curricular discrepancy

Friday, March 29, 2013

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Running out of gas, when you self-improvement program stalls ...

We see this in all the creative professions. Writers complain about writer?s block. Artists run out of creative ideas. Businesses become stale and stagnate. Why is it so hard to stay creative, to keep making progress on your recovery and what can you do about those out of gas episodes.

As a counselor I see a similar phenomenon. The client who is making lots of progress and then suddenly after one particularly great session they return and this subsequent session seems to go nowhere. What happened to the resolve to change?

We have different words to use to describe these occurrences but the common thread is that after a period of successful activity there is a period of needing to rest, relax and recharge your batteries. One thing we learn in mindfulness is that you can?t fix a car when it is being driven at 65. The creative mind needs some time of rest if the creativity is going to keep coming.

Sometimes when we open up and reveal the true us, in counseling or in relationships, we fear we have gone too far in changing, gotten ahead of where we are comfortable and we need to pull back and reevaluate.

The client who has breakthroughs, who achieves insight, sometimes feels they have overdone, over shared and the next time they are in the office they retreat to a safer, less involved place. The challenge is to not let this pull back, this need to recharge, become an end to our efforts to make things better.

How if you are making significant progress on an issue do you sustain that effort? What keeps this uncomfortable place from becoming a place of permanently stuck.

How does the creative person recharge their batteries and pick up the process without long periods of being unproductive. Most writers have had episodes of writers block but if those episodes last too long then you stop being a writer. The writer writes, the creative business person conducts business and the parent needs to keep on parenting even when they run out of answers.?

One reason that your productivity declines after a period of accomplishment is that your interest in the project or the field has decreased. We see this in college majors frequently. The first year and into the second the student wants to learn all they can. By the last year they just want to get done and get a job. Somewhere along the way, for many of us, the passion ends long before the relationship.

A novelist starts out wanting to tell the story. Part way through the story the essential ingredients are all down on paper, the plot the characters and so on. From then and there the author knows how the characters will respond to events, the outcome becomes more predictable. The writer?s problem is to maintain the level of interest in what will happen and in telling his characters stories that he had at the beginning.

This same phenomenon happens to businesses. They grow and expand in the early stages and then the owners having put in all that effort begin to lose interest, the fire of desire has gone out and the new innovative ideas stop flowing. Recharging brains helps but relighting the fires of interest is what is really needed.

We know that good relationships, romantic, parental or relationships with self, do not just happen. To keep that relationship alive you need to invest some time and effort in maintaining those relationships.

What we all need to learn to do is to spend some time maintaining that one relationship that will last a life time, our relationship with ourselves.

What have you done recently to put the fun back in to your life? How will you choose to take care of yourself? What specific actions will you take to maintain your relationship with your partner and with your children? How will you find ways to make that job you do, that career or business you own, fun again.

To put that creative spark back in all you do you first need to put the excitement back into what you are doing and how that will get done.?

For more about David Joel Miller and my work in the areas of mental health, substance abuse and Co-occurring disorders see the about the author page. For information about my other writing work beyond this blog there is also a Facebook authors page, up under David Joel Miller. Posts to the ?books, trainings and classes? category will tell you about those activities. If you are in the Fresno California area, information about my private practice is at counselorfresno.com.?

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Source: http://counselorssoapbox.com/2013/03/28/running-out-of-gas-when-you-self-improvement-program-stalls/

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College student loan interest rates set to double

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Incoming college freshmen could end up paying $5,000 more for the same student loans their older siblings have if Congress doesn't stop interest rates from doubling.

Sound familiar? The same warnings came last year. But now the presidential election is over and mandatory budget cuts are taking place, making a deal to avert a doubling of interest rates much more elusive before a July 1 deadline.

"What is definitely clear, this time around, there doesn't seem to be as much outcry," said Justin Draeger, president of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. "We're advising our members to tell students that the interest rates are going to double on new student loans, to 6.8 percent."

That rate hike only hits students taking out new subsidized loans. Students with outstanding subsidized loans are not expected to see their loan rates increase unless they take out a new subsidized Stafford loan. Students' non-subsidized loans are not expected to change, nor are loans taken from commercial lenders.

The difference between 3.4 percent and 6.8 percent interest rates is a $6 billion tab for taxpayers ? set against a backdrop of budget negotiations that have pitted the two parties in a standoff. President Barack Obama is expected to release his budget proposal in the coming weeks, adding another perspective to the debate.

Last year, with the presidential and congressional elections looming, students got a one-year reprieve on the doubling of interest rates. That expires July 1.

Neither party's budget proposal in Congress has money specifically set aside to keep student loans at their current rate. House Republicans' budget would double the interest rates on newly issued subsidized loans to help balance the federal budget in a decade. Senate Democrats say they want to keep the interest rates at their current levels but the budget they passed last week does not set aside money to keep the rates low.

In any event, neither side is likely to get what it wants. And that could lead to confusion for students as they receive their college admission letters and financial aid packages.

House Republicans, led by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, have outlined a spending plan that would shift the interest rates back to their pre-2008 levels. Congress in 2007 lowered the rate to 6 percent for new loans started during the 2008 academic year, then down to 5.6 percent in 2009, down to 4.5 percent in 2010 and then to the current 3.4 percent a year later.

Some two-thirds of students are graduating with loans exceeding $25,000; one in 10 borrowers owes more than $54,000 in loans. And student loan debt now tops $1 trillion. For those students, the rates make significant differences in how much they have to pay back each month.

For some, the rates seem arbitrary and have little to do with interest rates available for other purchases such as homes or cars.

"Burdening students with 6.8 percent loans when interest rates in the economy are at historic lows makes no sense," said Lauren Asher, president of the Institute for College Access and Success, a nonprofit organization.

Both House Education Committee Chairman John Kline of Minnesota and his Democratic counterpart, Rep. George Miller of California, prefer to keep rates at their current levels but have not outlined how they might accomplish that goal.

Rep. Karen Bass, a California Democrat, last week introduced a proposal that would permanently cap the interest rate at 3.4 percent.

Senate Democrats say their budget proposal would permanently keep the student rates low. But their budget document doesn't explicitly cover the $6 billion annual cost. Instead, its committee report included a window for the Senate Health Education and Pension Committee to pass a student loan rate fix down the road.

But so far, the money isn't there. And if the committee wants to keep the rates where they are, they will have to find a way to pay for them, either through cuts to programs in the budget or by adding new taxes.

"Spending is measured in numbers, not words," said Jason Delisle, a former Republican staffer on the Senate Budget Committee and now director of the New America Foundation's Federal Budget Project. "The Murray budget does not include funding for any changes to student loans."

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that of the almost $113 billion in new student loans the government made this year, more than $38 billion will be lost to defaults, even after Washington collects what it can through wage garnishments.

The net cost to taxpayers after most students pay back their loans with interest is $5.7 billion. If the rate increases, Washington will be collecting more interest from new students' loans.

But those who lobbied lawmakers a year ago said they were pessimistic before Obama and his Republican challenger Mitt Romney both came out in support of keeping the rates low.

"We were at this point and we knew this issue was looming. But it wasn't anything we had any real traction with," said Tobin Van Ostern, deputy director of Campus Progress at the liberal Center for American Progress. "At this point, I didn't think we'd prevent them from doubling."

This time, he's looking at the July 1 deadline with the same concern.

"Having a deadline does help. It's much easier to deal with one specific date," Van Ostern said. "But if Congress can't come together ... interest rates are going to double. There tends to be a tendency for inaction."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/neither-party-cash-student-loan-rate-fix-185759359--politics.html

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eBay's Sell it Forward splits auction proceeds with Goodwill

eBay's latest initiative is a little different from its more recent efforts that have focused mostly on re-branding and expanding the reach of PayPal. Sell it Forward encourages users to sell their used clothes and donate half the proceeds to Goodwill. The pilot program is currently only available in San Francisco, San Mateo, and Marin, though the company is going out of its way to make the process as painless as possible for those in eligible areas. Instead of creating listings for each item, wannabe auctioneers need only fill the pre-paid mailing bag (provided by eBay) with the clothes and accessories they wish to sell. Everything else will be taken care of for them. Employees will decide if your wares are in decent enough condition to sell, create a listing and, if the item is sold within 14 days, split the proceeds between the "seller" and Goodwill. If the item remains unsold for 14 days it becomes a straight donation to the charity. If you're in one of the trial areas and want to give Sell it Forward a go yourself, hit up the source link.

Filed under: Internet

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Via: The Verge, Business Insider

Source: eBay

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/3a5WWGbDhrQ/

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Hands-on with Iron Man 3 by Gameloft

It's just like being Tony Stark! Minus the women, money, genius, and booze.

You might have heard about the new free to play Iron Man 3 on-rails shooter coming soon to Android. We caught up with the Gameloft folks here at GDC 2013 to have a go, and it looks fantastic. Players have to tap, swipe, and tilt to avoid obstacles and blow up bad guys.

Android Central at GDC

Along the way, players collect tokens which can be spent on buying bitchin' new Iron Man suits and consumable power-ups. Even though it largely follows the simple endless runner formula, the awesome graphics and wealth of unlockables guarantees you'll be playing this one for awhile to come.

Keep an eye out for this one in Google Play on April 25. Anyone itching to catch the new movie?

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/Dz9K47-KSTg/story01.htm

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Oil veteran Gandur plans Canada IPO for Oryx Petroleum

By Tom Miles and Emma Farge

GENEVA (Reuters) - Addax & Oryx Group (AOG), chaired by billionaire Jean Claude Gandur, plans to list its oil exploration subsidiary Oryx Petroleum in Canada, the firm said on its website.

Oil industry veteran Gandur was catapulted onto the Forbes rich list in 2009 when he sold Addax Petroleum to Sinopec three years after its IPO.

"AOG's upstream division, Oryx Petroleum, has filed a preliminary prospectus with the securities authorities in Canada, as the first step in the process of preparing for an initial public offering on the Toronto Stock exchange," the company said on its website on March 15.

It did not give further details of the IPO timing.

Like Addax, Oryx has a focus on the Middle East and West Africa, with interests in the Kurdish and Wasit regions of Iraq, Nigeria, Republic of Congo and the offshore AGC block between Senegal and Guinea Bissau.

"When we sold in 2009 we had long chats with the board about what to do," AOG's chairman billionaire Jean Claude Gandur told Reuters in an interview last month, before the decision to list Oryx Petroleum.

"I said I would like to give a last chance to rebuild a second Addax Petroleum - I love upstream, I have a lot of knowledge and I know a lot of actors in the sector and I would like to rebuild a new Addax Petroleum and that's the one we call Oryx Petroleum today."

The latest IPO figures suggest that Oryx might have picked a good moment to tap the market.

This year's stock market rebound and easing concerns about the world economy mean that more companies are lining up to list, with U.S. IPO volumes up 65 percent so far this quarter.

But Oryx has yet to earn a dollar of revenues or find its first barrel of oil. Gandur is preparing a Toronto initial public offering, underwritten by RBC Dominion Securities, Barclays Capital and Merrill Lynch, to fund exploration until mid-2014.

Addax was also floated in Toronto, in early 2006, and was taken over by the Chinese state-controlled oil giant in late 2009 for an enterprise value of about C$10 billion ($9.84 billion).

Addax and Oryx Group Ltd, majority-owned by a trust created by Gandur and named after two breeds of African antelope, has so far invested about $700 million in Oryx Petroleum.

But Oryx had only about $308 million in cash in January, according to a preliminary prospectus for the IPO, while it plans to spend $325 million on exploration in 2013 alone.

The firm bought control of the Hawler field in Kurdistan in 2012 from AAR Advisory Services, the group of Russian billionaires who sold half of TNK-BP to Rosneft for $28 billion last December.

The field had a shareholder loan from AAR valued at $377.9 million at Aug 9, 2011, but Oryx Petroleum will come to the market with no debt, according to the preliminary prospectus.

AOG also has investments ranging from energy to real estate, as well as a downstream oil business, Oryx Energies, which Gandur has said will invest $400 million over the next four to five years in Africa.

(Reporting by Tom Miles and Emma Farge; Editing by Bernard Orr)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/oil-veteran-gandur-plans-canada-ipo-oryx-petroleum-214823884--sector.html

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Researchers discover primary role of the olivocochlear efferent system

Public release date: 27-Mar-2013
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Contact: Mary Leach
Mary_Leach@meei.harvard.edu
Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary

Light shed on the natural mechanism that protects ears from hearing loss

New research from the Massachusetts Eye and Ear, Harvard Medical School and Harvard Program in Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology may have discovered a key piece in the puzzle of how hearing works by identifying the role of the olivocochlear efferent system in protecting ears from hearing loss. The findings could eventually lead to screening tests to determine who is most susceptible to hearing loss. Their paper is published today in the Journal of Neuroscience.

Until recently, it was common knowledge that exposure to a noisy environment (concert, iPod, mechanical tools, firearm, etc.), could lead to permanent or temporary hearing loss. Most audiologists would assess the damage caused by this type of exposure by measuring hearing thresholds, the lowest level at which one starts to detect/sense a sound at a particular frequency (pitch). Drs. Sharon Kujawa and Charles Liberman, both researchers at Mass. Eye and Ear, showed in 2009 that noise exposures leading to a temporary hearing loss in mice (when hearing thresholds return to what they were before exposure) in fact can be associated with cochlear neuropathy, a situation in which, despite having a normal threshold, a portion of auditory nerve fibers is missing).

The inner ear, the organ that converts sounds into messages that will be conveyed to and decoded by the brain, receives in turn fibers from the central nervous system. Those fibers are known as the olivocochlear efferent system. Up to now, the involvement of this efferent system in the protection from acoustic injury although clearly demonstrated has been a matter of debate because all the previous experiments were probing its protective effects following noise exposures very unlikely to be found in nature.

Stephane Maison, Ph.D., investigator at the Eaton-Peabody Laboratory at Mass. Eye and Ear and lead author, explains. "Humans are currently exposed to the type of noise used in those experiments but it's hard to conceive that some vertebrates, thousands of years ago, were submitted to stimuli similar to those delivered by speakers. So many researchers believed that the protective effects of the efferent system were an epiphenomenon not its true function."

Instead of using loud noise exposures evoking a change in hearing threshold, we used a moderate noise exposure at a level similar to those found in restaurants, conferences, malls, and also in nature (some frogs emit vocalizations at similar or higher levels) and instead of looking at thresholds, we looked for signs of cochlear neuropathy, Dr. Maison continued.

The researchers demonstrated that such moderate exposure lead to cochlear neuropathy (loss of auditory nerve fibers), which causes difficulty to hear in noisy environments.

"This is tremendously important because all of us are submitted to such acoustic environments and it takes a lot of auditory nerve fiber loss before it gets to be detected by simply measuring thresholds as it's done when preforming an audiogram," Dr. Maison said. "The second important discovery is that, in mice where the efferent system has been surgically removed, cochlear neuropathy is tremendously exacerbated. That second piece proves that the efferent system does play a very important role in protecting the ear from cochlear neuropathy and we may have found its main function."

The researchers say they are excited about this discovery because the strength of the efferent system can be recorded non-invasively in humans and a non-invasive assay to record the efferent system strength has already been developed and shows that one is able to predict vulnerability to acoustic injury (Maison and Liberman, Predicting vulnerability to acoustic injury with a noninvasive assay of olivocochlear reflex strength, Journal of Neuroscience, 20:4701-4707, 2000).

"One could envision applying this assay or a modified version of it to human populations to screen for individuals most at risk in noise environments," Dr. Maison concluded.

###

This work was supported by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication disorders (Grants RO1 DC 0188 and P30 DC 05209).

A full list of authors and affiliations and full acknowledgement of all contributors is available in the pdf of the paper, "Efferent Feedback Minimizes Cochlear Neuropathy from Moderate Noise Exposure."

About Massachusetts Eye and Ear

Mass. Eye and Ear clinicians and scientists are driven by a mission to find cures for blindness, deafness and diseases of the head and neck. After uniting with Schepens Eye Research Institute in 2011, Mass. Eye and Ear in Boston became the world's largest vision and hearing research center, offering hope and healing to patients everywhere through discovery and innovation. Mass. Eye and Ear is home to the Eaton-Peabody Laboratories, the largest collection of basic hearing laboratories. Mass. Eye and Ear is a Harvard Medical School teaching hospital and trains future medical leaders in ophthalmology and otolaryngology, through residency as well as clinical and research fellowships. Internationally acclaimed since its founding in 1824, Mass. Eye and Ear employs full-time, board-certified physicians who offer high-quality and affordable specialty care that ranges from the routine to the very complex. U.S. News & World Report's "Best Hospitals Survey" has consistently ranked the Mass. Eye and Ear Departments of Otolaryngology and Ophthalmology as top five in the nation.

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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.

Researchers discover primary role of the olivocochlear efferent system

Public release date: 27-Mar-2013
[ | E-mail |

Share ]

Contact: Mary Leach
Mary_Leach@meei.harvard.edu
Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary

Light shed on the natural mechanism that protects ears from hearing loss

The researchers demonstrated that such moderate exposure lead to cochlear neuropathy (loss of auditory nerve fibers), which causes difficulty to hear in noisy environments.

"One could envision applying this assay or a modified version of it to human populations to screen for individuals most at risk in noise environments," Dr. Maison concluded.

###

This work was supported by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication disorders (Grants RO1 DC 0188 and P30 DC 05209).

About Massachusetts Eye and Ear

[ | E-mail |

Share ]

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.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-03/meae-rdp032713.php

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