08.31
Household & Personal Products Industry, March, 2009 by Harvey M. Fishman
MOST DYES are direct dyes, meaning that they have affinity to the surface on which they are being applied such as cloth, skin, hair or paper. The color of the dye solution also indicates the final color of the substrate. This is not true with oxidation dyes that furnish very stable hair coloring shades. These dyes or intermediates have no affinity for hair, and as the name indicates, must be oxidized in order to provide color. The commercial product has the dye mix in one container, and the oxidizing agent in the other bottle. When mixing liquids, the oxidizer is always 20 volume or 6% hydrogen peroxide. In the past, I have seen a powdered one package product containing both oxidation dyes and the oxidizer which is mixed with water to activate. In this case, the oxidizing agent could be sodium perborate.
The most important oxidation dye is p-phenylenediamine (PPD). It was discovered about 150 years ago and was used for fur dyeing before it became a hair coloring dye in the 20th century. PPD and its salts are soluble in water, alcohol and water-alcohol mixtures. It is easily oxidized to form an intermediate which is readily polymerized or condensed with couplers to yield different colors.
PPD is a skin irritant; therefore, in the U.S., a preliminary patch test is necessary. A few drops of the hair color is mixed with an equal amount of the developer and applied to the skin inside the bend of the elbow or behind the ear and left undisturbed for 24 hours. If there is no irritation, the product is usable.
A Range of Shades
PPD is used with many intermediates to form various shades. The table below lists some of them with the resultant shade. PPD can be used with these ingredients to make any color (Table I). This dying procedure works best at an alkaline pH, probably because of the hair swelling effect.
Ammonium hydroxide, rather than a fixed alkali, is preferred to raise the pH to 9.2-9.5 because it is volatile and will not leave residue in the hair while processing. Dye solutions contain thickeners/emulsifiers, conditioners, solvents, an antioxidant and chelating agent so that the peroxide, when added, is not dissipated too fast. Here’s a dye base formula:
Dye Base Ingredients %Wt. Water q.s. to 100 Dye mixture q.s. Sodium sulfite 0.1 Trisodium EDTA 0.5 Nonyl phenol ethylene 15.0 oxide condensate SD Alcohol 40 20.0 Oleic acid 9.0 Oleyl alcohol 15.0 Ammonium hydroxide (28%) 5.0 Perfume q.s.
Procedure:
Heat first five ingredients to dissolve the dyes. In a separate container, mix the next three items in the alcohol. When clear, add to tank. Cool to 40[degrees]C and add last two items.
Formulating oxidation dyes is more art than science. The resulting color can be affected by different ingredients in the base and the purity of the dyes themselves. Sometimes a less pure intermediate will furnish a more satisfactory color result
08.31
Encyclopedia of Nursing and Allied Health, 20050229 by Janie F. Franz
Definition
Medically, menopause is the cessation of menstruation and signifies the inability to bear children. It is determined as one year from the last menstrual cycle. Menopause is a natural life-stage transition. Medical events, like surgery or chemotherapy, however, can also produce menopause.
Description
Menopause is a natural transition that will affect every woman. By the year 2020, it is estimated that there will be 62 million American women reaching menopause. Most of these women will spend one-third to one-half of their lives postmenopause.
No changes in life expectancy or general health have affected the age at which menopause occurs. The average age of onset of natural menopause is 51, with a normal range between 48 and 58. There are women who experience it as early as 35 and as late as 60. Eight percent of women stop menstruating before age 40, and 5% continue to have periods until they are near 60. Usually, there is an underlying factor to extremely early or late menopause.
Attempts at defining factors that can predict age of onset have not been successful. It is clear that heredity and smoking seem to be linked to the timing of menopause. A mother’s age at menopause may indicate when her daughter will cease menstruation, though this is not a hard- and-fast rule. If a mother entered puberty late and her daughter had her first period at an early age, there may be no correlation. The mother may have experienced poor nutrition as a child or had an hormonal deficiency or some other medical condition to delay puberty.
Smokers enter menopause as much as 1.5 years earlier than non-smokers. Other determinants can be number of pregnancies, body mass, depression, chemical exposure, and exposure to pelvic radiation as a child. Women who have had children, have larger body mass, and who had higher cognitive scores as children may enter menopause later. Conversely, women who never had children, are depressed, were exposed to toxic chemicals, or had pelvic radiation usually have an earlier menopause.
There are four types of menopause. The most prevalent is natural, spontaneous menopause. Premature (spontaneous), surgical, and induced menopause occur because of a medical condition, a surgical procedure, or other outside cause.
Natural (spontaneous) menopause
Most menopause is natural and occurs as part of the aging cycle for women. Technically, it refers to a state in a woman’s menstrual cycle which happens a year from the date of her last menstrual period. Indications that the process is starting may occur in a woman’s 40′s with the lengthening and irregularity of menstrual cycles. The process can take as long as eight years, or may be over in two. Only 10% of women report that menstruation ceases suddenly, with no cycle irregularity prior.
There are four stages that a woman experiences when she experiences natural menopause.
Menstruation
When a woman enters puberty, each month her body releases one of the more than 400,000 eggs that are stored in her ovaries, and the lining of the womb (uterus) thickens in anticipation of receiving a fertilized egg. If the egg is not fertilized, progesterone levels drop and the uterine lining sheds. This is a normal menstrual cycle.
By the time a woman reaches her late 30s or 40s, her ovaries begin to produce less estrogen and progesterone, releasing eggs less often. The gradual decline of estrogen causes a wide variety of changes in tissues that respond to estrogen-including the vagina, vulva, uterus, bladder, urethra, breasts, bones, heart, blood vessels, brain, skin, hair, and mucous membranes.
As the levels of hormones fluctuate, the menstrual cycle begins to change. Some women may have longer periods with heavy flow followed by shorter cycles and hardly any bleeding, beginning as much as two to eight years before menopause. Others will begin to miss periods completely
08.31
Evening Chronicle (Newcastle, England), Sept 26, 2008
HALF term events are taking place at Washington Wetland Centre.
From Saturday, October 25 to Sunday, November 2 visitors to the attraction can help create a giant work of art, square-by-square, to be put on public display or take part in craft activities.
A Halloween party is also being organised on Friday, October 31 from 5.30pm-7.30pm.
The cost is pounds 8 per child, including a party tea. All children must be supervised by an adult.
One accompanying adult goes free per child.
08.31
Business Wire, April 15, 2008
New Modules Enhance Value of Online Multimedia Training and Reference Solution for Medical Students and Residents
PHILADELPHIA, Penn. — Elsevier, the leading publisher of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, announced today that it has added three new modules to Procedures Consult[TM] in orthopedics, anesthesia and emergency medicine. Procedures Consult (www.proceduresconsult.com), which Elsevier launched in July 2007 with 40 procedures in internal medicine, is an online multimedia resource that helps physicians, medical residents and students learn, perform and test their knowledge of the most frequent medical procedures. The site currently contains 140 separate procedures including actual procedure videos, text and animation.
Other unique features include highlighted patient safety guidelines consistent with standards established by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
“Medical procedures are potentially high-risk situations, particularly when physicians are learning the procedure for the first or second time, or if they have not performed the procedure recently,” said Jonathan Teich, MD, PhD, and Elsevier’s Chief Medical Informatics Officer. “By providing immediate online access to detailed step-by-step multimedia information on procedure execution, along with indications and other considerations, Procedures Consult reduces the potential for medical errors and complications. Its ability to document procedures for residency requirements and competency tracking adds additional value for education and quality improvement.”
In addition to medical students and residents, other potential users of Procedures Consult include practicing physicians, physician assistants, certified registered nurse anesthetists, operating room nurses, advanced practice nurses and respiratory therapists.
Healthcare organizations, including hospitals, medical groups and medical schools, can customize Procedures Consult to fit their needs. They can add procedure-specific alerts and links to organizational resources, such as informed consent forms, hospital standard procedures or patient education materials, while also monitoring physician test completion for credentialing compliance.
New Content
Specific content delivered in the new modules includes:
Orthopedics
* 39 new procedures representing over 78 surgical techniques
* Provides expert video content developed in conjunction with Campbell Clinic
* Text and illustration content adapted from Campbell’s Operative Orthopaedics, 11th edition
Anesthesia
* 34 procedures, including coverage of both general and regional anesthesia
* Provides content developed in conjunction with the University of Pennsylvania, Department of Anesthesia (Lee A. Fleisher, M.D., Chair)
Emergency Medicine
* 50 procedures covering key procedures in both emergency and internal medicine
* Expert video content developed in conjunction with Gary S. Setnik, M.D., Chair, Dept. of Emergency Medicine and Todd W. Thomsen, M.D. at Mt
08.30
Huddersfield Daily Examiner (Huddersfield, England), July 25, 2009
PERFECT for entertaining family and friends, the stylish Royal 4 Burner Roaster features a stainless steel hood with an innovative in-built heat indicator, integrated warming rack and a porcelain coated grill and griddle for guaranteed long life and ease of maintenance. The rotisserie, mounted on a steel cabinet with stainless steel doors, offers somewhere to store all those cooking essentials. Other distinctive features include steel shelves for added durability and castors for increased portability.
The Royal 4 Burner Roaster runs on 5kg or 13kg Calor Patio Gas cylinders, which provide the ultimate in clean, simple al fresco cooking. This product is available from Calor centres nationwide or online at bbq.co.uk
08.30
Sporting News, The, May 13, 2005 by Matt Crossman
My life is in Greg Biffle’s hands–and feet. Deep in the California desert, we drive full-bore toward a mammoth, pristine dune. The hill climbs so steeply and high it hides he cloudless sky. We hit a ridge, and the front wheels pop into the air. I grip the handlebar as if it were a hand brake. The front wheels go up and up. And up and up. They certainly will keep rising until we flip over. Is that sand as soft as it looks?
After an eternity, the wheels drop. As we near the top of the dune, Biffle swings the steering wheel, and we barrel down–then back up, then the wheels shoot up, and I wonder what I’ve gotten myself into. Biffle senses this or reads it on my ashen face. “Not really what you were expecting, is it?” he hollers.
Um, no. I wasn’t expecting to be so terrified. This is one sick, crazy. scary, wild, exhilarating ride. Earlier, Biffle described flying around on the buggy as 100 times better than the best roller coaster. He called it “off the hook.” He’s right. After nearly tossing my Cheerios, I also think he’s off his nut.
After that first run, Biffle says the buggy has a cage on the back to prevent it from flipping over. Now he tells me. Knowing that, I’m mostly over being terrified, which permits me to look somewhere other than straight ahead.
The day is beautiful. It’s in the 80s, a dry heat; we’re just a few miles from Death Valley. The sand, so white and unblemished, looks fake. You’d be surprised how little sand pelts my goggles.
The engine vibrates like a giant, furious bumblebee. And the smell–absolutely clean and pure, like a beach without water.
Don’t feel bad if you’ve gotten this far and you’re saying, those are some suh-weet pictures, but Greg Who-file? He has five career Cup victories but doesn’t get nearly the attention attracted by Jamie McMurray (one victory) or Kasey Kahne (zero). Few noticed when Biffle won the final race of last season, but that victory foreshadowed a breakout year.
“They’ve been spectacular and really, really strong,” Jeff Gordon says. “They’ve been working on it for a long time, and he’s comfortable with it, and it’s working.”
By winning championships in NASCAR’s Busch (2002) and truck series (2000), Biffle showed he can be dominant with good equipment. This season, he has been dominant in the Nextel Cup Series. He is a threat to win on every 1.5-mile track. He already won at one of those, Texas, and his win at California (2 miles) and strong run at Bristol (.533 miles) demonstrated his range has improved. His win at Texas–from the 41st starting position–was particularly impressive. It showed he can maneuver a strong car through the dregs of the Cup series and not panic after a bad wreck in practice. He has led 563 laps, by far the most of anyone this season.
Several factors coalesced to make him successful. His equipment is far better. So is his crew, which in 2003 was basically a Busch team running in Cup. Team owner Jack Roush admits that at first he didn’t surround Biffle with top-notch equipment and people. Now, Biffle is clicking with crew chief Doug Richert.
The new rules this season also help. The shorter spoilers and softer tires make the cars wicked loose, exactly how Biffle loves them.
Biffle’s personality is a blend of patience and confidence. He turned down several offers to join the Cup series before his 2003 rookie season because he didn’t feel ready.
Once in the racecar, he drives aggressively. This year at California, he boasted before the race that he would lead by Lap 5. After taking the lead on Lap 4, he asked what lap it was.
The key for Biffle to maintain his success will be patience. He finishes well with a good car. But if he has a 15th-place car, he must be content to finish 15th in it instead of trying to cram it into the top 10.
In the racecar and the dune buggy, Biffle has the feet of a ballerina, the hands of a sculptor and the guts of a bounty hunter. He checks out where we’re going; we don’t just launch blindly off any ridge. Not to read too much into a dune buggy ride, but there’s a parallel between Biffle’s method on the dunes and how he finds the fastest line around a track.
On one of the bowls we ride in, Biffle carves the shape of an hourglass in the sand. The first few times, he gets a feel for it. We pop wheelies, but they’re little sissy wheelies, hardly worth mentioning. Then, educated, we get rocking.
We two-wheel for 50 feet, the back cage roostertailing sand. The wheels return to earth, and Biffle points the buggy back down the hill and goes flying off a ridge we coasted over moments before. Seconds later, we wheelie again, and he looks at me and yells, “Now we’re going, dog!”
Now we’re going? Now we’re going? What were we doing for the past 40 minutes?
Before we even got to the hourglass run, we spent 40 minutes hitting the same jump over and over. This jump was at the bottom of a dune several hundred feet high, so tall and steep you couldn’t possibly walk up it.
We shot down, hit a series of moguls, then lifted off. Everything went silent. We landed as softly as a bearhug
08.30
Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Aug 8, 2009 by Star Parker Scripps Howard News Service
President Barack Obama is a clever and ambitious man. And he has surrounded himself with a clever and ambitious staff.
This bright crew understood from the outset that time would determine if they would succeed with their health-care plan.
They understood that their plan, which would require massive new expenditures, new taxes, and major new government interventions, had to be done quickly if it would get done at all.
They understood that it had to be done while the president’s approval ratings were still high so that Congress would bend to his will. And that it had to breeze through and land on the president’s desk before the general public could scrutinize it and understand the major way it would impact their lives.
As a result, we’ve been hearing for months about the president’s deadlines, tied to a list of explanations (economic recovery, if we don’t do it now we’ll never do it, growing hordes of uninsured, etc.) why the world will collapse if these sweeping reforms were not passed by August.
Now Washington’s hot and humid August is here, Congress is adjourned, health-care reform did not reach the House or Senate floor, and the White House is in panic. What they knew and feared they now confront. Dropping approval ratings and rising public awareness.
When the administration kicked this off with its White House Health Care Summit early last March, the president’s 62 percent approval, per Gallup, was 36 points higher than his 26 percent disapproval. Now, at 56 percent approval and 37 percent disapproval, the gap has shrunk to 19 points.
A new poll from Quinnipiac University has him at 50 percent approval and 42 percent disapproval.
And, the details of the 1,000-page monstrosity, word by word, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, are being delivered to desktops, laptops and Blackberrys. Group e-mails, Web sites, Twitter and Facebook accounts are churning.
Old discredited socialist ideas meet the new economy and free people are reacting and revolting — as the White House knew they would if they got a chance to know what was going down.
Ironically, this technologically savvy administration is being hung by its own petard.
Rather than concluding that the public understands what they are being served up and doesn’t want it, the White House damage-control machine is breaking out the smoke and mirrors, determined to spin government health care past the American people if they won’t buy it outright.
Instead of talking about “health-care reform,” the White House Web site now uses the focus group-tested “health-insurance reform.” Make the insurance companies the bad guys.
And they, along with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, claim that grassroots protests at town hall meetings are manufactured.
Perhaps they also think that Quinnipiac University pollsters, who now report that 39 percent of Americans “approve of the way Barack Obama is handling health care” and 52 percent disapprove, are being paid off by insurance companies.
Suggestions that grassroots protests prevent the White House from getting its message to the public are hilarious. This president has been on a honeymoon with the press for the last six months. You can’t turn the TV on without seeing him.
He has had an unprecedented four prime-time press conferences in six months.
No
08.30
Sunset, June, 2009 by Harley R. Cowan
I designed a movable four-door, A-frame, cedar-shingled coop and run for my urban hens, which fits over any of my raised planter beds. The “Chicken Sedan” earned distinguishable credit as the People’s Choice in the Portland AIA Awards.
–HARLEY R. COWAN, PORTLAND
08.25
U.S. Newswire, July, 2009
To: REAL ESTATE EDITORS
Contact: Marla Martin, Communications Manager, or Jeff Zipper,
Vice President of Communications, 1-407-438-1400, ext. 2326 or
2314, both of Florida Association of Realtors
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., July 2 /PRNewswire/ — “The availability
and affordability of property insurance is, at its core, a consumer
issue,” said 2009 Florida Association of Realtors (FAR) President
Cynthia Shelton, testifying on the need for a national disaster
insurance policy to the U.S. House Financial Services Committee’s
Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee during a hearing today in
West Palm Beach
08.25
Market Wire, 20050229
CES Booth N109 — Sony, the creator of the MiniDisc (MD), today
unleashed six new portable MD products to let your mind play. The new
products include the world’s smallest and lightest portable
player/recorder, Sony’s first portable player/recorder expected to
sell for under $200, a portable player expected to sell for under
$150 and the first MD to CD boombox with 2X dubbing.
“Sony’s new MiniDisc line will help you keep your New Year’s resolution
to join the digital audio revolution,” said Bob Nell, vice president
of personal digital products for Sony Electronics’ Personal Audio
Division. “These products — virtually unshockable, affordable and
stylish — deliver what you need in a portable stereo, with the added
benefit of digital recording. That means you can make quality digital
mixes of your favorite music, and re-record up to a million times
without diminishing sound quality.”
World’s Smallest and Lightest Portable MD Player/Recorder
The MZ-R90 combines MiniDisc’s superb sound with convenient recording
features in a tiny, lightweight package.
Pocket-sized and virtually as small as the MD itself (3 1/8″ w x 11/16″
h x 2 7/8″ d), this stylish MD Walkman personal stereo is the world’s
lightest recorder/player currently on the market, weighing in at less
than a quarter of a pound without the battery. Distinctive features
include up to 600-character name bank for text input, CD text
transfer and digital recording level control to ensure uniform
recording volume.
The MD Walkman unit features the Jog Lever control, which enables
one-handed operating convenience.
The LCD remote, which is included, lets users leave the unit in a bag
or pocket while controlling all of the MD Walkman functions, such as
changing the volume and music tracks while displaying the song title,
disc title, playback status and battery level on the remote’s
back-lit screen.
The MZ-R90 comes in deep blue. It has a rechargeable, removable
stick-like battery and provides up to an industry leading 29 hours of
continuous playback time with one additional AA battery. It will be
available in February 2000 for approximately $350.
MD Walkman Player/Recorder Breaks the $200 Price Barrier
Sony today also introduced a full-feature MD Walkman recorder/player
(model MZ-R37SP) with high quality recording capabilities, including
digital automatic gain control, which ensures uniform recording
volume throughout the MiniDisc, and digital synchro recording.
Digital synchro recording allows you to make digital copies of CDs onto
a MiniDisc with synchronized operation that eliminates blank space at
the beginning of your recordings.
With a unique horizontal design and easy-to-access buttons, the silver
MZ-R37SP is easy to use and small enough to either hold in your hand
or carry in a pocket. It will be available in February 2000 and is
expected to sell for just under $200.
High-Speed Dubbing Hits the Road with VCR-Like Programming Capabilities
Sony’s first portable MD boombox (model ZS-M35) cuts CD-to-MD dubbing
time in half for consumers who enjoy making their own mixes.
With high-tech styling that fits into an office or dorm room, the
compact, black and silver boombox features one-touch CD-to-MD
recording, CD text transfer and synchro recording.
The ZS-M35 includes an AM/FM digital tuner with 20 station presets,
Remote Commander(r) remote control and a Mega Bass(r) sound system.
It also has a built-in clock with a sleep timer, which functions like
an alarm clock, and timer recording capability, which allows MD
recording to start and stop at predetermined times.
The ZS-M35 will be available in April 2000 for approximately $350.
Sony MD Walkman Products to Fit Your Digital Lifestyle
For consumers who are constantly in and out of their car, the new
MZ-R70 player/recorder features a dual headphone jack that can be
plugged into a car sound system and still be operated with the
included remote. It will be available in silver or blue for about
$250.
Two other new MD Walkman players bring together style and functionality
in compact units. The blue MZ-E60 features a slim, matching LCD
stick remote and a pop-up-eject mechanism. It will retail for about
$150.
Available in red or blue for approximately $250, the MZ-E75 features a
dual headphone jack, customized digital sound presets and a slim,
silver back-lit LCD stick remote. Both players (MZ-E60 and MZ-E75)
have 40-second shock resistant memory, the digital Mega Bass sound
system and will be available in February 2000.
Sony Electronics Background: Headquartered in Park Ridge, N.J., Sony
Electronics (SEL) has more than 26,000 employees in North America