Category Archives: General

5 Reasons Your Posture Matters

By Guest PostJuly 6, 2012General, Health, Sports5 reasons, ache, aura, back, better posture, brain, breathing, childhood, confidence, correct posture, good posture, hunching, muscles, nanny jobs, oxygen flow, posture, roxanne porter, self assuredness, self image, shoulder, slouching, spine, stand taller

How many times during your childhood did your mom tell you that you needed to sit or stand up straight or pull your shoulders back as she walked by, and remind you that if you didn’t start having better posture you would end up hunched over for the rest of your life? Whether or not you actually listened, mom may have been on to something when she pulled those shoulders back and forced you to stand taller. Having good posture has a variety of benefits, so the next time you find yourself slouching keep these things in mind:

1. It helps you become more confident: Slouching over or hunching your shoulders makes you look and feel less poised overall, giving off an aura of self-doubt. Simply standing up straighter gives you an air of confidence that can translate into an actual boost in confidence and self-assuredness.

2. Fosters a healthy back and spine: If you sit or stand with bad posture for long enough you’ll start to notice that your back, shoulders, and neck will begin to ache. This is because your spine and back are not meant to be curved over like that. Try standing and sitting up straight instead; you’ll immediately feel better, and your back and spine will thank you. (more…)

Despite Efforts for Change, Bangladeshi Women Prefer to Use Pollution-Causing Cookstoves

By Guest PostJuly 2, 2012Environment, Generalanimal dung, bangladeshi district, bangladeshi household, bangladeshi women, biomass, black carbon, cooking, cookstove, environmental impact, flooding, greenhouse gas, hatiya, health risk, jamlpur, mushfiq mobarak, pollution causing, puneet dwivedi, robert bailis, rural bangladesh, traditional stove, women, yale study, yale university

Women in rural Bangladesh prefer inexpensive, traditional stoves for cooking over modern ones — despite significant health risks, according to a Yale study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A large majority of respondents (94%) believed that indoor smoke from the traditional stoves is harmful. Still, Bangladeshi women opted for traditional cookstove technology so they could afford basic needs.

“Non-traditional cookstoves might be more successful if they were designed with features valued more highly by users, such as reducing operating costs even if they might not reduce environmental impact,” said Mushfiq Mobarak, a co-author and associate professor of economics at the Yale School of Management. (more…)

Modern Defense

By Guest PostJune 26, 2012Education, Generalafrican countries, burt abrams, business strategy, cita, economic development, economic growth, fdi, foreign direct investment, france, gdp growth, hiv, hiv situation, internet, jim butkiewicz, laurence seidman, light, modern defense, newark campus, parameter, pearson hall, robert schweitzer, samuel mathey, sheldon demby, skype, speed of connection, stacy weile, time lag, university of delaware, video conference, voice, west africa

First UD student successfully defends doctoral dissertation via Skype

Samuel Mathey, a graduate student in the Department of Economics at the University of Delaware, has become the first doctoral student in the Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics to successfully defend a dissertation via Skype.

On Tuesday, June 12, Mathey’s dissertation committee sat in a Pearson Hall video conference room on UD’s Newark campus while he attended his defense virtually from France.

Committee members for Mathey’s defense included Burt Abrams (chair), professor of economics; Jim Butkiewicz, professor of economics; Laurence Seidman, professor of economics; and Robert Schweitzer, professor of finance. (more…)

EL Wire Brightens Our World

By Guest PostJune 24, 2012General, Technologyamateur electronics, christmas tree, clary josee, clothing industry, copper wire, el wire, electroluminescence, electroluminescent wires, electronic devices, heat emission, lamps, light sources, mind boggling, movie tron, myriad, phosphor, proto pic, pvc sheath, Technology

Electroluminescence has come a long way since its discovery at the start of the 20^thcentury. For many years the scientists who pioneered its development struggled to come up with practical applications for electroluminescent technology – early uses of the discovery lacked the lifespan to work as practical lamps and light sources, whilst its unreliability made it difficult to use in displays and interfaces.

Undeterred by their setbacks, the boffins working on electroluminescence didn’t give up, and thank goodness, because today electroluminescent light has evolved into a technology that has myriad applications all over the planet. (more…)

Combating Global Problems at BIARI

By Guest PostJune 22, 2012Environment, General, Scienceaids, ambedkar university delhi, anita elizabeth cherian, armed conflict, barbara willaarts, biari, botin foundation, brazil, brown university, cape town, China, chinese cities, civil society, climate change, courtney coelho, development, end project evaluation, environmental awareness, ethiopia, global problem, grass stage theatre, hiv, hiv awareness, India, junia quiroga de cuhan, kathamandu university, ke zhang, latin america, laureate universities, maria cecelia trannin, nepal, new delhi, nigeria, peking university, population, qing hui hou, rebecca hodes, rio de janeiro, rukmini sen, sagar sharma, shimla, South Africa, university, yunnan province, zheng xie

Some 140 participants and 30 visiting faculty from more than 45 countries arrived at Brown to take part in the Brown International Advanced Research Institutes (BIARI). The two-week program began June 11, 2012.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Some 140 participants and 30 visiting faculty from more than 45 countries arrived at Brown to take part in the Brown International Advanced Research Institutes (BIARI). Participants, who were chosen from a pool of more than 850 applicants, come from several countries, including Brazil, China, Nigeria, India, and Ethiopia.

The two-week program began Monday, June 11, 2012. Now in its fourth year, BIARI is centered around four two-week intensive institutes, convened concurrently by Brown faculty, in which participants and leading scholars in their fields share their research and develop new collaborative projects through sustained, high-level dialogue spanning disciplines and continents. This year’s institutes touched on global health and HIV/AIDS; theater and civil society; population and development; and climate change. (more…)

The Warrior-Scholar Project: Easing the Move from Combat to College

By Guest PostJune 21, 2012Culture, General, Politicsafghanistan, air force, alfred guy, american soldiers, australian army, black and white, christopher howell, civilian life, dave carrell, david howell, democracy, donald kagan, eli whitney program, first gulf war, globalization, jeffrey brenzel, jesse reising, john gaddis, karin gosselink, marine corps, misha pemble belkin, navy seal, nick rugoff, ninja reading, pilot program, platoon, restrepo, sebastian junger, tactical assault group, taliban insurgents, tim hetherington, tribalism, us army, war, warrior scholar project, william whobrey

Having twice served in Afghanistan, where his platoon faced some of the most intense fighting of any American soldiers, U.S. Army sergeant Misha Pemble-Belkin felt a bit of a “culture shock” earlier this month when he first took a seat in a Yale classroom.

His combat team’s firefights with Taliban insurgents in eastern Afghanistan in 2007 — and the deaths of two members of his small unit — were captured in the Academy Award-nominated documentary “Restrepo” by Sebastian Junger and the late Tim Hetherington, as well as in Junger’s bestselling book “War.” Described by one film reviewer as “the conscience” of the documentary, Pemble-Belkin received major media attention for his part in the film.

During his stay on the Yale campus, however, Pemble-Belkin had to leap out of the role of soldier and into that of student as he participated in the newly inaugurated Warrior-Scholar Project, which helps war veterans and non-commissioned officers who are leaving the service make the transition to college life. (more…)

Do Not Rely on Others

By Guest PostJune 20, 2012Economy, General, Healthelderly, expenses, financial future, heartache, Make plans, Mom preneurs, money, Monta Fleming, nanny jobs

I know that you hope, when you get older, that your children will be there to help you out. That they will take care of you like you took care of them. But I want to warn you now- do not count on it. You cannot count on other people to take care of you. Friends, relatives, even children will not help you out. If they do help you then great but do not set your mind, heart, and financial future to that.

Let me give you an example. An elderly friend of the family got divorced after many, many years. Now on her own for the first time, she thought she could count on her kids to help her out. She moved in with her oldest son. After a few months, things of hers started disappearing. Eventually, she confronted him and he revealed he had been selling her stuff to pay for her ‘expenses’. (more…)

More Seniors Being Held for Observation

By Guest PostJune 10, 2012General, Healthaffordable care act, brad wright, brown university, david orenstein, elderly patients, emergency departments, gerontologists, health affairs, hospitals, medicare, vincent mor, zhanlian feng

A new study finds that more elderly patients in the emergency departments of hospitals are being held for observation rather than admitted as inpatients. Pressure from Medicare to reduce unnecessary hospitalization may be driving the trend. But being classified as an outpatient, rather than being admitted, can increase out-of-pocket costs for patients. The study is reported in the June edition of Health Affairs.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Nobody wins when patients stay in the hospital unnecessarily, so the federal government in recent years has pushed hospitals to be careful about admitting Medicare recipients as inpatients. The apparent result is that more patients are being “held for observation” instead, according to a new study by Brown University gerontologists. While the shift in how hospitals care for elderly patients in the emergency department may reduce costs to Medicare, it can also increase out-of-pocket expenditures for patients. (more…)