Welcome to a free and independent informational hub

Useful Links

2011-10-16T18:23:00.000-07:00

Vitamins and Minerals
www.vitaminshoppe.com
www.vitacost.com
www.luckyvitamin.com
www.iherb.com

Grain, Peas, Beans, etc
wwww.homegrownharvest.com - Georgia farms
www.bobsredmill.com - Indiana/Oregon farms
www.starwest-botanicals.com

Clothing
www.altrec.com
www.timberland.com
www.backcountry.com
www.paragonsports.com
www.rei.com

Gym and Exercise Equipment
www.dickssportinggoods.com
www.modells.com
www.sportsauthority.com

On genetics, neurogenetics, and neuropathology.

2010-04-26T11:45:00.000-07:00

On Neuropathology :

- The loss of working memory leads to the neurological conditon we define as Alzheimer’s disease. People still have control of short term, long term and verbal memory but do not have working memory function. People who ha ve lost the capacity for working memory appear mentally retarded but are responsive and understand what is going around them to a certain degree.
- People who are unmotivated to exercise have lost vigor. The brain region for vigor is responsible for physical strength and physical stamina. Vigor is located on the right hemisphere of the brain.
- People who do not enjoy life and have no faith in God have a tendency to become Goths. Goths are subculture groups whose members are irreligious and do not enjoy life. Reward-seeking brain region is located in the occipital lobe. There is a brain region for religious behavior.
- People who are extremely violent have lost their capacity to regulate their aggressive behavior.
- Control of movement brain region once deactivated or damaged leads to a condition we usually define as ADHD or ADD. People lose their ability to pay attention to external stimuli or control over precise limb articulation. Clumsiness is closely associated with the loss of control of movement.
- Social awareness or neural seat of consciousness is in the prefrontal cortex. Loss over regulation of self awareness and social vigilance brain region leads to high functioning autistic like disorder. Adults and children have a tendency to be misdiagnosed with Asperger syndrome or Autism.

On Human Instincts :

If a brain region for love is shut down and the brain region for faith is activated then the person is devotedly in love. If the brain region for love is shut down and brain region for faith is shut down as well then the person feels passionate jealousy. When the person grows, the brain region for love and devotion and mating is continuously activated. When the person finds the right person he ‘falls’ in love with him or her. When he falls in love the brain region for mating is deactivated. Therefore, the default state is activation and not deactivation.

If the brain region for agreeing is activated then the brain region for disagreeingmust be deactivated at that moment. The two brain regions cannot be activated at the same time. When the belief is implied verbally by a speaker then the brain region for either agreeing or disagreeing is activated. The shutdown of both brain regions when the belief is implied leads to the lack of comprehension of language.

On Genetics :

I hypothesize that there exists a gene for poisoning others in some human species. It is also conceivable to assume that komodo dragons and spiders have the same gene as well. When the animal is poisonous then it bites and injects its fangs or teeth and poisons the attacker or prey. Some hominids on planet earth poison others and, therefore, share the homologous gene with other poisonous animals. The gene essentially turns humans into a poisonous species. One of the differences between the hominids and spiders is that spiders produce venom naturally and humans manufacture or obtain it from the natural environment. Spiders inject its venom and humans usually spike foods with toxic chemicals (heavy metals) that are subsequently ingested by the victims.

Kazaki Jews are man-beasts. They exhibit canine behaviors. Some of it has to do with toying with prey and attacking humans. Dogs are known to toy with prey before eating it and attacking other dogs or animals after encountering them.

It is reasonable to assume that the larger the brain size of the organism the more cognition-associated and behavioral genes the animal possesses. The fewer the genes for behavior there are the smaller the brain relative to the body size and mass. Humans and other primates have one of the largest brains relative to their body mass. The primates are behaviorally speaking one of the most complex animals on the planet. Some animals may be so simple that they may only have a few or just several genes for cognition and behavior encoded within their brain.

It is reasonable to assume that homologous genes that code for body structure, morphology, and behavior appear in highly different animals. Humans and other non-primate mammals can in theory have a set of homologous genes coding for behavior and physical body structure.

Human Personality and NeuroGenetics

2010-04-05T14:52:00.000-07:00

Human Personality Traits:

Degree of tolerability of indecency and inappropriate behavior (vulgarity, insults, etc)

Strength of Sexual Desire

Desire for Intimacy

Desire for Privacy and Seclusion

Desire for Socialization (Introversion or Extraversion)

Aggressiveness (Pacific or Confrontational)

Agreeableness (Disagreeing or Agreeing)

Material Possessiveness

Dependency

Athleticism (Physical stamina, vigor)

Creativity, Intelligence and Inventiveness

Fiscal Inclination (Thrifty, Frugal, Casheing, Saver)

Selflessness or Selfishness – Degree of Prosociality

Neurogenetics

A gene expresses itself in the brain and codes for a neuron, a receptor, a neurotransmitter, or the brain tissue that is ultimately connected to the master neuron that sends neurotransmitter so it can bind with the receptor. Genes that are expressed in the brain and code for neural tissue in humans can also be found in other animals. For example, Italians have a gene for stocking and stockpiling. The same gene can be found in the squirrels – cache nuts and seeds for the future. Racism in humans is a form of self-awareness and the gene that codes for this behavior is found in the brain region responsible for self-awareness and social vigilance. Racism allows closer and novel examination and analysis of one’s social environment. The gene that codes for neural tissue that is responsible for racist behavior is connected to the neuron that is responsible for social awareness. It will always be the case that certain brain-specific genes will be encoded in the brain by being connectively incorporated into the neural tissue that ultimately initiates the neural tissue to signal a neurotransmitter to bind to the receptor.

It is of significant importance to note that anthromorphizm or attribution of man-like qualities to other animals constitute a proper methodology in light of new understanding of Neurogenetics. If same behavioral genes are found both in animal and human genomes then anthromorphizing follows logic. When one says that some animals cry it simply means an animal species possesses a gene for weeping or crying or tearing or even mourning. It remains to be seen how many human genes are found in the animal kingdom.

My Additional Thoughts

2010-01-30T08:51:00.000-08:00

How should people be compensated for manual labor and labor that requires mental work?

The issue of compensation that is unfair for the experience and skills a person has arises oftentimes. The solution to this problem lies in the fact that certain jobs are more difficult than others and requires more training, education, and natural talent. Work that is manual in nature but requires precise articulation of the hands and fingers, good hand-eye coordination, and other similar characteristics should command higher pay than jobs that require simple non-complex lifting, pulling, and pushing. The risk to which a person is exposed measured as potential for sustaining an injury, damage, or death must be computed into pay packages. The potential can be represented by how much it costs to treat an injury that is caused as result of doing work. Suffering cannot be measured in my opinion. Injuries that cause permanent debilitation and that occur at work should be taken into account. Injuries that are sustained as a result of not following proper and articulated job procedures should not be compensated. Cost to treat injuries that occur as a result of an employer failing to provide safe working conditions should be on the tab of the employer. The jobs that require reasoning, thinking, and analyzing are different from those that require manual labor. These types of jobs can be faked due to its difficulty to be monitored by superiors. People who perform mentally intensive jobs must policed to make sure they do what is asked and do not fake their work.

The Economic Platform:
On Exports and Imports:

If a country wishes to import a product from another country then it also has to export to that country a good that is in totality as valuable as the good it imports. The total value of goods imported must not exceed the total value of goods exported to the trading partner.
Food can be poisoned. That is why methods and techniques of food preparation should be transferred to a country that wants it for a fee. The fee represents royalties which must continuously be paid as long as the food is prepared and consumed in a specifically taught manner. Food should never be made by people who are not yours for your own consumption. Food that has not prehistorically and historically been grown in the region where it is now grown and consumed should incur a royalty fee and be paid to the people who developed this agricultural product initially. The knowledge of archaeobotany is needed to figure this out. Food that is invented by people and feeds other cultures must be paid for by people who now grow and eat it, too. Royalty fee can come in a form of a good and may not be monetary.

Should international services exist? Why?

Should digital music be sold online by a foreign company? Why?

Should you be able to order foreign goods from a company that is located abroad online? Why?

How should you return products bought from abroad online if you are not satisfied? At what cost? Why?

Should people be allowed to buy food from abroad that is delivered by a barge or airways? Why?

Should you be allowed to access pornographic material and related websites that is stored and transmitted from abroad online? Why?

How should pornography be sold online to avoid minors and young adults shopping for it? Why?

Where pornography should be sold? Why?

Should people pay a fee for reading news? Why?

Should newspapers charge fees? Should online journalism be pay-per-view? Why?

Should you be able to access websites located in a country that is hostile to yours? Why?

How should terroristic, racist, sexist, xenophobic speech be censored on the internet? Why? Should it be censored?

Should you be able to buy books published by blacklisted companies, associations, and organizations?

Should information on the internet be free? Who should charge for information?

What kind of information should be secured and be accessible only after registration? Why?

Should people be allowed to sell used goods without a license online? Why?

Should people be allowed to sell food without a license? Why? Who should police food sold online? Is it safe? Why?

Should your country import food from other countries? Which foods? From which countries? Why?

Should drugs be allowed to be sold online? Why?

Should herbal supplements and nutritional supplements be sold online? Should license be required? Who should regulate it? Why?

What cannot be sold online in general? Why?

Should you be allowed to order goods from a state that is very far away when the same good can be ordered from your own or neighboring state? Why?
- What are the advantages and disadvantages? It is important to find out how the goods travel from the origin of manufacture to the warehouse to the consumer when it is bought online by retail customers. Is the distance traveled longer than the distance the goods travel from origin of manufacture to the warehouse to the store to the consumer on average when the good is bought in a physical store? This is the question that regards the purchasing of goods online and in a physical store. Perhaps, ordering from your region makes the most sense when you shop online. If that were the case then websites that are located in states that are too far away should not accept orders from your location due to the higher fuel costs and time it takes to travel.

Progressive Tax or Flat Tax

The progressive tax system takes away more from those who are high income earners. Ever since 1800’s some individuals in Western Europe and America (and other countries that fell prey to the man-beast) began growing a desire to increase their income because the masses desired a progressive tax system. When the masses want progressive tax for the rich, the rich at the same time want higher income to end up with more net income after taxes.

Running regression analysis: risk factors and mortality rates.

Let us say that the contribution of smoking, having unprotected sex, driving a car, flying a plane, watching television, eating food to the mortality rates is calculable.
Therefore, let us find the association between the amount of money and time spent smoking cigarettes, having sex with a partner, flying a plane, watching television, eating food and mortality rates.

Spent time:
Cigs = number of packs smoked a month times the amount of time it takes on average to smoke a single cig. (1 second total for a month means no cigs smoked)
Sex = duration of intercourse times the number of condoms used each month
Plane = amount of time spent in flight during a single month
Watching television = duration of all movies bought and watched, TV viewing time, etc.
Food = pounds of food bought times the amount of time it takes to eat one pound of food each month.
When all the estimated durations are calculated find the contribution each factor plays in sampled mortality rates.

Amount of money spent:
Examples:
Cigs = amount of money spent on cigs each month
Tickets = amount of money spent on tickets each month (1 penny means no tickets purchased)
Sex = amount of money spent on intimate goods, sexual paraphernalia, condoms, and gifts for his woman. (Women give sex when they are given gifts)
Television = money spent on DVDs, VHS, Television subscription.
Food = money spent on food each month

How to pick samples:
Pick one sample consisting of individuals still living
Pick one sample consisting of individuals who passed away
When this is done we can see what contribution each variable plays to mortality rates. The mortality rates for still living populations should be represented by a dummy variable. Perhaps, it should be 0.00001

What does this all mean?

The amount time of spent suggests the duration of exposure to an environmental stimuli and amount of money suggests quantity or unit of a good or a service used.

My Thoughts

2010-01-13T10:33:00.000-08:00

Scientific Hypothesis:

How wealthy a country or a city-state can become before it falls prey to an aggressive neighbor? The ability to accumulate resources has drastically been enhanced once human agricultural innovations became possible. If you have the capacity to store and preserve resources for future you become an object of a violent takeover. To avoid becoming conquered and losing your resources and your women you begin to raise armies for defense and perhaps for conquering smaller less wealthy neighbors. In essence, a city-state cannot become too wealthy and too dematerialized because it can eventually become conquered by a small militarized neighbor with much less resources. To test the hypothesis assume that we are calculating fractions represented by GDP per capita and army servicemen per capita for a particular city-state. If the gross domestic product is high and number of servicemen per capita is small the fraction is high. If the gross domestic product is low and number of servicemen per capita is high the fraction is low. How high and low can the ratios get before the city-state in question is wiped out? Let us call city-states with high ratios (where numerator is high and denominator is low) a progressive wealthy pacifists. Let us also call city-states with low ratios aggressor nations. Is it valid to assume that when you have too much stuff and too little army you are a subject for a hostile takeover? Is it also valid to assume that when you have too little stuff and too much army you are subject to a possible disbandment of the army (due to the fact that the army needs resources to operate)? By computing the ratios you can tell how low and how high they can realistically get. You can also see how one country stacks up with others. Is it a good idea to require all present nations to have the same wealth-military ratio? What can realistically happen if something like that occurs in real life? Is it valid to assume that the warfare cannot happen? Can a computer program generate such a scenario? Can a computer program accurately predict downfall of city-states if the wealth-military ratio for all of them are computed. How do resources get transferred and how they help and break the back of nations who acquire them?

Formula:

GDP per capita / army servicemen per capita = GDP / # of army servicemen

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Figuring out what drives stock market values:

Is it reasonable to assume that the values of S&P500 and weather temperatures are positively correlated? What about trading volume for the day and the average temperature during trading time of the day? If high daily temperatures during the trading hours compel people to seek comforts of home is it reasonable to expect them to trade equity (sell or buy) during those hours? Let us find correlation between trading volume for a particular trading day and the day’s corresponding average daily temperature. What to happen to trading volume on Monday when Saturday and Sunday orders go through? What if those days were significantly hotter than average?
Estimate the coefficient of correlation between the following variables:
A. Weekly/Monthly/Quarterly trading volume and # of computers purchased that week/month/quarter
B. Weekly/Monthly/Quarterly trading volume and # of internet connections added that week/month/quarter
C. Weekly/Monthly/Quarterly trading volume and # of blackouts/power outages/power shortages that week/month/quarter
D. Weekly/Monthly/Quarterly trading volume and energy consumed by the consumer sector that week/month/quarter
E. Weekly/Monthly/Quarterly trading volume and energy consumed by the business sector that week/month/quarter
F. Weekly/Monthly/Quarterly trading volume and # of people in the labor force
G. Weekly/Monthly/Quarterly trading volume and # of people out of the labor force
H. Weekly/Monthly/Quarterly trading volume and # of military escalations in the world that quarter registered by the TV media
I. Annual trading volume and total # of financial advisors employed that year between 2000 and 2008
J. Weekly/Monthly/Quarterly trading volume and # of commercials featuring brokerage firms on TV and radio that week/month/quarter
K. Weekly/Monthly/Quarterly trading volume and # of business-related books sold that week/month/quarter
L. Weekly/Monthly/Quarterly trading volume and # of money made selling business-related literature that week/month/quarter
M. Weekly/Monthly/Quarterly trading volume and average daily (when equity markets open) temperature that week/month/quarter
N. Weekly/Monthly/Quarterly trading volume and average daily (all days) temperature that week/month/quarter
Explanation as to why these calculations are needed:
Think about it… When customers get connected to the internet though their local ISP they are more likely to start trading equity. When it becomes hotter during the day before markets close a person may spend more time in his or his friends home and be compelled to start trading from his brokerage account to kill time. When we purchase new computers we inadvertently purchase internet service and start utilizing online brokerage firms. We drive up our energy costs by using the computer (watching resource-consuming streaming videos, music, reading news and books, networking and chatting). We may also spend much time on the computer researching and analyzing stocks. The more people in the labor force the more money they collectively earn and have. The money they earn can be invested in stocks. The more financial advisors there are in any given year the more promotional messages and chats/talk people can be exposed to during their daily life. Commercial and investment literature can increase individual’s desire to invest more and more often.

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Find associations between number of credits received for taking business related courses in college/university and individual’s financial success, prosperity, measures of health, well-being, and happiness. What about associations between credits received for liberal arts courses, science courses, engineering courses, computer courses and individual’s success in life, measures of health and prosperity? Can taking courses related to finance and investing turn you into a more successful businessman and investor? Can taking other types of courses pertaining to liberal arts, science, engineering do the same? Can taking courses in medicine or science lead to improvement in physical health and mental health? Can focusing on medical courses in college (by this I mean ratio of medical courses to non-medical courses taken in college or school) improve one’s health and well-being? Can it make you richer?
Amount of money spent on purchasing books, magazines, and newspapers that are business oriented and amount of money invested in stocks, net worth? Can buying and reading books, magazines, and newspapers about investing compel you to invest in stocks more readily?
Number of hours spent watching a TV channel each month and individual’s net income, net worth, blood test (hinting at mental and physical health). Can good TV channels about science, health, technology, and medicine make one more successful and prosperous? Do prosperity and health improve with more hours spent watching a particular TV channel? What is the optimal number of hours that one should spend watching TV in regard to net worth and health?

: Amount of money spent on plastic and cosmetic surgeries and net worth and physical and mental health.
: Amount of money spent on the pharmaceuticals each year and health and household net worth.
: Amount of money representing non-revolving and revolving debt and measures of health.

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I postulate that there is an inverse relationship between fertility and likeability and fertility and persecutability. When a person is social and likable his mental health may be sound and good. When mental health problems are suspected the person is often withdrawn, unlikable, and unsocial. Social conduct problems may be reasons for rejection and being ostracized. Via a yet unknown mechanism a person may have his fertility lowered if he becomes an object of rejection and persecution.

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I postulate that there is a relationship between intellectual adaptability and aptitude and one’s place of residence in a state with no gun control. There might be a relationship between total number of years of education per capita (adjusted for age) and number of guns owned by residents of that state. There may be a relation between a number of patents registered by individuals per capita, number of Ph’D per capita, and number of software engineers, life/social/physical scientists per capita and number of guns registered in the state per capita. If the relation holds and we can see that there are fewer more educated people in the states with more guns then it would mean two things: 1| Intelligent people who have a desire to attain more years of education and receive prestigious jobs have little desire to settle in states with no gun control and 2| People who have a desire for no gun control have no desire to attain more years of education, patent inventions, become biologists or software engineers.

People who abstain from eating fish do not receive iodine. Iodine is essential for optimal neurocognitive processing and signaling. People suffer from nutritionally-induced mental retardation if they abstain from eating fish and receive no iodine. Iodine deficiency is not permanent and can be reversed. If iodine is present in the diet up to a certain limit the intelligence is optimal unless mental or physical ailment is suspected.
Bottle-feeding is associated with lower IQ in adulthood. Mother’s milk contains special naturally-occurring fatty acids that are essential for child’s neurodevelopment. Lactation and breast feeding are an important and integral part of an infant’s diet. Failure to be breastfed in infantile stage may result in a lowered IQ in adulthood (7 to 8 points deficit).

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How should people live or what should the government do?

- Do not alter your body in ways that are not natural. Do not dye your hair, wear colored contact lenses. Do not do plastic surgery, cosmetic surgery, etc.
- Do not medicate purposelessly or needlessly. Do not medicate neurological generic disorders.
- Use what is natural and organic. Do not use chemicals and materials that irritate cells or cause allergies.
- Provide alternative types of lifestyle: settled life, city life, town life, village life, nomadic life.
- Talk science, business, technology, and medicine to advance your country. How much of a person’s conversation is devoted to the discussion of these four topics.
- Provide variety and selection of goods and services that do not overwhelm. Too much is no good and too little does not satisfy.
- Make example of good behavior, reward pro-social acts
- Reach a milestone where citizens of your country feel happy for one another’s well being.
- Individualism vs. cooperation as work ethics. Provide a business environment where employees of certain companies can complete with each other within a company yet others cooperate. Think of which business sectors where cooperation between employees of a company is most desired. Think where individualism and competitive behavior are most sought after.
- Set a CEO's compensation to be as high as the best performing employee plus a fixed amount. No one in the company can make more than the CEO. Disclose CEO pay packages to the public.
- Do not keep secrets that may endanger the public.
- To fight corruption and sophisticated crime develop strategies that are known to the offenders. Tactics that are known to the offenders but cannot be exploited even when knowledge about them is held are ideal.
- Take away money from people who constitute as relatives to people who steal and cheat. Make people who steal pay their relatives back what was taken from them. Relatives will hold self-interest in bringing their thievery members to good working order so that they can earn and pay back the debt.

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A technique to screen for white-collar crime offenders:
Point-scoring system lets you score points based on the red flags. The more red flags there are the more likely the person is a white-collar criminal. Criminals may do and may not do certain things. Depending on the combination of things that you do not do and do allows you to build a more accurate profile of a sophisticated criminal. If presence of factors that indicate criminality is counted to be high and absence of factors that indicate innocence is high then the ratio may approach a certain number. It is a good idea to build realistic ratios from the real world data.

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On Human Perspectives and World Political Systems:

In a society characterized as socialistic, fascistic, autocratic, and communistic individuals have highly similar perspectives. In an environment with highly standardized uniform products and services of limited selection and variation individuals on average have highly similar perspectives. Limited publications espousing individual or government opinion, thought patterns, reasoning, moral and philosophical, and religious teachings lead to an uniformity in perspectives. A perspective is individual’s understanding of how the world around him works and operates. Humans develop perspectives and act based on the convictions that are part of their perspectives. Perspectives help people develop a mental representation of the world. How are perspectives formed? They are formed by discriminatorily reading information sources, listening to people that are part of your social network, watching footage or video depicting various scenes. Engaging your sensory organs is the means by which perspectives are developed. What you choose to read online, in magazines, books, journals, what you choose to watch on TV, who you choose to socialize with are determined by the perspectives you initially hold. How can you get inside a person’s head? To get inside a person’s head in order to understand that man’s perspectives requires following this man's lifestyle for a specific period of time. An investigator who tries to examine someone’s perspective must read, watch, and listen to the same sources as the person he is studying.
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How services are created:
It is apparent that some businesses provide services to take care of human needs. Each service takes care of human need that can be represented as a verb or an action.

Examples:
Remembering – Museums
Watching – Video and TV
Fighting – boxing, martial arts
Reading – books, magazines, newspapers
Learning – schools, colleges, universities
Dancing – night clubs, discos
Singing – karaoke
Having sex – prostitution and sex work
Studying – textbooks, manuals
Enjoying nature – parks, gardens, aquariums, lagoons
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Talking to ancestors.
Is it possible that there exists neural memory mechanism in humans that allows people to conjure up images and dialogues of their ancestors? In some cultures people claim to have the capacity to communicate to ancestors. This may be an ancient behavior. This is either delusional thinking or true neural memory. With neural memory people can have a dialogue with their ancestors all in their heads. People can become like their ancestors if they wish to. All they have to do is activate that brain region.

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Studies and Inventions to create:

A. There is a strong need to find an estimation formula for Biomass. It is of significant importance to come up with a formula for biomass that would enable governments and organizations to tailor conservation and preservation of species strategies throughout the world using sound science. Business activity may change depending on what the negative and positive effects on species diversity and biomass are. Important questions must be answered in regard to invasive species and the biomass they represent. Is the increase in biomass represented by invasive species greater than the decrease in biomass represented in native species? What does it mean? Is it desirable to humans or nature or both? Is this a scientific question? How does human activity such as farming and industrial development affect biomass? What about infectious epidemics that affect various species? Factors such as human land use, number of humans living, business and economic activity, energy and water use, mining, public health and mental health of populations, etc all may have negligible or significant effects on biomass. It is reasonable to assume that human land use may mean encroachment on natural habitats and decrease in species abundance and diversity. Water and energy use and carbon dioxide can be significant driving forces behind biomass diminishment because they are clear measures of human business, economic, and physical activity. Which portion in variation in biomass do land, water, and energy use explain? Can carbon dioxide emissions impact species abundance? An ingenious study is needed to gain better understanding how to transform a barren land that was previously used by humans into a lush greenery.

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B. A study is needed to identify what makes one inorganic chemical toxic and noxious to a biological cell and another one not. Carncerginicity and allergic reactions experienced by humans when they come in contact with chemicals is known and was documented. What influences this reaction? How can chemicals be sort out? Developing a highly functioning framework will allow effective sorting, regulation, and management of chemicals. There needs to be attention paid to the chemicals that are proven harmful to humans and animals. Is it possible that the chemical formula itself holds clues as to what turns some chemicals into noxious and toxic compounds? Perhaps, it is the number of atoms of carbon, oxygen, or hydrogen that makes the difference? Odd or even? What about combinations of chemical elements or the total number of atoms in the formula? Perhaps, the compounds that have even number of carbon and hydrogen but an odd number of total atoms in the formula are what makes one chemical destructive to life… It will take creative thought and knowledge of chemistry to do the guesswork. Odd or even should be the key here. Everything else should be done by a computer algorithm.
C. There is a problem with computer motherboard and PC cases finding a common language. It turns out that most motherboards have on, off, sleep, hibernate and other features installed that may seem confusing. Jumper settings do not always work smoothly with PC cases. A user may inadvertently connect the wrong USB connector from the pc case into the wrong motherboard jumper. This may lead the device connected to the USB port to malfunction. An idea is to allow jumper settings practically ‘find’ each other without much thought or deliberation going into it. Perhaps, the coloring of the jumpers should be invented. Some may try getting different sizes or shapes for jumpers and connectors. Some may play with sounds or light indicators. The best design wins.
D. Document management software is needed that can transform a collection of reports, studies, papers, and other text documents into a highly structured and manageable virtual work environment. The software should have the ability to understand and lift up the documents or ebooks’ author, date of publication, size, etc. It should sort out the paper and place it, for example, into a logical place on the computer system. You should gain the ability to sort documents by type of publication, type of document (scientific paper, manuscript, homework, notes, reports, etc). A preview in a small window should be made available. Documents must be made searchable through the program.
E. It is highly important to have on the market well functioning personal finance software. Effective finance software should be capable of performing the following tasks: budgeting, spending and saving comparison, detailed portfolio analysis, risk management, parenthood planning, large-ticket purchase planning, financial and monetary transaction management, financial instrument information, etc.
Portfolio analysis may include calculating portfolio’s beta, standard deviation and expected return on the portfolio. It would be of value to allow the user to have a bird’s eye view of how the user is doing in relation to other individuals in his city, state, region or country based on the demographical characteristics entered into the program. The data should be glanced from the census report supplied by the US government. The application may also include comparison based on the historical data and not just the current one.

Risk metric ratios:
Credit limit on credit cards to income
Debt to net income
Debt to net worth
Anticipated debt to anticipated income and net worth

Features:
A. Application should allow you to create an inventory of your household.
B. Value of depreciation of goods – calculated as amount paid minus amount you would receive if you recycle or sell to another person
C. Registration of warranty and comprehensive list of warranty related information from each goods-making company (updatable, contacts, shipping costs to send back, etc)
D. Shipping –cost estimator – just the destination and the deportation points and the shipping method and company. (Shipping costs per unit of weight must be updatable) (USPS, FedEx, UPS).
E. Parenthood planning – projected monthly and quarterly costs associated with raising a child. Increasing nutrition costs, baby stuff costs, toys costs, health care costs, maternal care costs, etc.
F. Large-ticket purchasing – estimation of costs associated with large-ticket purchases (autos, homes, apartments, home appliances, renovation, etc).
G. Estimation of renovating a house or an apartment – # of rooms, paint, floor, tools, windows, etc.
H. Estimation of a replacement of a product or upgrade
I. Test your financial and money knowledge through multiple-choice quizzes
J. Look up rent prices for houses and apartments by area, house. What does it cost to purchase and acquire – number of rooms, bedrooms, bathrooms, etc.

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The Ultimate Chronology:

Human Parameters should be mapped chronologically. One parameter may be devoted to financial sciences and another to the economics and another to invention and technological development. An entry in one parameter may compliment an entry in another. It can also invalidate or disprove something from occurring or taking place. The parameter titled “events” is the most complicated to fill due to its uncertainty.

Human Parameters:

Biological Sciences (biology, genetics, evolution, paleontology, anatomy, neuroscience, etc)
- Techniques invented, fields and disciplines and sub-disciplines created, most influential people involved. Theories, hypothesis, and discoveries from the beginning to the finish of an idea (refutations included)

Physical Sciences (climatology, physics, astronomy, etc)
- Techniques invented, fields and disciplines and sub-disciplines created, most influential people involved. Theories, hypothesis, and discoveries from the beginning to the finish of an idea (refutations included)

Social Sciences (sociology, anthropology, archaeology, cultural psychology, etc)
- Techniques invented, fields and disciplines and sub-disciplines created, most influential people involved. Theories, hypothesis, and discoveries from the beginning to the finish of an idea (refutations included)
Financial evolution and its practice

- Financial instruments techniques, methods that are created from earliest times to the present.

Economics and its practice
- Economic theories, economic platform, hypothesis, international and national trading history, etc from Paleolithic times to modern age.

Companies and Corporations
- Names of important and influential companies. It can be destructive companies and it can be life-saving companies that have had major impact on human life. From first companies to modern companies.

Inventions, Technology, Techniques, Methods
- Inventions and Patents that were turned into highly acclaimed products and designs.
- Techniques that led to the evolution and development of services

Fashion Trends
- What people wear and major trends: shapes, color, etc

War and Diplomacy
- who wages war, who loses and wins, what weapons used, techniques, tactics, strategies
- (Tactics and strategies that are not developed yet or known cannot be used to wage war, weapons made of materials not known how to handle and use cannot be created and used for war waging, etc).

Law, Its History and Practice
- Major evolution of law systems – human rights, international law, national law, tort law, property law, human rights from prehistory to modern age.

Human Events
- What happened and who was involved from the beginning to the end. Events should be important.

Human Development
- Physiological development from early hominid times to the present (anthropology, evolutionary anatomy and physiology). Brain size, morphology, body structure and biomechanics from earliest humans to modern ones.
- Mental and behavioral development from anthropological and psychological perspectives. This would include mental capacities of ancient ancestors.

Animal Evolution and Its Activity
- Animals evolve and their evolutionary trajectories should be mapped.
- Organisms act out and, for example, kill humans and cause diseases and famines. This would include infectious bacteria and non-organisms such as viruses

Literature
– Books and literary works that transform the way people think, behave, and reason or live. It can be good or bad. It can be fiction or non-fiction.

Music and Movies
- Musical trends from earliest times to present. Major composers or singers. This field should be checked against the musical instruments to see if music can be produced in accordance to the law of musical instrument evolution and availability.

- Cinema and Movies of major importance. Cinema is a relatively recent human endeavor.

Major international criminals, criminal gangs, rebel groups, and terrorists
- Who they are and what they do
- Solved and unsolved crimes

Associations and organizations from earliest times to the present
- What functions do they serve? Who heads them? Money involved? Etc.

Propaganda
- Messages and lessons, calls for actions – this can be anything from an ancient manuscript to a printed pamphlet

Color coding:
- Entries should be color coded. The timeline is temporal and has time scales from Hadean period to modern age. The beginning is sparse and the present age is full of data. That is how it should look in theory.
- Each element in a parameter has the capacity to invalidate another element.

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Ideas for a TV Channel:
Shopping backwards:
The main idea behind the show is to shop backwards. The show starts when a player enters the store backwards with a large cart full of products. He has to locate the right shelves and put each product back while continuing walking backwards. He has to complete the entire course. At the end the player has to end up with an empty cart while leaving the store backwards. The show organizers then display the video for viewing to viewers from end to finish by slowly rewinding the tape without sacrificing quality. Viewers can watch how realistic the player’s shopping was based on what they saw on the tape.

The Food War:
Two women who are professional cooks compete for food ingredients. The total number of food ingredients is, perhaps, 80. Once the dispute is settled through an elaborate competition game the cooks begin to cook. They must be shown cooking on television and they have to use as many ingredients as possible but do not have to use all of them. They then finish cooking. Two male twins are supposed to score the meals on a rating scale. The person who gets the best marks and uses the greatest number of food ingredients wins the contest.

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An addiction should be defined as performing an action that lasts longer than usual by much. This means that addictions are behaviors that in regard to duration fall in the upper quartile of durations. Addictions may or may not impact health negatively. Therefore, addiction can also be defined as activation of a particular brain region for long periods of time continually on daily, weekly, or monthly basis.

Addictions:
A. Shopping
B. Internet Browsing
C. Masturbation and Ananism
D. Sex
E. Reading
F. Watching TV
G. Listening to music
H. Eating
I. Praying

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Fair Costs and Prices System:

Types of Costs to Manufacture a Product (From Airbus to a teaspoon):

- Labor (Healthcare, wages, bonuses, stock options, profit sharing, employee match)
- Energy (Oil)
- Supplies (chemicals, glass, stone, sand, steel, iron, etc)
- Depreciation (to machinery, tools)
- Storage (warehouse)
- Food for Workers
- Shipping Charges

Notes:

- Hourly Benefits = All total benefits divided by the total number of hours worked per period
- Depreciation and maintenance cost per 1 item made (Total depreciation divided by the number of products made)
- Storage cost per 1 item made (total storage cost divided by the number of products made)
- Cost of food to feed a worker in order to produce 1 item
- Cost of shipping to ship 1 item to its final destination (weight times shipping charge per pound)
- Energy to produce 1 item (price per kilowatt times number of kilowatts used for construction of the item)
- Cost of supplies to produce 1 item
- Cost of services offered by other companies that help you create the product or offer service (total divided by the number of products produced per period.

Once all the costs per 1 item are figured out the true cost of the product is known. The company can charge any price for the product once the costs are known. The overhead is the profit.

How to Install Old and Incompatible Programs from CD onto Windows Vista

2009-08-11T11:37:00.000-07:00

How to Install Old and Incompatible Programs onto Windows Vista from CD:

There is a way to install old and incompatible programs that were designed for Windows XP or older OS systems onto Windows Vista. Follow the steps:

1. Insert a CD-ROM with an old program
2. "Explore" CD in "My Computer" window
3. Locate the file that is called "setup" or a related file that is launched when the program is being installed
4. Right-click that file and choose compatibility mode that corresponds to the operating system for which that program was designed.
5. Click Apply and OK
6. Double-Click that file to install the application.

A technique is being described that allows removal of trojan horses and viruses:

In order to remove unwanted and malicious software script such as viruses and trojan horses from the affected computers do the following:

1. Open the case and take out the affected HD
2. Insert the HD into an external enclosure designed for 2.5" or 3.5" HDs.
3. Connect to an unaffected PC and run the anti-virus software on the data of the HD in the enclosure.
6. Remove HD from the enclosure once every virus/trojan is found and eliminated and connect it to the PC.

Enjoy!

My Delicious Bookmarks

2009-07-13T12:01:00.001-07:00

Behavioral Strategist's Search Engine

2009-05-14T09:51:00.000-07:00

This search engine I have just customized allows me and you to search through presorted sites that only I like. Check it out.

Some useful information

2009-04-16T07:03:00.000-07:00

Some high-quality cookware manufacturers:
Rösle
Shop for Rösle on Amazon.com

Anolon
Shop for Anolon on Amazon.com

Oxo
Shop for Oxo on Amazon.com

Coupon site:
RetailMenot.com

Organic Personal Care Shopping Sites:
LuckyVitamin.com
VitaCost.com
iHerb.com
Betterlife.com

Brands of personal care products names that are natural and should be free of chemicals:
Dr. Bronner's Soaps
Avalon Organics
Terressentials

Tools:
Wiha German-made tools

2009-01-30T13:13:00.000-08:00

Advice:

A. When buying books use Borders and choose in-store pickup to take advantage of free shipping. Use coupons to slash off prices (20% - 40%).
B. Use organic shampoos whenever possible. It does not irritate the scalp and does not cause hair loss. Avalon is a good example of an organic personal care manufacturer. Most organic personal care seem to be manufactured conventionally. This is a major violation of the law.
C. Use Stainless steel cookware and water bottles whenever possible.
D. Use cane sugar to lower blood glucose levels.
E. Eat vegetables that have anti-cancerous characteristics: tomatoes and broccoli for example.
F. Buy inexpensive gym equipment: pedometer, ab bench, weight set, dumbbells, jumping rope.
G. Buy Google Hacks book to gain understanding of how the Google service works.
H. Conserve energy by buying energy efficient light bulbs and turning off all the electric equipment at once using power surge protector. A Book about it is here.
I. Change passwords to accounts consistently to protect from identity theft.

Financial Advice where everyone must be careful:
A. Nothing risky. No stocks. Not even corporate bonds.
B. Use this book to gain information about bond markets (money market, treasury securities, I savings bonds, CDs, etc). The book has been published in year 2000 which is before the financial schizophrenia set in.
C. Get foreign currency using Amex or credit union. The more products from abroad you buy the more uncertain you are about movements in prices of these products. Buy foreign currency to hedge the risk. If euro’s appreciate against the dollar and foreign products get more expensive you are protected by offsetting the risk. Loss here translates into a gain there.
D. Taxes

Software To Get:
A. Researchsoft Endnote X Student Edition
B. Microsoft Office Professional 2007
C. Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 Preferred
D. Quicken 2008 Premier
E. OmniPage 16 Professional Upgrade
F. Adobe Photoshop Elements & Premiere Elements 7
G. Adobe Dreamweaver CS4
H. Microsoft OneNote 2007
I. System Mechanic Professional 3-User
J. Paragon Hard Disk Manager 2009 Suite
K. Trend Micro Internet Security Pro
L. Trend Micro Antivirus + Antispyware 2009
M. Corel WinDVD 9 Plus (Blu-ray)
N. PowerDVD 7 Ultra
O. Nero 7 Ultra Edition Enhanced
P. Family Tree Maker 2009 Deluxe
Q. Encyclopedia Britannica 2009 Student and Home Edition
R. Microsoft Encarta Premium 2007

Internet Advice:
A. Use Google Base to find a job or a price on a house. Informational website.
B. Annual Credit Report Get one credit report from each credit reporting agency once a year for a total of three times.
C. Tools & Calculators

Public Health in the US

2009-01-03T18:29:00.000-08:00

Number of deaths for leading causes of death as of 2005

- Heart disease: 652,091
- Cancer: 559,312
- Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 130,933
- Accidents (unintentional injuries): 117,809
- Diabetes: 75,119
- Alzheimer's disease: 71,599
- Influenza/Pneumonia: 63,001
- Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 43,901
- Septicemia: 34,136

Diabetes:

New US diabetes rate up 90 percent in past decade

- Newly diagnosed cases of diabetes rose to 9.1 per 1,000 people annually between 2005 to 2007, up from 4.8 per 1,000 from 1995 to 1997, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

- The American Diabetes Association said 23.6 million U.S. children and adults which is about 8 percent of the US population.

New estimates show diabetes affects 24 million

- The estimates, based on 2007 data, also show that 57 million people have pre-diabetes, a condition that puts people at increased risk for diabetes. And up to 25 percent of people with diabetes do not know they have it, the CDC said, down from 30 percent two years ago.

- Almost 25 percent of the population 60 years and older had diabetes in 2007, the CDC found.

- The highest rates are among Native Americans and Alaska Natives, with 16.5 percent affected.

- Close to 12 percent of blacks and 10 percent of Hispanics have diabetes, but just 7.5 percent of Asian Americans and 6.6 percent of whites.

Cancer:

Tobacco caused 2.4 million U.S. cancers - report

- Tobacco use caused 2.4 million cases of cancer in the United States from 1999 to 2004, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Thursday.

- Tobacco use kills 438,000 people prematurely every year, including 38,000 people who breathe only secondhand smoke, the CDC said.

- Smoking accounts for $167 billion annually in health care expenditures and productivity losses

Obesity:

More Americans obese, government finds

- The percentage of U.S. adults who are obese grew by nearly 2 percent between 2005 and 2007, from just under 24 percent to 25.6 percent, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Thursday.

- Southerners are the heaviest Americans, on average, with 27 percent obese. Just over 25 percent of adults in the Midwest, 23 percent in the Northeast, and 22 percent in the West were obese.

- CDC reported that the childhood obesity epidemic had leveled off after surging for about 20 years, with 16 percent of young people obese.

Coronary heart disease:

Survey shows heart disease worse in poor states

- Nationally, 4 percent nationally said they had experienced a heart attack.

- The lowest rate of heart attacks was in the U.S. Virgin Islands, a territory in the Caribbean, where just 2.1 percent of people said they had ever had a heart attack. The worst was West Virginia, where 6.1 percent had.

- The report found men were much more likely to have heart disease than women -- 8.2 percent versus 5 percent. American Indians and Alaska Natives had the highest heart disease prevalence at 11.2 percent.

- Coronary heart disease is projected to cost an estimated $151.6 billion in direct and indirect costs in 2007," the CDC said

U.S. stroke, heart disease death rates down sharply

- Figures for 2006 show that all forms of cardiovascular disease accounted for 34 percent of deaths in the United States -- a total of about 829,000 people, according to the report.

Americans' Sexual Health is in Crisis

2009-01-01T10:38:00.000-08:00

Facts on Sexually Transmitted Infections in the United States (Guttmacher Institute Report)
Key Points
• In the United States, more than 65 million people are currently living with an incurable STI.
• More than half of Americans will have an STI at some point in their lifetime.
• Some 19 million new STIs occur each year, almost half of them among young people aged 15–24.
• The United States has the highest STI rate of any industrialized country.

Sexually Transmitted Diseases Among American Youth: Incidence and Prevalence Estimates, 2000. (Guttmacher Institute Study)
Approximately 18.9 million new cases of STD occurred in 2000, of which 9.1 million (48%) were among persons aged 15-24. Three STDs (human papillomavirus, trichomoniasis and chlamydia) accounted for 88% of all new cases of STD among 15-24-year-olds.

Mar 11, 2008. Quarter of U.S. teen girls have sex-related disease

Nov 13, 2007. U.S. chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis rates rise

HIV Rising Among Young Gay Men In The US

CDC says 1.1 million Americans infected with HIV
A new estimate of how many Americans have the AIDS virus puts the number at about 1.1 million, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

Wart virus caused 25,000 cancers a year: CDC

• The human wart virus HPV caused 25,000 cases of cancer a year in the United States between 1998 and 2003

• HPV includes about 100 different viruses

• An estimated 11,070 new cases of cervical cancer will be diagnosed in 2008 in the United States, and 3,870 women will die of it.

• An estimated 500,000 women globally are diagnosed with cervical cancer each year and 300,000 die of it.

• The CDC survey of 38 states and Washington, D.C., found nearly 7,400 cancers of the mouth and throat that could be linked with HPV every year -- nearly 5,700 among men and about 1,700 among women. There were more than 3,000 HPV-associated anal cancers per year -- about 1,900 in women and 1,100 in men," the CDC said.

HPV infection rates similar in men and women

The team conducted a forward-looking study of 290 men from southern Arizona, ages 18-44 years. The participants were examined at the start of the study and every 6 months thereafter. On average, the subjects were followed for 15.5 months. Upon entering the study, 30 percent of men were infected with HPV. The 12-month rate of new infection was 29.2 percent. Over the entire study period, roughly half of men were infected with HPV and nearly a third of the HPV types found are known to cause cancer. About 75 percent of the infections cleared within a year of detection.

MedicalNewsToday.com Sexual Health / STDs News

Sexually Transmitted Diseases: A Physician Tells You What You Need to Know by Lisa Marr, M.D., A Johns Hopkins Press Health Book
Every year, millions of people are exposed to a sexually transmitted disease. And many people who are sexually active often worry about being infected. In her comprehensive guide to STDs, Dr. Lisa Marr tells readers everything they need to know about avoiding, preventing, and treating these diseases. Complete and up-to-date, this book describes safer sex practices, testing protocols, and symptoms, and details commonly known treatments as well as significant recent medical advances—including new testing for the herpes virus, the vaccine against the human papilloma virus (HPV), and new discoveries about the effectiveness of spermicides and condoms. For each disease, Dr. Marr offers the latest Sexually Transmitted Disease Treatment Guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Forthright, compassionate, and practical, this guide is a trusted source of advice for anyone who is sexually active.

Human Wealth

2008-12-27T14:11:00.000-08:00

The World Distribution of Household Wealth (2008 Report)

There has been much recent research on the world distribution of income, but also growing recognition of the importance of other contributions to well-being, including those of household wealth. Wealth is important in providing security and opportunity, particularly in poorer countries that lack full social safety nets and adequate facilities for borrowing and lending. We find, however, that it is precisely in the latter countries where household wealth is the lowest, both in absolute and relative terms. Globally, wealth is more concentrated than income both on an individual and national basis. Roughly 30 per cent of world wealth is found in each of North America, Europe, and the rich Asian-Pacific countries. These areas account for virtually all of the world’s top 1 per cent of wealth holders. On an official exchange rate basis India accounts for about a quarter of the adults in the bottom three global wealth deciles while China provides about a third of those in the fourth to eighth deciles. If current growth trends continue, India, China and the transition countries will move up in the global distribution, and the lower deciles will be increasingly dominated by countries in Africa, Latin American and poor parts of the Asian-Pacific region. Thus wealth may continue to be lowest in areas where it is needed the most.

Research News Article
Pioneering study shows richest 2 percent own half world wealth: 2006 Report

What the American people own and owe

2008-12-26T09:12:00.000-08:00

I would like to list or describe the status of personal/family finances of people living in the US:

401(k) Retirement:

401(k) plan participant account balance as of 2007 = $65,454
The proportion of workers who relied solely on 401(k) plans rose to 63%

According to the nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research Institute in Washington, 27% of people between 56 and 65 had more than 90% of their 401(k) investments in stocks at the end of 2006

Retirement Assets Appropriations (as of 2007):

Equity Funds = 50.9%
Balanced Fund = 24.5%
Bond Funds = 7.4%
Money Funds = 3.9%
Stable Value Funds = 6.0%
Company Stock = 5.1%

Sources:

Employee Benefit Research Institute: 401(k) Plan Asset Allocation, Account Balances, and Loan Activity in 2007

Calls grow to overhaul 401(k) retirement plans

Home Equity:

Median Home Price as of November 2008: $181,300

Homeowners' equity as a percentage of the value of their homes has fallen to just 44.7%

Consumer Debt:

Credit Card debt
$3,192 per person
$8,299 per household

Non-revolving debt (loans for auto, furniture and consumer electronics)
$5,232 per person
$13,604 per household

Average home equity loan balance
slightly more than $155,000

Further Reading:

Debt held by U.S. households shrinks for first time

Foreclosures up 25 percent: RealtyTrac

Examples of some high profile crimes

2008-12-24T13:38:00.000-08:00

Bernard Madoff stories from AFP

Bernard Madoff stories from AP

CEO Sholom Rubashkin of Agriprocessors Inc

And an immediate example of how a prominent leader is helping those individuals who have broken the law to get away from possible prosecution.

ADL appeals to attorney general in Rubashkin case

Sex, race, age, and religion and white collar crime

2008-12-24T13:08:00.000-08:00

I would like to provide a link to the book on the white-collar crime in America that was published by Yale University Press in 1991. It merits a look, indeed.

Link

As you can see about 83% of white collar criminals in the sample (1094 criminals studied) are males and 77.9% are white. An average age of a white collar criminal was 40 (middle aged). Catholics and Protestants accounted for about 75% of all white collar criminals and comprised about 95% of the 7-district population. Jews accounted for 13% and comprised about 2% - 8% of the 7-district population (The numbers that are presented in the book/table are based on the 1980 population of the seven districts in the sample and are weighted to reflect the makeup of the white collar crime sample). The book goes on saying that "the percentage of Jews rises from 9% in the lowest category (including bank embezzlement, tax fraud, and credit fraud) to 15% in the moderate category (mail fraud, false claims, and bribery) to 33% in the high category (antitrust and securities fraud)". Jews are of course more likely to be found in the financial/securities industry than any other religious or ethnic group in America. Additionally, Jews comprised 21.8% of the white-collar sample in the major cities like New York City, Los Angles, and Chicago , and only 5.1% in the other four.

A paper discussing associations between criminality and religiosity of Israeli prisoners

2008-12-23T21:38:00.000-08:00

Religiosity, criminality and types of offenses of Jewish male prisoners.

Ben-David S, Weller L.
Forensic Psychiatric Unit, Beer Ya'acov Mental Health Center, Israel.

The study examined whether the percentage of religious criminals was lower than the percentage of religious people in the population and whether the types of crimes committed by religious prison inmates differed from those committed by non-religious inmates. The 193 religious criminals studied consisted of all the religious male prisoners in the men's prisons in Israel. The percentage of religious criminals (3.7%) was found to be far below the percentage of religious people in the population (about 20%). In general both groups committed the same types of crimes. The exceptions were that religious criminals committed more sex and white-collar crimes and less security crimes than non-religious criminals.

About Hedge Funds

2008-12-14T16:57:00.000-08:00

There will be a great deal of news surrounding hedge funds in the press very soon. The Madoff's multibillion dollar Ponzi scheme will lead to a sell-off frenzy (redemptions) in these funds. We will surely know how much more hedge fund fraud there is very shortly. For now you can become acquainted with the basics of hedge funds.

Intoduction to Hedge Funds

Title: The billion-dollar hedge fund fraud
Author(s): Greg N. Gregoriou, William Kelting
Journal: Journal of Financial Crime
Year: 2004
Volume: 12
Issue:2
Page:172 - 177
ISSN:1359-0790
Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Hedge Fund Fraud
Insider Trading: Global Developments and Analysis
Paul U. Ali (University of Melbourne, Parkville, Melbourne, Australia)
Greg N. Gregoriou (SUNY, Plattsburgh, New York, USA)

Pharmacological/Medical Research Fraud and Misconduct

2008-12-13T15:28:00.000-08:00

I would like to feature two prominent figures in psychiatry that have been accused of conflict of interest and evidently engaged in ghostwriting research papers for a pharmaceutical company.

Joseph Biederman

NYTimes Article exposing the fraud

Research papers authored by Joseph Biederman

Biography
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Charles B. Nemeroff

NYTimes Article exposing the fraud

Research papers authored by Charles B. Nemeroff

Biography

Scholarly Books about White-Collar Crime

2008-12-13T09:05:00.000-08:00

Permission to Steal:Revealing the Roots of Corporate Scandal
By: Lisa Newton (Fairfield University)
Published by Blackwell, 2006
112 pages

Corporate and White Collar Crime: Cases and Materials, Fourth Edition
by Kathleen F. Brickey
Published by Aspen Publishing House/Kluwer, 2006
792 pages

International Handbook of White-Collar and Corporate Crime
by Pontell, Henry N.; Geis, Gilbert L. (Eds.)
Published by Springer, 2007
702 pages

White-Collar Crime and Criminal Careers
by David Weisburd, Elin Waring, and Ellen F. Chayet.
Published by Cambridge University Press, 2001
208 pages

Some White-Collar Crime Cases Unraveling This Year

2008-12-12T09:24:00.000-08:00

"A former Nasdaq stock market chairman was arrested on a securities fraud charge Thursday, accused of running a fraudulent investment business that lost at least $50 billion before he confessed to senior employees it was a "giant Ponzi scheme," authorities said. Madoff, 70, the founder of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, maintained a separate and secretive investment-advising business that served between 11 and 25 clients and had a total of about $17.1 billion in assets under management, prosecutors said."

Bernard Madoff's hedge fund fraud news stories from The Associated Press
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"Marc Dreier, founder and sole equity partner at the 250-attorney law firm Dreier LLP in New York, has stunned the city's legal community. The Harvard Law School graduate is a 30-year veteran lawyer, whose firm has specialties in bankruptcy, litigation and employment law."

Marc Dreier's fraud news stories from The Associated Press

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Former U.S. Treasury Secretary "Rubin registered proceeds of $30.6 million, while Prince got $26.5 million, former Chief Operating Officer Robert Druskin got nearly $32 million and former Global Wealth Management unit chief Todd Thomson got $25.7 million, according to the lawsuit."

Investors accuse Citi execs of "suspicious" trades

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Steven Schulman, 57, and David Bershad, 68, were key players in the scheme targeting now-defunct energy giant Enron Corp., AT&T Inc., Lucent, WorldCom, Microsoft Corp., Prudential Insurance and other companies.

Lawyers sentenced in kickback case in LA

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"Wall Street investment banks are marketing and selling complex schemes meant to allow foreign investors, including offshore hedge funds, to avoid paying billions of dollars in dividend taxes illegally, according to a Senate subcommittee report released Wednesday. The 77-page report, by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, is based on scores of internal data and documents and singles out Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers, Deutsche Bank, Merrill Lynch, UBS and Citigroup. The Senate subcommittee that prepared the report, led by its chairman, Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, has held extensive inquiries into tax and offshore abuses. It holds a hearing on the report’s findings on Thursday."

Some Banks Are Accused of Aiding a Tax Dodge

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"Four former top executives of Fannie Mae were sued on Monday, one day after the mortgage finance giant was seized by the U.S. government, in an investor lawsuit that claims the four lied about the company's financial position and artificially inflated its share price. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, seeks class action status for investors who bought Fannie Mae securities between November 16, 2007, and September 5, 2008, according to the complaint, filed by the law firm of Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins."

Former Fannie Mae execs sued in investor complaint

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"Bank of America Corp, said it is ready to settle federal and state probes into the marketing of auction-rate securities, joining eight other companies that reached agreements. The bank said it has been in talks for nearly a month with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and regulators in New York and Massachusetts on a resolution that would provide "liquidity relief" to customers hurt when the $330 billion market seized up in February."

Bank of America says ready to settle on auction rates

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"Citibank will refund millions of dollars to credit card customers and pay $3.5 million to the state of California to settle a lawsuit that accused the company of stealing funds from some of its customers who had died, gone bankrupt or fallen behind in their payments. The settlement, announced Tuesday, requires repayment of more than $14 million that the bank wrongly took from the accounts of 53,000 customers nationwide in so-called credit sweeps from 1992 to 2003, Attorney General Jerry Brown said. California customers, who lost $1.6 million during that period, are entitled to 10 percent interest on their refunds, Brown said."

Citibank settles with state, to repay millions

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"A federal bankruptcy judge has rejected a settlement involving the Countrywide Financial Corporation, the mortgage lender, saying he was not convinced that it was fair to nearly 300 borrowers who claimed to have been hurt by the company’s abusive practices. The settlement called for Countrywide, acquired by Bank of America last month, to pay $325,000 to the Chapter 13 bankruptcy trustee in Pittsburgh, Ronda J. Winnecour, to cover costs and settle litigation in 293 separate cases. In her complaint, Ms. Winnecour said that in dealing with the borrowers, Countrywide had made inaccurate claims, filed unnecessary court papers and demanded improper fees and charges. She also accused it of losing or destroying more than $500,000 in checks paid by homeowners in foreclosure."

Judge Rejects Countrywide Settlement

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"New Hampshire securities regulators on Thursday accused banking giant UBS of defrauding the state's leading issuer of student loans. In a civil complaint, the Bureau of Securities Regulation said that while UBS Securities LLC was steering bigger clients out of the auction-rate securities market last winter because of signs the market would collapse, it was advising the New Hampshire Higher Education Loan Corp. to stay in. "Our investigation revealed that UBS had knowledge that a market collapse was looming but did not disclose that information to the New Hampshire Higher Education Loan Corp.," said Jeff Spill, the bureau's deputy director. UBS denied defrauding anyone."

UBS faces fraud charge in New Hampshire

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"Two banks, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley, on Thursday became the latest banks to reach settlements with the New York attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, and other regulators as part of an investigation into the collapse of the auction-rate securities market. The pair of banks will repurchase a combined $7 billion of the troubled securities from investors. Morgan Stanley agreed to pay a fine of $35 million, while JPMorgan will pay a fine of $25 million. JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley are the third and fourth to reach settlements, after deals by UBS and Citigroup last week. Regulators continue to investigate other banks as well."

2 Banks Agree to a Buyback of $7 Billion in Securities

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"The Swiss bank UBS has reached a $19.4 billion agreement to buy back bonds in the biggest settlement yet over claims that banks misled investors to buy auction-rate securities, the Massachusetts secretary of state’s office said Friday. The agreement has been reached between UBS Financial Services and the Securities and Exchange Commission and regulators in several states, including Massachusetts and New York.
Brian McNiff, a spokesman for the secretary of state, William F. Galvin, said an official announcement might not come until Monday. The deal was first disclosed in The Boston Globe."

UBS to Spend $19.4 Billion to Buy Back Securities

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"Two Wall Street giants agreed on Thursday to buy back more than $17 billion of auction-rate securities that were improperly sold to retail customers, likely paving the way for other banks and brokerage firms to take similar actions. Citigroup reached a settlement Thursday morning with state and federal regulators, agreeing to buy back about $7.3 billion of auction-rate securities that it sold to retail customers and pay a $100 million fine for its conduct. Merrill Lynch said it would buy back about $10 billion in auction-rate investments that it sold to retail investors, a move that gets ahead of regulators investigating the company."

2 Banks Will Buy Back $17 Billion in Securities

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"A multi-state task force is probing a total of 12 Wall Street firms, including Citigroup, over how they handled clients' investments in auction rate paper, the Texas state securities commissioner said on Thursday. New York attorney general Andrew Cuomo and the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday morning announced that Citigroup had reached a $7 billion settlement with individuals who bought auction-rate paper."

States in auction-rate probes of 12 firms

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"Bank of America Corp, the largest U.S. retail bank, said on Thursday it received subpoenas and requests for information relating to auction-rate securities from federal and state government agencies. Separately, the Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank said Countrywide Financial Corp, the mortgage lending giant it bought last month, has responded to subpoenas from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and faces a formal investigation by that agency."

Bank of America gets subpoenas, reports SEC probe

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"The Internal Revenue Service, bolstered by recent court rulings, offered more than 45 corporations on Wednesday the chance to settle disputes involving two tax shelters used to defer payment of billions of dollars. The questionable shelters, known as Lilo and Silo, involve corporations leasing, on paper only, subways, bridges, sewers and other infrastructure, often overseas, and then leasing the facilities back to their owners or operators. I.R.S. officials said that more than 45 corporations, including many large banks, had bought more than 1,000 of the shelters, improperly deferring taxes and bolstering their balance sheets. Under the settlement, the I.R.S. said it would allow the companies to keep 20 percent of the deductions claimed through 2007 from use of the shelters — if they agreed to get out of them by December 2010 at the latest. The companies would have to pay the remaining 80 percent of the improperly claimed deductions — a level still likely to hit many with seven-figure tax bills."

I.R.S. Offers to Settle Tax-Shelter Dispute

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"Investors sued U.S. bank Wachovia Corp (WB.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and its affiliates on Monday, charging them with causing losses through the incorrect valuation of a now-defunct bond fund's shares and making risky investments in the fund."

Wachovia, affiliates sued over bond fund losses

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"Congressional investigators say businesses have failed to pay the IRS some $58 billion over the past decade in taxes they were supposed to have withheld from their employees' paychecks and forwarded to the government."

Businesses owe $58 billion in tax withholdings

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"A federal grand jury is investigating mortgage lenders Countrywide Financial Corp., New Century Financial Corp. and IndyMac Bancorp Inc., a person familiar with the situation told The Associated Press on Thursday. Subpoenas seeking documents have been issued to all three companies, according to the person, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the case and requested anonymity."

AP source: Grand jury investigating lenders

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"Samuel Israel III bilked his investors out of $250 million, but they are hoping to recoup some of their money from one of Wall Street’s deepest pockets: Goldman Sachs.
Bayou’s creditors were taking aim at Goldman even before Mr. Israel, the former manager of the Bayou Group hedge fund firm, surrendered to the authorities on July 2. His faked suicide on a Hudson River bridge 40 miles north of Manhattan and subsequent disappearance on the day he was to start a prison term had set off an international manhunt."

Defrauded Fund Investors Sue Goldman

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"Massachusetts' top securities regulator on Tuesday accused Oppenheimer & Co. of fraud over the investment bank's sales of auction-rate securities to customers who couldn't access their money after the market for the risky investments froze."

Mass. regulator accuses Oppenheimer & Co. of fraud

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"Faced with a federal investigation into its private banking practices, the Swiss banking giant UBS said on Thursday that it would stop offering offshore banking services to clients in the United States."

New Offshore Bank Limits for U.S. Clients, UBS Says

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"Executives and employees at the major credit ratings agencies were often aware of problems in the AAA grades awarded to thousands of mortgage-related securities whose downgrades helped plunge the nation into a financial meltdown. At the same time, according to documents from the big credit ratings agencies presented at a House hearing Wednesday, pressure from bond and securities issuers translated into inflated ratings that put investors at risk. The companies - Standard & Poor, Moody's and Fitch Inc. - made enormous profits as they evaluated a ballooning number of mortgage-backed bonds, many of which were given top marks as long as housing prices went up."

Hearings show credit raters caved to pressure

Choosing the right bank

2008-12-11T18:40:00.000-08:00

Everyone feels very jittery about having their bank being acquired by another financial firm or going bankrupt. The idea, in this case, is to use a bank that is headquartered in a developed region/country like Canada or Eurozone. If the bank in question begins to falter the monetary injection to prep it up may be made by a foreign government.

ING Group always looked like a good place to have your checking and savings accounts stationed. Once a savings account is opened (the process literally takes 5-10 minutes) the checking, CD, and brokerage accounts can be opened with extreme ease.

Benefits of ING Orange Savings Account:
* A High Yield
* Can be opened with just $1
* Transfers can be initiated between your current account held at another bank by linking the two together.
* Direct Deposit feature
* FDIC insurance of $250,000

Benefits of ING Checking Account:
* Free Bill Pay
* Ability to send electronic and paper checks to any person or company.
* Seamless transfers between checking, brokerage, CD, and savings accounts.
* Free ATM (All Point System) found in stores such as DuaneReade, Walgreens, and CVS.
Find a Free ATM
* A modest interest rate on your deposits:

$49,999.99 or less = 1.00% APY
$50,000-$99,999.99 = 2.90% APY
$100,000 or more = 3.25% APY
Rates variable, as of 11/15/2008.

A word of caution:
A corruption scandal has engulfed ING once or twice so it is very important to be careful no matter what your bank is. More on that is here

Company Profile on Reuters.com

Reuters News About the Firm

Another Google Hack

2008-12-07T08:28:00.000-08:00

There is an easy way to search for books whose authors use journal citations.

Go to books.google.com and type in the name of a journal in the search engine such as "Environmental Health Perspectives". The name of the journal has to be uncommon. If the name of the journal is a common name such "Nature" or "Science" then the hack would not work. Use advanced books search engine to specify the date of publication, language, publisher, subject, keywords, etc.

When this hack is performed the search engine gives results for books thar have the journal cited. Here is a link that can serve as an example for the search query.

Link

Personalizing Google News

2008-12-07T08:06:00.000-08:00

There is a superb way to customize Google News.

The Google Hack in question involves personalizing Google News sections in order to read pure wire news such as AP, Reuters, and AFP. Follow these steps:

1. Go to news.google.com
2. Click on "Personalize this page" on the right hand corner of the screen
3. Click on "add custom section"
4. In keywords section type in the following:

source:"xxx"

xxx stands for AFP, Reuters, or The Associated Press or any other news service that you would like to receive. Example: source:"The Associated Press"
5. Click on "advanced" link and choose language, section (this is very important), and give it a "label".
6. Click on "add section" and save the layout.
7. Repeat steps the aforementioned steps to add more tabs to your now personalized Google news.
8. When reading the wire or any other news service make sure you sort news by date ("sort by date")

A quick financial advice in this uneasy time

2008-11-29T16:51:00.000-08:00

It is important to safeguard yourself from the currency risk. The dollar may weaken against major world currencies such as pound sterling and Euro. Depreciation of the dollar is a possibility that is awaiting us in the future as the government increases the supply of money and U.S. economy continues to deteriorate.

In order to hedge currency risk a wise investor would be advised to exchange US dollars for foreign currency such as yen, Canadian dollars, pound sterling, Euro, etc. An alternative method of hedging currency risk would be to invest in international treasury of foreign sovereign nations such as Japan, Italy, and Germany.

The SPDR® Lehman International Treasury Bond ETF is to provide investment results that, before fees and expenses, correspond generally to the price and yield performance of the Lehman Brothers Global Treasury ex-US Capped Index (ticker: LTXUTRUU). Our approach is designed to provide portfolios with low portfolio turnover, accurate tracking, and lower costs. The Lehman Brothers Global Treasury Ex-US Capped Index includes government bonds issued by investment-grade countries outside the United States, in local currencies, that have a remaining maturity of one year or more and are rated investment grade (Baa3/BBB-/BBB- or higher using the middle rating of Moody’s Investor Service, Inc., Standard & Poor’s, and Fitch Inc., respectively). Each of the component securities in the Global Treasury Ex-US Capped Index is a constituent of the Lehman Global Treasury ex-US Index, screened such that the following countries are included: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Poland, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, United Kingdom. In addition, the securities in the Global Treasury Ex-US Capped Index must be fixed-rate and have certain minimum amounts outstanding, depending upon the currency in which the bonds are denominated. The Global Treasury Ex-US Capped Index is calculated by Lehman Brothers using a modified “market capitalization” methodology. This design ensures that each constituent country within the Index is represented in a proportion consistent with its percentage with respect to the total market capitalization of the Global Treasury Ex-US Capped Index. Component securities in each constituent country are represented in a proportion consistent with their percentage relative to the other component securities in the constituent country. Under certain conditions, however, the par amount of a component security within the Index may be adjusted to conform to Internal Revenue Code requirements.

The major risk components inherent in the security are default risk, interest rate and currency risk.

Link to the ETF

SP Citigroup International Treasury Index Series_Factsheet

Mutual Fund Expense Analyzer

Use the ShareBuilder.com brokerage firm to trade this security because retail investors gain the opportunity to have the dividends reinvested for free. When dividends are immediately reinvested the retail investor gains about 10 basis points more than the investor who accumulates his dividends as a cash balance in the brokerage account.

Journal Article in The Journal of Business

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Investing in tax-differed US I Savings Bonds is a good way to save for retirement (assuming that the government does not default on the promises to pay back its debt). Every citizen in the US has the right to own up to $30,000 of I savings bonds. The bonds mature in 30 years and should be cashed out upon retirement. Ideally, when an individual reaches the age of 30 she should start putting money away in I Savings Bonds. When one reaches 60 years of age bonds will cease paying out coupon payments. Upon cashing out of the bonds taxes are paid at the appropriate tax rate. The coupon payments are determined by the level of inflation and fixed premium (set at the issue date of the bond). The inflation portion of the interest rate is adjusted semi-annually. In this case U.S. I savings bonds work like treasury bonds invested in a 401(k) or Traditional IRA accounts.

Series I Savings Bonds information at Treasury Direct

2008-11-22T18:15:00.001-08:00

Environmental Reports and Links

2008-11-04T17:24:00.000-08:00

Link
REACH is a new European Community Regulation on chemicals and their safe use (EC 1907/2006). It deals with the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemical substances. The new law entered into force on 1 June 2007.

Link
The North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation obliges the Secretariat of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation to “periodically address the state of the environment in the territories of the Parties.”

Link
If you are living in the eastern United States, the environment around you is being harmed by air pollution. From Adirondack forests and Shenandoah streams to Appalachian wetlands and the Chesapeake Bay, a new report by the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies and The Nature Conservancy has found that air pollution is degrading every major ecosystem type in the northeastern and mid-Atlantic United States. The report, Threats From Above: Air Pollution Impacts on Ecosystems and Biological Diversity in the Eastern United States, is the first to analyze the large-scale effects that four air pollutants are having across a broad range of habitat types (see inset). The majority of recent studies focus on one individual pollutant. Over 32 experts contributed to the effort; the prognosis is not good.

Link
North America 2030: An Environmental Outlook:
The issues presented in this discussion paper will inform the agenda of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation’s (CEC) Joint Public Advisory Committee’s (JPAC) environmental outlook conference to be held on 25 June 2008. In addition to the JPAC’s consideration of these topics, the CEC Council has asked the Secretariat to summarize and assess the existing research concerning the major forces and underlying trends that are likely to impact the environment in North America to 2030. This research is expected to be published later in 2008. These initiatives are intended to assist the CEC in the consideration and development of its 2010-2015 Strategic Plan by highlighting possible areas for cooperative action to support environmental mitigation, adaptation and innovation strategies across all three countries.

Link
Many chemicals widely used by industry and commonly found at home are toxic to the developing brain and can cause developmental disabilities including behavioral and learning disabilities, hyperactivity, attention deficit, lower IQ and motor skill impairment.
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"Neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism, attention deficit disorder, mental retardation, and cerebral palsy are common, costly, and can cause lifelong disability. Their causes are mostly unknown. A few industrial chemicals (eg, lead, methylmercury, polychlorinated biphenyls [PCBs], arsenic, and toluene) are recognised causes of neuro-developmental disorders and subclinical brain dysfunction. Exposure to these chemicals during early fetal development can cause brain injury at doses much lower than those affecting adult brain function. Recognition of these risks has led to evidence-based programmes of prevention, such as elimination of lead additives in petrol. Although these prevention campaigns are highly successful, most were initiated only after substantial delays. Another 200 chemicals are known to cause clinical neurotoxic effects in adults. Despite an absence of systematic testing, many additional chemicals have been shown to be neurotoxic in laboratory models. The toxic effects of such chemicals in the developing human brain are not known and they are not regulated to protect children. The two main impediments to prevention of neurodevelopmental deficits of chemical origin are the great gaps in testing chemicals for developmental neurotoxicity and the high level of proof required for regulation. New, precautionary approaches that recognise the unique vulnerability of the developing brain are needed for testing and control of chemicals."

Developmental neurotoxicity of industrial chemicals