Life with Passion !

Initial Results Show Pregnant Women Mount Strong Immune Response To 1 Dose Of 2009 H1N1 Vaccine

2009-11-03T06:49:00.000-08:00

Healthy pregnant women mount a robust immune response following just one dose of 2009 H1N1 influenza vaccine, according to initial results from an ongoing clinical trial.

Read details at Sciencedaily.com

When the debates are raging on the efficacy of the H1N1 vaccine, this news should bring some credibility to the vaccination program. There are claims and counter claims over the sideeffects of the vaccine. But to prove that a vaccine is clinically unfit it should be proved as such scientifically I think.

It is still too early to say that the vaccine is a complete success, as also discarding it outright is not the solution to the problem. We need to tread cautiously and follow the best advice of the Research community.

Related Posts :

1.H1N1 battle: No side effects in the flu shot
2.China approves one dose home grown H1N1 vaccine

Tech Oasis : My new Blog

2009-10-25T01:03:00.000-07:00

These days I was thinking about launching a new blog, I felt all the things are crammed in my blog and I felt I need little bit of more room so I opted for another blog. The theme of the new blog is technology. I will write posts related to science and technology here.

The name of the blog is Tech Oasis . And it can be also found if you type from the address bar http://tech-oasis.blogspot.com/. I wish my readers all the best and I suggest you to explore this new blog Tech Oasis where recently I have discussed many posts on the security aspect issue. This being so crucial now a days, we need to be adept and vigilant and learn more about this particular topic to keep our identity safe online. This will definitely not happen overnight but through regularly studying the subject and keep ourselves updated.

I hope you will stay connected on this new blog too. Thanks for reading and the visit in advance. Happy Blogging !

New Method To Help Keep Fruit, Vegetables And Flowers Fresh

2009-10-21T08:33:00.000-07:00

Sounds fresh isn't it ? Yes, a new method does just that, keeping the vegetables, fruit and flowers fresh for longer duration of time. The results could be very helpful in the long run keeping the stocks fresh and healthy for consumption.

According to the report millions of tons of vegetables end in trash before being consumed. When the world is getting hungrier each day, this new innovation could not have come at a more opportune time, this could go a long way.

A professor has developed an innovative new way to keep produce and flowers fresh for longer periods of time. The microbiologist's method uses a naturally occurring microorganism -- no larger than the width of a human hair -- to induce enzymes that extend the ripening time of fruits and vegetables, and keeps the blooms of flowers fresh

You can read more about this new find at Science Daily

More Reading :

1 .Also you could read a related post on a Research articulating low cancer risk for Vegetarians

Swedish HIV vaccine shows encouraging results

2009-10-19T02:13:00.000-07:00

A new HIV vaccine developed by the Swedish Researchers at the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm has shown encouraging results according to the news reports.

The vaccine tested on healthy people in Tanzania as test subjects showed the vaccine destroying HIV cells in the body and developing resistance to help protect the immune system from the deadly strain present in the vaccine.

" These are the best preliminary results that I am aware of for a vaccine of this type " European Union's Vaccine specialist Manuel Romaris told the DN news daily in Sweden. The findings of the vaccine results are to be presented at AIDS vaccine conference in Paris on Monday. The details of the finding haven't been published in any journal yet. You can read about the story here.

Diagnosing Heartburn -- Gastroenterologists Diagnose Chronic Heartburn More Effectively

2009-10-16T03:11:00.000-07:00

Gastroenterologists are using confocal laser endomicroscopy (CLE) to more effectively diagnose chronic heartburn. The technology gives doctors an image of the esophagus that is magnified 1,000 times. A tiny microscope at the end of an endoscope provides the magnification, while a blue light provides illumination--sending clear, close-up images to a computer screen. Read more at Science daily

Heartburn is a common condition that affects more than 70 million in US alone and many millions more worldwide. And also it is an early symptom to Gastroesophageal Reflux disease (GERD) .

Many times we feel heartburn after taking meals and we take antacids to suppress these sensations, but in chronic cases they get repeated quite often and are necessarily an early symptom to the GERD.

However there is a difference between the heartburn and acid reflux like GERD.

Someone having heartburn may not have the acid reflux and one who is having acid reflex ailment may not have heartburn.

Read More

1. Heartburn Symptoms

2. Special Risks with Nightime Heartburn

3. An indepth overview of Heartburn, treatment and prevention

Detecting Asthma -- Radiologists Develop Asthma Imaging Method

2009-10-08T14:33:00.000-07:00

Radiologists developed a new method for viewing the lungs of asthma sufferers. The method uses a polarized helium-3 gas--making it visible during an MRI. The patient inhales the helium-3 and undergoes an MRI, where doctors can see how far the atoms in the gas can travel in the lungs. This gives an image of what airways are blocked and what parts of the lungs ventilate. The black areas of the image indicate portions of the lung where air does not reach--areas where the helium-3 atoms could not travel.

Science daily

Here comes a new technique to diagnose Asthma, a disease which affects more than 22 million in US and of them 3 million are children and affects 300 million worldwide.

Asthma, as most of us know is a chronic disease which impairs breathing by inflaming and narrowing of the airways in the lungs, sometimes causing acute breathing problems in patients with severe condition.

In many cases the conditions of asthma happen at irregular intervals and over a longer period of time, the reasons of asthma are still being researched but mostly it is suspected due to the inherent tendency to develop allergies commonly know as atopy beside other reasons.

Read more about Asthma information at U.S Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health website

More Reading:

1. I have asthma. Do I need to know anything special before I get pregnant?

2.A link to a Senior Researcher working with Children in this field.

UK financial job losses could touch 60,000: Report

2009-10-05T01:37:00.000-07:00

It is a difficult scenario for the UK financial and insurance sector, as a new report by the PwC and CBI presents a bleak forecast for the industry, adding to the fears of the IMF's earlier reports that Britain faces a tough jobless situation.

In their quarterly report on the UK's Financial, Insurance and Realty sector the PricewaterhouseCoopers and the CBI (Confederation of British Industry) have forecast a more difficult situation where up to 60,000 jobs could be shelved according to the report. Affected jobs are predicted to be in financial services, Insurance and Housing sectors.

The once booming sectors of the UK Economy have been hit the hardest for its heavy dependence on these sectors and the recovery will be much difficult as compared to other markets in the Europe the report forecasts.

The construction products association too has presented a poor outlook about the situation in the construction sector, where it predicts, it could be till 2021 for the sector to climb back again to the booming levels of 2007.

The only positive outcome of the report was that the business levels grew in the third quarter amidst job less threats, for the first time in two years.

Oh, My Aching Back! -- EMG Helps Physiatrists Find Causes of Pain

2009-10-01T02:51:00.000-07:00

-- Electromyography (EMG) detects the electrical potential generated by muscle cells, and can test nerve function. EMG can help physiatrists pin down the cause of back pain in cases such as spinal stenosis -- a narrowing of the spinal column -- in which the diagnosis can be tricky just relying on imaging techniques such as MRI. Read at Science daily.com.

Back Pain Relief -- Neurosurgeon Devises MRI-Based Technique to Diagnose Sciatica

2009-10-01T02:42:00.000-07:00

-- Up to 40 million American suffer from sciatica pains, but the condition is often not diagnosed correctly. A new imaging technique uses a specially tuned MRI scan to image nerves and highlight them deep inside tissues. Called Magnetic Resonance Neurography, the new technique promises to diagnose conditions such as sciatica -- in which a compressed nerve in the buttock causes persistent lower-back and leg pain -- in up to 95 percent of cases that were previously undiagnosed.

Read at Science daily.com.

Wi-Fi a lifeline alternative access to 3G

2009-09-29T04:09:00.000-07:00

Here’s a review of an article of NY times on Wi-Fi access, when the 3G wired network is clogged and cannot be accessed, it’s really been a rude shock to see that so many proud owners of 3G smart phones like iphone’s, Blackberry’s etc., are not able to access the networks due to congestion, I could not have imagined this in my wildest of dreams. How could that it be ? Nevertheless it is a harsh fact, and now lets move on to check the alternatives.

Coming back to the article review, it deals with number of ways a mobile customer can access the network through a Wireless-Fidelity or Wi-Fi connection while in the vicinity of a hot-spot, a location where a nomadic user can log on to an available Wi-Fi network without actually having to do anything, as most of the times the mobile device automatically detects and connects the user to an available wireless network and the technology lets the user to do so.

Network providers set up these Wi-Fi hotspots in high density areas such as airports, cafeteria and other important locations people access often, in order to support the communication needs of the people. But in case your mobile settings need you to log on to one of such a Wi Fi connection, you need to tweak settings in your phone once, so that it logs on automatically next time.

Article gives some good information for the US users caught in the midst of a 'network clog' to check on the alternatives till the 3G networks are more accessible in the future. In this aspect AT&T is providing an alternative access to its customers with a Windows Mobile Phone, can now be able to access company's roughly 20,000 hot-spots across the country. And some of the Wi-Fi apps, that work when you are a subscriber to a Wi-Fi connection of any of the service providers, let the user to sniff out the nearest Wi-Fi location.

nytimes article

In developing countries the networks are still in evolutionary stages from the existing 2G/2.5G stages. There are lessons to be learned for Asian telecom operators from this, particularly in China and India, in how they are going to deploy their 3G networks, as with the case of Western and other mature Asian markets like Japan and Korea, that could not mange to capitalize on profits with a relatively quick switch to 3G networks.

More Reading

1.What is Wi-Fi ?

2.What is 3G ?

Breakthrough computer models aiding cocaine addiction research

2009-09-23T12:46:00.000-07:00

There has always been a great deal of curiosity at the secrets of addiction. In this case scientists have developed breakthrough computer models to study the brain mechanisms taking place inside a cocaine addict's brain.

University of Missouri researchers at the Department of Electrical and Computational Engineering have done much needed research on the subject. The post doctoral students in their research have utilized computational models to study how the brains chemicals and the synaptic mechanisms or connection between neurons react with cocaine addiction. This study is an important development in the field of research involving cocaine and other related addictions and this is the first time ever that cocaine addiction has been studied using computer models.

“With cocaine addiction, addicts don’t feel an urge to revolt because there is a strong connection in the brain from the decision-making center to the pleasure center, which overwhelms other normal rewards and is why they keep seeking it,” Pendyam, one of the researcher said

Read the full article at Sciencedaily.com.

Saddam's former body guard to be deported from Sweden

2009-09-23T09:29:00.000-07:00

It is just one of the many Asylum stories but it seems the state has had a final say in this case. A former body guard for Saddam Hussein is set to be deported from Sweden according to news reports.

According to the security intelligence of Sweden sapo, the man is a security risk for the country. The security intelligence report which claims the man a security risk remains classified.

The government is well aware of the situation of the man and the nature of threat against the man but still is unwilling to budge from its rigid stand.

If deported the man faces a direct threat to his life from extra judicial killings in Iraq taking place after the overthrow of the former Ba'ath party of Iraq under Saddam Hussein.

His wife and children have been provided Asylum earlier.

The Human rights lawyers working in this case state that it is against law of the land to deport a man even if he is a security risk.

It is a very contentious issue as to what happens to the man if deported to Iraq, one thing is to be considered for sure, if nothing happened since 2003 in that country, what will happen to Sweden if he is given Asylum ?

You can read the full story here.

Secrets of Insect Flight and Aerodynamics revealed

2009-09-21T13:12:00.000-07:00

Scientists have been studying the insect flight in order to develop micro-aircraft modeled around the aerodynamics the insect use for high maneuverability and efficiency. In this important case it is Locusts, known to be nature's most efficient fliers with the capability of flying long distances under extremely low energy reserves.

The idea for developing micro-aircraft for such a flight arises out of the need to control the situations involving search and rescue, military and other hazardous environments.

Scientists have been successfully able to decode the aerodynamics of the Locusts using high speed digital camera's on Locusts flying in a wind tunnel to capture how the Locust's wings flap during the flight, this is the first time ever that engineers have been able to decode the most efficient fliers, Locusts.

The study appears in the sep 18 issue of the journal Science.

"Until very recently it hasn't been possible to measure the actual shape of an insect's wings in flight – partly because their wings flap so fast, and partly because their shape is so complicated.

"Locusts are an interesting insect for engineers to study because of their ability to fly extremely long distances on very limited energy reserves." - Dr John Young of the University of New South Wales, Australia.

Read the full story at Sciencedaily.com.

Gaming addiction poses 'pandemic' threat : Expert

2009-09-16T13:13:00.000-07:00

Computer game addiction has truly become a menace for the kids, there seems to be no end to this perennial problem. Parents have much to worry about their kids spending all of the important time playing video games. I too remember the days when I used to spend lot of time at computer games, boy it's real addiction like any other thing. A recent post of mine delved with a topic related to the importance of outdoor lifestyles of children based on a study by
National Wildlife Federation

And now a study by an organization doing research in computer gaming addiction gives a new damning report in a new study indicating the addiction becoming a pandemic and a world wide phenomenon.

"This is a huge hidden problem in a lot of countries and it doesn’t get the same kind of attention because it takes place largely behind closed doors rather than out in public," Sven Rollenhagen of the Youth Care Foundation (Stiftelsen Ungdomsvård. ) told The Local.

The rate at which the new High Definition games hitting the market, there's a kind of huge following among all the younger generation. The important question is How a child is going to cope with the probability of getting addicted to computer machine games ? Guardians have a fair deal of sharing this responsibility I think.

"These are smart guys, highly intelligent, capable of being anything – doctors, engineers, whatever. But they find themselves tempted by computer games and end up just wasting time in front of a screen," said Rollenhagen.

You can read the full article here.

Related Post :

1.Outdoor lifestyles important for a Child's academic performance.

Raw Video: Cheetah Sets Speed Record

2009-09-13T13:37:00.000-07:00

'Sarah,' the Cincinnati Zoo's eight-year-old female cheetah, is now the world's fastest land mammal. She sprinted 100 meters in only 6.16 seconds.

Paraglider Crashes into Crowds and a Speeder Wears Monkey Mask

2009-09-09T13:08:00.000-07:00

A motor-powered paraglider dropping prizes at a festival in Utah crashed into a crowd and injured six people, half of them children. (Sept. 8)

A Phoenix man apparently likes to speed but doesn't like having his picture taken. Traffic cameras have snapped him wearing different masks as he speeds on the highways.

Study :Outdoor lifestyles important for a child's academic performance

2009-09-06T12:16:00.000-07:00

A new study by the National Wildlife Federation, a US organization for conservation of Wildlife suggests that indoor lifestyles of child students can have less performance on overall development of a child including a decline in performance at studies.

“Today’s indoor kids are distracted, less fit, more aggressive, and hard to manage in the classroom. Some don’t relate well to other students or adults on a personal level,” said Vice President for Education and Training Kevin Coyle.
“Outdoor time can improve overall healthwhile lengthening attention spans, diminishing aggressiveness, improving test scores and ultimately advancing learning” he added.

It is important that a child needs as much outdoor exposure to balance out the lifestyle which nowadays is increasingly getting indoors. The report also suggests that students who have access to Environmental education(EE) have good statistics of performance

Recovery difficult in US as the unemployment rate climbs to 9.7

2009-09-06T02:18:00.000-07:00

The global financial crisis showed some signs of recovery after the crash in 2007 with some economies like Japan’s, slenderly coming out of the red, the economy has been stabilized and growth is returning to the economies but it will be a long and painful journey ahead reports say according to the analysts.

The financial markets failed as its rational expectations theory and some other spin offs- such as efficient market hypothesis and the financial derivatives up on which the financial Guru’s place their bets on lost out miserably, shattering the world’s financial system. The economic horizon is still uncertain and the recovery will be long, difficult and painful according to the media reports.

A recent US report also indicated the Unemployment rate climbing to 9.7 in the United States, though the rate has increased, the number of lost jobs count has slowed down and the analysts predict the rate will further rise to 10.1 by the middle of the next year. It is a healthy sign but unemployment rate climbing, there is not the underlying fuel there for strong consumer spending which is vital for the recovery analysts predict.

All along people in the US lost 6.9 million jobs since the country’s economy went into recession in 2007.

And now, analysts in the US reported a 3 to 4 percent growth in the third quarter thereby pulling US out of the longest recession since World War II.

In Asia, China and India are leading the economic recovery despite the world economy slow down with both the economies posting growth, with the Chinese economy posting a growth of 7.9 percent during the May-June Period and India’s economy posted a healthy 6.1 growth.

So, for now the story of main recovery in the world economy is happening in Asia, with China and India leading the way.

Other related posts :

1.Are Computer based complex models responsible for the financial crisis
2. Barack Obama’s first news conference after the elections

China approves one dose home-grown swine flu vaccine

2009-09-05T01:15:00.000-07:00

China on Thursday granted approval to its first home-grown swine flu vaccine, which producer Sinovac says is effective after only one dose, as the country braces for a feared winter outbreak.

European version of vaccine produced by the UK Pharmaceutical companies such as Glaxo, is a two doses based vaccine, and there are special guidelines for children below three years in some countries.

With India too gearing up in the vaccine campaign, initially the Government of India is planning to administer first vaccine shots of about 2 million doses to the doctors and health care workers, and other important service sector employees involved in battling the virus and who are at a higher risk of contracting the virus.

The main concern of the complete vaccination scenario is not enough time has been spent studying the after effects of the vaccine, but recent reports indicated that there have been no complications as of yet. But it is still hard to say about the total effectiveness of the Flu shot, as it is a battle against time with the onset of flu season in most parts of the world.

Other related stories

1. H1N1 battle: No side effects in the flu shot
2. NY times story

Israeli angle behind 9/11 incident ? New chilling accusations !

2009-09-04T16:21:00.001-07:00

The comment below I picked up while I was going through a column published in TheLocal (the Sweden's English News Website ) on the upcoming Europian Union's Foreign Ministers meet in Stockholm, where the Foreign minsiter of UK David Milliband talked about a swift enquiry into the NATO bombing in Afghanistan killing over 90 people and injuring scores of others.

The veracity and claims of the comment are still to be verified, but the comment contains good number of facts and other leads indicating a Zionist conspiracy behind the 9/11 saga.

" If I could read and write Swedish I'd have this info to Aftonbladet and Donald Boström in a hot minute.The Norway divestment from Elbit Systems Ltd. is breaking news.The Local should pick up on it and as the Swedish English News source should review Christopher Bollyn's(who has a Scandinavian connection by way of his wife),strong accusation of a possible Israel and Elbit Systems Ltd. connection to 9/11 by way of an explosive called Super-Thermite that he believed was planted in the WTC just prior to 9/11/01.

You can follow the links below including to Bollyn's site which has much more info than I can post here.I have never met him but he studied at U.C.Santa Cruz and I lived in Santa Cruz which is where I briefly met CIA Chief Leon Panetta who was my Congressman at the time.Small world indeed.But there is more !

I warned Aftonbladet and Donald Boström above about NY Zionist 'justice' using New York Judge Alvin Hellerstein who has blocked 9/11 families legal discovery at ever turn - for how many years now !? Well,as it turns out there is a

Ran Hellerstein, age 58 who is Executive Vice President and Co-General Manager of Elbit Systems Ltd.'s Aerospace Division Haifa, Israel !This info is thanks to Christopher Bollyn.So first check the recent news re Norway,Elbit and the Israeli government.Check out Bollyn's website for yourselves.

online.wsj.com/article/SB125197496278482849.html

By ELIZABETH ADAMS

LONDON -- Norway's Finance Ministry said Thursday it has excluded Israel's Elbit Systems Ltd. from the country's vast global pension-fund portfolio because of ethical concerns...

ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3771870,00.html

Foreign Ministry summons Norwegian ambassador over Elbit decision

Ynetnews - ‎11 hours ago‎

Yossi Gal, director-general of the Foreign Ministry, summoned the Norwegian ambassador to Israel following his government's decision to exclude Elbit ...

bollyn.com/index.php#article_11310

Christopher Bollyn outside his home in suburban Chicago after being assaulted and tortured with a TASER by ..undercover tactical team in front of his wife and 8-year-old daughter in August 2006....

Israel's Super-Thermite Lab

August 26, 2009

The thesis of my book, Solving 9-11: The Deception that Changed the World, is that a small gang of high-level Zionist extremists carried out 9-11. This group centers around the senior Israeli terrorist, Shimon Peres, who is currently president of Israel...Alvin K. Hellerstein is devoted to protecting Israel. He has obstructed a 9-11 trial for 8 years...

Some members of the family emigrated to Palestine while others went to America. The ones that went to Palestine later went to America, and vice-versa. The family is one of the founding families of the Zionist state... Alvin K. Hellerstein, who is currently ruling over the 9-11 litigation.. "
Comment found on this weblink of TheLocal website.

Controlled Demolition of WTC ?

I just saw this Youtube video for the first time, which has already garnered some 12 million hits and there are awful lot of explosions taking place in the footage shot in and around the WTC on fateful 9/11 morning, there's the coverage from reporters, the firefighters reporting bomb's being planted in the WTC, conversations could be heard at the backdrop of WTC towers. Comment above if you have gone through just highlights the same belief that Christopher Bollyn had that there were explosives planted in the WTC before the plane's crashing into them.

Explosions were from the Oxygen cylinders some say, but they are huge enough explosions taking place like someone trying to dig through the foundation.

Related posts :

Sweden-Israel tension on 'Organ harvest article involving Palestinians' continues
Swedish PM: No Apology to Israel

Grid computing, the new commodity

2009-09-03T14:12:00.000-07:00

European researchers have created a platform for trading computing resources that allows the selling and buying of standardised computing resources. In the process, they could make computing a utility like electricity.

Grids are not new. They have been around for quite a while, made famous by the SETI@HOME network, a charitable effort where ordinary computer users ‘volunteered’ their unused computer processing power to analyse signals from space. SETI hoped to find patterns in the signals revealing extraterrestrial intelligence.

That aim may not been achieved, but the effort brought the power of grid computing to the attention of the general public. Still this is not news.

What is new, is that the EU-funded GridEcon project has created a commodity market platform that enables users to bid on available computing capacity, or put out a tender for a specific computing time slot.

This spot and future market mechanism is enabled by a computing platform developed by the GridEcon project.
A big idea

This is a big idea. It is true that organisations can already rent ‘cloud’ computing capacity from companies like Amazon, HP and others, but they generally only offer their spare capacity.

The beauty of GridEcon's platform is that it is open – users can buy and sell computing capacity on their own terms. And buyers can also be sellers. If a company has a large computer park it can offer its spare capacity, but if it has a temporary need for much greater capacity it can bid for it on the marketplace.

GridEcon built a virtual trading floor for computing resources, a platform for validating new market-based services, published extensive studies on the economics and mechanics of computing resource marketplaces, and generated a buzz around the concept.

The project has just completed its work, and already it is receiving queries from companies interested in launching the world's first open marketplace for computing capacity as a commercial venture.
The platform

The platform is GridEcon's second key result. It consists of a marketplace, the interface and a fundamental market mechanism, which focuses on spots (or bids for immediate capacity) and future markets, where capacity is required at some later date. It comprises a set of prototype implementations of market-based services.

Underlying this is the workflow engine, middleware that routes inputs from the marketplace to the components that execute the task. "One of our key goals with the platform was to make it easy to use and set up," explains Prof. Dr Jörn Altmann, technical director of the GridEcon project.

"So this workflow engine hides the underlying complexity of the system, because we did not want the user to have to deal with that."

Various services complete the system; some integral to its operation, like the execution engine and the monitoring and history services; and some as stand-alone services that significantly increase the value of the platform, like capacity planning and an insurance broker.

GridEcon designed and tested one market mechanism, but if a company wants to develop some other market mechanism, then they can easily plug new functionality into the platform. It means GridEcon is enormously flexible and could be used for a wide variety of potential market types. The platform is available under open source license terms and the entire code is available at the GridEcon website.

The project is really on top of the real needs faced by users. "We started developing a fixed price quotation broker, which can give users an indication of price at a future date as a backbone for their bidding on the futures market,” explains Sonja Klingert, project coordinator at the International University in Germany.

A couple of months into that work, she tells ICT Results, Amazon brought out some ‘futures’ functionality on their Elastic Computer Cloud platform, EC2. “It was encouraging, because it showed we were going in the right direction," she concludes.
Commercial future?

"Our role was to build the platform and test it – and the results of our testing phase were indeed positive with respect to functionality and response times. But it is there for somebody else to turn it into a commercial venture,” notes Klingert.

“We are making the website more attractive to business people, so they can see its potential and go live with it."

Some consortium partners have been approached by people interested in creating a business around this paradigm, and the number of visitors looking at the website rose dramatically at the beginning of the year, and that trend is increasing.

The platform is the most visible of the project's results, but the consortium also produced an astonishing amount of research on the mechanisms, market types, pricing issues and economics of cloud computing.
Gold dust

It is perhaps a little less tangible, but the team's original research represents a thorough and profound review of the market potential of grid- and cloud computing, and as such it represents commercial gold dust.

One paper, the ‘Taxonomy of Grid Business Models’, systematically outlines all the various roles and services in grid computing, revealing 17 commercial niches that companies could occupy.

And it is just one of two-dozen papers produced by the consortium. The team gathered all the key texts in a 150-page book, which is freely available to download from their website.

Finally, the project organised a series of workshops around the topic of grid computing marketplaces and the economics of cloud computing.

In all, the work of the GridEcon project represents an all-points effort to establish successful and open grid computing markets, and it has the potential to revolutionise the use of computing resources in small- and medium-sized enterprises.

The GridEcon project received funding from the ICT strand of the EU’s Sixth Framework Programme for research.

Source: ICT RESULTS.

Ramadan: The holiest month of the Muslim faithful

2009-09-03T01:29:00.000-07:00

Ramadan is the holiest month of the Islamic Calendar, the Holy Qur'an was revealed in this holy month by the God as per the beliefs of the community. Fasting is ordained in this month by the God for the faithful to better understand the conditions of the poor and the misery and work for their welfare and upliftment not only in the month of holy month of Ramadan but throughout their lives. Zakah, an Islamic name for the charity is compulsory for those are rich and affluent by certain means. It is basically a system to help those who are in need as per the
God's laws.

Believers are ordained to restrict many of the cultural activities due to set of rules laid down for fasting by the God. Eid ul fitr festival marks the end of month of beautiful month of Ramadan, where delicacies are served to enjoy the spiritualness of the month.

Swedish-Israel tension on 'organ harvest article invovling palestinians' continues

2009-08-31T12:14:00.000-07:00

After the publication of an article related to an organ harvesting racket reportedly, done by the Israeli defense forces in a Swedish News daily named Aftonbladet by journalist Donald Boström, the political atmosphere between Sweden and Israel has been strained, with Israeli politicians calling on the Swedish government to condemn the publication. Initially the Swedish Ambassador to Israel Elisabeth Borsiin Bonnier condemned the incident, but Stockholm the capital of Sweden, distanced itself from the issue citing press freedom in the country. But there is uproar among the Israeli Politicians accusing Sweden of supporting anti-Semitic lobby in Sweden.

The controversy took a new turn now, when Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said he has discussed with his Swedish counterpart ironing out a resolution denouncing anti-Semitic culture at an EU foreign ministers meet in Stockholm, Sweden, which is now the rotating president of the EU for six months.

But later on the Swedish FM Carl Bildt farcically denied about discussing the issue at all with the Italian Minister. Italy:EU should condemn the aftonbladet article.

Aftonbladet's organ harvesting allegations are ludicrous from a medical perspective, writes Johns Hopkins medical school lecturer Andrea Meyerhoff, who also argues that Sweden has missed an opportunity to "reject anti-Semitism and reaffirm principles of good journalism." -

1.An excerpt from the article in TheLocal.

"Bildt did the math: no one gains political points from pleasing Israel"

2. Another article by David Stavrou.

Stockholm prepared to enforce smoking ban next year.

2009-08-27T13:12:00.000-07:00

Employees of the city of Stockholm are going to face a smoking ban. The capital city of Sweden is going to enforce a smoking ban upon its 45,000 employees.

It is said that the smoking related illness and other sickness holidays are costing the government some $367 million per annum. The law which is not yet introduced, will be formally launched from 1st of May next year in all probability as the ruling government is supportive of the idea and is very much likely to vote for the ban according to the Swedish television channel SVT.

In a survey done by a local organization found out that at least 64 or more municipalities are interested on the ban out of 290 city councils in the state of Sweden.

Now Smokers will be able to enjoy smoking cigarette in the un-paid lunch hour only. Well, it seems quitting smoking is the best option under the circumstances, I don't know what type of fine the government will enforce if someone breaks the ban, that will be interesting to watch.

Halal cosmetics offer new beauty twist to Muslim faithful

2009-08-25T11:59:00.000-07:00

And now for Muslim faithfuls a whole new range of Halal Cosmetics, the religion of Islam prohibits using of pork materials or Alcohol in any of daily needs like perfumes or cosmetics, but a Canadian entrepreneur took the lead in launching a company just to cater to the this select band of customers and potential of the market is huge, considering the demand for such type of products in the Middle-East and other countries.