SWINE FLU

Need to know more on viral structure, DNA replication....genetics...?
Follow this Link please or you can look at it here...for further informations. it is very useful for those who are interested in mocrobiology.I like it. It was Quiet interesting for me.

About the Swine Flu: Swine Influenza (swine flu) is a respiratory disease of pigs caused by type A influenza viruses that causes regular outbreaks in pigs. People do not normally get swine flu, but human infections can and do happen. Swine flu viruses have been reported to spread from person-to-person, but in the past, this transmission was limited and not sustained beyond three people.
Is this swine flu virus contagious? CDC has determined that this swine influenza A (H1N1) virus is contagious and is spreading from human to human. However, at this time, it is not known how easily the virus spreads between people.

What are the signs and symptoms of swine flu in people? The symptoms of swine flu in people are similar to the symptoms of regular human flu and include fever, cough, sore throat, body aches, headache, chills and fatigue. Some people have reported diarrhea and vomiting associated with swine flu. In the past, severe illness (pneumonia and respiratory failure) and deaths have been reported with swine flu infection in people. Like seasonal flu, swine flu may cause a worsening of underlying chronic medical conditions.
Transmission: Flu viruses are spread mainly from person to person through coughing or sneezing of people with influenza. Sometimes people may become infected by touching something with flu viruses on it and then touching their mouth or nose. Infected people may be able to infect others beginning 1 day before symptoms develop and up to 7 or more days after becoming sick.
Prevention: wash your hands. Try to stay in good general health. Get plenty of sleep, be physically active, manage your stress, drink plenty of fluids, and eat nutritious food. Try not touch surfaces that may be contaminated with the flu virus. Avoid close contact with people who are sick.
CDC has recommended few things for protection from swine flu:

1. Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze. Throw the tissue in the trash after you use it.
2. Wash your hands often with soap and water, especially after you cough or sneeze. Alcohol-based hand cleaners are also effective.
3. Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth. Germs spread this way.
4. Try to avoid close contact with sick people.
5. If you get sick with influenza, you stay home from work or school and limit contact with others to keep from infecting them.

Medicine as recommended by CDC : oseltamivir or zanamivir for the treatment and/or prevention of infection with these swine influenza viruses.

Note: aniviral drugs do not treat the condition it just reduce the viral replication. It makes your symptoms milder and make you feel better.

In children emergency warning signs that need urgent medical attention include:
Fast breathing or trouble breathing
Bluish skin color
Not drinking enough fluids
Not waking up or not interacting
Being so irritable that the child does not want to be held
Flu-like symptoms improve but then return with fever and worse cough
Fever with a rash
In adults, emergency warning signs that need urgent medical attention include:
1. Difficulty breathing or shortness of breath
2. Pain or pressure in the chest or abdomen
3. Sudden dizziness
4. Confusion
5. Severe or persistent vomiting

Hope it helps you for being aware of Swine Flu. We are hoping that the Swine Flu go away soon.

All informations are cited from CDC

Comments on Don’t Text just Drive

An article by one of my colleagues about Don’t Text.. just DRIVE! is very real and should be a point of major debate. Yes, we hear multiple fatalities every day because of distraction while driving. I myself admit doing such a blunder every now and then despite knowing the risk that lies behind. Cell phones are obviously a major distraction while driving. Nine states like New York, Illinois, Louisiana, Alaska, Nebraska, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oregon, Washington States and recently California enforce law that the drivers are not allowed to talk while driving. moreover, texting seems to be even more distraction than talking over the phone. The research has already proved that mind distraction in multi-tasking is obviously means less focus on one task. Especially, while driving is even more severe, not only for the one who is driving, but also for others who become victim of someone’s mistake. Therefore, I think the Texas Legislature should take this issue very seriously. Unless there are some hefty fines or serious punishment, people will keep doing multi-tasking while driving. I agree with the fact that there are some situation that we need to do texting because of its importance, nonetheless, there are no other things far important than saving the life.

Texas Tuition Promise Fund

Ever since the Texas officials suggested the tuition rates lock program last year, it has been getting popular. By enacting this policy more and more high school graduate will have a chance to go back to either two years colleges or four years colleges in Texas. People who enroll in this program do not have to worry about tuition hike in the future. State Comptroller Susan Combs hopes that this incentive will encourage more family to participate in this program.

The program was initially started in 1996, now has 119,000 active accounts. The state stopped adding more accounts in 2003 amid concern that the fund is not keeping pace with the tuition hike. Public universities and colleges whose tuition outpaces the fund will bear the cost difference for the participating students. Now, UT-Austin allocates $8 million dollars to overcome the budget shortfall. Kevin Deiters, director of the educational opportunities and investment division of the comptroller's office, believes that this gives incentive to keep colleges cost down.

I believe prepaid college tuition program is a very effective way in facilitating many middle class families to send their kids to colleges in the future. Last five years college tuition is increasing at the rate of 10 percentages. We can predict that the tuition rate in the future will be unaffordable for middle and poor economic group. Good colleges and universities will be just for rich people. Therefore, by freezing tuition at current price is very sensible way of putting the cost down. This program also encourages parents to take responsibilities of their children’s education.

Comments on Vote NO to Proposition 2

Ever since the issue of Proposition 2 was brought up in Austin City, we have been hearing “ye” or “Nay” uncountable times. It was a good article from JBT's Blog Bleeds Burnt Orange. Everyone has to be very clear what Proposition 2 is all about. Proposition 2 forbids the city from offering tax incentives to developers and prevents the city from honoring its existing agreements to pay rebate sales taxes. In her blog, Julie brought up a good point whether or not we should support building Domain, a large size mall her in Austin.

I agree with what she says about finding everything we can think of: decent shops, decent restaurants, without having to travel New York. It does help Austin City by increasing employment. The only concern I have for not approving Proposition 2 is risk of losing small business and existing mall because of high competition. Overall, the city will wind up with same number of employee and giving away someone else business to the new one. Therefore, before we vote against Proposition 2, we have to think about the long term consequence of the local businesses that have been giving services to local people for decades.

Corporate Influence in Texas Election Finance

It has been almost 100 years since the state of Texas banned campaign finance by corporation. Now the trend has changed as the district court has upheld the law. According to the newly passed law, corporate can spend as much as they want on advertising. It also says that corporate can spend that much money as long as they are careful not to expressly advocate the election or defeat of a particular candidate. Corporations do not have to report or disclose their spending to Texas Ethics of Commission. However, the court has assured that the new law does not violate the already established State Campaign Finance Law. Even before the law was passed, corporate finance was never been completely stopped.

When Tom Delay, a former US House Majority Leader successfully elects more Republicans to the US house, he also had to elect a Republican Majority in Texas house to withdraw the congressional district in favor of GOP candidate. At that time, lobbyists for GOP were accused of providing corporate finance. They were being fined for the breach. After the law is enacted, the Texas Association of Business cases have held that corporations and unions have free speech rights that allow them to spend money on campaigns.

Finally, giving so much of right to corporate in campaign finance is not in favor of general public. I believe, public also do not like the idea that corporate should involve so much in election. Even if the campaign financer do not talk about getting benefit or disclose any commitment, their finance definitely put more pressure on house of representative to finish corporate task, rather than public need. By involving corporate, Legislature which was already dominated by business interests will be even more business interest dominant. I think, the election should be fair enough. General public should be enough for campaign finance. If not the politics will be all about money. Whoever can afford to he or she can only run for the any level of election. The law should completely avoid this dirty game of politics.

Please refer Statesman.com to know about this issue.

Austin school district tax increase

I read this editorail in statesman.com which talks about an issue of voter's approval to raise pay rolls to Ausin's teachers. These days, many people are very much concerned about their job security beside their increase in tax. Moreover, the district is asking voters to approve well-deserved pay raises for the 12,000 teachers and other full-time employees. I like the author’s idea of mentioning the fact that pay raise to teachers is not matching the pace of inflation. Author has mention that because of the low pay for teachers, many school districts cannot employ capable teachers, so it is leading to poor quality education but surrounding districts are giving raises and are aggressively recruiting Austin's experienced teachers right out of their classrooms. It is clear that raising the salary to teacher means more or less raising the local tax. The author also brought up a good point that without approval from voters, there is no way that teachers’ pay would go up next year. In this editorial, the author has blamed to Texas School Districts for fund mismanagement and lack of proper auditing their balance sheet but, he has failed to mention the way how it can be corrected.

Recently, I red an article about Dallas School district in Dallas Morning News. Dallas District is fixing to lay off as many as 415 teachers because of extreme budget deficit. It was also started due to budget mismanagement in the beginning. In the same manner, Austin ISD is also very vulnerable in a way that voters will look at the teachers’ raise. According to the author, pay raise for teachers’ means rising of property tax. The rise in the property tax not only goes to Austin ISD, but also to the State government according to Texas School Financing law, the author mentions. It is very hard to predict how much raise is sufficient to make a decent raise in teachers’ salary. The author admits that the time of tax raise is very unfavorable during this economic downturn. It is very hard to say that voters will agree with increasing their tax when they are trying to find the way to save penny. At the same time, many Austin ISD teachers are not really encouraged by the way they are being paid. Obviously teachers’ dissatisfaction means lack of quality education for students. At the end, the author tries to become bit more political by mentioning voters would of course think about this situation when they go to the poll.

Razing Texas, raising questions

I read this editorial column which was posted on statesman.com. The author is raising the concern about living around the coastal area because of the different natural phenomena and global warming. The author begins with the example of the extent of damage that hurricane Ike left behind in Galveston. I support on his question about the financial impact that each resident who live in the coastal area has to suffer. Of course, the state of Texas comes up with the plan that can ease one time financial burden for individual but the question here is about in a long run because ocean temperature is increasing everyday due to global warming. Because of the global warming, the probability of forming major hurricanes also increases. Therefore, business and residents who live in the coastal area will definitely suffer from increase insurance premium cost and relatively less business growth than previous years. The author is concerning about how lawmakers are planning to make a rule so that people do not build business and home very close to the shore. Because of the day to day increase of water temperature, islands like Galveston are sinking. So the lawmakers are concerned about the cost someone has to suffer from damage for such properties which are very close to the cost. On the other hand, general public do not agree with the lawmakers. They believe that by setting up such rule can cost a lot to individuals who have been living there from long time. It also does not encourage the coastal businesses. I believe, rather than discouraging people to build properties and businesses, the local government should come up with the plan that encourage local businesses and individuals. Moreover, every body should be well protected by such natural disasters. According to the author, when the Legislature begins to work on this issue in January, there will be a major discussion about it.