Fearfighter: Video Recreation To Struggle Phobias …

The online game business, regardless of all of the enemies that it has made among politicians anticipating a quick vote and moralists who get outraged at every little thing, thrives. Definitely, players around the globe are part of this continued survival, however different sectors of society are additionally reaping the benefits of superior online game technology. The navy has used video games as training simulators, helping troopers get used to piloting the advanced military vehicles that they need to use within the battlefield. The army has also used them as a stress reduction device, both on the sphere and as a potential supplementary remedy for publish-traumatic stress disorder. Advances made in actual time three-D rendering has been put to use in training medical college students via using surgical procedure simulation software. Now, the realm of mental health may additionally tremendously profit from online game technology.

If a person has a phobia, it may be a debilitating problem. Claustrophobic folks often must resort to utilizing stairs because the elevator is a decent house and they are unable to remain in it for any size of time. People with a worry of heights can typically experience discomfort in excessive levels in every part starting from climbing up stairs to looking out from the window of an airplane in flight. Well, researchers within the UK have combined efforts with game builders to design a game constructed for the purpose of helping somebody overcome phobias and fears by making use of an interactive simulated environment. It is not like the idea hasn?t been accomplished earlier than, however the pretty current implementation of video game technology by the US armed forces to combat publish-traumatic stress dysfunction continues to be experimental.

In fact, the British psychiatric game ?Fearfighter? can also be firmly in the experimental stages. In some ways, it hasn?t actually handed the ?proof of concept? stage yet. Nonetheless, sufferers in Britain are sometimes put on long waiting lists for sessions and, as a result of nature of the issue, could also be pressured to wait too long. The games permit for preliminary aid, giving both the psychiatrist and the affected person to adjust the level of realism in the sport atmosphere as needed. While it doesn?t simulate environments with whole accuracy, it has been shown as offering a realistic sufficient simulation to have an appreciable impact on patients. However, the results are still within the short-time period and studies must be performed on the lengthy-time period effects, along with whether or not or not the remedy is efficient without the aid of a professional.

British psychologists have acknowledged the potential makes use of of this, not only as a preliminary remedy, but additionally as a means of offering a communication device for their patients. The games can be used to connect the patient to the medical professional, allowing for communication between the 2 even when one group is unable to physically see the other. The device can even help individuals suffering from phobias confront their issues in a safer, controllable surroundings, permitting them to step by step modify themselves to dealing with the problem.

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Source: http://dunktheblogger.com/fearfighter-video-recreation-to-struggle-phobias.html

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Property Management in Florida – Zillow Real Estate Advice

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Source: http://www.zillow.com/advice-thread/Property-Management-in-Florida/417470/

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ITTO: Online Options Improve Health, Wellness | Phone Prize

ITTO: Online Options Improve Health, Wellness

Personal trainers are expanding their businesses with video conference technologies, joining the growing slate of online tools to help manage diet and fitness.

Is This Thing On?, or ITTO, is our Wednesday column showing how everyday people use technology in unexpected ways.

The possibility of having a personal trainer in the home was once a luxury of the professional athletic or the rich and famous, but now more fitness enthusiasts can access a trainer, aided by the use of Skype video conferencing technology.

Personal trainer John Bruno introduced a Skype-based coaching and training program in Wales as a response to those who expressed difficulty getting out and going to the gym, and the approach is now catching on in the U.S.

Bruno said the idea occurred to him when Skype took off in 2006, and he began to think how the technology and Facetime, combined with the rise in tablets like the iPad, would enable him to conduct his training in the comfort of his client?s home, hotel room, or an office anywhere in the world.

?It doesn?t matter where you are, as long as you have Wi-Fi access, you can switch on Skype via a camera on your computer, connect up with me and we can do anything from Pilates, to personal training to motivational coaching,? said Bruno, who has been a personal trainer for 20 years.

The program is available to anyone, but Bruno says it is ideal for mothers with young children at home and simply don?t have the time to travel to the gym with a small child in tow.

?One of my clients has a session after dropping her older child at school,? Bruno said. ?It means she can do the workout while her little one is under her watchful eye and if she needs to deal with him, we can stop and carry on once she?s sorted him out.?

In addition to the Skype session, Bruno also sends out regular e-mails to his clients with body conditioning tips and tutorials, and mails special tubing for clients to use in resistance work.

One advantage the Skype-based program has over a more traditional DVD fitness program is that Bruno is there, available for questions, feedback, and comments during the exercise session.

For the self-motivated, a growing number of apps can provide on-the-go information and motivation. These apps let users input a food item and get a complete listing of calories, fat, carbohydrates and proteins. Users can also type in an activity and get an estimate calories burned, or enter the few ingredients that remain in the fridge and get a healthy recipe for dinner, making these apps invaluable tools in the quest for well-being.

?MyFitnessPal? is one highly-rated app that provides all those services as an organizational tool to generally improve peoples? health and fitness levels.

Touted as a technological solution for busy people on the go, the program offers an enormous catalog of foods, meals and recipes, incorporates bar scanning technology to simplify the process of keeping track, and offers a social media function so those working towards a goal can encourage and support each other. The app can even distinguish calorie burning between running 10 miles or playing Wii tennis for 10 minutes.

?MyFitnessPal,? the interactive food and exercise diary app, is free and available on both a website and in app form for iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry. The app is one of a growing number of online communities, with each one offering a slight twist on the general health regiments.

For example, ?FatSecret? lists community fitness challenges that are available in specific communities, and ?SparkPeople? offers more graphs and awards for the visually-inclined, in addition to contact with register dieticians? and trainers? message boards.

For those who can?t be bothered to type in the name of food items and guesstimate portions, the ?MealSnap? app, developed by DailyBurn, allows users to upload snapshots of their meal for a calorie count in just a few seconds. Users need only send a photo, but can also enter a caption with specific food information to help the database better identify it for more accurate counts.

The mother of all weight loss programs, Weight Watchers, which has been around for over 45 years now, offers its entire plan online as well. Unlike the app programs, though, there is a monthly cost associated with the program.

For those interested in pursuing an online fitness option, probably the best place to start is the Centers for Disease Control. The agency?s website offers a tool to help determine a starting point to outline a plan. People can use the site to calculate their body mass index, or BMI, giving them a figure from which to create a program based on realistic, health-based information.

From there, the options for designing, monitoring and supporting the right fitness plan are almost as infinite as the Internet itself.

ITTO: Online Options Improve Health, Wellness originally appeared at Mobiledia on Wed Sep 28, 2011 4:30 pm.

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Source: http://phoneprize.com/b/2011/09/29/itto-online-options-improve-health-wellness/

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Happy Monday! Give today’s links a read: First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy: France doesn’t care about my baby ? PEOPLE.com 39,000 American babies are born outside of hospitals each year ? FitPregnancy.com Can your kids ‘catch’ your stress? ? Yahoo! Shine Australian baby’s death poses new concerns over slings and suffocation ? Sydney Morning Herald After [...]

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Lenovo in $300 million JV with Compal, shares jump (Reuters)

HONG KONG/TAIPEI (Reuters) ? Lenovo Group Ltd, the world’s No.3 PC brand, has entered into a $300 million venture with contract laptop PC maker Compal Electronics Inc in eastern China, the companies said, pushing their shares up sharply.

Lenovo rose as much as 8.5 percent in Hong Kong, while in Taiwan Compal rose 5.9 percent to a more than one-month high before pulling back slightly, after the companies announced their plan to form what analysts said was the first joint venture between a PC brand and a contract manufacturer.

Lenovo will own 51 percent of joint venture Lienpal (Hefei) Ltd, with Compal, the world’s No.2 contract PC maker, holding the remainder, the companies said in separate statements.

“The joint venture shows the close relationship between Lenovo and Compal, but with this venture I think Compal’s other clients such as Dell Inc and Acer Inc will be concerned,” said Daiwa Securities analyst Jenny Shih.

Analysts said that in the short run Compal would benefit from the agreement, although there could be some long-term uncertainty over client loyalty.

“There are certain risks in such a cooperation as it could mean the plant relies only on orders from Lenovo,” said KGI Securities analyst Angela Hsiang. “On the other hand, the deal will allow Compal to secure production from a key client.”

Both companies will invest $100 million initially followed by an additional $200 million over the subsequent 18 months, depending on business climate and capacity expansion.

Lienpal would begin full-scale manufacturing of Lenovo laptop and desktop PCs by the end of 2012, the companies said.

The deal will help secure Lenovo’s production as it seeks to increase its global market share.

In early September, Lenovo Chairman Liu Chuanzi said Lenovo expected to surpass Dell to become the second-largest seller of personal computers in the world by the end of the year.

“Lenovo has made a lot of investments lately, including in Japan and Germany, to capture market share in emerging markets. The deal with Compal will allow it to secure production lines and have better control over output,” said Bank of China International analyst Michael Meng.

Lenovo, which ranks behind industry leader Hewlett-Packard Co and Dell in the global PC sector with a 12.2 percent market share in the second quarter, bought Germany’s Medion AG in June, in its biggest acquisition since purchasing International Business Machines Corp’s PC unit six years ago.

Earlier this year, it formed a joint venture with NEC Corp to sell laptops in Japan.

Compal said in a separate announcement on Tuesday that it planned to invest $31.8 million in Ascendant Private Equity Investment as a long-term investment.

(Additional reporting by Huang Yuntao and Clare Jim; Editing by Chris Lewis)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/personaltech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110927/tc_nm/us_lenovo_compal

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Financial crisis: Calculating the probability of extreme events

ScienceDaily (Sep. 26, 2011) ? It had to happen: the property bubble burst and the global financial market experienced its biggest crisis in the last hundred years. In retrospect, many suspected it was coming, but nobody could have known for sure. The traditional investment strategy failed, as all forms of investment suddenly collapsed at the same time. In order to calculate the probability of several such extreme events occurring at the same time, three scientists at the RUB have developed a new method. Prof. Dr. Holger Dette, Dr. Axel B?cher und Dr. Stanislav Volgushev from the Institute of Statistics (Faculty of Mathematics at the Ruhr-Universit?t) published their findings in the scientific journal The Annals of Statistics.

Big things start small

Up to now, when statisticians estimated the probabilities of extreme events, they usually calculated with dependencies between the outliers of statistical series. The outliers, however, make up the smallest part of a data set, e.g. the largest 100 out of 3,600 data. That means they ignore the dependencies of the bulk of the relevant data set, namely 3,500 data, and thus take the risk that important information is lost. Axel B?cher shows how this problem can be solved: “Our work provides a decision aid as to whether it is better to use the full range of data and not only the outliers. If all the data are relevant, then they should all be included. However, this is not always the case. Sometimes these data would falsify the result.”

Multidimensional function

The researchers use the copula function for the evaluation. “This is a complicated, multi-dimensional function, which characterises stochastic dependencies between the data” explains Stanislav Volgushev. With this aid, a few years ago we might have noticed that many little termites were nibbling their way into the wooden foundation of the global financial market, whilst we were on the look out for large predators.

Financial crises as motivation for research

“Our research is strongly motivated by the recent financial crises. At that time, almost all the economic models and forecasting tools for loan losses failed because they did not pay sufficient attention to extreme dependencies. In the long run, we aim to develop models and methods that predict such events better” says Prof. Dette, explaining the reason for their research. For several years, the three researchers have been looking into new methods of asymptotic statistics which work with sample sizes approaching infinity. They are financed by the German Research Foundation (DFG) in the Collaborative Research Centre SFB 823 “Statistical modelling of nonlinear dynamic processes.” The English-language publication bears the title “New estimators of the Pickands dependence function and a test for extreme-value dependence.”

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The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by Ruhr-Universitaet-Bochum, via AlphaGalileo.


Journal Reference:

  1. Axel B?cher, Holger Dette, Stanislav Volgushev. New estimators of the Pickands dependence function and a test for extreme-value dependence. The Annals of Statistics, 2011; 39 (4): 1963 DOI: 10.1214/11-AOS890

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110926081915.htm

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BYU Football: Cougars Beat Central Florida Thanks To Cody Hoffman’s Return TD

PROVO, Utah ? Cody Hoffman returned a kickoff 93 yards for a touchdown and BYU forced three turnovers in a 24-17 victory over Central Florida on Friday night.

Bryan Kariya’s 6-yard TD run with 10:29 left gave BYU a 24-17 lead, and the Cougars stymied a last-minute drive by the Knights.

The victory was a much-needed boost for the Cougars (2-2), who were coming off a 44-point loss at home to rival Utah.

Central Florida (2-2) now has dropped two straight after outscoring its first two opponents 92-3.

Hoffman’s third-quarter score was BYU’s first kickoff return for a touchdown in 13 years, a string of 160 games, and answered an 84-yard scoring drive directed by Central Florida quarterback Jeff Godfrey.

Godfrey ran for two touchdowns, but he also threw his first interception late in the game as the Knights were driving.

A.J. Guyton led the Knights with nine catches for 163 yards.

Central Florida was hoping to bounce back following a disappointing loss to Florida International.

Godfrey put the Knights ahead 17-10 with a 1-yard run around the right end in the third quarter. The play capped a long drive that included a 54-yard pass to Guyton.

BYU trailed 10-3 at halftime but JJ Luigi tied it with a 16-yard run with 8:13 left in the third quarter. It was the first rushing touchdown of the season for the Cougars.

BYU also picked up its first four sacks of the season, knocking Godfrey from the game at one point in the second half.

The Cougars were without two starters, left guard Houston Reynolds and linebacker Jordan Pendleton, because of injury, and lost leading receiver Ross Apo in the first quarter to a mild concussion after he took a big hit going across the middle.

Jameson Frazier, who replaced Pendleton, recovered a fourth-quarter fumble. BYU’s Joe Sampson also had an important interception late in the game.

BYU was looking for any help offensively, and moved coordinator Brandon Doman to the press box Friday after he called the first three games from the sideline.

BYU quarterback Jake Heaps still struggled, completing just 16 of 34 passes for 133 yards and his fifth interception of the season. It set up Central Florida’s first touchdown, a 10-yard run around left end by Godfrey.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/24/byu-football-cougars-beat-central-florida-college-football_n_978830.html

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Calif. grocery workers OK deal; strike averted

Grocery workers count ballots at the union headquarters in Buena Park, Calif., Saturday, Sept. 24, 2011. Southern California shoppers should soon learn whether grocery stores will remain open as another wave of supermarket employees votes on a deal to stave off a strike. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Grocery workers count ballots at the union headquarters in Buena Park, Calif., Saturday, Sept. 24, 2011. Southern California shoppers should soon learn whether grocery stores will remain open as another wave of supermarket employees votes on a deal to stave off a strike. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Grocery workers count ballots at the union headquarters in Buena Park, Calif., Saturday, Sept. 24, 2011. Southern California shoppers should soon learn whether grocery stores will remain open as another wave of supermarket employees votes on a deal to stave off a strike. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Grocery worker Stephanie Kleinerman, of Fullerton, Calif., reads the new contract after casting her vote at the union headquarters in Buena Park, Calif., Saturday, Sept. 24, 2011. Southern California shoppers should soon learn whether grocery stores will remain open as another wave of supermarket employees votes on a deal to stave off a strike. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

A grocery worker casts her vote at the union headquarters in Buena Park, Calif., Saturday, Sept. 24, 2011. Southern California shoppers should soon learn whether grocery stores will remain open as another wave of supermarket employees votes on a deal to stave off a strike. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

(AP) ? After eight months of contract-wrangling and negotiations that dragged past a strike deadline, supermarket workers in Southern California will stay on the job and shoppers won’t have to rely on Whole Foods or their corner liquor store for groceries.

Members of the region’s United Food and Commercial Workers voted to ratify a new contract with three major grocery chains, union local spokeswoman Ellen Anreder said, averting a strike of more than 60,000 workers that could have crippled the industry and left shoppers scrambling.

United Food and Commercial Workers local spokeswoman Ellen Anreder said Saturday that after two days of voting, members agreed to a deal struck Monday with Vons, Ralphs and Albertsons. Exact vote totals were not released.

“We’re all very grateful to our customers for their support over this eight-month process, and are very grateful that we can continue to serve them,” a tired-but-relieved Anreder said after the vote.

Union officials had urged their rank-and-file to ratify the contract, which they said addressed concerns about funding for the employees’ health plan, the main sticking point during months of negotiations.

“This package protects our members’ access to affordable comprehensive health care for themselves and their families,” the union said in a statement. “That was our top priority throughout the negotiating process.”

The supermarkets, meanwhile, said after agreeing to the deal that it would allow them to remain competitive. Messages left for grocery representatives after the vote were not immediately returned.

Details of the agreement were made available to members for the first time as they filed into their union locals’ headquarters or other voting locations to cast their ballots on Friday and Saturday.

“There was a sense of relief when people had an opportunity to really look over the new contract and see what was in it,” Ralphs clerk and union member Mario Frias said.

The deal ended months of sometimes testy discussions between union officials and representatives of The Vons Cos.; Ralphs Grocery Co., a subsidiary of The Kroger Co.; and Albertsons, which is owned by Supervalu Inc.

Ralphs had indicated it would initially close all 250 of its stores if there had been a strike; Albertsons had said it could shutter up to 100 locations, while Vons had said its stores would remain open.

The prospect of shuttered stores and tense picket lines brought fears of a repeat of the four-month strike in 2004 that cost the industry $2 billion and created a mess for shoppers. This time around, with unemployment at 12.1 percent in California, workers evidently feared that they would find little public sympathy if they voluntarily walked off the job.

The market chains, meanwhile, were likely reluctant to invite shutdowns and picket lines that might alienate shoppers already spending less due to the economic downturn.

Union leaders and the markets announced in July that they had reached a tentative agreement on the employers’ contributions to pension benefits, but remained far apart on payments to the union health care trust fund.

Union members voted overwhelmingly last month to authorize their leaders to call a strike. Those leaders said they were responding to what they characterized as the chains’ delaying tactics when they issued the required 72-hour notice Thursday evening to cancel the contract extension under which they had been working since March.

But after the Sunday evening deadline passed with neither a strike nor a deal, store employees returned to work. Union officials announced Monday that the tentative deal had been reached.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2011-09-25-Supermarket%20Labor/id-386e1dc692cf4a6b9899d950bd04163b

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Pope celebrates Mass despite shooting incident (AP)

ERFURT, Germany ? Facing discontent within his German flock, Pope Benedict XVI met with victims of clerical sex abuse as he called for Roman Catholics in the former communist East to rediscover their faith.

The pontiff celebrated Mass with some 30,000 people early Saturday, unhindered by an incident on the edge of the security zone in which a man fired an air gun at a security guard about an hour before the service, Vatican and local officials said.

Benedict’s spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said there was “no worry” in the papal entourage over the incident, and the pontiff was not informed about it before the Mass. “It didn’t seem particularly urgent,” he told reporters on the pope’s plane after the Mass. Police said the alleged shooter had been arrested and that there were no injuries.

In his sermon, the pope acknowledged that the collapse of communism in the former East Germany more than 20 years ago has allowed the church to function freely, but questioned whether that change has brought any increase in faith.

“Are not the deep roots of faith and Christian life to be sought in something very different from social freedom?” the pope said. “It was actually amid the hardships of pressure from without that many committed Catholics remained faithful to Christ and to the church.”

Benedict’s four-day state visit comes as Germany’s church has been losing thousands of followers amid revelations that hundreds of children and young people were abused by clergy and church employees.

On Friday night, he took a step to placate some of the anger by meeting for half an hour with two women and three men from parishes across Germany who were among the abused. The Vatican said the pope expressed “deep compassion and regret” at the suffering of those who were abused and assured them the Church is seeking “effective measures to protect children.”

German church leaders acknowledge the scandal has cost them badly needed trust among the roughly 24 million German Catholics.

“I appreciate that he (the pope) is facing the problem, and that he is meeting these people,” said Klaus Militzer, 68, from Erfurt, who was among an expected 30,000 pilgrims streaming into the cobbled square beneath the city’s main cathedral early Saturday.

“He can’t undo it, that’s not possible, but I think it is good that he is asking for forgiveness and sending a signal.”

Benedict has been accused by victims groups and their lawyers of being part of a systematic cover-up by the church hierarchy for pedophile priests in his earlier roles as an archbishop in Germany and later at the helm of the Vatican morals office.

Survivors groups were quick to denounce the pope’s meeting with German victims as an empty gesture. They maintain the church has not done enough to prosecute offending priests and prevent future cases of abuse.

Germany’s Bishops Conference has set up a telephone hotline to counsel victims and help them to take legal steps against offending priests when possible.

Catholic leaders had warned ahead of Benedict’s visit that there was no quick solution, but they hoped the pontiff could help heal wounds left by the scandal.

“I think it’s certainly an important issue, but it’s not the most important thing about a pope’s visit,” Monika Graner, a pilgrim from Wuerzburg, said of the sex abuse scandal.

Following the Mass in Erfurt, the pontiff traveled to the southwestern city of Freiburg, the final stop on this visit.

About 25,000 people who lined the pope’s route cheered and waved as he drove from the airport to visit the downtown cathedral.

Protests have also accompanied Benedict’s German tour, although numbers have been smaller than expected. Some 9,000 people turned out in Berlin to denounce the Vatican views on homosexuality, contraception and other issues.

___

David Rising in Berlin and Dorothee Thiesing contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110924/ap_on_re_eu/eu_pope_germany

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