The 25-year-old Kings of Leon bassist is set to marry his model girlfriend Martha Patterson on Saturday. Followill confirmed the weekend nuptials on Twitter:
?Today I get married. It?s the biggest step I?ve ever taken,? he wrote.
Patterson also joined on the Twitter wedding announcement, writing ?Marry my best friend today. I?m the luckiest girl in the world.?
The pair got engaged last spring, only after a few months of dating.
?Jared proposed to Martha on Apr. 11 at his home in Nashville and we?re all excited for the newly engaged couple,? a rep told Just Jared?at the time.
The rocker proposed with a custom designed 4-carat cushion-cut diamond set on a diamond-covered band. Followill was previously linked to Twilight?star Ashley Greene.
With Kings of Leon currently on hiatus, Followill has been busy with his side project Smoke & Jackal, a new group with fellow Nashville rocker Nick Brown of Mona.
?I knew that I would go a little bit stir-crazy just not doing anything and not having any artistic outlets,? Followill told Rolling Stone earlier this month.
?I think it was important for us to create a new identity and have our own sound,? he added.
Meanwhile, Followill?s older brother Caleb has been busy with his own side project: his baby girl with wife and Victoria?s Secret model Lily Aldridge. The pair welcomed their daughter back in June.
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Auto Shop Management Blog ? ? 7 Ways Information Systems Impact Customer Relationships in Auto Repair
7 Ways Information Systems Impact Customer Relationships in Auto Repair
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Information systems can have a significant impact on customer relationships. Several points in the customer relationship cycle occur through information systems. In some cases the impact is through presentation while in others it involves interactive information exchange. At whatever degree this occurs, the relationship with the customer is affected. If information systems reinforce the basis for the relationship the impact will be positive. The following key points should be evaluated when considering the impact of information systems on customer relationships:
?
Document Presentation ? All documents provided to the customer impact their perception of the business. Quotes, invoices and statements are examples of documents the customer receives. Any document that?s given to a customer influences their perception of the company. All documents should reflect the basis of the relationship between customer and service provider.
Lube Stickers ? These can be one of the most powerful marketing tools available to an auto repair shop. They serve as reminders to ensure proper vehicle maintenance while reinforcing the relationship between the vehicle owner and the repair shop.
Service Due Reminders ? Email reminders to a customer reminding them that preventive maintenance service is due on their vehicle provide a valuable service to the vehicle owner. The customer is reminded to have services performed that keep the vehicle safe and reliable reducing the cost of ownership.
Appointment Reminders ? Reminding a customer of a scheduled appointment is an important service that a shop management system can provide especially if the appointment was made a several weeks or months in advance.
Marketing Correspondence ? Sending emails to customers for special events can have a significant impact on customer relationships. Special emails can be sent for birthdays, anniversaries and holidays. Also special events and offerings at the shop can be communicated.
Interactive Website Processing? Many shops have options for customers to request quotes or make appointments through their websites. This can make things a lot easier for customers as they can do this when they have time available.
Integrated Status Notification ? Software systems often have integrated email processing that allows the shops to send an email or text message to a customer notifying them that their vehicle is ready for pick up. They can also support sending documents to customers such as quotes, invoice or statements.
There?s something about dressing nicely that puts that extra pep in our step. Wearing a spiffy suit or fancy dress gives us an extra oomph, and up until now, we were unaware that our fellow four-legged friends think so, too.
Are we claiming dogs like to be dapper and cats enjoy being chic? You betcha! The ?Well Dressed Animals? Tumblr features all sorts of animals costumed up in human garb to look extra handsome and beautiful. But considering animals are naked 24/7, we?re pretty sure putting on any sort of clothes would be considered ?dressing nicely?.
We had no idea Corgis liked wearing monkey pajamas, pug puppies don preppy sweaters, and lady cats sport classy Hawaiian button-ups. But luckily for us, they do!
Marcia was an art major in college. For her, drawing and painting are second nature, no more difficult to do than, say, inhaling and exhaling.
I, on the other hand, was a communications major. For me, writing and spelling are second nature, no more difficult than, say, writing and spelling, which actually can be quite perplexing at times.
Marcia has done a number of paintings over the years that hang in our house.
I have done a number of stick figures over the years that, if drawn on walls in prehistoric times, would have been ridiculed for being too simplistic.
Or, to put it simply:
Marcia has a bit of Renoir in her.
I have a bit of Renoir's totally unartistic brother/sister/Weird Uncle Gary/ in me.
So, when Marcia said she was going to paint a couple of pieces of metal furniture whose black paint had started to flake and peel, perhaps you can understand why we weren't speaking the same language.
My thought was, buy some black spray paint, touch up the bald spots and, voil?, we're done. So, when Marcia suggested we stop at the home improvement center, I was thinking, "What's this going to take? Five minutes?"
When will I ever learn?
As it turns out, and the accompanying photos will attest, Marcia had something much more ambitious in mind. Also, as it turns out, Rust-Oleum? makes about 3 million (I exaggerate, but only slightly) colors now, not to mention a handful of finishes, too.
The result was something I could never have envisioned.
But then, I'm a word person, remember?
A more visually oriented person, no doubt, would have seen it coming.
As she'll tell you herself.
Marcia: I first spied the chair years ago in a secondhand shop. It was white, it was rusted, it was ugly and, to make matters worse, it was cast iron, so it was very heavy to boot.
On the other hand, it was also CHEAP, so of course I bought it.
It sat on our deck, white and ugly and heavy, for about a year. Truth be told, every time I'd pass it, I'd get the heebie-jeebies (Dennis: Something like what Obi-Wan? felt when the Death Star? vaporized Alderaan,? I bet).
But remember, I'd tell myself, it was CHEAP.
So one day I spray-painted it black, which was much better, if not entirely free of causing me the heebie-jeebies.
Early this summer, I was looking at it, and a light bulb (Dennis: LED, of course; none of those energy-sucking incandescent bulbs for her) went off in my head: Why not paint it a bunch of colors?
Seriously, what's the worst that could happen? If I don't like it, I can just spray-paint the whole thing black again, right?
I was amazed -- and no, there are nowhere near 3 million colors, despite what my husband says -- at the number of spray-paint colors available that will work on metal furniture, indoors or out. They even cover rust.
We bought nine colors (in a satin finish). I ended up mixing some of my own colors by spraying different ones into a paper cup and brushing them on the metal with old artist paintbrushes.
You may just want to spray your metal furniture black -- or green or yellow or red -- and that's fine. But if you want to get a bit more adventurous, here's one way to do it (the way I chose, turning our Victorian-era wallflower into a real painted lady). Step-by-step painting tips
1. Ask someone at a paint store for advice; describe what you're planning to do.
2. Clean the furniture in question, using a wire brush to remove dirt, loose paint and rust. If you suspect there is old lead paint on your furniture, contact the national lead information hotline (800-424-5323 or epa.gov/lead). ?
3. Lightly sand any glossy surfaces.
4. Consider priming the surface with an appropriate primer (again, that's a good question for a paint store employee to answer).
5. I sprayed colors -- I was using oil-based paint, so I'd suggest wearing a good mask and latex gloves and doing this outdoors -- onto white paper to see what they really looked like, as opposed to what their caps looked like.
6. I sprayed on a base coat of green paint and let it dry for 24 hours.
7. I then tried using painter's masking tape to mask areas I didn't want painted. NOT A GOOD IDEA. It turned out to be way too much work for the chair, because of the minute details. Instead, I ended up spraying the paint into paper cups and mixing a lot of my own colors, which I then painted onto the metal with small artist paintbrushes. It was surprisingly easy and covered with one coat.
8. Wait 24 hours for the paint to dry if you have overlapping colors, and follow the directions on the can.
Of course, knowing myself, I'll probably get bored with the colors in a few years, but now I know I can repaint it fairly easily.
Who knows? Maybe in five years it will be bright red.
Marcia Westcott Peck is a landscape designer (pecklandscape.com) and Dennis Peck is not. He is the editor of The Oregonian's Living section, which is a good thing for him, because if he actually had to use his hands for anything other than typing, it would not be pretty.
LIMASSOL, Cyprus (AP) ? Cyprus' central bank says the country's top lenders will undergo a stress test after a request from potential creditors to determine the amount of money they need to shore up their capital base.
The central bank said in a statement Friday that the stress test will be carried out by PIMCO and Deloitte, and will cover the country's top three banks ? Bank of Cyprus, Laiki and Hellenic, as well as the Co-Operative Central Bank and the Cypriot arms of Eurobank EFG and Alpha Bank.
The process will be overseen by Cypriot authorities in conjunction with representatives from the so-called troika ? the European Central Bank, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund.
Cyprus applied to the troika in June for aid to prop up its Greece-exposed banks.
Neil Young isn't shy when it comes to embracing new technology, something he put beyond question with his latest appearance on The Late show with David Letterman. The artist took the opportunity to reveal plans for his high-fidelity Pono music service. The aim is to tackle the poor quality in which he believes most people receive their music these days -- the humble MP3. Young's offering would comprise a three-pronged approach, including a music store with high-resolution recordings, a digital-to-analog style conversion technology, and portable hardware to listen to it all with. The simple intention is to offer music as it was originally intended to be heard, but at this time there's no detail as to what this actually entails (sorry specification fans).
According to Rolling Stone, the big three labels are interested, and the goal is to unify, rather than diversify, the quality of recorded content. The Pono players (that yellow wedge you see above) will serve up your existing catalog, but you'll likely need to re-buy some of your collection if you want the holistic experience. With no cards fully on the table, we're at the ransom of Young's celebrity endorsements, which all claim that the benefits are tangible. Young, of course, says "You can't get better than this, this is what they do in the studio," but until we get some details, or ears on, everybody knows this is nowhere.
ScienceDaily (Sep. 26, 2012) ? In what could be a breakthrough in the treatment of deadly brain tumors, a team of researchers from Barrow Neurological Institute and Arizona State University has discovered that the immune system reacts differently to different types of brain tissue, shedding light on why cancerous brain tumors are so difficult to treat.
The large, two-part study, led by Barrow research fellow Sergiy Kushchayev, MD under the guidance of Dr. Mark Preul, Director of Neurosurgery Research, was published in the Sept. 14 issue of Cancer Management and Research. The study explores the effects of immunotherapy on malignant gliomas, cancerous brain tumors that typically have a poor prognosis.
What the researchers discovered was that immune cells of the brain and of the blood exhibit massive rearrangements when interacting with a malignant glioma under treatment. Essentially, the study demonstrates that the complex immune system reacts differently in different brain tissues and different regions of the brain, including tumors.
"This is the first time that researchers have conducted a regional tissue study of the brain and a malignant glioma to show that these immune cells do not aggregate or behave in the same way in their respective areas of the brain," says Dr. Preul. "This means that effective treatment in one area of the brain may not be effective in another area. In fact, it could even cause other regions of the tumor to become worse."
The results of the study provide important insight into why clinical trials involving immunotherapies on glioma patients may not be working.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
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Journal Reference:
Mark Preul, Laura L. Eggink, Yevgeniya S. Kushchayeva, Philip C. Wiener, J. Kenneth Hoober, Jennifer Eschbacher, Fu-Dong Shi, Ruolan Liu, Mohammed Abdelwahab, Adrienne C. Scheck, Sergiy Kushchayev, Sankar. Monocyte galactose/N-acetylgalactosamine-specific C-type lectin receptor stimulant immunotherapy of an experimental glioma. Part 1: stimulatory effects on blood monocytes and monocyte-derived cells of the brain. Cancer Management and Research, 2012; : 309 DOI: 10.2147/CMAR.S33248
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A former Goldman Sachs Group Inc computer programmer indicted on charges of stealing trade secrets has rebuffed a plea offer that would keep him out of prison, his lawyer said on Thursday.
Sergey Aleynikov, 42, was formally indicted Thursday on New York state criminal charges of stealing proprietary trading code from the bank. The indictment is the latest development in a years-long legal battle between Aleynikov and federal and state prosecutors.
Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Joanne Li told State Supreme Court Justice Ronald Zweibel that her office had offered Aleynikov a sentence of time served in exchange for a guilty plea. Under the proposed deal, he would not have to serve additional prison time beyond the roughly one year he already served following his conviction on federal charges.
Aleynikov's lawyer, Kevin Marino, said his client had rejected the offer. Marino told the judge he would move to dismiss the case based on double jeopardy - prosecution twice for the same offense - and accused state prosecutors of having "no sense of decency."
"The precise factual circumstances that underlie these charges have already been fully adjudicated," he said. "There's nothing remotely lawful or constitutional about what's going on ... He left Russia for freedom and the American way, and he got Franz Kafka and Goldman Sachs."
The Aleynikov prosecution has been closely watched as U.S. authorities are on a push to tackle complex cyber crime, an area of criminal law that has not been well-tested in courts amid debate about which laws apply and what types of conduct can be considered criminal behavior.
Prosecutors have accused Aleynikov, a dual citizen of the United States and Russia, of stealing code used in Goldman's high-frequency trading system in 2009 before leaving to join Teza Technologies LLC, a rival start-up in Chicago.
He was arrested in August and charged by New York state prosecutors, six months after the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned his 2010 federal conviction on charges tied to the same conduct.
Aleynikov had served nearly a year of an eight-year prison sentence before the appeals court ordered him released. If convicted in state court, Aleynikov could face up to four years in prison.
His conviction was reversed in part because the appeals court said the Justice Department failed to show that the stolen code was intended for "interstate commerce," a necessary element under the federal Economic Espionage Act.
Aleynikov entered a plea of not guilty Thursday to two counts of unlawful use of secret scientific material and one count of unlawful duplication of computer-related material.
Li, the prosecutor, said the case does not violate double jeopardy and pointed out that Marino himself suggested in federal court papers that this type of offense is more properly prosecuted in state court.
In a statement, the head of the Manhattan District Attorney's cybercrime unit, David Szuchman, said the appeals court "very clearly" suggested that Aleynikov's conduct could violate state law. He rejected Marino's contention that his office was acting as a proxy for the Justice Department in renewing the prosecution.
"On our own initiative, we contacted federal prosecutors and asked for their cooperation in filing a state criminal case to make sure this defendant was held accountable for his criminal conduct," he said. "Any suggestion that we filed these charges for any other reason is false."
Earlier this week, Aleynikov sued Goldman in New Jersey federal court for $2.4 million in legal fees, demanding that the bank cover his costs of fighting the federal prosecution. The lawsuit claims Delaware law and the bank's bylaws entitle corporate officers to indemnification when they successfully defend themselves against charges.
Aleynikov will remain free on $35,000 bail. Prosecutors will permit him to travel to Russia for approximately one month to visit his mother, who is undergoing cancer treatment.
The case is People v. Aleynikov, New York State Supreme Court, New York County, No. 60353/2012.
(Reporting by Joseph Ax; editing by Martha Graybow, Matthew Lewis and Dan Grebler)
Mars rover appears to have landed in a dry streambed
Web edition : Thursday, September 27th, 2012
It seems NASA chose the Curiosity rover?s destination wisely: The craft appears to have landed right in an ancient streambed. Tasked with searching for signs of life-friendly environments on Mars, the rover can now cross off ?find evidence for water? from its life-friendly to-do list, NASA announced in a press conference September 27.
NASA sent Curiosity to Gale Crater because data from orbiting spacecraft suggested the site had a good chance of having once been wet. Still, the speed with which the discovery came seems to have surprised the team.
?It is exactly the reason we chose this landing site,? said project scientist John Grotzinger of Caltech.
The best evidence for ancient rushing water comes from the rocks Curiosity has paused to investigate while wheeling toward Mount Sharp, an enormous pile of sediment rising from the crater?s center. These rocks, called conglomerates, are made of pebbles cemented together by once-wet sediments. ?
In other words, they?re rocks made of rocks.
Curiosity glimpsed its first conglomerate at the landing site, where retrorocket engines dusted off the planet?s reddish veneer and revealed the speckled bedrock beneath. ?There?s a layer there that seems to have rocks embedded in it,? said Mike Malin of Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego. The feature is now named ?Goulburn,? after geologic deposits in northern Canada.
Then, after stretching its wheels, the rover encountered another site called ?Link,? where more conglomerate rocks were found. The pebbles there and elsewhere point toward a watery transport mechanism, said Rebecca Williams of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Ariz. Smooth and polished, roughly 1 centimeter across ? the size of a plain M&M candy ? the pebbles couldn?t have been transported by anything except water. ?These are too large to be transported by wind,? Williams said. ?The consensus is that these are water-transported gravels.?
Eventually, the rover found a rock called Hottah (named for a Canadian lake), which juts out of the Martian dust at an angle, jagged edges pointed skyward. ?To us, it just looked like somebody came along the surface of Mars with a jackhammer and lifted up a sidewalk,? Grotzinger said.
The 10- to 15-centimeter thick outcrop was once submerged, he said. ?And we can characterize that water as being a vigorous flow, on the surface of Mars.?
The interpretation is robust, says geologist Joseph Michalski, also of the Planetary Science Institute. ?There aren?t very many ways by which you can produce rounded pebbles like that.?
But the water?s source ? whether melting ice, rainfall, or groundwater ? and its duration on the surface are still open questions.
Scientists think the Martian streambed grew from a canyon that funneled water into Gale Crater. Roughly 18 kilometers long, about 600 meters across and 30 meters deep, the canyon ? called Peace Vallis ? cut into the crater rim, sweeping sediments to the crater floor and forming a floodplain. Had Curiosity landed roughly 3.5 billion years ago, she might have found herself in a stream, ?from ankle to hip deep, and maybe moving a few feet a second,? said William Dietrich of the University of California, Berkeley.
And while large, rounded pebbles certainly point to fast-flowing water, they don?t indicate anything about the flow?s duration, Michalski says. ?You may have had punctuated activity, or it could have been sustained for a shorter period,? he says. ??It doesn?t mean that it had to stay wet for millions of years.?
So, is it mission accomplished? Game over for the rover?
Not quite.
The rover is still tasked with searching for signs of a life-friendly environment, and with exploring the rocky record contained in the layers of Mount Sharp. In addition to water, the rover will look for organic carbon ? from which life could be built ? and molecules that could serve as an energy source. ?We?ve got a hall pass for the water observation,? Grotzinger said. ?Now we?re going to move on to the chemical building blocks of life and the elemental chemistry and the mineralogy.?
New York, September 26, 2012 -- A new partnership announced today at the United Nations will make a safe, effective, long-acting, reversible method of contraception available to more than 27 million women in the world's poorest nations.
The new partnership is a joint effort of the Clinton Health Access Initiative, the Governments of Norway, the United Kingdom, the US and Sweden, The Children's Investment Fund Foundation, other groups and the German pharmaceutical firm Bayer HealthCare AG, which is the manufacturer of the contraceptive device.
The device, pre-qualified by the World Health Organization (WHO), provides effective contraception for five years.
Under the agreement, Bayer is reducing by more than half the current 18 USD price of its long-acting, reversible method of contraception, Jadelle, in return for a commitment to assure funding for at least 27 million contraceptive devices over the next six years. The agreement will be effective starting January 2013.
At present, more than 200 million women and girls in developing countries who do not want to get pregnant have no access to modern contraceptives and family planning services.
Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg of Norway and President Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria are co-chairs of the UN Commission on Life-Saving Commodities for Women and Children. They have worked together with international experts to provide this life-saving contraceptive.
When fully implemented, the partnership will avert more than 280,000 child and 30,000 maternal deaths due to improved birth spacing and by avoiding other problems such as preterm births. According to the WHO, waiting at least 2-3 years between pregnancies reduces infant and child mortality and benefits maternal health.
The partnership is expected to avert almost 30 million unwanted pregnancies from 2013 to 2018 and will save an estimated 250 million USD in global health costs.
The Bayer contraceptive device is inserted into the inner side of the upper arm. It consists of two plastic rods, each about the size of a matchstick, which contain long acting, slow-release progestogen and provides safe and effective protection against pregnancy. It is suitable for almost all women and is also safe for women who are breastfeeding.
This simple procedure can be done by trained health workers - nurses, midwives - and provides effective contraception for five years. The rods can be removed at any time a woman wants her fertility restored.
"These contraceptive devices are a very cost effective means of contraception and they are ideal for women in rural areas, who must often travel miles by foot to reach health clinics," says President Jonathan of Nigeria.
"As we have seen time and time again, providing women in developing countries with safe and affordable medical treatment options not only has a substantial impact on individual lives, but on entire societies," said President Bill Clinton. "I am pleased that my Foundation worked successfully alongside our partners to help reduce the cost governments must dedicate to family planning measures, as well as help address the many challenges women face when they have limited access to medical options."
"Innovation is the key to our commercial success and at the same time the basis of our social commitment," says Dr. Jrg Reinhardt, Chief Executive Officer of Bayer HealthCare AG. "That's why we invest significantly in research and development of new treatment options. We want as many people as possible to share this progressregardless of their income or where they live."
Surveys show that about 600 million women in the developing world use some form of contraception, but only 1-2 percent of them have these types of long-acting, modern devices. Those surveys also show that as many as 20 percent would prefer them, if they were available.
The UK's International Development Secretary Justine Greening says: "It's great news that the PM's family planning summit has led to this agreement, which will give millions of women in the world's poorest countries access to family planning and contraception. It's right that women should have the chance to determine how many pregnancies they have and when, but it's also fundamental to tackling poverty. No country can develop properly when women and girls are dying from unintended pregnancies and when children are dying in infancy."
The new partnership should remove some of the barriers to family planning by providing health workers with training and counseling in family planning and ensuring that the now affordable modern contraception will be available.
"This is a catalytic and groundbreaking partnership. The initiative will lower the unit price of these devices substantially, which will have a profound impact on the well-being of women and girls globally, says Charlotte Petri Gornitzka, Director General of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency."
The partnership will focus on the world's poorest countries. These countries have also been targeted by the UN Secretary General's Global Strategy for Women's and Children's Health. They are the least likely to meet the 2015 Millennium Development Goals set by the UN General Assembly in 1990 to reduce the number of infant and young child deaths by two thirds and to improve maternal health by 2015.
"The US Agency for International Development (USAID) is proud to have funded the development of this life-saving product," says USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah.
"Today is a major step forward to making this product more accessible to millions of women, empowering them with the ability to make decisions about their health and family."
"The Children's Investment Fund is proud to be part of this agreement, which will significantly expand access to reliable contraceptives, an important factor in ensuring adolescent reproductive health," says Jamie Cooper-Hohn, CEO and President of Children's Investment Fund Foundation and UN Commissioner on Life-Saving Commodities.
For Bayer HealthCare, this agreement is part of its "Access to Medicine" strategy, where the company is cooperating with a number of private and state organizations. Through its "Family Planning" and "Neglected Diseases" lighthouse projects, the company is enabling access to health care. The "Family Planning" lighthouse projects also address three of the eight Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations: strengthening equal opportunities, reducing child mortality and improving health care for mothers.
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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.
New partnership expands access to contraceptionPublic release date: 27-Sep-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
New York, September 26, 2012 -- A new partnership announced today at the United Nations will make a safe, effective, long-acting, reversible method of contraception available to more than 27 million women in the world's poorest nations.
The new partnership is a joint effort of the Clinton Health Access Initiative, the Governments of Norway, the United Kingdom, the US and Sweden, The Children's Investment Fund Foundation, other groups and the German pharmaceutical firm Bayer HealthCare AG, which is the manufacturer of the contraceptive device.
The device, pre-qualified by the World Health Organization (WHO), provides effective contraception for five years.
Under the agreement, Bayer is reducing by more than half the current 18 USD price of its long-acting, reversible method of contraception, Jadelle, in return for a commitment to assure funding for at least 27 million contraceptive devices over the next six years. The agreement will be effective starting January 2013.
At present, more than 200 million women and girls in developing countries who do not want to get pregnant have no access to modern contraceptives and family planning services.
Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg of Norway and President Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria are co-chairs of the UN Commission on Life-Saving Commodities for Women and Children. They have worked together with international experts to provide this life-saving contraceptive.
When fully implemented, the partnership will avert more than 280,000 child and 30,000 maternal deaths due to improved birth spacing and by avoiding other problems such as preterm births. According to the WHO, waiting at least 2-3 years between pregnancies reduces infant and child mortality and benefits maternal health.
The partnership is expected to avert almost 30 million unwanted pregnancies from 2013 to 2018 and will save an estimated 250 million USD in global health costs.
The Bayer contraceptive device is inserted into the inner side of the upper arm. It consists of two plastic rods, each about the size of a matchstick, which contain long acting, slow-release progestogen and provides safe and effective protection against pregnancy. It is suitable for almost all women and is also safe for women who are breastfeeding.
This simple procedure can be done by trained health workers - nurses, midwives - and provides effective contraception for five years. The rods can be removed at any time a woman wants her fertility restored.
"These contraceptive devices are a very cost effective means of contraception and they are ideal for women in rural areas, who must often travel miles by foot to reach health clinics," says President Jonathan of Nigeria.
"As we have seen time and time again, providing women in developing countries with safe and affordable medical treatment options not only has a substantial impact on individual lives, but on entire societies," said President Bill Clinton. "I am pleased that my Foundation worked successfully alongside our partners to help reduce the cost governments must dedicate to family planning measures, as well as help address the many challenges women face when they have limited access to medical options."
"Innovation is the key to our commercial success and at the same time the basis of our social commitment," says Dr. Jrg Reinhardt, Chief Executive Officer of Bayer HealthCare AG. "That's why we invest significantly in research and development of new treatment options. We want as many people as possible to share this progressregardless of their income or where they live."
Surveys show that about 600 million women in the developing world use some form of contraception, but only 1-2 percent of them have these types of long-acting, modern devices. Those surveys also show that as many as 20 percent would prefer them, if they were available.
The UK's International Development Secretary Justine Greening says: "It's great news that the PM's family planning summit has led to this agreement, which will give millions of women in the world's poorest countries access to family planning and contraception. It's right that women should have the chance to determine how many pregnancies they have and when, but it's also fundamental to tackling poverty. No country can develop properly when women and girls are dying from unintended pregnancies and when children are dying in infancy."
The new partnership should remove some of the barriers to family planning by providing health workers with training and counseling in family planning and ensuring that the now affordable modern contraception will be available.
"This is a catalytic and groundbreaking partnership. The initiative will lower the unit price of these devices substantially, which will have a profound impact on the well-being of women and girls globally, says Charlotte Petri Gornitzka, Director General of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency."
The partnership will focus on the world's poorest countries. These countries have also been targeted by the UN Secretary General's Global Strategy for Women's and Children's Health. They are the least likely to meet the 2015 Millennium Development Goals set by the UN General Assembly in 1990 to reduce the number of infant and young child deaths by two thirds and to improve maternal health by 2015.
"The US Agency for International Development (USAID) is proud to have funded the development of this life-saving product," says USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah.
"Today is a major step forward to making this product more accessible to millions of women, empowering them with the ability to make decisions about their health and family."
"The Children's Investment Fund is proud to be part of this agreement, which will significantly expand access to reliable contraceptives, an important factor in ensuring adolescent reproductive health," says Jamie Cooper-Hohn, CEO and President of Children's Investment Fund Foundation and UN Commissioner on Life-Saving Commodities.
For Bayer HealthCare, this agreement is part of its "Access to Medicine" strategy, where the company is cooperating with a number of private and state organizations. Through its "Family Planning" and "Neglected Diseases" lighthouse projects, the company is enabling access to health care. The "Family Planning" lighthouse projects also address three of the eight Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations: strengthening equal opportunities, reducing child mortality and improving health care for mothers.
###
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Google is rolling out Google Play services starting today, bringing another of the great developer tools they showcased at Google I/O to the public.
For those of us that aren't developers, it's pretty easy to wrap your head around. If your device runs Froyo or higher and has access to the Google Play store, you'll have a new Google component to download. It's a set of libraries and tools that developers can use to authenticate with your Google account. When an app needs to access your private data from a Google application, they can use the new tool to get that access securely without requiring you to enter the (hopefully) long and secure password you use for your Google account. Version one of the service includes Google+ sign-in and +1 APIs as well as new OAuth 2.0 functionality.
OAuth 2.0 is a pretty big deal. It scales better than previous versions, is more secure, and as Googler Tim Bray notes "especially, because typing your password into a mobile device sucks". Bray has also posted an excellent overview, complete with code samples, using the new OAuth components at the Android Developers blog.
Best of all, this will all be transparent to the end user. Once the required code is installed on your Android phone or tablet, the rest is up to developers. No more typing in your password on a mobile webpage, or getting a one-time password from Google two-step verification, we'll simply be able to choose the account we would like to use and go. We see that now with many of Google's apps, but the new method will bring it all together for a consistent -- and safe -- user experience using open standards.
The developer portion of the service is available now, and you can find all the info you need to start using it at the links below. The client side (what we'll need on out phones) should be rolled out completely in the coming weeks, and we'll start seeing apps use the service once Google announces the rollout is complete.
By OU-C public relations student employee Jasmine Garcia
Eleven current OTEC students at OU-C are gaining valuable practical experience through internships to help them pursue careers and gain essential job skills.
Office Technology (OTEC), an Associate of Applied Business degree program on campus, teaches students administrative professional skills for careers in a variety of service or manufacturing business settings including desktop publishing, reception, payroll accounting, business analysis, medical and legal administrative assisting, and office supervision.
In addition to the course work needed to earn this degree, OTEC students are required to complete a 75 to 80 hour internship. During these internships, students get experience working in environments in their chosen career fields, while developing on-the-job skills outside of the classroom.
?I feel like the majority of jobs use computers, and Microsoft Office is used almost everywhere. So knowing how to do those helps a lot,? said Jessie Lambermont, an OTEC student. Lambermont interned at the Adena Regional Medical Center in the accounting office, where she was able to get hands-on experience working with financial spreadsheets and business office transactions.
?I learned a lot about human resources,? said Courtney Clever, an OTEC student, who interned in the Human Resources department at the Chillicothe Correctional Institute. ?I just thought it was a really good experience to get to see before I go into the workforce.?
The skills these students have received by completing an internship are something that will make them stand out to employers when entering the workforce.
Allison White, assistant professor and program coordinator for OTEC, said that the internships give students a strong addition in the employment section of their resumes by showing they have experience in their chosen career field.? This, in conjunction with an Ohio University degree and a variety of certifications earned along the way will make them strong contenders. She added that students receive an evaluation letter from their internship site supervisors upon completion of their hours, and many times these evaluations come in the form of a letter of recommendation.
White also added the importance of the connections formed during these internships that help students who are just starting their careers develop strong networks.
?It is certainly my hope and theirs that by introducing themselves to the community they are building a network, and it gives them the chance if they have had no job experience at all or perhaps no experience in the business field to get something on their resumes that says I?ve done this, I?ve built this skill,? said White.
Clever will be graduating in the spring and has started to look back to her internship and her internship supervisor, Bonnie Hall, as a resource.
?I really would like to get a full-time job at CCI,? said Clever. ?I?ve been talking to Bonnie and learning all the different things she does.? I would like to do something along the lines of what she did; she has inspired me to see all the different kinds of tasks they have to do daily, the multitasking and everything.?? I thought her job just seemed really interesting.
Many students who complete internships set their goals higher and plan on building upon their associate degrees and also pursuing their bachelor?s degrees.
Lambermont plans to attend Franklin University and earn her bachelor?s online with an emphasis on forensic accounting.
?I?m hoping to take my education further and obtain my bachelor?s degree in business management,? said Angie Conkel, an OTEC student who interned with the Ross County American Red Cross. ?My husband and I have discussed several times opening up a small restaurant, a ?mom and pop? type of business.??
With the amount of success these students have achieved during their internships, they hope to inspire other students who wish to continue down a similar education path.
?I think that [the internship] helps you in every way possible, and it opens you up to a lot of different opportunities,? said Clever.
While the program can be challenging, students feel that the hard work pays off in the end.
??I wouldn?t say it is simple because there are hard things about it, but you can pretty much do anything customer service wise, rep wise, be an administrative assistant or secretary. There is so much you can do with this degree and there is so much you can learn,? said Lambermont.
OTEC students serving internships this semester and their internship sites include:
American bookseller Barnes and Noble is planning to broaden its horizons with a little international travel. At he same time the Kindle Fire HD makes its first tentative steps across the pond, the company behind the Nook has appointed Patrick Rouvillois to spearhead its global domination -- starting in the UK. As such, it's releasing the Nook Simple Touch, Simple Touch with Glowlight and both of its new HD tablets this holiday season to win the hearts and minds of cynical Brits. If you're a Brit (cynical or otherwise) and curious whether Jeff Bezos and chums have something to worry about (hint: most probably) then join us after the break.
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Nevada Magazine, 401 N Carson St., Carson City, NV 89701. F(775)687-6159. Email editor@nevadamagazine.com. Website: http://www.nevadamagazine.com. Matthew B. Brown, Editor; Tony deRonnebeck/Art Director. "Nevada's official tourism publication." 25% Freelance. Welcomes new writers. Circ 140K (includes "Events & Shows" pubs). Bimonthly. Pays on publication. Buys first North American rights. Accepts reprints. Response time varies. Subscription $19.95. Guidelines online here. CURRENT NEEDS: "Quality Nevada travel stories." Pays $0.25-$0.35/word for 500-1500 words. Pays $200 for online stories. Submit query by email. PHOTOS/ART: Contact tony-at-nevadamagazine.com. Pays $250 for cover; $25-$250 for interior. HINTS: "The most common mistake in queries is that the subject doesn't fit our tourism-based magazine."
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Public release date: 27-Sep-2012
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