A Washington Post article yesterday reported on a growing trend of some franchisees that are keeping their day jobs and choosing franchises as a way to create a second revenue stream and as a hedged bet in case of layoffs.
According to the Post, franchise investors that choose a franchise that can be operated remotely generally fall into three categories:? (1) currently unemployed but want to keep their options open in case they get an offer; (2) consultants who want to supplement their income; and (3) the fully employed who want to make money on the side.
Obviously, working a full time job and running another business is challenging ? which is one reason that a number of franchisors do not sell franchises to people who don?t plan to operate the business themselves.? The key to success is finding a great manager for your franchise business who you can trust to run the business without your full time involvement, as well as good back-up support for your manager.
Prasad Raju, an IT architect who invested in a Great Clips hair salon franchise, plans to keep his day job and says he expects the salon to add $40,000 to $50,000 in net income to his personal bottom line.?
Raju said that he plans to keep his day job and is not concerned about managing the new franchise business.?? ?Franchising appealed to me because they have a proven model,? he said. ?If you can execute your model, you?ll be successful.?
To learn more about franchising opportunities, attend our free July 26 webinar, Franchise Ownership as a More Stable Career Path.? The webinar is free, but you need to pre-register, which you can do online by clicking on the linked seminar title.
As a journalist and a health advocate, I have a professional interest in health care reform. But as the Supreme Court upheldthe Affordable Care Act this week, I had a personal interest as well. Last fall, after three decades as a salaried employee with health benefits, I became a self-employed consultant with none. And this spring, after 56 years of perfect health, I learned that cancer had invaded my colon and my liver. Fortunately, my wife has an employer-sponsored plan that covers my treatment, but without health care reform, my treatment would hinge on her job status. Any change in her employment could have landed me in front of a death panel?not a fictional one manned by bureaucrats who ration our health care, but a real one made up of insurance companies that couldn?t or wouldn?t cover people with known health problems.
Many Americans live closer to the edge than I do, and each of them has a stake in this this week?s ruling. As the Institute of Medicine declared in a 2009 report, the continuing decline in access to health care is causing ?illness, suffering, and even death? among children and adults in this country. Yet polls consistently show that more Americans oppose the Affordable Care Act than support it?not because they?ve evaluated and rejected it but because they don?t understand it. There are plenty of reasons for that confusion; the law is complicated, opponents have misrepresented it, and the news media have focused on the politics rather than the substance. But as the bill?s chief architect and advocate, President Barack Obama bears equal blame for the tepid public response. Contrary to his persistent illusion, bold reforms don?t survive on merit alone. They have to be sold?and this one has scarcely been marketed.
As signed into law two years ago, the Affordable Care Act holds tangible advantages for most Americans. By 2014, it will create new health care options for 30 million people who now lack coverage, while improving quality and lowering costs for those who are insured. The act has already secured coverage for 3 million young adults by enabling them to stay on their parents? plans through age 25. Millions more children and adults will have new gateways to health care in 2014, thanks to new tax credits and an overdue revision of Medicaid?s eligibility rules. The new law also bars insurers from discriminating against people with ?pre-existing conditions??a group that includes roughly half of the non-elderly population?and freed 105 million policyholders from the lifetime caps on essential benefits. Before that rule took effect, some 20,000 patients were being dropped by their insurers every year, often while receiving critical care. The expansion of access may sound costly, and it is. But by bringing healthy people into the insurance pool, and improving the quality of care, it will save the average American household nearly $1,600 a year by 2019, according to an analysis by Families USA. And the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the act will shave $130 billion off the federal deficit by 2020.
When asked, people tend to favor specific reforms such as barring discrimination against those with pre-existing conditions. Yet surprisingly few associate these reforms with the Affordable Care Act. In January 2010, just before Obama signed the act into law, the Pew Research Center quizzed a national sample of adults on its basic provisions. Only 39 percent knew it would protect people with pre-existing health conditions. Only 33 percent knew it would help them switch jobs without losing their insurance. And just one in five (21 percent) realized it could reduce their out-of-pocket health care costs. Obama acknowledged his own failure to communicate at the time, saying, ?I take my share of the blame for not explaining [the act] more clearly to the American people.? But two years and countless news cycles later, the public has yet to be rallied to its own defense. In recent polls conducted by the Pew Research Center, the Kaiser Family Foundation and AP-GfK, opponents of the act still outnumber supporters by 5 to 14 percentage points. And with House Speaker John Boehner (not to mention presidential hopeful Mitt Romney) still promising to repeal health care reform, public opinion still matters.
How could a leader with Obamas rhetorical talents fall so flat on such a critical issue? The failure stems partly from his misplaced faith in the decency of his adversaries. As the Affordable Care Act was taking shape in 2009, Obama?s progressive base clamored for a single-payer system that would cover all Americans. The President ditched that idea, along with a more modest ?public option? that would give people an alternative to the private insurance market. Instead he adopted a longstanding Republican idea: the so-called individual mandate. To expand the health system?s financial base without swelling the public sector, the mandate simply requires everyone to get some form of insurance. ?Many [states] require anybody driving a car to have liability insurance,? the conservative Heritage Foundation argued in a seminal 1989 pitch for the idea. ?But neither the federal government nor any state requires all households to protect themselves from the potentially catastrophic costs of a serious accident or illness. Under the Heritage plan, there would be such a requirement.?
As passed by Congress and enacted two years ago, the Affordable Care Act included that requirement. But instead of lining up behind their own idea, Republican lawmakers set about demonizing it as a government attack on consumer freedom. Meanwhile, attorneys in conservative states filed a barrage of lawsuits challenging its constitutionality. It was the President?s moment to rally the country with a story about basic human needs and his determination to see them fulfilled. But the man who won the presidency by winning our hearts held back, assuming that reason would prevail, and his opponents gladly supplied a new story line. Instead of a narrative about the desperate struggles of ordinary Americans, the public got one about Barack Obama as a radical ideologue scheming to force his views on a freedom-loving country.
The White House has learned from the experience and is speaking out belatedly on the benefits of the health care reform. Now that the court has upheld the health care reform law, the President and his allies have a new chance to forge a national consensus?not through government pronouncements but through the kind of mass mobilization that swept him into office four years ago. No one did more to defeat the Clinton administration?s 1993 health care proposal than ?Harry and Louise,? the fictional suburban couple victimized by government bureaucrats in television skits produced by the insurance industry. By 2008, the actors in those ads had seen enough to switch sides and produce a new set of spots urging the next president, Democrat or Republican, to place health care reform at the top of his agenda. (?Lisa?s husband just found out he has cancer,? Louise confides to Harry this time. ?He just joined a startup and he can?t afford a plan.?)
Obama heeded the call during his first year in office, but his allies have been outspent three-to-one by opponents since the Affordable Care Act took effect in 2009. This spring, his Health and Human Services department selected a PR firm to produce educational materials about the act, as the law itself requires. But the face of health care reform is still that of a demonized politician?Barack Obama himself?not that of a family bankrupted by medical bills or a child denied asthma treatment because the condition predates her insurance policy. Finally this spring, Obama?s election web site has started profiling people whose stories show in raw, personal terms what?s at stake for the country. If the president can use this week?s court ruling to reassert his own gifts as a storyteller?and his supporters can spark the kind of social-media uprising that helped elect him?health care reform may yet have a chance. His success, and our well-being, now depend on it.
Geoffrey Cowley has worked as a senior editor at Newsweek, an associate commissioner at the New York City Health Department and a media director at the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. He is now an independent journalist and public health consultant.
Supreme Court of the United States Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons/UpstateNYer
The trick to investing is not to lose money. The losses ruin your compounding rate and compounding is the magic of investing. - in Market Wizards
Jim Rogers is an author, financial commentator and successful international investor. He has been frequently featured in Time, The New York Times, Barron?s, Forbes, Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times and is a regular guest on Bloomberg and CNBC.
What's in the water on the set of "True Blood"? Us Weekly has learned that Anna Paquin, 29, and her husband of nearly two years, Stephen Moyer, 42, are expecting a double delivery in the fall!
PHOTOS: Most stylish star moms
"I'm so excited for them," the couple's costar Sam Trammell -- father to 11-month-old twins Winston and Gus with girlfriend Missy Yager -- tells Us. "We sent them a special gift. It's so interesting that 'True Blood' has become, like, the 'twins' show."
PHOTOS: True Blood stars, then and now
And though Moyer has two children, Lilac 10, and Billy, 12, from a previous relationship, he's been listening intently to Trammell's advice on the ins and outs of raising multiples.
"It's harder, having twins, but it's all we know. So we're trying to impart some decent wisdom," Trammell adds. "I told them to hold on tight!"
PHOTOS: Anna's chic pregnancy style
But Moyer is up for the challenge. "It's always amazing," he told Zap2it in May of his wife's pregnancy. "I love my kids so much. And I think that the fact that Anna is pregnant just adds more crazy to the bundle of fun."
Hospitals' communication during residency matching may put stress on OB-GYN doctors-in-trainingPublic release date: 26-Jun-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Mary F. Masson mfmasson@umich.edu 734-764-2220 University of Michigan Health System
U-M researchers found that residency programs are not consistent in interpretation of National Residency Matching Program rules
Ann Arbor, Mich. Many hospitals offer residency programs for doctors in training, allowing them to complete the education needed to become practicing physicians. Hospitals find those residents using National Residency Matching Program (NRMP) rules, but a new study finds wide variation in the interpretation of those rules.
The NRMP rules are intended to minimize pressure on residency candidates, says lead author Diana S. Curran, M.D., F.A.C.O.G., residency program director for the U-M Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. But her study, published in the Journal of Graduate Medical Education, found that the rules may instead be leading to stress for both OB-GYN residents and program directors.
The results suggest that programs may be communicating their match intentions, especially to favored candidates. Curran and her co-authors surveyed OB-GYN residency program directors across the United States in an online survey.
The majority of respondents (76.6%) reported that their programs initiated contact with residency candidates after interviewing them either all of the time (28.7%), most of the time (21.3%) or sometimes (26.6%). Only 23.4% reported never initiating post-interview contact with candidates.
Eighty-four percent of the program directors reported that candidates asked about their ranking status after the interview, with 1.1% reporting that they informed the candidate about his/her chance and 16.0% reporting that they provide a vague answer to candidate inquiries. Sixty-percent of programs informed inquiring candidates that their rank could not be revealed, however 51.5% also reported that highly desirable candidates might be contacted to inform them they were ranked to match.
"Our program here at the University of Michigan has a policy of minimal to no communication with candidates after their interview day to avoid any potential impropriety or placing undue pressure on candidates to state their intentions. We instituted a practice change to inform candidates on their interview day to not expect a call or e-mail from us, but the candidates' feedback suggested that perhaps other programs were communicating more frequently with candidates during the pre-rank period. This study seems to support that," says Curran, who also is assistant professor of OB-GYN at U-M.
Curran says U-M has minimal, if any, post-interview contact with candidates, which is the University's interpretation of NRMP rules.
"Our experience is that both candidates and faculty are not always sure what the rules permit," says Curran. "Many of the responding program directors believe that candidates and programs attempt to guess what the other is trying to communicate and that game playing is part of the routine. We asked program directors to comment during the survey, and they showed frustration with the post-interview, pre-Match process."
Curran and her co-authors say adherence to NRMP rules are crucial in the very stressful match process. OB-GYN residency programs are competing for a large pool of highly qualified candidates: in 2009 the number of match candidates exceeded the number of existing positions in the specialty by 611 residents.
"We hope this study spurs discussion between OB-GYN program directors, the NRMP, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, and medical schools is to help restore trust in the original purpose of the NRMP: to protect candidates from inappropriate pressure," says Curran.
###
Journal reference: Journal of Graduate Medical Education. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4300/JGME-D-11-00114.1
Additional authors: All of the University of Michigan's Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology: Pamela B. Andreatta, PhD, assistant professor; Clark E. Nugent, MD, professor; Samantha R. Dewald, research assistant; and Timothy R.B. Johnson, MD, professor and chair. Of Yale University School of Medicine: Xiao Xu, PhD.
About the University of Michigan's Women's Health services: Each year, urogynecologists from U-M's Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology see more than 1,000 new patients in our Pelvic Floor Disorders Clinic, providing comprehensive surgical and non-surgical services for women suffering from urinary and fecal incontinence, as well as pelvic organ prolapse (falling or slipping out of place). The program has been in existence for 22 years and has received more than $15 million in NIH research support.
In 2012, U-M's Women's Health program was ranked fifth in the nation in the Best Graduate Schools rankings by U.S. News and World Report. And in 2011, U.S. News and World Report named the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Michigan among the top 20 gynecology programs in the U.S.
Learn more at
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.
Hospitals' communication during residency matching may put stress on OB-GYN doctors-in-trainingPublic release date: 26-Jun-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Mary F. Masson mfmasson@umich.edu 734-764-2220 University of Michigan Health System
U-M researchers found that residency programs are not consistent in interpretation of National Residency Matching Program rules
Ann Arbor, Mich. Many hospitals offer residency programs for doctors in training, allowing them to complete the education needed to become practicing physicians. Hospitals find those residents using National Residency Matching Program (NRMP) rules, but a new study finds wide variation in the interpretation of those rules.
The NRMP rules are intended to minimize pressure on residency candidates, says lead author Diana S. Curran, M.D., F.A.C.O.G., residency program director for the U-M Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. But her study, published in the Journal of Graduate Medical Education, found that the rules may instead be leading to stress for both OB-GYN residents and program directors.
The results suggest that programs may be communicating their match intentions, especially to favored candidates. Curran and her co-authors surveyed OB-GYN residency program directors across the United States in an online survey.
The majority of respondents (76.6%) reported that their programs initiated contact with residency candidates after interviewing them either all of the time (28.7%), most of the time (21.3%) or sometimes (26.6%). Only 23.4% reported never initiating post-interview contact with candidates.
Eighty-four percent of the program directors reported that candidates asked about their ranking status after the interview, with 1.1% reporting that they informed the candidate about his/her chance and 16.0% reporting that they provide a vague answer to candidate inquiries. Sixty-percent of programs informed inquiring candidates that their rank could not be revealed, however 51.5% also reported that highly desirable candidates might be contacted to inform them they were ranked to match.
"Our program here at the University of Michigan has a policy of minimal to no communication with candidates after their interview day to avoid any potential impropriety or placing undue pressure on candidates to state their intentions. We instituted a practice change to inform candidates on their interview day to not expect a call or e-mail from us, but the candidates' feedback suggested that perhaps other programs were communicating more frequently with candidates during the pre-rank period. This study seems to support that," says Curran, who also is assistant professor of OB-GYN at U-M.
Curran says U-M has minimal, if any, post-interview contact with candidates, which is the University's interpretation of NRMP rules.
"Our experience is that both candidates and faculty are not always sure what the rules permit," says Curran. "Many of the responding program directors believe that candidates and programs attempt to guess what the other is trying to communicate and that game playing is part of the routine. We asked program directors to comment during the survey, and they showed frustration with the post-interview, pre-Match process."
Curran and her co-authors say adherence to NRMP rules are crucial in the very stressful match process. OB-GYN residency programs are competing for a large pool of highly qualified candidates: in 2009 the number of match candidates exceeded the number of existing positions in the specialty by 611 residents.
"We hope this study spurs discussion between OB-GYN program directors, the NRMP, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, and medical schools is to help restore trust in the original purpose of the NRMP: to protect candidates from inappropriate pressure," says Curran.
###
Journal reference: Journal of Graduate Medical Education. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4300/JGME-D-11-00114.1
Additional authors: All of the University of Michigan's Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology: Pamela B. Andreatta, PhD, assistant professor; Clark E. Nugent, MD, professor; Samantha R. Dewald, research assistant; and Timothy R.B. Johnson, MD, professor and chair. Of Yale University School of Medicine: Xiao Xu, PhD.
About the University of Michigan's Women's Health services: Each year, urogynecologists from U-M's Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology see more than 1,000 new patients in our Pelvic Floor Disorders Clinic, providing comprehensive surgical and non-surgical services for women suffering from urinary and fecal incontinence, as well as pelvic organ prolapse (falling or slipping out of place). The program has been in existence for 22 years and has received more than $15 million in NIH research support.
In 2012, U-M's Women's Health program was ranked fifth in the nation in the Best Graduate Schools rankings by U.S. News and World Report. And in 2011, U.S. News and World Report named the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Michigan among the top 20 gynecology programs in the U.S.
Learn more at
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.
When we set out to get hands-on with a hard drive, of all things, you can bet we're going to do more than just pick it up and marvel at how lightweight it is. Here at a gdgt event in New York City, we spotted G-Technology's new Mac-friendly USB 3.0 drives on display and immediately got to work running some speed tests on the thinnest of the bunch, the G-Drive slim. Though transfer rates varied, both download and upload speeds tended to hover around 95 MB/s, and that was after ten or so runs in the Blackmagic benchmark. (Next time we'll bring a USB 2.0 cable to test a backward-compatible setup.)
According to a company rep staffing the event, the other drives in the lineup, the G-Drive mini, mobile and mobile USB 3.0, should deliver similar performance. Really, the differences here are in the specs: the G-Drive mobile and mini have FireWire ports, and all three offer more storage (750GB to 1TB, as opposed to 500GB for the slim). Design-wise, all the drives on display here seemed fairly impervious to scratches, and that rubberized band around the edges also makes the devices feel a little less delicate. On that point, you can check out the hands-on photos to see what we're talking about, though you'll just have to take our word on the speed testing.
The call center customer service manager job explanation includes primary a team of 10-20 members depending on the durability of the business and leading them to achieve the monthly crew targets. The financial institution customer service manager task description involves dealing with the particular customers and solving their questions regarding the working of the company accounts and other solutions offered by the lending company.
Tell them concerning the STAR structure and that you are looking for examples of specific competencies, allow them to have a few examples in the competencies you are looking for.
Helpdesk services can be obtained round the clock with an affordable expense if you outsource them. Nevertheless, take the time to view the terms and conditions from the contract before you decide to hire the business process outsourcing techniques service provider.
Many customer service reps are just doing the job as a way to advance from the company in addition to gain the details and contacts they need to care for their goals. Stuffed to sit for a desk using that headset for the rest of their particular lives. It is sometimes hard to stimulate those individuals and that is something that office leaders should address. If the employees are not implementing their jobs seriously and they are not determined, it can lead to significant trouble.
Set up a customer service mission. This specific begins with determining the significant influences that your company?s services build both the internal as well as your external customers. Seem beyond the clear features of your products or services or service to get the benefits they give to your customers. As an example, a company that makes anti-lock brakes does indeed more than create a product. Their particular product will swiftly save existence.
The success of any company lies on the way core personnel manage assignments and handle personnel. If you want to acquire a sure organizational success through the individual level up, taking note of these insights on operations training types-and applying them-should be your supreme task.
Most disabled buyers will take the business with an organisation containing built any reputation for giving accessible in addition to disability-friendly customer service so businesses must figure out how to offer this ahead of the Video games.
The company uses its Fb profile to have interaction with customers, even so, also uses the Pottery Barn YouTube funnel to build the particular community online. They?ve got videos including how-to?s for celebration planners, artist profiles and featured goods. By giving guidance to consumers and definitely a story in the evening products Ceramics Barn gives people much more than only a product therefore builds up a fantastic relationship with these ? a positive form of customer service.
The thing is, you can?t resolve what is definitely not broken. Whilst their clients received decided not to make a complaint, they were not one the better as to their particular customers disapproving or being disappointed with their service.
Service Restoration ? Marriott Hotels works by using the service recuperation acronym Find out: Listen, Sympathize, Apologize, Respond, Notify (your own supervisor along with co-workers so that it doesn?t occur again for you to future customers). Some other businesses makes use of the acronym Previous: Listen. Say i?m sorry. Solve. Give thanks (the customer regarding bringing the challenge to your focus). What are the service restoration steps that you simply expect every single employee for taking when confronted with some sort of dissatisfied customer?
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KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) ? A Kansas City woman was charged Saturday with abusing her 10-year-old daughter who weighed just 32 pounds when she was found locked in a closet that reeked of urine.
The 29-year-old woman faces charges of assault and child abuse and endangerment in Jackson County Circuit Court. The Associated Press is not naming the mother to protect the child's identity. Prosecutors are requesting that bond be set at $200,000.
Officers freed the girl after responding Friday morning to a call to a child abuse hotline. Neighbors told police that they didn't know the malnourished child taken from the public housing complex even lived there.
When officers first arrived, two women told the officers that the mother had left about 20 minutes earlier with two girls, whom they described as "clean and well fed," a Kansas City officer said in the probable cause statement.
A social services worker said there should be three children at the home. But the women insisted, "No, we have lived here for several years, and she only has two daughters that stay here, and we have never seen the other girl, but we heard she stays with the father or an aunt," the probable cause statement said.
Officers ultimately made their way into the apartment, where they found a portable crib pushed up against a bedroom closet, which was tied closed. The officers asked if anyone was inside, and a child's voice answered "yes," the probable cause statement said.
The girl told officers that her mother took her sisters out to breakfast, but she didn't go because "she messes herself."
The girl was transported to a Children's Mercy Hospital, where she was diagnosed with multiple skin injuries. Hospital staff said she had gained just 6 pounds since she last was at the hospital six years earlier.
The girl told detectives who interviewed her at the hospital that her mother puts her in the closet "a lot," that she doesn't get to eat every day and that she "does not want to go back home anymore." The girl also said she gets in trouble "because she keeps peeing on herself" and her mother will "punch her on her back real hard," according to the probable cause statement.
The mother was arrested later Friday and the two younger children were placed in protective custody. The mother told police she doesn't let the 10-year-old leave the house because she knows the girl is malnourished and would "get in trouble if someone saw her."
The mother's boyfriend, who is not the girl's father and hasn't been charged, said he hadn't seen the girl in about a year. He said that when he asked about her, the mother told him she was with her aunt or in her room because she was in trouble. He said he never knew the mother put the girl in the closet or "he would have done something about it," the probable cause statement said.
Mike Mansur, a spokesman for the Jackson County prosecutor's office, said the mother hasn't said why she singled the girl out.
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We've seen the blurry-cam and unofficial pictures leak out of a Galaxy Note carrying T-Mobile branding, but the folks over at CellPhone Signal got their hands on what they're calling official images. Not a lot of other details have leaked out, but the few that have are pretty tasty -- the T-mobile version will come in Navy Blue, run Ice Cream Sandwich (as we saw in the previous leak), and have HSPA+ enabled on 850/1900 MHz bands along with standard AWS bands. T-Mobile is slowly shifting radio frequencies for HSPA+, and as a bonus it means it should work on AT&T once factory SIM unlocked with no rooting or fiddling.
The also tell us to expect to see it for sale on July 11, so keep your eyes peeled for more info soon.
Israel kills 2 in strikes on Gaza as truce falters - BuenosAiresHerald.com
Sunday June 24, 2012
Saturday, June 23, 2012
A Palestinian protester throws stones towards Israeli security forces (not pictured) in front of tyres set on fire by demonstrators during clashes at a protest against the nearby Jewish settlement of Kdumim, in the West Bank village of Kfar Kadum, near Nablus June 22, 2012.
Israeli air strikes on Hamas security targets in Gaza killed two Palestinians and wounded 30 people today, medical officials in the Islamist-ruled territory said, while heavier rocket fire by militants wounded an Israeli man.
The escalating violence undermined a shaky truce brokered by Egypt on Wednesday, which sought to calm the latest flare-up in fighting that began on Monday when an Israeli man and two gunmen were killed in a raid launched from Egypt's Sinai desert.
Director: Orlando Mario Vignatti - Edition No. 3450 - This publication is a property of NEFIR S.A. - RNPI 5018220 - Issn 1852 - 9224 - Te. 4349-1500 Paseo Col?n 1196, (C1063ACY) CABA
If it?s anything like it was Thursday, Antonio Hanono with Absolute Premium Cigars says business will be booming.
?(I) was so excited. We were packed. I was so happy. A lot of people coming, a lot of business,? Hanono said. ?For the parade Monday, we?re excited also. I know it will bring a lot of people.?
Barricades are already in place in front of the shops along Southwest 8th street east of I-95.
Business owners say that doesn?t bother them one bit.
?It?s been my experience, when you have a parade or something on 8th street, you have good business all the time,? Hanono said.
The manager of the pizza shop a few doors down agreed.
?A lot of people going to be here,? Antonio Scotto of Mamma Lucia Pizza said. ?Even Thursday night we closed at 5 o?clock in the morning.?
On Saturday, Scotta already had a parade plan ready.
?We already plan to bring more staff,? Scotto said. ?Usually we?re three people. It?s going to be six people.?
The team at Planet Sushi next door is hoping to ride the Heat wave, too.
?There?s a lot of people that are going to be standing here but they don?t come inside,? Planet Sushi manager Michael Croizet said. ?They?re more likely to eat pizza than eat sushi.?
Employees at Atlas Embroidery and Screen Printing in Fort Lauderdale have been busy.
They?ve printed all the Heat championship gear. On Saturday, they revealed the official parade t-shirt the players will wear Monday.
The parade wraps up at the American Airlines Arena with an official celebration.
The event is free but it?s already sold out.
Those lucky enough to snag a ticket will have to be inside by 10:30 Monday morning.
They?ll be able to watch the parade on the screens inside.
Sometimes, we are our own worst enemies. (In previous posts, I?ve discussed how we often start discounting before we even know if the buyer thinks we are too expensive.) Today, I want to talk about making sure your buyers know about what you have to sell, especially if you really want to sell it to them.
?Bob? (name changed to protect the guilty) runs a fairly successful consulting company. Like many such people, Bob wanted to smooth out his revenue and make it easier to plan for his team. He wanted to move as much revenue as possible from transactional projects to long term relationship retainers. How many of his customers had he offered retainers? Just one. It just wasn?t part of the sales process.
Now there?s an easy way to remember what to offer, whether you are selling yourself or making your sales team more effective. With Mimiran, you can easily create rules to require or suggest that certain products get sold together.
Let?s check out a couple of examples. In the first case, we want to Suggest that whenever we quote an offering whose Category is Generators, we should Include something from the Services Category.
We could also tie the suggestion to a specific product? for example, if the product name is GenWatt 10K, require Industrial Installation.
It?s simple to set up and understand, and while less powerful than a full-blown configurator, it?s much easier (and more cost effective) to implement and maintain.
You can also define bundles of products to sell together that you can add with one click.
This saves sales time, since you can just add a whole solution at once. In Bob?s case, the idea was to always at least suggest something from the Retainer category.
Of course, your sales process may be simple enough that you don?t need to automate it, but if you?ve been looking for a way to do basic configuration and up -selling without installing a full configurator, check out Mimiran. Not only can you put together a quote, you can turn that quote into a killer online proposal.
The hint De Smith dropped during Friday?s PFT Live quickly has become a reality.
The NFLPA has asked the NFL to re-start the bounty investigation, from scratch. ?The request came in a letter from NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, a copy of which PFT has obtained.
The letter calls the investigation ?unprofessional,?unsubstantiated and incomplete.? Smith also points to witnesses who have ?clearly and publicly stated that the NFL grossly mischaracterized?the information they provided to NFL investigators and knowingly misrepresented the facts surrounding this investigation.? ?In support of the latter contention, Smith points to comments from Saints interim head coach Joe Vitt to Mike Triplett of the New Orleans Times-Picayune, comments from Mike Ornstein to PFT, and the 2011 email from Ornstein to the Saints regarding a supposed bounty on Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
Smith also identifies multiple pieces of what he calls ?other extremely specious ?evidence.?? ?Specifically, Smith cites the transcribed notes reflecting apparent bounty commitments in advance of the 2009 NFC title game, which were introduced as evidence without producing the original handwritten notes or identifying the person who created them. ?The notes reveal that Vitt offered $5,000 to the ?QB Out pool,? something for which he never was accused or suspected. ?Those same notes are now being used as one of the key pieces of evidence against Jonathan Vilma, Scott Fujita, and Will Smith.
Smith also calls the use of the subtitled sideline video from the 2009 NFC title game ?particularly disturbing,? and that the claim Anthony Hargrove said, ?Bobby, give me my money? isn?t accurate.
The letter contends that the persons handling the presentation of the evidence ?egregiously failed? Goodell, ?because they did not present a full and complete account of the entirety of the testimony and information they received.?
?When journalists and fans publicly question the process it reflects poorly upon the stewards of the game,? Smith writes. ??Our players, management and fans are entitled to a process that adheres to a standard beyond your interpretations of the bare minimum requirements of the CBA; they are entitled to believe in the fairness of both the process and the people entrusted to uphold it.?
Smith also touches on a point he raised during PFT Live. ?He says that the league initially painted the players as a ?gang? that ?targeted specific players for injury.? ?Smith contends that the more carefully-worded discipline letters didn?t use terms like ?bounty? or ?pay to injure.? ?(Actually, the letters to the four players do indeed mention the term ?bounty? and ?bounties,? but never ?pay to injure,? which further highlights the extent to which semantics has infected this process.)
?This investigation unfairly painted players with a very broad, disparaging brush and has?thrown the integrity of the process under the CBA into question,? Smith concludes. ??As a fellow steward of this game, and wholly apart from the union?s and the players? legal objections, in light of these retractions and contradictions that have come to your recent attention, I ask that you order that the investigation of this matter be redone thoroughly and transparently, and if the full and complete information shows that none of the accused players participated in a ?pay to injure? scheme, the NFL publicly issue such written findings.?
It never hurts to ask, but it?s highly unlikely that the league will rip up the file and start over. ?Goodell has articulated his position too strongly to abandon it now.
So look for the NFL to keep circling the wagons ? and look for the NFLPA to keep firing arrows. ?In the end, someone who wears black not as a fashion statement but as a job requirement will be sorting it all out.
And that?s probably the real purpose of this letter. ?Apart from the P.R. benefit of accusing the NFL of conducting a shoddy investigation, the summary of the events will be another piece of evidence that may sway a judge to scrap the suspensions.
ScienceDaily (June 19, 2012) ? Bacterial contamination in water-damaged buildings has been identified as a potential cause of health problems, including infection and respiratory conditions like asthma. Which specific bacteria contribute to these problems, however, has been unknown -- making it difficult for public health officials to develop tools to effectively address the underlying source of the problem.
In a new study, a University of Cincinnati (UC) environmental health research team found evidence linking two specific strains of bacteria -- Stenotrophomonas and Mycobacterium -- to indoor mold from water damage. The research is part of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's investment in research to protect the health of children from hazards in the home.
"If we are going to understand the role of indoor bacteria in human health, we must be able to identify and quantify the relevant bacterial species contributing to the health problems," says Atin Adhikari, PhD, assistant professor of environmental health at the UC College of Medicine and principal investigator of the study.
"The association between bacterial contamination and respiratory health has lagged behind mold studies because it is difficult to determine which species of bacteria are growing in homes and most of the bacterial species are non-culturable and not identified yet," adds Adhikari. "These new data will help us more accurately target and combat the bacteria and to explore synergistic health effects of bacteria and molds growing in water damaged homes."
The UC-based team will report its findings June 18, 2012, at the American Society for Microbiology meeting in San Francisco.
For this study, Adhikari and UC postdoctoral fellow Eric Kettleson, PhD, analyzed samples collected from 42 homes from the Cincinnati Childhood Allergy and Air Pollution Study, a National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences-funded project examining the long-term effects of environmental exposures on respiratory health and allergy development in children.
Included homes fell into one of two categories -- "high mold" or "low mold" -- based on previously reported environmental relative moldiness index (ERMI), a DNA-based mold level analysis tool developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that combines results of the analysis of 36 different types of mold into one index to describe a home's cumulative mold burden.
The team then compared the ERMI values and types of bacteria found in both high- and low-mold homes in an effort to better understand the environmental sources and home characteristics that influence indoor bacterial contamination.
They found strong correlations between Mycobacterium and visible mold and also between Stenotrophomonas and environmental relative moldiness index.
"Stenotrophomonas maltophilia -- an emerging multidrug-resistant global opportunistic pathogen -- was isolated from numerous environmental sources. Surprisingly, it was never assessed quantitatively in indoor home environments -- especially in water damaged homes where this can be a real concern and may cause inhalation exposure risks to occupants. Stenotrophomonas maltophilia is the first bacterial species associated with higher ERMI values in homes," adds Kettleson.
Co-authors of this study include Stephen Vesper, PhD, of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); and Tiina Reponen, PhD, Sergey Grinshpun, PhD, and Sudhir Kumar, PhD of the Department of Environmental Health.
This study was partially funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Research.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Cincinnati Academic Health Center.
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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.
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ScienceDaily (June 19, 2012) ? The results of a study carried out by the researchers of the Inserm unit 1018 (Centre for research in Epidemiology and Population Health) and published in the International Journal of Cancer show that the risk of developing breast cancer is higher among women who have worked at night. The study, carried out in France and named the CECILE study, compared the careers of 1200 women who had developed breast cancer between 2005 and 2008 with the careers of 1300 other women.
Breast cancer is the number one cause of female mortality. It affects 100 out of 100,000 women per year in developed countries. Each year, more than 1.3 million new cases are diagnosed, 53,000 of these in France.
The risk factors of breast cancer are varied. They include genetic mutations, late first pregnancy, low parity or hormone therapy, but other causes of breast cancer such as way of life, environmental or professional causes have not yet been completely identified.
In 2010, based on experimental and epidemiological work, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified work that disturbed the circadian rhythm as being "probably carcinogenic." The circadian rhythm, that regulates the alternation between wakefulness and sleep, controls numerous biological functions and is altered in people who work at night or who have disrupted working hours. Several hypotheses have been put forward to explain the observed links between night work and breast cancer: exposure to light during the night, that eliminates the nocturnal melatonin surge and its anti-carcinogenic effects, disturbed functioning of the biological clock genes that control cell proliferation, or sleep disorders that can weaken the immune system.
So the Inserm researchers examined the effect of night work on the health of women in a major population study carried out in France between 2005 and 2008. The careers of 3000 women were examined, including each period of night work. In total, over 11% of women had worked nights at some time during their career.
The risk of developing breast cancer was 30% higher in women who had worked nights compared to women who had never worked nights. This increased risk was particularly marked in women who had worked nights for over four years, or in women whose working rhythm was less than 3 nights per week, because this led to more frequent disturbances between night and day rhythms.
Finally, the link between night work and breast cancer seemed to be more marked when we looked at women who had worked at night prior to a first pregnancy. An explanation for this result could be that the mammary cells, incompletely differentiated in women before their first pregnancy, are more vulnerable.
"Our work has corroborated the results of previous studies and poses the problem of taking night work into consideration in public health management, especially since the number of women working atypical hours is on the increase", states Pascal Gu?nel, the main author of this work.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by INSERM (Institut national de la sant? et de la recherche m?dicale).
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Journal Reference:
Florence Menegaux, Th?r?se Truong, Antoinette Anger, Emilie Cordina-Duverger, Farida Lamkarkach, Patrick Arveux, Pierre Kerbrat, Jo?lle F?votte, Pascal Gu?nel. Night work and breast cancer: A population-based case-control study in France (the CECILE study). International Journal of Cancer, 2012; DOI: 10.1002/ijc.27669
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.
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As a journalist and a health advocate, I have a professional interest in health care reform. But as the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act this week, I had a personal interest as well. Last fall, after three decades as a salaried employee with health benefits, I became a self-employed consultant with none. And this spring, after 56 years of perfect health, I learned that cancer had invaded my colon and my liver. Fortunately, my wife has an employer-sponsored plan that covers my treatment, but without health care reform, my treatment would hinge on her job status. Any change in her employment could have landed me in front of a death panel?not a fictional one manned by bureaucrats who ration our health care, but a real one made up of insurance companies that couldn?t or wouldn?t cover people with known health problems.
Geoffrey Cowley has worked as a senior editor at Newsweek, an associate commissioner at the New York City Health Department and a media director at the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. He is now an independent journalist and public health consultant.
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Public release date: 26-Jun-2012
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