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Jul 28, 2011
Red Storm provides plenty of fun for action fans
Red Storm is an adventure skill game that challenges the player in a large number of various ways. Only by fighting through hordes of opponents and using both ability and force will certainly the player gradually find yourself the master of this greatly addictive online flash game. Be aware though - it can become hugely addictive if someone plays it for too long!
The general deal of the game is that one of crack fighters has been delivered to Mars, where it will fight with a large army of robots who create a risk to human life as we know it. The gamer takes control of just one of these heros that will have used to battle together with another fighters in order to finish this game by wrecking the marauding robot army.
As with the whole great skill games Red Storm isn’t just about fighting though, as there are a number of numerous tasks to finish that further add to the enjoyment of this title…
Earn rewards
As the player progresses they will encounter many different problems to get over, that will often be rewarded with handy tools and power-ups. All these will make the forthcoming mission far easier and as a result further increase the likelihood of progressing through the game.
Improving the character
As the player moves on via game they are able to make their person to a much more productive fighting machine, through spending points to add various different abilities. These will make the character speedier, more powerful or give them a number of handy new qualities.
These are simply several features which make this game such a great one. The only way to truly discover what it is about though is to head over and try it for yourself, although you should cancel any appointments as you won’t be able to tear yourself away from it!
Posted at 04:21 am by burgin
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Mar 15, 2011
As with the relationship between healthcare of
older people and healthcare in general, research involving
older people emphasizes different ethical issues because of
the history of research on older people and specific healthcare
attributes of older populations. As geriatrics has been late
in being recognized as a specialty in American medicine,
so too has serious research on older people been a
relatively recent phenomenon in the United States. The National
Institute on Aging (NIA) was established within the
National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 1974 to promote research on aging. That the creation of NIA was necessary
is supported by the dearth of research on the problems of
older people in earlier years. People over the age of
sixty-five were frequently excluded from clinical studies, even from
trials examining cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and
hypertension, all conditions more prevalent in older populations. Older
people have remained under represented in clinical
trials even after investigators stopped employing arbitrary age
cutoffs as documented in a 1999 study by Laura Hutchins
and her fellow researchers.
Posted at 04:35 am by burgin
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Dec 27, 2009
The Benefits of Pet Keeping
It seems impossible to doubt that some human–animal bonds can contribute
significantly to human flourishing. Relationships with pets seem to help prevent two sources of emotional disorder: deprivation and frustration . They enable nongenital physical contact, provide tactile comfort, improve self-esteem, enhance emotional security, boost personal prowess (as when a beautiful or socially appealing animal is owned), and engender loving relationships that are sometimes seemingly impossible with other humans (Ryder; Levinson; Fogle; see also Serpell).
Potential or actual benefits for pet owners specifically include lower blood pressure (Baun et al.), lower heart rates (DeShriver and Riddick; Wilson and Nettling), reduced anxiety (Wilson, 1991), and reduced depression (Bolin). However, Cindy Wilson argues that although “much has been made over the potential benefits of a pet,” it is also true that a large amount of such research “remains anecdotal, nongeneralizable, and scientifically flawed” and that a new methodology should be based on assessable “quality of life measurements” (1994, pp. 4–8).
In the absence of large amounts of data based on objective evidence, interpretation of the psychological effects of pet keeping turns on whether interspecies relations are natural and commendable. Richard Ryder warns against the view that such interspecies relationships are “unnatural or cranky” (p. 5); but that accepted, it is still questionable to what extent legitimate psychological needs are met through pet keeping and whether these needs can or should be met through relationships with members of our own species.
Posted at 12:27 pm by burgin
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Dec 25, 2009
CHOICE AND DEFINITION OF PROBLEMS
Designation of certain diseases as particular to one gender, race, or sexual orientation not only cultivates ignorance in the general public about transmission or frequency of the disease;it also results in research that does not adequately explore the parameters of the disease. Most of the funding for heart disease has been appropriated for research on predisposing factors for the disease (such as cholesterol level, lack of exercise, stress, smoking, and weight) using white, middle-aged middle-class males. Much less research has been directed towards elderly women, African-American women who have had several children, and other high-risk groups of women. Virtually no research has explored predisposing factors for these groups, who fall outside the disease definition established from the dominant perspective. Recent data indicate that the initial designation of AIDS as a disease of male homosexuals, drug users, and Haitian immigrants not only has resulted in homophobic and racist stereotypes but also has particular implications for women of color. In 1981 the first official case of AIDS in a woman was reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). By 1991, $80 million had been spent since the inception of the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study (MACS), designed to follow the natural history of HIV among gay and bisexual males (Faden, Kass, and McGraw). Although by 1988, the case reports for women were higher than the number for men in 1983, the year the MACS began (Chu, Buehler, and Berelman), it was not until the final quarter of 1994 that the first study on the natural history of HIV infection in women began. In 1998, the CDC reported that AIDS remains the leading cause of death among black females aged 25 to 44, and the second leading cause of death overall among those aged 25 to 44 (CDC, 1998). The majority of women diagnosed with AIDS are black or Hispanic.
These types of bias raise ethical issues. Healthcare practitioners treat the majority of the population, which consists of females, minorities, and the elderly, based on information gathered from clinical research in which women and minorities have not been included. Bias in research thus leads to further injustice in healthcare diagnosis and treatment. Understanding this bias led to changes in policies in the 1990s. Investigators now receiving federal money must give a compelling reason if their studies fail to include both men and women, young and old, as well as individuals of diverse races. Although this increases the cost of research, since the sample must be larger, cost alone does not stand as a compelling reason.
Posted at 09:48 am by burgin
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Elizabeth Potter (2001) documented Boyle’s choice of the mechanistic model to explain his Law of Gases both because it comported well with the data and because it supported the status quo of conservative religion and monarchy of the seventeenth century with regard to class and gender compared to the competing animistic model seen as more radical socially. Scholars suggest that Darwin’s theory of natural selection was ultimately accepted by his contemporaries (whereas they did not accept similar theories as described by Alfred Russel Wallace and others) because Darwin emphasized the congruence between the values of his theory and those held by the upper classes of Victorian Britain (Rose and Rose). Social Darwinists used Darwin’s theory to base the political and social rights to their wealth and power held by men and the upper classes in biological determinism. In this manner Darwin’s data and theories reinforced the natural superiority of wealthy men, making his theories acceptable to the leaders of Victorian English society. Fausto-Sterling’s research (1999) revealed how different societies at particular historical periods have also used varying biological and genetic data as determinants for the social construction of gender and race. Not only what is accepted, but what and how we study, have normative features. Helen Longino (1990) has explored the extent to which methods employed by scientists can be objective, in the sense of not being related to individual values, and lead to repeatable, verifiable results while contributing to hypotheses or theories that are congruent with nonobjective institutions and ideologies such as gender, race, and class that are socially constructed in the society: “Background assumptions are the means by which contextual values and ideology are incorporated into scientific inquiry” (p. 216). For example, scientists may calculate rocket trajectories and produce bombs that efficiently destroy living beings without raising the ethical questions of whether the money and effort for this research to support the military could be better spent on other research questions that might be solved by using similar objective methods
Posted at 09:43 am by burgin
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Dec 18, 2009
The Total Artificial Heart
Constructing an artificial heart requires materials such as
metals, ceramics, plastics, and polymers that are lightweight
and durable. At the same time, these materials must be
biologically inert biologically inert. They must work synergistically with other
body systems and not trigger attacks by the body’s natural
system of immune defenses that would lead to the disruption
of the circulatory system and, ultimately, death. An
artificial heart also requires sufficiently smooth surfaces so as
not to disrupt blood flow through the heart or damage
fragile blood cells. A TAH needs a power source that can
maintain an efficient and steady stream of energy for long
periods of time while being small enough to fit completely
inside the body. Both the pump and the power source must
be capable of responding to changes in position, temperature,
and pressure associated with the needs of the person
using the machine.
The decision to launch a program to build a totally
implantable heart had its roots in a series of exploratory
meetings held during the 1950s at the NIH (Shaw). Enthusiasm
for undertaking the research accelerated in the 1960s
as physicians and engineers began to build and successfully
use the first heart-lung machines, external pumps that could
be used to support blood circulation in the body. After a few hours, these machines damaged the blood cells (Zareba).
Still, the heart-lung machine was a crude, partial artificial
heart that inspired physicians to think that perhaps a permanent
device was not beyond reach.
Moreover, as the U.S. space program began to enjoy
success, optimism grew in both scientific and government
circles about the feasibility of taking on large-scale technological
challenges. Many in government were impressed
with the productive results being secured in the space
program and the military from centrally funded, programmatic
research. U.S. physicians and biomedical scientists
saw themselves as being able to overcome the many technical
obstacles through hard work, directed budgets, and targeted
programs. The space program had as its goal putting a man
on the moon before the end of the 1960s. The artificial heart
program launched at the NIH in 1964 set as its goal the
testing of a total artificial heart in a human being by
Valentine’s Day, February 14, 1970 (Bernstein).
Posted at 08:55 pm by burgin
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Conclusion: The Role of Anthropology
What, ultimately, will anthropology contribute to the field
of bioethics, an increasingly important domain of inquiry in
national and international discourses about culture, morality,
and health? Whether the question is appropriate care for
the dying, the donation and transplantation of human
organs, the evaluation of new medical technologies, informed
consent in scientific research, or national and international
health disparities, the anthropological contribution
will be to create carefully researched accounts of how the
moral good is located in particular local worlds. Ethnographic
methodologies make possible such accounts. Ethnography
provides the tools for a robust description of the social
dynamics of ordinary moral experience. The application of
ethnography in bioethics promises to counter the prevailing
policy discourse controlled by economics, decision analysis,
and legal procedures, a discourse that often silences social
suffering while at the same time providing the illusion of
control to individuals (Kleinman, 1999, p. 89).
The paradox of relativism cannot be resolved. Instead,
the work of medical anthropologists will enhance our understanding
of the moral rendering and interpretation of health
practices, scientific discovery, and the various uses and
abuses of power in global biomedicine. A single set of
universal principles or procedures will be inadequate.
Bioethical approaches dominated by a simplistic application
of respect for individual autonomy will fail not only in
societies with a more nuanced view of the socially embedded
nature of personhood, but in the West as well. In healthcare
practice and in scientific research, procedures based on
respectful negotiation among competing claims—measures
informed by moral pragmatism—are most likely to avoid
harm and contribute to the common good. Medical anthropologists
have a vital role to play in furthering our understanding
of the cultural construction of bioethics practices
and their applications throughout the world.
Posted at 08:52 pm by burgin
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Dec 10, 2009
its my blog
Posted at 12:58 pm by burgin
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