When you were in high school what was more important to you: passing your exams so you can qualify for University education, or understanding in-depth the subjects being taught so you can use them later in life?
To be honest, the latter was more important to me, but on the day of my matriculation at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, to study Zoology, I decided University teaching and learning was a whole new ball game. I had to change my orientation in learning from cramming facts to understanding reasons.
I believe I’m not the only guilty party. A recent report from the University of East Anglia’s leading researchers in education and sciences reveals that many university freshers struggle to remember basic concepts from their A-levels.
Is the problem at the doorstep of teachers at the high school levels or the fact that they students have to adjust to a different approach to learning at the university level, or on the motivation of the students themselves, the report doesn’t tell. Yet, the report involved students from the leading UK universities committed to research and outstanding teaching and learning experience, or the Russell Group. These highly motivated students could only remember forty (40%) percent of what they learned at the A-levels.
That calls for concern for all parties involved. Maybe A-level curricula has to be redesigned to reflect our age of iPhones and smart phones, where a considerable number of high school students even use these devices in class, or at the undergraduate level.
Wherever the solution lies, it is instructive to know that the longer it takes you to enter the university after you’re A-levels, the lesser of your A-level knowledge that will be retained. It calls for sober reflections, right?
How to prevent sudden death due to heat strokes from sporting activities
Prior to a sporting event detecting persons who could develop cardiovascular diseases or suddenly fall dead from a cardiac arrest is a challenge. Sudden death during sporting events, especially endurance races of 10 to 20km, is likely in a high number of both professional and amateur athletes. Cardiac arrhythmia, often termed irregular heartbeat, has been reported more often than heat stroke as a cause of sudden death during sporting events.
On the other hand, Lior Yankelson, MD, and Pinchas Halpern, MD, are of a different opinion; life-threatening events during endurance races are more likely to be caused by heat stroke than by cardiac arrhythmia, especially in warm climates. The high incidence reported is not limited to sporting or endurance races but is also found in college football players, high school athletes and experienced runners who were thought to be immune.
What then are some ways to prevent heat stroke during sporting events, and other causes of cardiovascular collapse?
- Acclimatization to warm climates
- Recently ill or persons recuperating from a febrile illness should be discouraged from participating in endurance races.
- Prompt diagnosis.
- Routine screening.
- Don’t forget water.
It is recommended that athletes give themselves a 10 to 14 days period of environmental acclimatization before engaging in endurance races. Event planners should also acknowledge the need for athlete proper adjustment to the racing environment. Of 10.9 million runners assessed in the United States during a 10 years period, 59 (incidence rate: 0.54 per 100,000 participants) had cardiac arrest.
Exercising imposes heat stress on the body and elimination of body heat is necessary for proper adjustment. Fever impairs the ability of the body to do this.
When heat stroke is promptly diagnosed, health care providers can immediately initiate cooling therapy. Athlete’s temperatures are usually monitored using rectal or core probes and where necessary, cooling procedures are instantly instituted. It is a challenge though to record core body temperatures during physical activity. A potential solution is an ingestible telemetric body core temperature sensor.
Mandatory screening of all athletes prior to participation in competitive sports has been recommended where cardiac death is a possibility. For screening to work, the benefits should be higher than the costs, effective tests should be available, and it can be proved that avoidance will prevent the risk. Some events carry out a pre-participation electrocardiogram (ECG) screening. Exercise or cardiac stress testing have also been used. Some events require participants sign a declaration of “good health” which might not be adequate enough.
Ingest adequate amount of water during sporting activities, including endurance races. Also, take electrolyte drinks and have frequent rest breaks.
6 Facts I learnt from my Grandma’s Burial Ceremony
My beloved grandma died last month. It was a deeply felt pain for me and other members of our family. I and tens of her grandsons attended the burial which took place at our family compound in Otulu village. From the day I stepped my foot in the village at Otulu, on Wednesday, the 27th of August, to the night of the burial, I have been learning lots of things about customs, traditions and the legacy of grayheadedness.
1. A family is composed of different individuals with different point of views.
A family cannot be controlled by one single person, no matter how rich or influential. A family moves towards a singular direction as if controlled by a single head, as if with a singular purpose but is ready to derail from that direction at every moment – even a second’s notice. If you fail to recognize the rights and responsibilities of even one member in the family, the direction, no matter how noble, how grandiose, can be scuttled and scuttled without interference from any quarter in the world.2. Your home can be a warzone or a refuge of peace.
Your home can be a bed of roses. A place that is filled with love; peace its lifeblood. Also, your home can be a warzone with historical wounds and fighting. It depends on how you turn the screws. The father, mother, children and extended family members each have their rights and responsibilities which each one of them is jealous of; neglect any and you’ll be creating a home of rancor and bitterness.3. Customs and traditions are fallible.
True, we cherish our African customs and traditions, but they are fallible. It will be against my conscience to sacrifice cows or goats to bury my grandma. We cannot throw all of them overboard without scrutinizing each and every one of them. These customs were what preserved our Africanhood before the dawn of civilization; they helped our people to survive before education came. I believe we can cherish the joyfulness of understanding these customs and rejecting the ones that are against our humanity; those that were created in the age of ignorance. But the ones that make us unique and great, that bring out the best in us, should never be trampled with.4. Advanced preparation is a key to safety.
Preparing for an event weeks or months before they come is cheaper and can save lives. Making ad hoc arrangements because you are trying to cut corners or because you are harboring sentiments against other members in the family could be costly and unwise.5. Marriage is a sacred institution that ensures human survival.
Have you been to an event and realized that singleness is a disadvantage? I discovered this during the burial of my grandma. Singleness is not only a curse, it is the greatest disadvantage a man can give to himself.6. Money makes things happen.
Money can make things happen but left on its own, money is a useless commodity. With people driven with purpose who are ready to make things possible, money becomes a vehicle that has unprecedented reach. If you have people who are behind you and no money, you’ll all be sitting ducks. If you have money without people behind you, your money is just useless commodity. Join both together, and you can move mountains. Are there any realities you have discovered from a burial, wedding etcetera that is related to our African customs? Share them on the comment box below.
Crowd support matters more when playing at home in football matches.
The tendency of the home team to win more often than the visiting team is termed home advantage. It is widely believed that home advantage is a significant factor in football matches, but the factors at play are not yet conclusive. Three factors, though, have been well acknowledged: a sizable crowd support for the home team, familiarity of the home team to the stadium environment and thirdly, travel fatigue and disruptions in travel arrangements of the visiting team.
Better adjustment to the turf and lower levels of stress are some of the reasons Niels van de Ven suggests gives home teams better advantage than the visiting team. Jet lag and traveling long distances are also significant. In a recent discussion paper, Michela Ponzo and Vincenzo Scoppa believe that crowd support matters more, providing about 60 percentage points while the other two factors contribute 40 percentage points to home advantage.
Ponzo and Scoppa evaluated data from the Italian “Serie A” both for same-stadium derbies and normal matches. You should recall that same-stadium derbies are matches that involve teams that share the same stadium. A good example is Milan and Inter Milan in the “Serie A”. Using data from same-stadium derbies would make travel fatigue and familiarity with the stadium environment neutral factors.
They discovered that home advantage contributes significantly to team performance. Playing at home both for same-stadium derbies and normal matches increases a team’s probability of winning by 23 percentage points (23%). The points earned in the league by the two teams before the match along with their ranking in the league table are also contributory. Taking into consideration points earned by the two teams, the probability of the home team’s winning was found to be twenty-six percentage points (26%) higher than when playing at away.
Also, playing at home and enjoying crowd support tends to make the home team score more goals. This result could probably be traced to either the fact that the players are more encouraged when playing before their home crowd or the crowd support at home tends to influence the referees’ decisions.
Home teams seem to be receiving more favorable treatment in referees’ decisions. Granted, referees try their best to be impartial, but they can be subconsciously influenced by a large crowd in the stadium and they might then react by favoring the home team, thereby awarding more penalties and less disciplinary sanctions to the home team. It was found that referees tend to give more red cards to visiting teams.
When they tried to neutralize the subjective influence of the referees’ decisions on the home team, it could be observed that home crowd support plays a large role in encouraging and motivating the players.
So, when next your favorite team is playing at the local stadium, your support could contribute about 60 percentage points (60%) to its securing a win.
What to do? - A poem on a POW on deathrow
I wrote this poem after watching a documentary on prisoners-of-war (POW)s and genocide. It was some years ago. I found the slip of paper somewhere in my room last week and decided to post it on the Net because I’ve stopped writing poems.
The POW is in anguish, mentally and physically, over the fact that today is the day he has been decreed to die. To be shot at the back of the neck with a pistol. He shares a cell with other POWs which is a dark room but the nails are not in the room, only on his body and his psyche. He knows he’s surely going to die today and there is nothing anybody can do about that. Very sad!
I titled the poem: “What to do.” There is nothing you can do if you are a prisoner awaiting your death. Nothing at all.
What to do.
Ghouls assail me left and right Moaning I beg the heavens to open To accept me after my sudden death For I can bear this burden no longer. Like a walking old man with a sac Defeated by time, war weary, hungry. His legs hairy, forlorn thoughts aplenty. I ask them, comrades avoiding my gaze Smiling like yesterday’s green lawn: “Do you know what it is, this assailing Clubbing my every being with nails?” With long sighs, speaking to the wind Surely earless though with much to say Words that only the gods can hear. The pain, the pain – the scale is rising On the weight where depression sleeps Waiting in vain for an answer that Will never come – this anguish, my secret. The chamber of nails and bars, darkness! With roaches running about like slaves, to A scroll written by two vermin who decreed That I die by a shot of the pistol. Do I break the laws of transport Fight a battle only the heavens can plot? The roaches will know nothing but the chant: “What to do – What to do?” By 12, midnight, the pistol will come silently The roaches before; the scroll read to my death. ---- Nnaemeka David
OLD SOLDIERS NEVER DIE…
Old soldiers never die, they just fade away. - Gen. Douglas MacArthurThe above quote is attributed to Gen. MacArthur. I want to apply it to this blog. For several months, there has been no activity here. It doesn’t translate to the death of this blog, rather to a state of hiatus of the author. I’m slowly fading away, from blogging and writing. My other blog, make the market your income, is also in the same state as this. Yet, I believe I’ll fade back to activity soon. I’m reorganizing my schedules and times. Please, wish me all the best as I continue to feed you relevant and entertaining information in business, living and other trivial I find interesting in solving problems to the ups and downs of this problematic world.
LOST MY GRANDMOTHER OF 91
Last week Thursday, I lost my grandmother. She had lived a life well spent; died at 91.
I have been pensive, reflecting on what it means to die after seeing even your great-grandchildren? I think it is a tribute to a life well lived.
I believe we’ll see again after the resurrection; in paradise.
PICTURES: THE INTERESTING AND UGLY GUTTERS IN SATELLITE TOWN.
Road gutters are supposed to drain away the waters from rainfall. When you find them keeping waters instead of draining them, you wonder if they’d rather be called “roadside storage containers?”
Indeed, some look like a child’s scrawling on the road with dirty fingers - a guttersnipe. Others seem to suggest that a crater from outer space made a landing on satellite town. I took these pictures to humor myself but decided to share them later on Facebook.
I think you’ll enjoy them as I did.
Sperm banking education and information important for men with cancer and risk of infertility.
The uses of sperm banking are immense. It is useful where a woman’s partner is infertile or has been diagnosed with a genetic disease. Also, it can be used to make pregnancy possible through artificial insemination even when a woman has no partner. When a man is diagnosed with cancer, sperm banking is usually recommended. This is because the risk of long-term infertility from treatments such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy is highly possible. This infertility could be permanent or temporary depending on the individual’s circumstances, that is why it is essential that men who have banked their sperms prior to undergoing cancer treatment need to undertake continuous follow-up checkups in order to assess their fertility status and maybe make sure their sperm at the bank is not disposed of. On the other hand, most men fail to do so, and this due to several factors which include lack of adequate information and pessimism.
New strategies for sperm banking education and information necessary.
The problem, according to Dr Allan Pacey and Professor Christine Eiser at the University of Sheffield, is that a large proportion of male cancer patients are
Conclusions.
Central to whatever strategy that could be pursued are the oncologists. Improving the line of communication between the oncology department and the sperm banks is important. As noted earlier, because men who have cancer have to juggle between the information for their cancer treatments and sperm banking requirements, they might be inundated by so much information. The issues involved might be masked in other concerns. Hence, the need for these men to have a clinician who is ready to answer their anxious questions; they should be encouraged to come out with questions. Granted, when a man is faced with a risk to his life and his ability to reproduce, he needs all the support he can have to make the rights decisions. His anxiety would surely affect his ability to work well and to even make meaningful contributions to society. It is imperative therefore that this segment of society be helped to go through a trying period of their life without impacting on their quality of life.Infectious diseases as powerful as politics and economics in driving development.
Tropical economies are usually poor and agrarian; temperate ones wealthy and industrialized. Tropical diseases are usually vector born and parasitic diseases (VBPD) like acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), tuberculosis and malaria while temperate diseases which are usually due to lifestyle changes such as smoking, sedentary living and eating foods rich in cholesterol, sugars and salts are mostly cancer, cardiovascular diseases and chronic respiratory problems. Whatever form the disease takes, they steal human resources and should be given as much importance in national planning as financial crimes and corruption in high places.
Biological processes as important as studying economics and politics of development.
When disease burden on the populace of a nation becomes high, the costs start to escalate. Some of the costs are the loss of productive work, satisfaction or utility drops thereby increasing the costs of living and there is the risk of premature death leading to the loss of important human resources at the prime of life. If you translate all this into economic terms, it translates into a big amount of human resources lost due to diseases. This data also translates into low growth rates for countries burdened by diseases. Most of these countries are in the tropics and are usually incident for infectious and parasitic diseases. When governments begin to understand these facts, they will begin to realize that investing heavily in preventive health care systems are worth the money, as much as investing in reining financial crimes and corruption in government. It has been found that the economy will take off into sustained growth when preventive health interventions are well carried out and infectious diseases are put under control. As cited earlier, diseases that take a heavy toll on national income are usually found in the tropics. They exert such a big burden on these nations that they have been termed “diseases of the poor.” They are mostly vector-borne and cannot always survive outside the tropics. A 2004 study by the International Policy network states that most of the disease burden in these poor or low-income countries are due to poverty, such as poor nutrition, indoor air pollution and lack of access to proper sanitation and health education. To stimulate economic growth, governments in these countries have to invest heavily in prevention and make medicines available. When authorities count the costs of not taking the necessary action to make accessibility to drugs and preventive techniques for these diseases possible, then having the political will and international support to fight poverty through monetary aid and technical assistance might not be yieldingthe desired results.Disease burden inversely related to biodiversity.
Dr. Mathew Bonds, cited earlier, also found that as the burden of infectious diseases for poor countries rises, ecological biodiversity has been recorded to be on the decline. No matter where a country might fall from the equator, whether in the tropics or temperate countries, these is no good news, especially when there is a global fight against climate change and polluting effects of human action on the global ecosystem. Wealthy and industrialized countries who have low incidence of infectious and vector-borne diseases might have increased burden due to biodiversity concerns which are exacerbated by abnormal changes in ecological factors like temperature, rainfall and soil quality. Biodiversity creates disease resistance, ensures that natural predators of these disease organisms exist and that they get to compete for survival against other organisms. When these factors are taken away, vector-borne and parasitic diseases might not make poor and low-income countries south of the tropics their sole targets. This is where the study is much interesting. It is not that many nations are not fighting back. Enormous resources are poured into research and development against these diseases by industrialized countries and pharmaceutical companies. What is most poignant is that many nations might look lame and fall into the trap of low-income countries if the global problems of pollution and climate change are not addressed. Biodiversity depends on these factors. When huge species and habitats disappear, no amount of research can bring them back. Where the might exists, does the political will exist? Will big business allowS itself to be dictated to by nature? How much time does planet earth have before industrialized nations fall into these biodiversity and infectious diseases trap? All these are open-ended questions. What is important is for governments and policy makers to place biological processes into the same category as politics and economics before the fight can even begin.Waiting for payback? Do not cast your vote on greed or generosity.
Have you been disappointed that other people did not return your goodwill, your generosity? Do not be. If also you think that greed, procuring things to your advantage and for yourself, will make you better off than others, have you counted the costs in health bills, failed relationships and trust, of that success? You better do.
Our thoughts are powerful instruments of the imagination. To understand the world around us, our thoughts combine with the experience of others to shape viewpoints and conclusions; hence, the importance of information and education. What you think about generosity and greed, where you desire that others show you generosity, or are caring towards you, is determined by what you think, because you might be disappointed.Ask yourself: do you desire peace or conflict?
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Furthermore, greedy people emit negative stimuli which will surely be remembered and paid back in its negative kind. Negative stimuli produces strange behavior on people. It also has a more powerful effect on others than positive stimuli. If you think greed makes you better off, trade it off against the unhappiness you could be investing in, and do make a more profitable choice.
The golden rule will always be repaid.
“Do unto others as you want them to do unto you,” so states the golden rule. In brief, you should treat others as you would like to be treated. If you want people to listen to you, be equally ready to listen to them. If you want to be accepted for what you are, be ready to do the same to other people. The golden rule works in most situations. Where you want others to repay you for your acts of kindness, treat them as equally well as you want others to treat you. These three reasons, amongst others, are why the golden rule works.- We all possess the required skills and resources. Unlike generosity, we all possess the inherent skills and resources for treating others as well as we want them to treat us. Listening, fairness, peacefulness – they are inherent in us. We only have to use these skills if you want to.
- It makes for economy and healthiness. The more you treat others well, they see it in you and are ready to return the same to you. Even strangers will be ready to show reciprocity. It costs nothing, rather promotes godliness and healthy social relationships. Do you wonder why greedy people are fond of clenching their tooth? They are on edge because they have been treated badly by other people who accuse them of treating them badly in the past. If they only knew the golden rule.
- It is what we all prefer and desire. Wars and conflicts should be seen as children of necessity when all recourse to diplomacy is exhausted. No sane individual wants to live in a home where fighting, backbiting, and foul-play are daily occurrence. We all want and prefer good homes, high-paying jobs, happy achieving kids, good government and adequate security. We all want what is fair. To have our desires, we should ready to play fair. Give what is fair and just, and people will be ready to repay you back without asking for an incentive. The opposite would surely be an investment in future trouble.
My latest blog, Incomeready.blogspot.com, has been launched.
There comes a time in life when a milestone is crossed; when that eureka! moment arrives. At the beginning of the year, while reading past articles on this blog, I decided I was missing out on one aspect of creative problem solving: shared experiences. I thought Solvingit had too much of research and studies and few of shared experiences. So, I decided to take a step forward. There was no space on SolvingIt for what I wanted. Thus was born another blog, incomeready.blogspot.com.
Incomeready.blogspot.com is complementary to this one, emekadavid-solvingit.blogspot.com". They both share the same subject space, but one difference is that incomeready.blogspot.com was meant to connect the readers with real persons, institutions, companies and governmental agencies. Solvingit has enough of abstract concepts and terms. Incomeready.blogspot.com has already been launched. As of my writing this piece, there are already four articles on the blog. The first article was meant to introduce the casual reader to why I thought incomeready.blogspot.com was meant to see the light of day. The second article was special. I chose a subject that would interest many a reader who is interested in monetary problems: barter economy. That article highlighted how Grecians are looking to the past for solutions. Because the Euro has become scarce and a privileged currency, they were resorting to barter currencies one of which is the Tem. The third article was inspired by a blog post I found on the Internet concerning Work-At-Home Mums (WAHM) and Stay-At-Home Dads (SAHD). I decided to write a piece on how division of labor in the home is a big contributor to love, harmony and peace. You can visit the blog, incomeready.blogspot.com for the fourth and other pieces. I promise you that incomeready.blogspot.com, the blog, will be much more exciting that even SolvingIt. Nice reading everyone. May you find the greatest joy, love and happiness in your lives. I wish you charm.Is china’s One Child Policy (OCP) going to bow under social problems?
China’s One Child Policy (OCP) might have been influenced by Confucius and other Chinese writers who believed that “excessive growth may reduce output per worker, repress levels of living for the masses and engender strife.” The OCP requires every family to have only one child, and failing this, punishment with fines and sometimes, illegal forced abortions and forced sterilizations. The OCP was introduced in 1979 as a tool of population control, to check rapid population growth rates. Recently, there have been suggestions that the OCP might be outliving its intentions. Population growth has stagnated and an official report states that there is a dearth of 15-59 year olds in China. As of 2011, the number of births prevented by the OCP was cited at 400 million.
Children under OCP lack characteristic for entrepreneurial prowess.
Social scientists from Australia who studied Chinese citizens born under its One Child Policy (OCP) and just before have released a report that OCP has not only dramatically re-shaped the population, but it has produced individuals lacking characteristics important for economic and social attainment[sic]. Children born under OCP were found to be significantly less trusting, less trustworthy, more risk-averse, less competitive, more pessimistic, and less conscientious individuals.
Is China interested in leadership lessons from the West?
The question is: Is China interested in taking leadership lessons from Western countries, even renowned Western academics? There is no conclusive official data that China is going through economic strains, or that its citizens are ready to relinquish control of its massive export oriented industries to other countries. By the way, Chinese citizens who are more likely to face high fines or punishment due to the OCP cannot influence public opinion or policy. Where reports suggest that the Government is ready to relax OCP, for how long will this last? Will those provinces return to old ways? According to Yahoo news online, in Jiuquan, though the one-child policy is relaxed, women are still subject to strict family planning rules. They are fitted with intra-uterine devices after their first child, sterilized after their second and whoever defies the two-child quota pays a 30,000 yuan fine.
How much does MethyMercury (MeHg) pollution cost in EuroZone? Ten billion euros!
No matter how poisonous it is to the brain, especially to infants, children and fetuses, mercury pollution seems unavoidable, especially if you live in a developing country where regulation and alternatives seem nonexistent or very expensive. Name it – either from plants manufacturing chlorine bleach, detergents or shoes, or firms where Polylvinyl Chloride (a.k.a PVC) is part of the production process, then mercury pollution is part of the problems we have to bear.
Mercury pollution works by bioaccumulation and bioconcentration.
The cost is extremely high
MeHg pollution attacks the nervous system, whether in adults or children, although children, fetuses and infants are more vulnerable. It damages the nervous system. It can stop your nerves from working well; can affect the workings of your memory such that you can no longer keep attention when needed; it can affect how your limbs work, and furthermore, it can affect how your eyes calculates space such that you could mistakenly fall down from a story building without realizing it. In health and human terms, the cost is enormous. A team of researchers wanted to find out the effect of MeHg poisoning in 17 European countries by collecting hair samples from mothers and their children. They found that 1.8 million children are born exposed to toxic levels of MeHg, and of these, about 13% (i.e 232,000) are exposed to hazardous levels. By country analyses showed that children born in Portugal and Spain were most exposed, while Hungarian children were the least. A member of the research team, Prof. Philippe Grandjean, explained that converting the effects of MeHg on developing brains into IQ points would mean that controlling MeHg pollution equates to 700,000 IQ points per year that would be salvaged; translated into monetary benefits, these is equal to between 8 billion to 9 billion euros per year for the whole of the European Union . Controlling exposure levels in European countries is certainly worth the effort.The task of controlling MeHg is everyone’s responsibility.
Although MeHg seems unavoidable, the task of controlling it is everyone’s responsibility. Reducing exposure to safety limits should be the goal of every country. Many corporations are going green these days. You can encourage your local power supplier to do the same. When buying items like shoes, bags, and detergents, ask about the manufacturing process. Read the labels. Make sure PVC was not used in the production process. Ask experts in your local community about this if you are in doubt. Keep yourself informed concerning health, safety and environmental issues. Doing the above, as well as other safety measures, will go a long way in either ensuring you are free from MeHg poisoning, or you chose a lifestyle that will ensure your exposure to MeHg is below the safe limit of 0.58µg/g recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO).Related Post:
As of writing this article, a yahoo online news article reports that [u.n clinches global deal on cutting mercury emissions more than 140 countries have agreed on the first global treaty to cut mercury pollution through a blacklist of household items and new controls on power plants and small-scale mines, the United Nations said on Saturday, January 19.The treaty will take between three to five years to come into effect. This is welcome news for world health. I pray the UN does achieve its goals.
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