Older Colon Cancer Patients Less Likely to Get Chemo (HealthDay)

HealthDay - TUESDAY, March 16 (HealthDay News) -- Older colon cancer patients are less likely than younger ones to receive potentially life-prolonging chemotherapy following surgery for their illness, a new study reveals.

View original story : less+likely+receive Feed : Yahoo! News: Diseases/Conditions News

Older Colon Cancer Patients Less Likely to Get Chemo

HealthDay - TUESDAY, March 16 (HealthDay News) -- Older colon cancer patients are less likely than younger ones to receive potentially life-prolonging chemotherapy following surgery for their illness, ...

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Quality of Brain Cancer Treatment Varies by Race (CME/CE)

African Americans and Hispanic patients are increasingly less likely than whites to receive high-quality brain cancer treatment, a study has found.

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Do you get less flat tires if you are righteous?

I realize this is a silly thread title, but I got to wondering if by following the commandments we are in a better position to receive blessings other than the three most talked about blessings: personal revelation, the feeling of the Holy Ghost, and being financially rewarded for paying tithes and offerings. It goes without saying that there are natural benefits to keeping the commandments, like better health if one keeps the Word of Wisdom, but does the Lord grant blessings other than the three mentioned above? For example, say for example one day I say my prayers, read my scriptures, think pure thoughts, etc. Will I be less likely to get a flat tire on this day than on a day that I am being unrighteous? I realize that following the gospel gives one the Spirit, which gives one the strength to pass through trials whether it be a flat tire or experiencing the passing on of a loved one. And it seems that faithful active members experience the same amount of trials than non-members do. But does anyone think that there are good and bad things that naturally occur to someone that might be seemingly unrelated to the commandments he/she keeps or breaks? The reason why I ask is that I want more of an incentive to follow the Lord, and if I hear other's examples and opinions, it might help with this. Thanks a lot.

View original story : less+likely+receive Feed : LDS Mormon Forums

Civil Rights Overreach Quotas for college prep courses?

Wall Street Journal: Education Secretary Arne Duncan said last week that the Obama Administration will ramp up investigations of civil rights infractions in school districts, which might sound well and good. What it means in practice, however, is that his Office of Civil Rights (OCR) will revert to the Clinton Administration policy of equating statistical disparity with discrimination, which is troubling. OCR oversees Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination by race, color or national origin in public schools and colleges that receive federal funding. In a speech last week, Mr. Duncan said that "in the last decade"--that's short for the Bush years--"the Office for Civil Rights has not been as vigilant as it should have been in combating racial and gender discrimination." He cited statistics showing that white students are more likely than their black peers to take Advanced Placement classes and less likely to be expelled from school. Therefore, Mr. Duncan said, OCR "will collect and monitor data on equity." He added that the department will also conduct compliance reviews "to ensure that all students have equal access to educational opportunities" and to determine "whether districts and schools are disciplining students without regard to skin color."

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Private interest + Government Cheese = for-profit education racket

In Hard Times, Lured Into Trade School and Debt: At institutions that train students for careers in areas like health care, computers and food service, enrollments are soaring as people anxious about weak job prospects borrow aggressively to pay tuition exceeding $30,000 a year. ... The Apollo Group -- which owns the for-profit University of Phoenix -- derived 86 percent of its revenue from federal student aid last fiscal year, according to BMO. Two years earlier, it was 69 percent. For-profit schools have proved adept at capturing Pell grants, which are a centerpiece of the Obama administration's efforts to make higher education more affordable. The administration increased financing for Pell grants by $17 billion for 2009 and 2010 as part of its $787 billion stimulus package. Two years ago, students at for-profit trade schools received $3.2 billion in Pell grants, according to the Department of Education, less than went to students at two-year public institutions. By the 2011-12 school year, the administration now estimates, students at for-profit schools should receive more than $10 billion in Pell grants, more than their public counterparts. (Those anticipated increases may shrink, depending on the outcome of wrangling in Congress over health care and student lending.) The market works; the for-profit schools are good at what they do, increase their student enrollments. Arguably they're better than many conventional institutions of higher education because they utilize modern mass marketing techniques which hook into cognitive biases. If you're a halfway intelligent student and you see an advertisement for an institution of higher education on a subway, you know to take that as a signal that that institution is definitely one to avoid (this could be turned into a Chris Rock joke). Those who lack the requisite class savvy and are less intelligent don't take the same lesson, and in fact are the ones who may make an impulsive decision to matriculate based on an advertisement. But problem here is the fact that these institutions receive massive public subsidies. Grants are a direct subsidy, but subsidized student loans also come with a cost, students can't discharge them in bankruptcy (the lower interest rates naturally have to have trade offs or the loans would not be forthcoming to 18 year olds). The ultimate aim of providing public funds toward higher education are the presumed investments that this makes in human capital, which earns returns in greater tax receipts through economic growth driven by innovation and increased labor productivity. The theoretical spillover effects are presumably large. But in this case the main beneficiaries are likely the intermediaries, the for-profit institutions which provide trivial marginal utility to many students while charging for nearly worthless credentials. The downside risk of failure to repay the loans are taken up by the students (there is no way that the largest Pell Grants can cover the tuitions which are the norm at these institutions). The bigger issue which is masked by the fixation on subsidizing higher education are the failings in primary and secondary education. A disproportionate segment of the students who matriculate at for-profit institutions seem to academically weak, and a bit low on the totem pole in the ability to plan far into the future (high real time preference*). The profit motive ideally drives firms toward excellence and efficiency, but in this case it seems quite likely that the excellence and efficiency is not educating students but coupling gullible individuals with massive debt obligations which they have no liability obligations toward. In other words, maximizing individual firm utility at the expense of the aggregate. The costs are distributed broadly, the gains more locally. Note: A concurrent issue is that of graduate educational debt (or, earnings f orgone in the case of those who are in programs where debt is not necessary). This highlights that the problem in decision making isn't just low individual intelligence, but he values and ideals which our society holds up. In particular, excessive optimism as to where any given person will lay on a distribution of outcomes. Most law school graduates will not work in "Big Law," and most people who enter Ph.D. programs will not gain a tenured position in academia. * Someone willing to take up debt and forgo labor force participation obviously is willing to have a general notion of planning for the future. But it seems that many of those who are enticed by advertisements on television for "technical institutes" and the like are more attracted by the notion of large later paychecks in the future, and have only a poor grasp of what the probability distribution of real outcomes is going to be. Read the comments on this post...

View original story : less+likely+receive Feed : Gene Expression

Wowing Your Customers in a Lackluster World

By Robert (Bob) W. LucasIf it seems to you that service providers have become more complacent recently and that the quality of service that they provide has dropped in many instances, you are probably right. In an era when fortunes have plummeted, people struggle to find or keep a job, families are stretched to the breaking point, organizations struggle to stay afloat, anxiety levels are peaking, optimism is often replaced with pessimism, and there is chaos all around the world, service providers often seem to take it out on their customers. They do this through indifference, lack of enthusiasm, and in some cases blatant rudeness.The impact of bad service:The unfortunate part of a deterioration in service levels is that at a time when competition is fierce to get and keep customers, many organizations are implementing policies and allowing employee actions that do just the opposite. Many service providers seem to do just enough related to service to keep their job and to ensure they do not raise the ire of their supervisors. Forget "Do you want fries with that hamburger?" "What else can I do to assist you?" or "Thank you for shopping at ____." Today you are much more likely to hear, "It's not my job," "You have to call ____ for that," or "They won't let me do that" in response to a customer need or request. The term self-service often takes on a revived meaning when dealing with some service providers today.What to do about the problem:That is the bad news. The good news is that is does not have to be that way. Proactive supervisors and organizations are dusting off some old techniques for impressing or wowing customers. In some cases, they are also coming up with new approaches to fit the needs of today's customers. In a time when money is tight, many of the strategies are cost-effective and more heartfelt. To help your organization maintain market share while wowing your customers, start thinking of ways to enhance the service experience. Consider the following ideas when planning your service strategy: Retail organizations• Benchmark against successful competitors and trendsetters in your industry.• Wow your customers with the unexpected. For example, when someone orders something online and pays for standard shipping, give them expedited service and get their products there sooner.• If you find out that someone is celebrating a special event like an anniversary, promotion, childbirth, or birthday, take 10% off their dining bill or treat them to a free dessert.• Provide coupons for future visits to everyone who makes a purchase. This encourages their return or perhaps they will give the coupon to a friend and generate a new customer.• Partner with complementary organizations to offer special deals. For example, if you sell cars, partner with a local carwash to give one free detailing service or a monthly carwash for a period of time.• Send out email notices of upcoming special sales or events and offer coupons to customers who provide their email addresses.• Give a free shampoo to all new customers in your hair salon or barbershop.• Give a free pair of ankle socks to someone who purchases a pair of running shoes.• Put mints on a guest's pillow in your hotel or bed and breakfast, along with a discount coupon for a local horse carriage ride or attraction that you have partnered with. Professional practices and organizations• Provide a free teeth whitening to new dental patients.• Send a gift card from local businesses with whom you have partnered to customers who refer friends or relatives to your practice.• Provide a free one hour coaching session on home buying to potential real estate clients.• Do a free eye exam to any client who gets a friend to schedule an appointment to have their vision checked ort buys eyeglasses.• Clean carpets in one room for every two rooms that a client schedules to have cleaned.• Offer one free pool inspection and cleaning to anyone who signs up for a year of pool services.• Provide a booklet of coupons good for free bottles of water, provided by a local store, with which you have partnered, to each person who signs up on a one-year gym contract.• Launder one shirt for every two that a client brings in.• Offer a free wash and manicure to anyone who signs up for dog walking services.• Provide a free pc cleaning and checkup for anyone who contracts to have you design their website. If you do not offer such services, partner with someone who does and offer coupons to your customers. Associations and non-profit organizations• Offer one month of free membership to anyone who becomes a new member. Offer three months of free membership to any renewing members. Since keeping current members is cheaper than recruiting new ones, this makes sense.• Provide free travel kits to members who refer someone who becomes a new member.• Send out free baseball caps or other promotional items with the organization's logo on them to members who submit suggestions for improving service. All organizations• Develop a creative website that is easy to navigate, informative, provides free things (e.g. coupons, articles, and white papers) to visitors. Also, allow people to join as members or account holders in order to receive things that other visitors do not see or get (e.g. advance opportunity to buy, members only sale information, special coupons, or free gifts).• Create and offer free webinars for people who sign up for user groups on your website.• Have someone in the organization tasked with creating and maintaining an account on social media and bookmarking sites like Facebook.com, Twitter.com, YouTube.com, selfgrowth.com, and LinkedIn.com.• Provide coaching services on topics on which your organization or staff specializes. Great service is not a mystery. Simply ask your customers what they expect, provide what you can, think outside the box to identify service success strategies and demand nothing less than service that wows from your staff. To accomplish the latter, provide quality training, equipment, tools, management support, and resource materials to employees. Additionally, if you reward quality service efforts, employees will in turn typically respond with dedication, enthusiasm, and a desire to help customers and clients.As your organization struggles to survive and possibly redefine itself in an unsure business environment, you have an inexpensive tool to help you stand out from your competition -- quality customer service. By training staff, being proactive in delivering what you promise, and ensuring that your customer's needs and wants are met to the best degree possible, you can set a level of excellence that will truly wow your customers. The result will be increased market share or placement in your industry or profession.

View original story : less+likely+receive Feed : Texas Funeral Directors Association

Web-Connected TV: A Distant Dream for App Makers

Last year, Mark Phillip unveiled Are You Watching This?!, a tool for mobile phones that alerts sports fans to can't-miss, in-progress games, such as baseball no-hitters. Thousands of users have bought the 99%application and downloaded it to their Apple (AAPL) iPhones and other handsets. Phillip also wants to create a version of Are You Watching This?! for Web-connected TVs, which he calls the "Holy Grail" for this type of content, but that's been a struggle. "It's a tough platform to build on," says Phillip, a resident of Austin, Tex. By the end of 2010, Americans will own more than two million Web-connected TVs, which let users access online services such as Twitter and Pandora with the same remote control they use to switch channels. Yet while developers have managed to create a wide range of apps for mobile phones, they're daunted by the prospect of building software tools for TVs. There's no easy way to create an app that can run on the wide range of sets, says Forrester Research (FORR) analyst James McQuivey. "Nobody wants to get in the business of developing separate widgets for Samsung (005930:KS), LG (066570:KS), Vizio, and Sony (SNE)," he says. In addition to all those TVs, there's a growing range of set-top boxes, each with its own software. There's Roku and its Channel Store, which bundles movie-streaming services from Netflix (NFLX) and others with handy tools, like a Facebook photo viewer. Vudu, recently acquired by Wal-Mart (WMT), plans an Apps platform for watching video podcasts such as Diggnation. This summer, the Boxee Box by D-Link (2332:TT) will bid to become the first hardware of its kind to let developers charge for programs through the TV.To companies such as Internet music provider Pandora, each new outlet for TV applications presents a further opportunity to reach a fresh audience. The Oakland [Calif.]-based company makes its free program available on almost every TV set and box on the market and says its TV business currently adds up to about 500,000 users. "The foundation is there for those numbers to start growing exponentially," says Tim Westergren, Pandora's founder and chief strategy officer. A trickle of apps for Connected TVFor smaller companies looking to get a foothold, the competing makers of TVs and set-top boxes add an unwelcome layer of complexity. "We're having great difficulty in determining how much effort to put into specific technologies," says Trevor Doerksen, CEO of MoboVivo. His company, which packages TV shows and other video content into apps, gave up on TV apps two years ago when the technology was in its infancy. Instead he opted to build apps for Apple's iPhone, which opened to developers in 2008. Now MoboVivo is again eyeing TV apps, but hasn't decided which gadget to get behind. "Nobody knows how successful it's going to be in two years," Doerksen says. Web pioneer Yahoo! (YHOO) proposed a solution in early 2009, when it announced that new TVs from Samsung, Sony, LG, and Vizio would come equipped with its Connected TV software, which is open to all developers. So far the multidevice service is getting into homes -- Yahoo says more than two million sets have sold with Connected TV -- but the apps are slow to come. Only about 35 full-feature apps are available on the service, according to Russ Schafer, Yahoo's senior director of product marketing. The company has received submissions for at least 80 more, which it expects to make available by summer, and Schafer says Connected TV would "optimistically" end the year with hundreds of apps. Even that tally would make up a fraction of the apps available on Apple's App Store. Two months after its debut, the smartphone store had more than 3,000 programs. By January 2010, it had amassed more than 140,000. customer service worries TV makersWith the pool of potential developers for TV smaller and the learning curve steeper, a slower start is understandable. Still, the process for getting apps approved may be intimidating programmers from the start. "Once Apple approves your app, you're ready to rock," says Forrester's McQuivey. With Yahoo's Connected TV service, however, apps must receive approval from Yahoo itself, along with each individual TV maker. One reason is technical: Not all TV makers can run certain types of code, such as Adobe (ADBE) Flash, which may be used in many applications. "It's sort of all over the board in terms of the different requirements that are there," says Brian Powell, CEO of Widget Realm, which makes apps on the Yahoo platform. Consumer electronics makers are also concerned about customer service. They're the ones most likely to take the blame from customers when something goes wrong, so it's in their interest to thoroughly vet apps, says Yahoo's Schafer. "There's a cost associated with those choices," he says. Still, he says TV makers are becoming less involved in the approval process. TV makers are now unveiling their own app stores. At a trade show in January, Samsung introduced Samsung Apps; during a Super Bowl commercial, Vizio pitched Vizio Apps. Both systems are generally compatible with Yahoo, but not all apps made by third-party developers will work on all TVs. This strategy of branding apps may help distinguish TV brands from competitors in the near term, but in the long run it could scare away developers, says Greg Ireland, analyst with IDC. "I question whether a single consumer electronics company will be able to create enough traction on their own," he says. For now, the race will only get more crowded. Broadband providers such as Verizon Communications (VZ), which already include access to some apps in set-top boxes, plan to open up to developers. "We're moving toward an open platform," says Rachelle Zoffer, Verizon's director of Interactive TV. Even Yahoo's Web rivals appear to be eyeing the business: On Mar. 8, Google (GOOG) was reported to be testing a new service for searching TV programs, based on its Android software. Says Zeev Neumeier, a software developer with TV Interactive Systems: "The jury is still out about who is going to win the war of these interactive boxes."

View original story : less+likely+receive Feed : msnbc.com: BusinessWeek

Internet fraud losses doubled in 2009

WASHINGTON - The cost of Internet fraud doubled in 2009 to about $560 million, the FBI said Friday. The most common type of frauds reported were scams from people falsely claiming to be from the FBI. Individual complaints of Internet scams grew more than 20 percent last year, according to a report issued by the FBI in partnership with a private fraud-fighting group, the Internet Crime Complaint Center. The amounts taken by individual frauds ranged from less than $30 to more than $100,000, officials said. The most frequently reported scams were those that falsely used the FBI's name, accounting for 16 percent of the more than 300,000 complaints received last year. Some of those frauds have even featured e-mails purporting to be from FBI Director Robert Mueller, though the e-mail addresses of the senders often betray the con, authorities said. Peter Trahon, head of the FBI's cyber division, said people should evaluate the e-mail pitches they receive "with a healthy skepticism - if something seems to good to be true, it likely is."

View original story : less+likely+receive Feed : TheState.com: Business

Chicago Bailed Out By Texas Teachers

clipped by: longnow Clip Source: pensionpulse.blogspot.com But the state also disclosed what would happen if it lowered its investment assumption just half a percentage point, to 8 percent. Though it might be more likely to achieve that return, Colorado would earn less over time on its investments. So at 8 percent, the plan’s shortfall would actually jump to $21.4 billion. Contributions would need to increase to keep pace. The Texas teachers’ pension fund recently paid Chicago to receive a stream of payments from the money going into the city’s parking meters in the coming years. The deal gave Chicago an upfront payment that it could use to help balance its budget. Alas, Chicago did not have enough money to contribute to its own pension fund, which has been stung by real estate deals that fizzled when the city lost out in the bidding for the 2016 Olympics. Colorado has been assuming its investments will earn 8.5 percent annually, on average, and on that basis it reported a $17.9 billion shortfall in its most recent annual report.

View original story : less+likely+receive Feed : Clipmarks | Assumption Clips