Continuous Productivity The other day I was looking for statistics to help me frame the actual risk of death via swine flu. I didn t find anything salient to post, nba jerseys but this post does the trick: We overweigh Moncler Down Jacket Grey BRANSON new risks relative to comparable risks we are accustomed to. Around 100 people per day died in US roads in 2008, an enormous improvement over previous years but still. People obsessing about spending 5 minutes in elevators with others (an infinitesimal chance of contagion) will blithely cross the street against the light to have a artery clogging triple cheeseburger with fries and then smoke a pack of cigarettes. These things have much higher risks, but because we have grown accustomed to them, we don t think of the risks. They are not, in the technical term, salient; but they are much more dangerous. Still, their dangers are dry statistics and people are not good with statistics. Someone who develops anorexia is 50 to 60 times more likely to kill themselves than people in the general population. No other group has a suicide rate anywhere near as high (Archives of General Psychiatry, moncler padded jacket vol 60, p 179). Recently, psychologists have tried to explain why anorexia and suicide are so intimately connected, something which is helping to answer the wider question of why anyone would commit suicide. If this explanation holds up, it will give psychiatrists a new tool for screening patients and determining which of them are most likely to kill themselves, perhaps saving lives. Suicide has always been a conundrum for psychologists and other researchers interested in human behaviour. Self preservation is one of the strongest human instincts, so the drive to commit suicide must be even more powerful. But what causes it? Suicide is, of course, linked to depression and hopelessness, but nobody has been able to answer the question why some people commit suicide and others, in similar situations, don t. The basic question, and the hopes of understanding the answer through studying anorexia is: Moncler down jackets Men with zip coffee The vast majority of depressed, hopeless people do not commit suicide, so why do some do it? In 2005, psychologist Thomas Joiner, a suicide specialist at Florida State University in Tallahassee whose own father committed Moncler Women down jacket big neck black suicide, set out to answer that question. By studying suicide statistics and paying particular attention to the groups with above average rates, Joiner believes he has found a common thread others have missed. "It was the first grand theory of suicide in quite a while," says Nock. In essence, Joiner proposed that people who kill themselves must meet two sets of conditions on top of feeling depressed and hopeless. First, they must have a serious desire to die. This usually comes about when people feel they are an intolerable burden on others, while also feeling isolated from people who might provide a sense of belonging. Second, and most important, people who succeed in killing themselves must be capable of doing the deed. This may sound obvious, but until Joiner pointed it out, no one had tried to figure out why some people are able to go through with it when most are not. No matter how seriously you want to die, Joiner says, it is not an easy thing to do. The self preservation instinct is too strong. There are two ways people who want to die develop the ability to override the self preservation instinct, Joiner argues. One is by working up to it. In many cases a first suicide attempt is tentative, with shallow cuts or a mild overdose. It is only after multiple attempts that the actions are fatal. The other is to become accustomed to painful or scary experiences. Soldiers and police who have been shot at or seen their colleagues injured or killed are known to become inured to the idea of their own death. Both groups also have a higher than normal suicide rate. Similarly, doctors and surgeons who witness pain, injury and death are more likely to be able to contemplate it for themselves the suicide rate for doctors is significantly higher than for the general population. Joiner describes this as a "steeliness" in the face of things that would intimidate most people. I recently read about baseball player, Heath Bell, who lost 25lbs over the winter using the Nintendo Wii. Given my own inability to lose the lingering 20lbs that I have gained over the last few years, I diligently researched the Wii for fitness purposes. So, I was reassured by reading this article yesterday that basically said that you have to cut calories: Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health and the Pennington Biomedical Research Center put four popular diets high carb, high fat, low fat and high protein to the test to see which of the regimens resulted in more weight loss success. Frank Sacks, a professor of cardiovascular disease prevention at the Harvard School of Public Health. "All produced weight loss and improvements in lipids, reduction in insulin. "The key really is that it s calories. It s not the content of fat or carbohydrates, it s just calories," said Sacks. The findings are published in the latest edition of the New England Journal of Medicine. I d love to take the time one day and research the diet advice market, as a whole. It seems like, despite the obvious, there are so many revenue channels from books to fad diets to support groups. It seems like all you have to do is write a book with a clever name, get on a TV show, and success is guaranteed. Last November, Jill got herself screened for learning disabilities. She found that while her IQ is above average, her numerical ability is equivalent to that of an 11 year old because she has something called dyscalculia. The diagnosis came partly as a relief, because it explained a lot of difficulties she had in her day to day life. She can t easily read a traditional, analogue clock, for example, and always arrives 20 minutes early for fear of being late. When it comes to paying in shops or restaurants, she hands her wallet to a friend and asks them to do the calculation, knowing that she is likely to get it wrong. The disability is analogous to dyslexia and effects the same percent (5%) of the population. But, it clearly does not get the same level of care. However, just because we can easily sleep beyond our usual daily norm the Saturday morning lie in, the Sunday afternoon snooze it doesn t necessarily follow that we really need the extra sleep. Why shouldn t we be able to sleep to excess, for indulgence? After all, we enthusiastically eat and drink well beyond our biological needs. Why shouldn t it be the same with sleep? Most mammals will sleep for longer than normal if overfed, caged or bored. The three toed sloth is a good example. Sloths kept in zoos sleep around 16 hours a day yet in their natural, wild state they sleep less than 10. Niels Rattenborg and colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Starnberg, Germany, recently found moncler junior this out by using miniature EEG recorders attached to the heads of sloths in Panama, the first such experiment on a free ranging wild animal. Why this difference in its sleep? The most likely explanation is that sloths simply sleep to excess when caged (Biology Letters, vol 4, p 402). This is seen in domestic animals too. Sheep in pens, horses in stables and cows in barns sleep much more than when in open fields, and pet cats sleep extensively compared with feral cats. One of the favorite examples of these studies is that we sleep longer when we can. Wouldn t you know it, of course we do, it s like anything else we indulge in. I think sleep, like many things in life (alcohol, food, drugs), etc, is something we do when we have nothing better to do. Anecdotally, the most active, diverse, and inquisitive people I know sleep the least. And it doesn t seem to be just the socially active folks, but rather people with diverse interests whether they be sports or reading or even meditating. But how, exactly, itch works has been a puzzle. Moncler Men short Sleeves T-shirt blue red For most of medical history, scientists thought that itching was merely a weak form of pain. Then, in 1987, the German researcher H. O. Handwerker and his colleagues used mild electric pulses to drive histamine, an itch producing substance that the body releases during allergic reactions, into the skin of volunteers. As the researchers increased the dose of histamine, they found that they were able to increase the intensity of itch the volunteers reported, from the barely appreciable to the "maximum imaginable." Yet the volunteers never felt an increase in pain. The scientists concluded that itch and pain are entirely separate sensations, transmitted along different pathways. Go read the entire piece, it s well worth it. Typical of McKenzie interests moncler official online store is a recent paper that notes the average weight of Americans has increased 24 pounds since 1960, and how that has had a direct impact on gasoline moncler jumpers men prices. He contends Americans are using 1 billion gallons more gasoline per year hauling all that extra weight around, and airlines are using 1 billion gallons of additional jet fuel. inconvenient truth for Al Gore is you can save polar bears by going on a diet, at least if it done nationwide," says McKenzie. I can see the obesity and oil thing becoming an increasingly common theme given how intuitively easy it is to explain to the layperson. The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine calculated the obese consume 18% more calories than average. They are also responsible for using more fuel, which has an environmental impact and drives up food prices as transport and agriculture both use oil

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Continuous wear silicone hydrogel contact lenses and microbial keratitis Top of pageAbstractLike other lens types, mlb jerseys the new generation of silicone hydrogel contact lenses can be associated with a spectrum of ocular complications. Most tend to be very minor, but serious and sight threatening complications can occur. We present four such cases with microbial keratitis following extended wear of these lenses. Cultures were positive for Pseudomonas aeruginosa in three cases and all three of these suffered lasting visual impairment. Low oxygen transmissibility 4, 5 resulting in low closed eye partial pressure of oxygen at the cornea, was thought to be the main factor responsible. Moncler Vest down Men bronzy no hat zip Silicone hydrogel (SiH) lenses have a much higher oxygen permeability (Dk) and have been approved in Europe, the United States and Australia for overnight wear. They are becoming increasingly popular due to the convenience of 30 day extended wear. However, their safety with respect to their incidence of MK is yet to be determined. We report four cases of MK presenting to two centres in the UK, three of which have resulted in lasting visual impairment.Top of pageCase reportsCase oneA 21 year old male returned to the UK from a beach holiday. He presented to casualty at Manchester Royal Eye Hospital (MREH) with a painful right eye for 1 day, with hand movements acuity and a 7 mm 8 mm infiltrated corneal ulcer with hypopyon (Photograph 1, top). He had been wearing a pair of SiH lenses for 1 week and had swum in the sea without goggles each day. Corneal scrape cultured moderate growth of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, sensitive to ofloxacin, ciprofloxacin, ceftazidime, and gentamicin. He was initially treated with intensive topical ofloxacin 0.3%, with topical prednisolone added once healing was underway. After 2 months, acuity was 6/12 with pinhole with a 4.5 mm central scar and small epithelial defect.Photograph 1.(Top) case one day 2, (middle) case two day 7, (bottom) case three day 7.Full figure and legend (311K)Case twoA 28 year old male presented to MREH with a painful red eye with a central infected ulcer after wearing an SiH lens overnight for 1 night only. He had previously worn hydrogel soft contact lenses on a daily wear basis for 7 years with no problems. At 3 days before presentation, he commenced wearing a pair of SiH lenses for the first time. As instructed, he wore them during the day only for the first 2 days, removing them in the evening and disinfecting them with the solution provided by his contact lens practitioner. On the third day, he was to wear them overnight and be reviewed by the contact lens practitioner the following day. That day he woke with an extremely painful red left eye, unable to see, removed the lenses and presented to casualty at MREH. The acuity was 6/5 RE, light perception LE, with a dense central circular infiltrate and ulcer (Photograph 1, middle). Both corneal scrape and contact lens cultures isolated moderate growths of P. aeruginosa sensitive to ofloxacin, ciprofloxacin, gentamicin, and imipenem. He responded to intensive guttae ofloxacin, with topical steroid added once improvement was apparent.After 3 months, with a depressed facetted dense paracentral corneal scar of 3.5 mm diameter, the acuity is 6/18 unaided not improving with pinhole.Case Moncler for Womens jackets kellyfur Real fur collar grey threeA 42 year old SiH contact lens wearer presented to Bristol Eye Hospital after developing some discomfort in the 3 eye three days previously and having removed the contact lens at that time. He had been wearing the lenses for 5 days, which his contact lens practitioner changed on a weekly basis. Visual acuity was reduced to 6/12. A circular 2 mm corneal abscess was present in the upper one third of the cornea (Photograph 1, bottom). Cultures yielded a scanty growth of coagulase negative staphylococci. He responded well to cefuroxime and gentamicin over a period of 7 days. Topical steroids were administered moncler jackets for mens for several days in order to reduce inflammation and scarring. He was discharged moncler jackets cheap 6 weeks after his initial visit, with acuity returning to normal.Case fourA 25 year old male presented to MREH casualty on return from a holiday abroad. He had a central corneal ulcer in the right eye with 1 mm hypopyon. His vision was reduced to hand movements compared to 6/4 in the left eye. He had been a user of monthly disposable SiH extended wear lenses for 2 years, but admitted that he sometimes took the lenses out at night and stored them in hydrogen peroxide and also that he had been swimming in the sea wearing lenses prior to developing his Moncler Kids dark blue Clothing-Fall-Winter current problem.A growth of P. aeruginosa was cultured from the corneal Moncler jackets Women fox fur zip style black scrape and this was sensitive to ofloxacin. He responded to treatment with intensive topical ofloxacin 0.3% and later topical prednisolone but has been left with a 1.6 mm central facetted scar and reduced vision of 6/9 at 1 month. Even though lens materials have changed, the morbidity associated with Pseudomonas keratitis remains. This is shown by the fact that three of our four cases had scrapes that were cultured positive for Pseudomonas and all three suffered loss of best corrected visual acuity (BCVA).The most recent advance in contact lens material has been the manufacture of an SiH polymer allowing moncler jackets prices a much higher Dk/t contact lens. This increased Dk/t is hoped to reduce the incidence of MK by better maintaining the integrity of the corneal epithelium, thus reducing the opportunity for bacterial penetration. These lenses are now being advocated for overnight wear and marketed as monthly extended wear contact lenses, (EWCLs). Another advantage of monthly extended wear is that there is no handling of the lenses for a month after CL insertion, minimising the chances of contaminating the lens.The first prospective randomised control trial of these lenses had no cases of microbial keratitis in 504 patients wearing EWCLs for 7 or 30 days.7 The first cases of MK in SiH EWCLs were reported in 2002.8 The four cases were all male, between 16 and 22 years old and three had recently been swimming while wearing lenses. Comparisons can be made with our cases, all males, two of whom had been swimming in the sea wearing lenses immediately prior to the development of MK.As of February 2003, 23 cases of MK with EWCLs have been reported worldwide, but the true incidence is not yet known. Holden et al.9 summarise data from a subgroup of these and propose that the risk of MK with SiH lenses is lower than that with conventional lenses when worn for extended wear. This may yet prove to be the case but prospective moncler padded coat studies are required to establish the true incidence of MK in SiH lens wear

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Text and images are provided by National Palace Museum