulties like depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and even sexual dysfunction.
    1. In my research, we filmed an interaction between a couple and had each partner turn a rating dial as they watched their tape afterward. On this graph (at left), you can see how one couple rated their interaction. The blue dots represent the wife’s ratings over 15 minutes of conversation; the red dots represent the husband’s ratings. When you add them together, these ratings are a constant, which means that in this interaction, her gain is his loss and his gain is her loss. This is what’s called in game theory a “zero-sum game.” You’ve probably all heard of the concept. It’s the idea that in an interaction, there’s a winner and a loser. And by looking at ratings like this, I came to define a “betrayal metric”: It’s the extent to which an interaction is a zero-sum game, where your partner’s gain is your loss. On the other hand, by trust we really mean, mathematically, that our partner’s behavior is acting to increase our rating dial. Even though we’re disagreeing, my wife is thinking about my welfare, my best interests. When we scientifically tested these so-called trust and betrayal metrics, we found that a high trust metric is correlated with very positive outcomes, such as greater stability in the relationship. In a 20-year longitudinal study of couples in the San Francisco Bay Area that I recently completed with UC Berkeley psychologist Bob Levenson, we found that about 11 percent of couples had a zero-sum game pattern, like in that graph. Every six years, we would re-contact all of the couples in the study, and they would come back to Bob’s lab at Berkeley. Yet we noticed that many of the zero-sum couples weren’t coming back. I thought maybe they dropped out because they found the whole thing so unpleasant. Well, it turns out that they didn’t drop out. They died.
    1. Hostility also has been found to be the part of type A behavior that seems to have the most pernicious health effects, such as a heightened risk of cardiovascular disease. Forsaking a grudge may also free a person from hostility and all its unhealthy consequences. It probably isn’t just hostility and stress that link unforgiveness and poor health. According to a review of the literature on forgiveness and health that my colleague Michael Scherer and I published, unforgiveness might compromise the immune system at many levels. For instance, our review suggests that unforgiveness might throw off the production of important hormones and even disrupt the way our cells fight off infections, bacteria, and other physical insults, such as mild periodontal disease.

      Type A should take magnesium.

    2. To ruminate on an old transgression is to practice unforgiveness. Sure enough, in Witvliet’s research, when people recalled a grudge, their physical arousal soared. Their blood pressure and heart rate increased, and they sweated more. Ruminating about their grudges was stressful, and subjects found the rumination unpleasant. It made them feel angry, sad, anxious, and less in control. Witvliet also asked her subjects to try to empathize with their offenders or imagine forgiving them. When they practiced forgiveness, their physical arousal coasted downward. They showed no more of a stress reaction than normal wakefulness produces.
    1. This view might make sense for solitary species, like the golden hamster, which flees upon being attacked, or territorial species, like many birds, that rely upon territorial arrangements to avoid deadly conflicts. But many mammals, and in particular primates, need each other to survive. Ostracism and marginalization are tickets to shortened lives. Among humans, individuals who have fewer and less healthy social bonds have been shown to live shorter lives, have compromised immune function, and be more vulnerable to disease. Our sociality, and that of many nonhuman primates, requires a mechanism that brings individuals together in the midst of conflict and aggression.
  8. Sep 2015
    1. suggest that lonely people have significantly more trouble bouncing back from life’s stresses and strains. For instance, lonely and non-lonely college students in their study reported similar daily activities, but lonely college students experienced more stress in those activities. Among older adults, lonely individuals said they felt more helpless and threatened than did non-lonely people. What’s more, higher stress levels were associated with worse health: Lonely college students had higher blood pressure than non-lonely ones, putting them at greater risk for heart disease, and this health disparity was even greater between lonely and non-lonely older adults. Plus, Hawkley and Cacioppo found that these lonely older adults had higher levels of stress-related hormones, such as cortisol and epinephrine, which may weaken the immune system over time.
    1. teaching college students to “count their blessings” and cultivate gratitude caused them to exercise more, be more optimistic, and feel better about their lives overall.
    2. Giving evokes gratitude. Whether you’re on the giving or receiving end of a gift, that gift can elicit feelings of gratitude—it can be a way of expressing gratitude or instilling gratitude in the recipient. And research has found that gratitude is integral to happiness, health, and social bonds.
    1. First Native Case Of Mosquito-Borne Tropical Disease Chinkungunya Confirmed In Spain Aug 26 2015—NEWS—The ECDC said the mosquito species is not the one responsible for the 2013 Americas outbreak. Presence of the Aedes Albopictus mosquito. Source: ECDC. (Click to enlarge) The European Centre for Disease Prevention & Control (ECDC) confirmed the first case of the tropical disease chinkungunya to be transmitted in Spain on August 21. "This is the first chikungunya case reported from Spain without travel history to endemic areas,˝ said the ECDC report. The patient is a 60-year old man of undisclosed nationality who was likely infected in Gandía (Valencia) and who developed symptoms of the disease—which include fever, severe joint pain, muscle pain, headache, nausea, fatigue and rashes—during a "short" trip to France at the beginning of July. A statement published by the Spanish Health Ministry on August 4 said it was "very likely" the man had been infected by a mosquito of the species Aedes Albopictus in Gandía, "but not conclusive", due to his trip to France "for part of the incubation period". The ECDC believes it "unlikely" the man became infected in France due to the short duration of his stay there and the lack of reported na

      Chinkunguya in Spain

  9. Jun 2015
  10. May 2015
    1. About 90% of people who get serious listeria infections are pregnant women, their newborns, people older than 64 or people with weakened immune systems, such as patients with cancer or H
  11. Apr 2015
    1. You won't get sick immediately from eating old cooking oil, but having oil that has been sitting around for a while means the oil has very likely gone rancid.
    1. Mediocre article. Attempts to cover a topic that is fraught with pseudoscience and snake oil. Points for actually linking to studies and consulting MDs. Most of the problem with this article is the title, which is very disconnected from the actual content, since nothing in the content actually discusses removing glyphosate from your body.

    2. Here are 10 detoxifying techniques which have solid science behind them

      The end of this article is a mixed bag of good and not so good recommendations. Some of the things below have or are being studied for potentially beneficial uses, others (like colonic cleanses) have been abandoned by the medical community for decades.

    3. “How do we engage in this lifelong process of detoxification? As a foundation, this involves eating healthy food. This means organic, GMO-free food,” he said in an email interview. “Herbs such as cilantro help us to eliminate metals such as lead and mercury,” he said. “Herbs like turmeric and garlic help to lower the levels of inflammation that are often the underlying causes [of chronic diseases.]”

      It's hard for me to take seriously an MD who acknowledges "detoxification" is a thing. Here's a recent Guardian article that talks about the nonsense rhetoric of "toxins" and "detoxification": http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/dec/05/detox-myth-health-diet-science-ignorance

  12. Mar 2015
    1. Best health outcomes for Māori: Practice implications

      This is an excellent resource...well written, informative and practical. I recommend you set aside an hour or so to read it fully.

    1. Best health outcomes for Maori

      This is a very good resource. Well written, informative and practical advice.

  13. Dec 2014
    1. This page could be more reassuring to the many people who have a degree of paranoia which does not interfere with their normal life. In a paranoia scoring scale some items were endorsed by 20-30% of the general population. British Journal of Psychiatry, 2013

  14. Oct 2013
    1. What a man wants to be is better than what a man wants to seem, for in aiming at that he is aiming more at reality. Hence men say that justice is of small value, since it is more desirable to seem just than to be just, whereas with health it is not so. That is better than other things which is more useful than they are for a number of different purposes; for example, that which promotes life, good life, pleasure, and noble conduct. For this reason wealth and health are commonly thought to be of the highest value, as possessing all these advantages.

      I think that we still seek health and wealth above all else.

  15. Sep 2013
    1. The excellence of the body is health; that is, a condition which allows us, while keeping free from disease, to have the use of our bodies; for many people are "healthy" as we are told Herodicus was; and these no one can congratulate on their "health," for they have to abstain from everything or nearly everything that men do.-- Beauty varies with the time of life.

      Interesting, there is no mention of women in this definition of beauty.