2010/11 State of the World's Cities - Bridging the Urban Divide

Ruggiero, Mrs. Ana Lucia (WDC)  to EQUIDAD

State of the World’s Cities 2010/2011

Bridging The Urban Divide
The United Nations Human Settlements Programme - UN-HABITAT 

            Available online at: http://bit.ly/hxe0E3 

           ……….The emerging picture of the 21st century city fits many descriptions. Some are centres of rapid industrial growth and wealth creation, often accompanied by harmful waste and pollution. Others are characterized by stagnation, urban decay and rising social exclusion and intolerance. Both scenarios point to the urgent need for new, more sustainable approaches to urban development. Both argue for greener, more resilient and inclusive towns and cities that can help combat climate change and resolve age-old urban inequalities.

The 2010/11 State of the World’s Cities Report, “Bridging the Urban Divide” examines the social, economic, cultural and political drivers of urban poverty and deprivation. It argues that much inequality and injustice stems from inadequate policy-making and planning by local authorities and central governments alike. Typical remedies include removing barriers that prevent access to land, housing, infrastructure and basic services, and facilitating rather than inhibiting participation and citizenship.
The report also emphasizes that lasting gains are best achieved through a combination of local action and national enabling policies.As we grapple with old and new challenges in a rapidly urbanizing world, this timely report can help inform research, policy dialogue and development planning for years to come……”. Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General, United Nations

“….The book focuses on the concept of the 'right to the city' and ways in which many urban dwellers are excluded from the advantages of city life, using the framework to explore links among poverty, inequality, slum formation and economic growth. ….”

População mundial: já somos 7 bilhões

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População mundial: já somos 7 bilhões

A população mundial pode chegar à marca dos 9 bilhões até 2045. O planeta vai conseguir sustentar tanta gente?

Por Robert Kunzig
Foto de John Stammeyer

Estados Unidos
Um grupo de recém-nascidos em 1º de setembro de 2010 descansa no Hospital Winnie Palmer, em Orlando, a segunda maternidade mais movimentada do país.

Certo dia no outono de 1677 na cidade holandesa de Delft, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, um mercador de tecidos que se supõe ter servido de modelo para dois quadros de Johannes Vermeer - O Astrônomo e O Geógrafo -, saiu da cama, interrompendo de repente o que estava fazendo com sua mulher, e correu para a mesa de trabalho. Os tecidos permitiam a Leeuwenhoek ganhar a vida, mas o que o fascinava mesmo era a microscopia./.../

CDC Report Documents Important Health Disparities

CDC Report Documents Important Health Disparities, Need for Better Data

14/01/2011 03:36:00

Highlights progress and challenges in achieving health equity

Americans' differences in income, race/ethnicity, gender and other social attributes make a difference in how likely they are to be healthy, sick, or die prematurely, according to a report by theCenters for Disease Control and Prevention.
For instance, state-level estimates in 2007 indicate that low income residents report five to 11 fewer healthy days per month than do high income residents, the report says. It also says men are nearly four times more likely than women to commit suicide, that adolescent birth rates for Hispanics and non-Hispanic blacks are three and 2.5 times respectively those of whites, and that the prevalence of binge drinking is higher in people with higher incomes.
The data are in the new "CDC Health Disparities and Inequalities Report — United States, 2011". The report also underscores the need for more consistent, nationally representative data on disability status and sexual orientation.
"Better information about the health status of different groups is essential to improve health. This first of its kind analysis and reporting of recent trends is designed to spur action and accountability at the federal, tribal, state and local levels to achieve health equity in this country," said CDC Director Thomas R. Frieden, M.D., M.P.H.
The report, the first of a series of consolidated assessments, highlights health disparities by sex, race and ethnicity, income, education, disability status and other social characteristics. Substantial progress in improving health for most U.S. residents has been made in recent years, yet persistent disparities continue.

The Science Hall of Fame

John Bohannon

Welcome to the Science Hall of Fame (SHoF), a pantheon of the most famous scientists of the past 2 centuries. Unlike traditional halls of fame, this one does not rely on the subjective judgment of a small committee of experts. Instead, it uses an objective and literal measure of fame: the appearance of people's names in books over the centuries. Until now, most rigorous metrics of scientific impact have relied on citations: the number of peer-reviewed articles a scientist has written, the "impact factor" of the journals in which they were published, and how many times other scientists have cited those articles. But that measures only scientists' impact on their peers. This is a new way to measure a scientist's influence. It captures fame on the grandest scale, weighing the cultural footprint of scientists across societies and throughout history./.../

Google Books, Wikipedia, and the Future of Culturomics

John Bohannon

1. View larger version:

   • In this page
    
   • In a new window
   Working relationship. 

   Improvements in Wikipedia will be needed for many research projects using Google's digitized books database.

   CREDITS (LEFT TO RIGHT): WIKIPEDIA; (SEDIMENT) MATEJ KRÉN, (PHOTO) GABRIEL URBÁNEK

BOSTON—Humanities scholars gathered for an unusual talk here on 8 May at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association. Jean-Baptiste Michel and Erez Lieberman Aiden, mathematicians at nearby Harvard University, focused on issues that are standard material for historians. They discussed, for example, the period of intense censorship in Nazi Germany that began with festive book burnings in 1933 and ended with the Nazi's surrender in 1945. Some of those books were written by Jewish intellectuals, others just contained ideas that were considered “un-German.” Some scholars and artists who were highly influential virtually disappeared from public discourse when the Nazi Party came to power, while those favored by Nazi propaganda vaulted to prominence.

Brasileiro é o quinto mais otimista do mundo

10. Brasileiro é o quinto mais otimista do mundo
Graças ao bom desempenho da economia brasileira em 2010, pesquisa feita pela Gallup Internacional revela que o povo brasileiro é o quinto mais otimista em relação à economia mundial em 2011. Segundo reportagem da Folha, apenas 9% dos 2.002 entrevistados do país disseram que esperam um ano de dificuldades econômicas. Questionados sobre o que esperam para 2011, 56% dos brasileiros responderam “prosperidade econômica”. O mais otimista é a Nigéria, com 72% e o mais pessimista a França.

On this day January 11, 1964

On this day January 11, 1964

United States Surgeon General Dr. Luther Leonidas Terry, M.D., publishes a report saying that smoking may be hazardous to health. It is the first such statement ever made by the U.S. government.

His statement has had a worldwide impact and is still part of the basis of tobacco control efforts today.

Shortly after the release of this report, Terry established the Surgeon General’s Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health, which he chaired, to produce a similar report for the United States.

Smoking and Health: Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General of the United States, released on January 11, 1964, concluded that lung cancer and chronic bronchitis are causally related to cigarette smoking.

The report also noted out that there was suggestive evidence, if not definite proof, for a causative role of smoking in other illnesses such as emphysema, cardiovascular disease, and various types of cancer. The committee concluded that cigarette smoking was a health hazard of sufficient importance to warrant appropriate remedial action.

In June 1964, the Federal Trade Commission voted by a margin of 3-1 to require that cigarette manufacturers “clearly and prominently” place a warning on packages of cigarettes effective January 1, 1965, stating that smoking was dangerous to health, in line with the warning issued by the Surgeon General’s special committee. The same warning would be required in all cigarette advertising effective July 1, 1965.

The landmark Surgeon General’s report on smoking and health stimulated a greatly increased concern about tobacco on the part of the American public and government policymakers and led to a broad-based anti-smoking campaign.

It also motivated the tobacco industry to intensify its efforts to question the scientific evidence linking smoking and disease. The report was also responsible for the passage of the Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act of 1965, which, among other things, mandated Surgeon General’s health warnings on cigarette packages.

Training in Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and Automated External Defibrillation in Schools

AHA Science Advisory
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Importance and Implementation of Training in Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation
and Automated External Defibrillation in Schools: A Science Advisory From
the American Heart Association
Diana M. Cave, Tom P. Aufderheide, Jeff Beeson, Alison Ellison, Andrew
Gregory, Mary Fran Hazinski, Loren F. Hiratzka, Keith G. Lurie, Laurie J.
Morrison, Vincent N. Mosesso, Jr, Vinay Nadkarni, Jerald Potts, Ricardo A.
Samson, Michael R. Sayre, Stephen M. Schexnayder  on behalf of the American
Heart Association Emergency Cardiovascular Care Committee, Council on
Cardiopulmonary, Critical Care, Perioperative and Resuscitation, Council on
Cardiovascular Diseases in the Young, Council on Cardiovascular Nursing,
Council on
Circulation published 10 January 2011, 10.1161/CIR.0b013e31820b5328
http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/reprint/CIR.0b013e31820b5328v1?papetoc

Sitting Too Much: Consequences

Sitting Too Much May Have Serious Consequences

By Todd Neale, Staff Writer, MedPage Today Published: January 10, 2011 Reviewed by Zalman S. Agus, MD; Emeritus Professor University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Couch potatoes beware -- spending too much time sitting in front of the television or computer may increase the risk of cardiovascular events, or even death, researchers found. A study of more than 4,500 Scottish people over age 35 found those who spent at least four hours of screen time each day were more than twice as likely as those with less than two hours of screen time to suffer a cardiovascular event (HR 2.30, 95% CI 1.33 to 1.96), according to Emmanuel Stamatakis, PhD, of University College London, and colleagues. People with the most screen time also had an increased risk of death during an average of four years of follow-up (HR 1.52, 95% CI 1.06 to 2.16), Stamatakis and co-authors reported in the Jan. 18 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology./.../

Economic insecurity boosts obesity

Study suggests economic insecurity boosts obesity

Comment from AMICOR: another hypothesis to be contemplated may be some archetype genee from time was famine periods were frequent and economic insecurity in addition to the stress edocrine mechanism.

By Kate Kelland

LONDON | Fri Jan 7, 2011 9:42am EST

(Reuters Life!) - The stress of being exposed to economic insecurity may mean people living in countries with so-called "free market" economies are more likely to become obese, British researchers said on Friday.

In a study in the journal Economics and Human Biology, Oxford University researchers found that Americans and Britons are much more likely to be obese than Norwegians and Swedes, and suggested that the stress of life in a competitive social system without a strong welfare state may cause people to overeat.

"Policies to reduce levels of obesity tend to focus on encouraging people to look after themselves, but this study suggests that obesity has larger social causes," said Avner Offer, a professor of economic history who led the study/.../

Think Again: American Decline

 THINK AGAIN

This time it's for real.

BY GIDEON RACHMAN | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011

"We've Heard All This About American Decline Before."

This time it's different. It's certainly true that America has been through cycles of declinism in the past. Campaigning for the presidency in 1960, John F. Kennedy complained, "American strength relative to that of the Soviet Union has been slipping, and communism has been advancing steadily in every area of the world." Ezra Vogel's Japan as Number One was published in 1979, heralding a decade of steadily rising paranoia about Japanese manufacturing techniques and trade policies./.../

Simple Question Aids Parkinson's Diagnosis

By John Gever, Senior Editor, MedPage Today Published: January 06, 2011 Reviewed by Robert Jasmer, MD; Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco. Dutch researchers said they have found a way to distinguish atypical Parkinson's disease from the more common standard form: asking patients if they can still ride a bicycle. When the question was put to 111 consecutive patients with Parkinson's disease, nearly all those who said it had become impossible were subsequently determined to have the atypical form, according to Bastiaan Bloem, PhD, and colleagues at Nijmegen Medical Center in the Netherlands. "Simply asking about cycling abilities could be added to the list of red flags that can assist clinicians in their early differential diagnosis of parkinsonism," they reported in the Jan. 8 issue of The Lancet./.../

Walking Speed and Survival Connected

By Todd Neale, Staff Writer, MedPage Today Published: January 04, 2011 Reviewed by Zalman S. Agus, MD; Emeritus Professor University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Video Source: JAMA Walking speed -- an indicator of vitality -- may help clinicians predict how long their older patients will live, a meta-analysis showed. In a pooled analysis of nine cohort studies, each 1-m/s increase in gait speed was associated with a 12% relative reduction in the risk of death during follow-up (HR 0.88, 95% CI 0.87 to 0.90), according to Stephanie Studenski, MD, MPH, of the University of Pittsburgh, and colleagues. The risk reduction was consistent across most subgroups -- except for functional status -- with hazard ratios ranging from 0.81 to 0.92 (P<0.002 for all), the researchers reported in the Jan. 5 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. If use of gait speed -- a simple indicator of physical function -- as a predictor of survival is implemented in clinical practice, it may help clinicians individualize the treatment of older patients, according to Studenski and her colleagues./.../

informações sobre saúde na internet

Brasileiros estão em quarto lugar na busca por informações sobre saúde na internet, segundo pesquisa internacional

Publicada em 04/01/2011 às 09h57m

Reuters

LONDRES - A pesquisa internacional de saúde Bupa Health Pulse entrevistou mais de 12 mil pessoas em 12 países (Austrália, Inglaterra, China, França, Alemanha, Índia, Itália, Rússia, Espanha, Brasil, México e Estados Unidos) e descobriu que 81% das pessoas que acessam a internet usam a rede para pesquisar sobre saúde, remédios ou médicos.

Os brasileiros estão em quarto lugar entre os que mais buscam informações de saúde na internet. O primeiro lugar é dos russos, seguidos pelos chineses na segunda posição e pelos mexicanos em terceiro lugar. Os franceses são os que menos procuram esse tipo de informação na rede.

A pesquisa também descobriu que 68% dos que têm acesso à internet procuraram informações sobre remédios específicos e cerca de quatro em cada 10 pessoas procuram experiências de outros pacientes sobre alguma doença./.../

How Anti-Smoking Drugs Work

Brain changes spurred by the medications seem to help cut cravings

By Randy Dotinga

Monday, January 3, 2011

And that may be how they cut cravings.MONDAY, Jan.3 (HealthDay News) -- Two drugs that help people stop smoking -- bupropion and varenicline -- may change the way the brain reacts to seeing someone else smoke, new studies report.

Bupropion (Wellbutrin, Zyban) is prescribed around the world to help people resist smoking cues. But it has not been clear how the drug does this. Using brain scans, Christopher S. Culbertson, of the University of California, Los Angeles, and his colleagues examined what happened in the brains of 30 smokers who took the drug or a placebo for eight weeks./.../

WCC - Dubai, UAE 18-21 April 2012

World Congress of Cardiology Scientific Sessions 2012 | 18–21 April 2012 Dubai, United Arab Emirates __________________________________________________ WCC 2012 CALL FOR SESSION Session submission is now open 1 December 2010 to 9 January 2011 The World Heart Federation (WHF) is proud to announce the next World Congress of Cardiology in Dubai, United Arab Emirates on 18-21 April 2012. The call for sessions is now open and we invite you to submit your session proposal(s) on line by 9 January 2011. To submit your session proposal(s) now, follow this link to your personal account: http://contact.world-heart-federation.org/lp/mariomaranhao%40uol.com.br/0845-1286640?1=1 Once in your account:  Kindly update your contact details on the left-hand side menu  Select "Submit your session(s)" on the left-hand side menu and then "new main session proposal"  Follow the indications on the screen to submit your session Your login details are now active and allow you to come back to your account as often as you wish by using the same link. Please note that you have the possibility to save sessions as a draft and modify them later; however, submitted sessions can no longer be modified. If you wish to share this call for session with your colleagues, please note that they can register on our system and submit their session(s) by following this public link:http://contact.world-heart-federation.org/lp/SessionProposer/WCC2012?1=1 For any question, please contact science@worldheart.org. Don’t miss the deadline and submit as soon as possible! Thank you and we look forward to receiving your submissions, The World Heart Federation Science Team, Geneva, Switzerland

What's Next for Disease Eradication?

1. Martin Enserink

It was time, once again, to bask in the glory and share heroic tales. Late in August, approximately 260 scientists and public health leaders met in Rio de Janeiro to commemorate the 30th anniversary of what is often considered one of the major human accomplishments of the 20th century: the eradication of smallpox. Leaders of the global effort—many now in their 70s or 80s—reanalyzed the dramatic 2-decade fight to obliterate a virus that had killed countless millions of people.

But many of those present in Rio wished that by now a younger generation of disease fighters would have similar victories under their belt and fresh tales to tell. Thirty years on, smallpox remains the only human disease to have been eradicated. Its demise inspired dreams that many pathogens might be wiped off the planet, and two eradication campaigns were launched in its wake. But neither has finished, and many are now questioning whether such global operations—which require extraordinary amounts of devotion and money—make sense.

That's why, just 2 days after the commemorations ended in Rio, 30 scientists and public health experts from around the world gathered for a weeklong meeting in the German city of Frankfurt am Main* to try to chart a new path for disease eradication in the 21st century. /.../

Deadly Weapons Continue to Rule Daily Life

Tread carefully In Xieng Khouang, a mother steadies her son as he walks along a rusted bomb casing

Arantxa Cedillo for TIME

By ARANTXA CEDILLO Friday, Dec. 31, 2010
The puppet theater starts with an old man — indicated by the gray yarn of his hair — asking three child puppets to collect scrap metal. The children discuss the proposition, a dangerous one in Laos, where such a task often requires coming across decades-old explosives. Having learned about the risks in school, the puppets refuse and teach the man about the perils of gathering metal by breaking into song: "There are many types of unexploded ordnance/ It is very hard to guess where they are/ If you find one, please run away."At the Vienthong primary school in Laos' Xieng Khouang province, six students take out hand puppets made from clothing scraps and colored felt. Their audience — a class of around 15 children ages 3 to 5 — sits in a semicircle in a darkened classroom as the young puppeteers begin the show./.../

Edwin Hubble Announces Existence of Other Galaxies (1925)

Edwin Hubble Announces Existence of Other Galaxies (1925)

Edwin Hubble worked as a basketball coach and teacher, served in World War I, and studied law before focusing his energies on astronomy. On January 1, 1925, he made a groundbreaking announcement, declaring that fuzzy "nebulae" seen earlier with less powerful telescopes were not part of our galaxy but were actually galaxies themselves. With the findings now known as Hubble's law, he was also the first to provide evidence to support what theory about the universe? More...