Sunday, July 29, 2007

HHeights

Highland Heights ranks 75th on CNN Money Magazine's 2007 best small cities to live.

The rankings, which came out this week and reviewed cities with 7,500 to 50,000 residents, used indicators such as median family income, housing prices, education, cultural activities, weather and racial diversity, among others.


Saturday, July 28, 2007

Scholarship Judges

Looking for Scholarship Judges
By Jeanette Evans

If anyone is interested in volunteering to be a scholarship judge, we will soon be recruiting, looking for judges who have at least three years in the field and not affiliated with any learning institution or programs.

As to other academic relations committee news, we were fortunate to have recruited a new volunteer, Sarah Burke, to co-chair the academic relationship committee. Throughout the summer Sarah and I worked on the scholarship application and related materials. We also began developing an academic program contacts database.

In the upcoming year, we hope reach out to area technical communication-related programs to introduce them to STC and our chapter. Learning more about the CSU certificate programs in science writing and technical writing and Kent State’s information architecture and knowledge management program is another goal. This is in addition to working with other area programs.

If you have ideas on how to encourage students to apply for the scholarship and/or enhance our academic relations work, please let us know.

During our last board meeting, several people mentioned they are interested in going to an area high school to make a presentation about technical communication as a possible career interest. If anyone has done this and would like to share experiences, please let me know. If you are interested in doing this, we would like to share your experiences and look forward to hearing from you.

Friday, July 27, 2007

Cipro, Aug.7

Information about the antibiotic prescribed for urinary tract infections, prostatitis, cystitis, bacterial infections, and infectious diarrhea.

19 years ago, Bayer Pharmaceuticals introduced the first broad spectrum oral fluoroquinolone, Ciprofloxacin (Cipro®, Ciproxin®). The intravenous formulation of Cipro was introduced in 1991. Cipro is available in more than 100 countries and has been approved for the treatment of 14 types of infections, especially urinary tract infections (UTIs) such as acute uncomplicated cystitis, pyelonephritis, and chronic bacterial prostatitis.

Cipro is considered the "gold standard" therapy for many types of Gram Negative infections, including Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and has maintained a high level of activity against Escherichia coli compared to other agents used for UTIs.Cipro's 19 year history includes:


Extensively studied and documented in over 37,000 publications
More than 100,000 patients enrolled in double blind trials around the world
Prescribed for more than 340 million patients worldwide


Extensive and unprecedented safety profile

The major adverse effect seen with use is gastrointestinal irritation, common with many antibiotics. Because of its general safety, potency and broad spectrum activity, ciprofloxacin was initially reserved as a drug of last resort for use on difficult and antibiotic-resistant infections. As with any antibiotic, however, increasing time and usage has led to an increase in ciprofloxacin-resistant infections, mainly in the hospital setting. Also implicated in the rise of resistant bacteria is the use of lower-cost, less potent fluoroquinolones, and the widespread addition of ciprofloxacin and other antibiotics to the feed of farm animals, which leads to greater and more rapid weight gain, for reasons which are not clear.
In cell culture it is used to treat infection with mycoplasma.


It is used in lower respiratory infections (pneumonias), urinary tract infections, STDs, septicemias, Legionellosis and atypical Mycobacterioses. Dosage in respiratory infections is 500-1500 mg a day in 2 doses.
It is contraindicated in children, pregnancy, and in patients with epilepsy. Dose adjustment or avoidance may be necessary with liver or renal failure.
Ciprofloxacin can cause photosensitivity reactions and can elevate plasma theophylline levels to toxic values. It can also cause constipation and sensitivity to caffeine. Ciprofloxacin is also known to cause swelling of certain joints and cartilage.

Quercetin, a flavonoid occasionally used as a dietary supplement may interact with fluoroquinolones, as quercetin competitively binds to bacterial DNA gyrase. Some foods such as garlic and apples contain high levels of quercetin. Whether this inhibits or enhances the effect of fluoroquinolones is not entirely clear.


Metal cations such as aluminium, magnesium, calcium, ferrous sulphate, and zinc are thought to form chelation complexes with fluoroquinolone antibiotics and prevent the drugs from being absorbed. Because of this, avoid taking ciprofloxacin with antacids which contain aluminium, magnesium or calcium. Sucralfate, which has a high aluminium content, also reduces the bioavailability of ciprofloxacin to approximately 4%Ciprofloxacin may be taken with meals or on an empty stomach. Ciprofloxacin should not be taken with dairy products or calcium-fortified juices alone, but may be taken with a meal that contains these products.


Heavy exercise is discouraged, as achilles tendon rupture has been reported in patients taking ciprofloxacin. Achilles tendon rupture due to ciprofloxacin use is typically associated with renal failure.

German holidays/time

Oct 03 Wednesday Day of German Unity

Oct 31 Wednesday Reformation Day

Nov 01 Thursday All Saints Day

NY Germany
6am 12noon
8am 2pm
12noon 6pm
6pm 12midnight

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

7/29 Sac

Alexandra was the wife of the wicked Emperor Diocletian and was a Christian, but secretly. While Diocletian was having Saint George tortured, the Empress went to the arena and bowed before St. George and professed her faith openly.

Her husband was so outraged by this and by so many people being converted by witnessing George's miracles and patient endurance, that he ordered both of them beheaded.

Alexandra quietly accepted her sentence and prayed as the guards walked her to the place of execution where she quietly gave her soul to God. She reposed in 303. Two days later, St. George was beheaded. They are commemorated at the same time along with Anatolios, Protoleon and the 630 others who were martyred for professing faith while witnessing George's martyrdom.

7/26 Barb

Barbara was beautiful and intelligent. Her wealthy father kept her like a treasure in a tower, in Heliopolis, Egypt.

One time, when her father was out of town, she ventured out of the tower and met some Christians. She immediately embraced the Christian faith.

When her father found out about her faith, he turned her over to the governor of the city to be tortured. Barbara took her stand for Christ and was tortured and killed by her own father.

The same day, lightning struck her father's house, killing both him and the governor. She suffered in 306.

Prius plug in

Toyota unveiled plans for a plug in hybrid Prius. This is a first for the industry. Toyota is testing the vehicle on public road.

It is called the Tyotya Plug-in HIV. Plug in cars are designed to enable short trips powered entirely by the electric motor. The batter is recharged via an electric socket at home.

Many environmental advocates see them as the best available technology to reduce gasoline consumption and global-warming greenhouse gas emissions, but engineers say battery technology is still insufficient to store enough energy for long-distance travel.


"It's difficult to say when plug-in hybrids could be commercialized, since it would depend largely on advances in battery technology," said Executive Vice President Masatami Takimoto, in charge of Toyota's powertrain technology, told a news conference.


The Toyota Plug-in HV, which is due to be tested also in the United States and Europe, has a cruising range of just 13 km (8 miles) on one charge, even with its trunkful of batteries.


GM in January showed a concept version of the plug-in Chevrolet Volt that would be powered by a lithium-ion battery. It has set 2010 as a target for production.


Ford this month partnered with No. 2 U.S. electric utility Southern California Edison for real-world testing of a fleet of up to 20 rechargeable vehicles to be based on the Escape Hybrid SUV. Ford has said plug-ins could enter showrooms in five to 10 years.


Toyota, which launched the world's first mass-volume gasoline-electric hybrid car, the Prius, in 1997, said it would test eight prototypes of the plug-in hybrid to gather data on real-life driving over the next three years after gaining government approval on Wednesday.


Many automakers including Toyota, Nissan Motor Co. (7201.T) and Mitsubishi Motors Corp. (7211.T), are working with Japanese battery makers to develop next-generation lithium-ion batteries with improved capacity to store energy.