Reality Shows and Baby Boomers Contribute Promoting Cosmetic Procedures for Youthful Appearance

Popular “Reality Shows” like “Oprah” and the “Extreme Makeover” are demonstrating sufficient evidences that the surgical and non-surgical cosmetic procedures are gaining tremendous popularity among masses. The makeovers are clearly visible on these reality shows. Television series like “Nip/Tuck” are also contributing to the acceptance of these surgery processes to enhance the personal looks and youthful appearance.In the United States alone approximately 11.5 million cosmetic surgery procedures were carried out in the year 2006. There has been a tremendous 446% increase in the number of non-surgical procedures since 1997. Aging Baby Boomers have contributed up to great extent for this phenomenal increase. Baby Boomers are being acutely aware of wrinkles and bulges. They are more than happy to spend millions of dollars on maintaining their youthful appearance.

Expenditure behavior of the Americans demonstrates an interesting trend in favor of the cosmetic procedures. During the year, 2006 Americans went out to spend $12.2 billion on ‘Cosmetic Procedures’ in total. They spent $7.6 billion for the ‘surgical Procedures’ like ‘Liposuction’ and ‘Breast Augmentation’. Non-surgical Procedures’ including ‘Fat Transfer Injection’ and ‘Botox’ accounted for expenditure to the tune of $4.5 billion in the same year.

People at large prefer to adopt the non-surgical procedures in order to look physically young. With Non-surgical procedures, it is easier to monitor the procedural outcome. These procedures help it reducing liability concerns and limit the post-trauma effects.

“Fat Transfer Procedures” and “Liposuction” are common cosmetic surgery procedures. Changing the complete outlook and bringing the youthful physical fitness of body parts is possible by transferring one’s own fat from one part of the body to another with the help of an instrument called “Cannula”.

Safety and efficacy are two principal reasons responsible for the continuously increasing popularity of the non-surgical procedures. This public preference is changing current market trends and business practices.

GodTube.com Pays Moving Tribute to California Fire Tragedy

GodTube.com has come up with a new video in order to pay tribute to the ‘California Fire Fighters’ and those numerous citizens who were affected by the recent ‘California fires’. This moving tribute, the video, demonstrates every aspect of the tragedy. GodTube.com  in its ‘tribute-video’ also pays thanks to all the heroes who did splendid job in saving many lives. It extends several supports for the victims of the ‘California Fire’.

Bionic Women: Plastic Surgery can make it Happen

Plastic Surgeons are perfecting Reconstructive Peripheral Nerve Surgery for facial Symmetry Restoration and Pain Management

 Hollywood’s imaginative conceptualization of a “Bionic Women” is now closer to become a reality. A ‘reconstructive quality-of-life-enhancement-peripheral nerve surgery’, which was almost impossible sometime ago, is now an available option for the plastic surgeons to turn the notion of a “Bionic Person” in to a reality. NBC’s “Bionic Women” was merely a television fantasy until now.

Nerve Transfer Makes a Bionic Person  

Plastic surgeons are working for perfection on a typical ‘nerve-surgery’ that will create an interface of humans with the machines. Amputees will then be having an ability to move prosthetics in more efficient manner.

“We are restoring patients’ movement through reconstructive plastic surgery that allows nerves and muscles to merge with, power, and move prosthetic devices”, said  Dr.W.P.Andrew Lee in his presentation at the American Society of Plastic surgeons (ASPS) Plastic Surgery 2007 Conference at Baltimore. 

Plastic surgeons are finalizing an innovative nerve transfer procedure. Selective nerve fibers derived from the neighboring muscles are redirected to damaged muscle. The damaged muscle thus obtains required power to function efficiently. The nerve branches from originally damaged muscle and the redirected muscle then start growing further and compensate the loss. It takes just a few months for damaged muscle to regain the function from the ‘borrowed’ nerve fibers. 

The nerve-transfer-technique helps the amputees regain control and move their prostheses. Plastic surgeons often face a situation where a little muscle remains left following an upper arm amputation. This makes it difficult to maneuver the artificial limb. Plastic surgeons are now transferring these remaining nerves in the upper arm to chest and back muscles. This technique makes these muscles more powerful.

“Before, we had to wait for the nerve to slowly regenerate and hope the muscle was still healthy and had some functionality once the nerve reconnected to it,” said Dr.Paul Cederna, in his presentation at the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) Plastic Surgery2007 Conference.  

Restoring Facial Symmetry

‘Peripheral nerve treatment process’ is an important tool that helps restoring symmetry to patients with facial paralysis and effective pain management. Plastic surgeons find this technique very helpful especially for the diabetics and migraine headache sufferers.

There is a possibility that the tissue-walls in the feet may become stiff over a period and as a result surround the nerves tightly in case of certain diabetics. These constricted nerves become a big cause for migraine headaches. Plastic surgeons try to create sufficient space around these nerves. This process relieves the pressure and thus assuages pain and the numbness.

Trauma or the tumor is a big cause of facial paralysis. Patients are unable to use the facial muscles around the mouth. It leads to asymmetry and even the permanent frown. Permanent frown makes negative impacts on people’s perception of an individual. Plastic surgeons apply “Botox” to paralyze the normal functioning muscles during the physical therapy process. Use of ‘Botox’ provides strength to the damaged muscles and restores the symmetry of the face.

“Considering what we’ve accomplished over the last several years, we aredefinitely entering into a new age of reconstructive plastic surgery”, said Dr.Lvica Ducic at the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) Plastic Surgery2007 Conference at Baltimore.  

Baby Boomers: 7 Things to Know About Them

“Baby Boomers”, it is an interesting term to identify those who are born between 1946 and 1964.

Baby Boomers show a general tendency in favor of using their right to vote. More than 55% of the Baby Boomers prefer to vote in a federal, state, or local election.

Baby Boomers like playing lottery despite being financially comfortable. Nearly 41% Baby Boomers express their desire to play lotteries, try their luck, and win more money.

Home remodeling is one of the favorite activities for many of the Baby Boomers. Almost 30.8% Baby Boomers show a tendency to undertake home remodeling project.

Boomers have relatively higher incomes. They are generally wealthy people.Approximately, 35.6% of the Baby Boomers have households and either own or lease at least three vehicles.

Boomers represent an optimistic group of people. More than 39.1% of them, almost four in every ten boomers, have a firm confidence that their financial position will further improve in coming one year. Those who believe that their financial status will be either slightly ‘better-off’ or will remain ‘the same’ in the period of one year from now constitute about 90% of these Baby Boomers.

Large populations of Baby Boomers are not financially protected for satisfactory benefits to deal with any medical problem. More than 23.3% of them do not have any personal, medical, hospital, accident, or any other kind of insurance.

Racial Discrimination against African-Americans: Disgraceful Abuse of Authority

Patrick Hall’s case is a living example of inhuman, racial discrimination against the African-Americans, just because of their black skin color. It is a classic case in itself, where civic authorities and police department humiliated a respected citizen in this manner.

“I thought racial discrimination was something one reads about in history books; I was wrong.” Said Patrick Hall.

Patrick Hall filed a lawsuit for claims including violations of his civil rights.
It mentions that Patrick Hall served the United States army and now he is a decorated member of the Army services. After his retirement from the services, he decided to study further and took admission in western Illinois University at Macomb.

It was early 2006, and at the same time, he started his own tavern business in the city of Macomb. He was the first ever African-American entrepreneur in the history of Macomb city. He employed many of his fellow African-Americans. He was dreaming of a better future for himself and his employees.

For a society so white conscious, it was unacceptable to see a black man helping himself and his fellow Afro-Americans. Some racists’ authorities, including the police department started humiliating and terrorizing him. The Macomb city police department even denied his civil rights as a citizen. Police officers raided his business premises a number of times. Cops carried out search operations as if some illegal and criminal activity is going on at the work place.

Patrick Hall’s loss of composure did not stop here. Cops started put in an appearance at his work place sporadically. These police officers enquired with employees and other people. They managed spreading rumors among employees, his customers and public at large. It became problematical for Patrick Hall to reach at his work place. Police officers even used to stop and search him. They even did the same with other African-American employees and searched their vehicles.

Patrick Hall then decided to file a complaint against some police officers but he was bluntly refused. Circumstances were so detrimental that Patrick Hall could not run his tavern business anymore. He had to close it down. Left with no option, Patrick Hall had to leave the city of Macomb.

“I was treated like a convicted criminal,” said Patrick in his petition.

“Comforts of Home” Drive Welcomes Contributions for the California Fire Disaster Relief Fund

The “California fires” caused heavy destructions and left many families with their homes devastated. Katrina Foley, Costa Mesa City Council Member launched a relief campaign to assist these families in all possible ways.

“Comforts of Home” drive of Katrina Foley is a jointly co-ordinate effort of the ‘Costa Mesa High School Cheerleaders’ and the ‘Costa Mesa Fire Fighters Association’. The drive intends to collect new pajamas for children and adults, toys, pillows, gift cards to Wal-Mart, Kmart, and Target and grocery stores for toiletries and other necessities.

The drive made all required arrangements to collect donations on daily basis. Anyone who is interested for contributing to the “Comforts of Home” drive may contact ‘Katrina Foley’ at mailto:council@katrinafoley.comor at 949-244-9010. The drive is also looking for volunteers and donors.

Contributions for the ‘Disaster Relief Fund‘ may also be sent to the American Red Cross with an online transaction on its website http://www.redcross.org/.

Emerging Trends and Projections about Growth in E-commerce Revenue Generation for Small Businesses: Study

Small Business Research Board (SBRB) study findings establish that the state of New York is far ahead of all other northeastern states as far as the use of internet to generate e-commerce revenue is concerned. The northeastern states including New York expect considerable revenue gains through e-commerce in coming years having a share of 98% at present. The study includes an opinion of almost 43.8% businesses voting for a better growth in coming times.

The SBRB  sponsored this study in collaboration with the ‘Business today Magazine’. It demonstrates a pattern of evolution of the e-commerce oriented business prospects in different regions of the United States. The Midwest region secured second to the New York in this study with a revenue generation projection of 32.7% in coming 24 months. Barely 1.3% of the small businesses predicted a projected decline in the e-commerce revenue generation prospects.

This countrywide study of SBRB and ‘Business Today Magazine’ included owners and managers of more than 550 small businesses representing numerous industries. The study report classified results based on industry, state, segment, region, experience and commitment along with the products and services through e-commerce mode.

The study finds that 73.3% of the businesses in New York have a website and 7% of them have even more than one. Northeastern region has the highest numbers of websites with 69.1% ratio. In New York 48.6% of the businesses, offer their products and services online with e-commerce. Nearly 61.6% of the companies in northwestern region accepted generating revenue from their websites. In New York, this ratio was higher with 62.9%. In northeastern region, 42.8% and in New York, 43.9% companies gave credit to the internet sales for generating more than 10% of their total revenue in the year 2006 alone.

The ‘SBRB-Business Today Small Business e-commerce Study’ is an attempt to evaluate e-commerce and its impact on small businesses. It analyzed a period of five years and the data thus generated are of great help in establishing trends and patterns of growth with historical benchmarks. Industries involved in this study represent sectors like manufacturing, construction, retail, food and beverage, distribution and wholesaling, transportation and automotives.  

How Things Are:Let’s Learn the REFLECT Way

REFLECT is an acronym for “Regenerated Freirean Literacy through Empowering Community Techniques”. The REFLECT concept is based on the Theory of Conscientization. A Brazilian Educator “Paulo Freire” conceptualized and pioneered this approach. “Action-Aid” then further developed this approach with its programs in 1993. First application of this innovative approach was in El Salvador (South America), Bangladesh, (Asia) and Uganda.

REFLECT relies on volunteer facilitators chosen from among men and women in the community who can read and write Emphasis lies upon dialogue and action, awareness raising, cooperation and empowerment. It opens new horizons for exploring development challenges and to find ways to overcome them. The empowering process gives an opportunity to freely discuss any issues including sensitive cultural traditions.

REFLECT Circles are actually the best-organized groups in the local areas. These could be better used in the annual planning process and to analyze community problems. REFLECT circles become focal points for discussion of community problems such as water, roads, soil fertility, health and HIV/AIDS, agriculture, and the factors causing poverty. Small-scale income generating activities may be initiated. These create an opportunity to explore effective collective action.

Gender disparity may be reduced among REFLECT Circles members. Families may learn to share the workload and to plan together in the best interest of the family. Participation of women is increased in meetings with enhanced confidence and talk in public and to take part in active discussions. It helps women to make sincere efforts to develop the abilities to get their voices heard.

There is increased awareness among people. They get to know that their problems are not “God-Given “.This awareness is not  merely the result of telling them “How Things are “, but  it brings in a process whereby people learnt through experience. This allows them to question their reality independently. It changes their attitudes and the way they look into things. They know that there is a lot they can do for themselves instead of waiting for the government to do everything for them.

REFLECT is now used in over 60 countries to tackle problems in agriculture, HIV/AIDS, conflict resolution and peace building.

Motherhood Maternity Cares for Expectant Women

Motherhood Maternity is now offering its quality fashion items at amazingly low prices. An order will attract a shipping cost as low as $5 for the shipments within the United States. The purchase from motherhood.com has no limitations of amount and weight. 

Motherhood Maternity is facilitating the expectant women all across the United States. It focuses on best quality and service for the customers with lowest possible prices.

 “Dressing over 2 million pregnant women each year, we are thrilled to be able to continue to cater to the needs of pregnant women”, says Rebecca Mathias, President and Chief Creative Officer of Motherhood Maternity. 

Motherhood Maternity designs a variety of wears for expectant women. The range includes career wear, formal wear, fashion denim, and even lingerie exclusively for the most exciting nine months of her life.  

Motherhood Maternity is helping the pregnant women to look and feel better. Shopping is online now and it is fast and convenient. This is all available at affordable prices.

Create Your Own Music With Your Own PC

Gone are the days when you had to locate a music studio to create your own music. It used to be a hilarious task just about ten years back. One had to make real serious attempts. Music studios were not available in every city. Music lovers and composers had almost no choice but to listen a piece of music composed by those professional artists from metros only. There were only handful of professionals available and one had to shell out a hefty sum to hire their services. Often this was an out of pocket affair for many such music composers despite their qualitative attributes.

Fortunately, it is not so difficult now. The personal computer and selected specified software have changed the world of music upside down. We can now see a flush of music videos and albums from every nook and corner of the world. Music studios are plenty in numbers and are quite affordable as well. Anyone can compose its own music in the way one desires.

Getting even more at easier front, the music can be composed and created at home with just a Personal Computer. Just think of creating something new and you have almost done it! You only need a Personal Computer that would do everything for you to create your own music. It is that simple indeed. You can take help of a microphone and selected specific software to do that.

Professional as well as layperson and recreational musicians are now facilitated with several kinds of relevant tools and software that can create any kind of music they want. You can be friendly with and master any such software with a few hours of sitting and working on it. This would enable anyone with the art of audio editing mixing.

It is important to know how to select the right software for specific purposes. Software like “ Fruity Loops-6 “ is one such useful  music composing tool. A variety of experimentations can be performed with sound and mixing with this software. It has a big bunch of virtual instruments also. All these virtual instruments can be used separately while creating different music tracks.

“Newendo” is also popular music creation software. This program has some spectacular features. Anyone can compose fantastic rocking music with this software.

 Learning some fundamentals of any music and audio editing software is a pre-requisite for someone who is new to this world of music and computers. These basic skills and approaches help you to understand the fundamental and complex features of the software.

After having brushed up with some fundamentals, use of the” Sound Forge” software is strongly recommended. “Sound Forge” is very useful and simple recording software that is easy to work with. A layperson would definitely feel very much comfortable with this software.

Once you are done with some initial experiences of creating, editing and mixing etc. a shift to “Fruity Loops-6” or “Q-base” or “ newendo” would be advisable. Even complex music recordings can be accomplished with these software’s.