This year the program established a clinical internship class within the curriculum. This class provides an educational experience for students to incorporate classroom knowledge in a wide variety of practicum settings. The experience also teaches students about “real life,” social skills, responsibilities, communication, problem solving, human relations, and the need for lifelong learning.

Covenant Health and Methodist Medical Center of Oak Ridge supports the ORHS Health Science Academy by serving on the advisory committee, providing guest speakers, and sponsoring mini-medical camps for all academy students.

And for the first time this year, MMC partnered with the academy to provide the ORHS clinical interns a technologically advanced facility staffed with preceptors that recognize the importance of these learning experiences for professional preparation.

Carol King, Carla Nickel, Judy Hargis, and Cheryl Stallings, MMC clinical educator coordinators for the program, helped plan a variety of clinical rotations and contexts that worked with the students’ stages of learning.

Students rotated throughout various departments gaining a better perspective on the health care system. Departments that participated in clinical rotations included the operating room, imaging, lab, pharmacy, emergency, materials management, respiratory therapy, outpatient therapy, Same Day Services, and the Post-Anesthetic Care Unit.

“Being a part of the first clinical internship class at ORHS has been a great experience. The people I have met along the way have been very helpful and welcoming. They have also helped me in my decision to pursue a career as a nurse anesthetist,” senior Heather Renfro explained.

“Clinical Internship has been an eye-opening experience because it has provided me with an opportunity to go through a day in the life of a health care professional,” said Taylor Ramsey, also a senior. “This program has influenced my decision in a positive way towards becoming a registered nurse,” Ramsey added.

The students who participated in the clinical internship program participated in a variety of ways, learning about their potential chosen professions in a hands-on manner.

ORHS senior Jean Barrs witnessed the birth of a baby; senior Ashley Smith observed a hernia operation and tummy tuck procedure, and saw a lung tumor in a hospital’s bronchial lab.

“I think this is a terrific program to open the doors for our youth. Programs like this give our students the opportunity to have hands on experience to help them decide if the health care profession is for them,” said Angie West Wiliford, a radiological technologist at MMC and a 1999 graduate of Oak Ridge High School.

“I wish a program like this was available when went to Oak Ridge High,” Wiliford admitted.

They get to see real life situations with real life patients.

You are can visit oakridger.com

Citing an anonymous source close to the matter, Klepek said that the new controller has “four face buttons, an analog stick and microphone”.

Besides that it seems like Microsoft is ready to go one step further than Nintendo and incorporate into the controller the Xbox Live Vision Camera.

The anonymous source has also provided a sketch picture of the allegedly new controller. (click here to see it).

Of course, Microsoft has nothing to say about the rumor and the company stays mum, as it did on several other occasions.

In fact this isn’t the first time when the rumor about a new Xbox 360 controller is spreading out. Last year in December XboxFamily reported that Microsoft is working with Sarataoga-based Gyration to create a motion-sensitive peripheral for Xbox 360 controllers. Gyration is the same company that was charged with the task of creating a prototype Wii remote. But nothing was officially confirmed by any of the parties involved.

However, it seems like Xbox 360 is in need of a “face lift.” Launched in November 2006, Microsoft’s console is the oldest from the three gaming platforms available. Unlike Sony, which has constantly upgraded and modified its PS 3 or Nintendo, which are constantly pushing new gadgets like Wii Board or Wii Zapper, Xbox 360 has almost the same configuration. Speaking of controllers, earlier this month Sony launched in the United States its DualShock 3 with rumble features. So maybe a new controller for Xbox 360 isn’t such a bad idea.

There were various rumors that we might soon enough see a BluRay drive, external or internal, for Xbox 36, but yesterday Neil Thompson, Senior Regional Director for Northern Europe of Microsoft’s Entertainment & Devices Division said that the company will rather concentrate on its download service than think about a new unit.

But the question still remains: does Xbox 360 need a new gadget to be more appealing for gamers? Looking at the latest numbers regarding gaming sales in the US released by the NPD Group, Sony’s Playstation 3 has surpassed the Xbox 360 for the second month in a row in February, but Microsoft predicted that this will happen, due to its problems to estimate sale figures correctly.

On the software front, the Xbox 360 games are still best sellers as the first places in the Top 10 were taken in February by Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare with 296,000 units and Devil May Cry 4 with 295,200 units.

It seems that for the moment Microsoft has found the right equation, but if Sony will keep outselling Xbox 360, maybe the Redmond company will have to consider a change, and a controller could be a winning move. Let’s not jump ahead of ourselves though and forget that for the moment nothing is official.

- eFluxMedia

Google is offering to host enterprise Web applications on its own infrastructure with a new tool for developers, App Engine.

It isn’t the first to do so — App Engine will compete with similar services such as Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud and Salesforce’s Appexchange — but it may be the cheapest, as Google’s basic services will be free.

Google’s goal is to make it easy to get started with a new web application, and then make it easy to scale when that application reaches the point where it’s receiving significant traffic and has millions of users, Google said in its new App Engine blog.

App Engine is based on technologies Google already uses. It is powered by Bigtable, a distributed storage system currently used by its Google Earth service, and by Google’s own file system GFS.

The search giant is treading lightly, so far. The version launched on Monday is a preview release, and is by no means feature complete, according to Google.

Only 10,000 developers will be able to sign up initially, but that number will increase.

During the preview period, capacity will also be limited. Applications will for example be able to use 500M bytes of storage, and transmit up to 10G bytes of data per day. Google expects most applications will be able to serve around 5 million page views per month within those limits.

Google is keeping mum on how it will price the service, but applications operating within the limitations of the preview release will remain free, even when App Engine goes live.

App Engine will initially only support applications written in Python, but Google is looking to add support for other languages as well.

According to the European Commission, passengers’ phones will be linked to an onboard cellular network which will connect via satellite, instead of directly to the mobile networks on the ground. The flight captain will have the ability to turn off the service if necessary, but according to the European Commission, “transmission powers are kept low enough for mobile phones to be used without affecting the safety of aircraft equipment.”

“In-flight mobile phone services can be a very interesting new service especially for those business travelers who need to be ready to communicate wherever they are, wherever they go,” said Viviane Reding, EU’s Telecoms Commissioner, highlighting another important issue: costs.

“We expect operators to be transparent and innovative in their price offerings,” said Reding. If consumers receive shock phone bills, the service will not take-off.

There are a lot of sides to this decision, as it may make some passengers unsatisfied with the noise cell phone use would create during flight, and create safety concerns for those who are not convinced the system might actually work. “I also call on airlines and operators to create the right conditions on board aircraft to ensure that those who want to use in-flight communication service do not disturb other passengers,” Reding added.

/eFluxMedia

Each branch of the military (Air Force, Navy, Marines, Army, Coast Guard) has their own individual rules and regulations when it comes to military scholarships.

You’ll need to research the branch of the military you’re planning to join, and see what they offer to recruits who would like to pursue higher education.

If you are planning on joining the military, it’s a good idea to speak with a recruiter from each branch to see what resources they offer to prospective college students who enlist.

Recruiters can be an excellent source of information and should point you in the right direction so you can research your military scholarship options.

Certain programs offer various benefits, including medical coverage, full tuition, and a monthly allowance. However, not all service academies offer these benefits and the ones that do are typically fiercely competitive.

Whether you are already serving the government in some way and would like to join a service academy, or you plan to enroll in the military once you graduate high school, it’s a good idea to research your options thoroughly.

The following tips and hints will guide you through the basics of military scholarships, who to talk to, and which programs/branches offer which benefits.

There are even scholarships for people who are family members of others who have served in the military as well.

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For more http://www.scholarshiptalk.com/military-scholarships/

In an October 12 letter to members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, a senior Verizon official says that from 2005 through this September there were 63,700 such requests, and of those, 720 came from federal authorities.

The company refused to discuss the content of those requests outside the several examples provided in the letter.

The letter came in response to a request from the panel seeking information from telecommunication firms about the extent of their cooperation with government entities, especially concerning the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping program that started weeks after the September 11, 2001, attacks.

“There is an atmosphere of ambiguity which clouds this entire area,” Rep. Edward Markey, D-Massachusetts, said in an interview with CNN. “Congress needs to know. The American people need to know what the Bush administration is doing in the name of the American people to its own citizens. And right now we don’t know the answers.”

AT&T and Qwest Communications International also submitted information to the committee, but Verizon’s response was the most detailed. It said that from 2005 through September it received almost 240,000 requests from government agencies.

The information authorities sought often came along with a warrant from the classified intelligence court authorizing a wiretap or through an administrative subpoena, for example, seeking an Internet address.

The emergency requests, however, were some of the more surprising data provided. Some of the emergency situations Verizon said it assisted in included locating the Internet address of a child predator who had abducted a 13-year-old girl (who was then found due to that information) and helping Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents track down a man using a webcam to broadcast the sexual abuse of a 6-year-old boy.

In its letter to Congress, Verizon said that the emergency requests were legal and that private companies do not have “all the information necessary to completely assess the propriety of the government’s actions.”

“Placing the onus on the provider to determine whether the government is acting within the scope of its authority would inevitably slow lawful efforts to protect the public. When an emergency situation arises, prompt assistance is often needed,” wrote Randal Milch, Verizon’s senior vice president and general counsel.

The extent of cooperation between the nation’s telecommunication firms and the government, especially in the counterterrorism arena, has been of intense interest to civil liberties advocates as well as members of Congress.

In May 2006, USA Today reported the National Security Agency had been collecting the records of tens of millions of customers from various companies. A former Qwest executive has said he decided not to participate in that program because of its questionable legality.

Verizon, AT&T and Qwest are all facing lawsuits about their possible participation in various government efforts and therefore have said they cannot comment.

The Justice Department has invoked the “state secrets” privilege to prevent the firms from confirming or denying possible involvement in specific intelligence operations.

Wayne Watts, AT&T’s senior executive vice president and general counsel, wrote, “Our company essentially finds itself caught in the middle of an oversight dispute between the Congress and the executive relating to government surveillance activities. … Disputes of this kind need to be resolved through accommodation between the two political branches of government.”

Verizon, which has about 30 million phone and 70 million wireless subscribers, also disclosed it had received subpoenas for more detailed information about whom a person under investigation had called.

Not only had authorities sought information about the person called but wanted to know whom, in turn, that person then communicated with — a “calling circle” or “community of interest.”

The company said it did not provide that information because it doesn’t keep such records. Government officials have said there was a standard that had to be met before making that type of request.

However, in light of an ongoing Justice Department audit concerning abuses by the FBI of administrative subpoenas and misreporting of their use, the bureau has said it has temporarily stopped asking for “community of interest” data.

“It is important to emphasize that it is no longer being used pending the development of an appropriate oversight and approval policy, was used infrequently, and was never used for e-mail communications,” FBI spokesman Mike Kortan told CNN last month.

Source: CNN
tracback URL: http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/10/16/verizon.records/

All tunes stripped of digital rights management (DRM) limitations have been reduced from $1.29 to $.99, said Apple. The iTunes catalog of DRM-free music has also been expanded and now numbers more than 2 million tracks.

ITunes Plus, the name Apple gave music in MP3 format that can be copied freely between devices and computers, debuted last May, three months after CEO Steve Jobs issued an open letter asking the major recording labels to abandon digital copy protection.

The bulk of the songs without copy protection are from EMI Group PLC, the only major recording company with which Apple has cut a deal, and from independent labels. The inventory boost largely came from the addition of tracks from the independents, Apple said.

“ITunes Plus has been incredibly popular with our customers, and now we’re making it available at an even more affordable price,” said Eddy Cue, who heads iTunes, in a statement. His remarks echoed Jobs’ comments to The Wall Street Journal, which yesterday quoted the CEO as saying that “[iTunes Plus has] been very popular with our customers, and we’re making it even more affordable.”

Apple’s price drop follows the launch of Amazon.com’s all DRM-free online music store three weeks ago. Amazon MP3, which is in beta testing, prices tracks at 89 to 99 cents apiece. At the same time, Wal-Mart began selling unprotected tunes from Universal Music Group’s catalog for 94 cents.

Source and trackback URL:
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=networking_and_internet&articleId=9043005&taxonomyId=16

Con el fin de ayudar a concienciar no sólo a sus trabajadores, sino también a los pasajeros, Iberia ha elegido “trece especies emblemáticas, que darán nombre al mismo número de aviones que se incorporarán a la flota en los próximos dos años”, explicó ayer Fernando Conte, presidente de la compañía.

El primero de estos aviones, que fue bautizado ayer como Águila imperial por el periodista Premio Nacional de Medio Ambiente Joaquín Araujo, forma parte de la nueva flota verde de la compañía aérea, que, en principio “cubrirá trayectos europeos, aunque se desconoce cuál será su primera ruta”, explicaron fuentes de la compañía.

Los nuevos Airbus, que llevarán el nombre de alguna de las trece especies más amenazadas, “emiten entre un 23% y un 24% menos de dióxido de carbono (CO2) que los modelos MDS, que ya estamos retirando”, afirmó Conte. “El esfuerzo inversor que hemos realizado en la renovación de la flota ha sido muy significativo”, señaló. Este proceso de reposición ha supuesto una inversión de entre 4.000 y 5.000 millones de euros, “lo que demuestra nuestro compromiso de eficiencia y de provocar menos emisiones”, añadió el presidente.

Con esta medida sostenible, se inicia, según el escritor Antonio Pérez Henar, “algo muy importante, debido a la potencia de Iberia a la hora de transmitir un mensaje”. Además del nombre y del dibujo de esta especie que los aviones llevarán en el fuselaje, “hasta que deje de estar amenazada”, señaló Conte, en los asientos de cada aparato, se incluirá una nota informativa elaborada por el naturalista que lo haya apadrinado y, en las publicaciones propias de la aerolínea –Ronda, Excelente y el diario Universal–, se recogerán reportajes informativos que serán entregados a una audiencia de más de 2,3 millones de personas al mes. Estos mensajes serán divulgados durante los próximos dos años.

Especies en peligro
Al Airbus A321, le seguirán en los próximos meses ocho modelos A319, que serán bautizados por distintos naturalistas como Lince ibérico, Oso pardo, Cigüeña negra, Urogallo, Nutria, Búho real, Avutarda y Halcón peregrino. Las cuatro entregas previstas para 2008 recibirán los nombres de otros animales escasos en España como son la grulla, el petirrojo, el vencejo y el flamenco.

La mayoría de estas especies se encuentran amenazadas, “porque el ecosistema en el que viven ha sido destruido”, señaló Alejandro Sánchez, director ejecutivo de Seo Birdlife. Los efectos del cambio climático y la urbanización del entorno en el que viven animales como el urogallo o la avutarda son factores determinantes para su escasez.

No obstante, en los últimos años se han realizado importantes avances en el mantenimiento de otras especies como el oso pardo o la cigüeña negra, gracias al trabajo de organizaciones como la Fundación Osos pardo, el Grupo de Rehabilitación de la Fauna Autóctono y su Habitat (Grefa), dependiente del Estado, 0 WWW/Adena, entidades que cooperan con Iberia en esta iniciativa.

Source: www.expansion.com