The World AUTISM AWARENESS DAY

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) was first diagnosed in the U.S. and since then the month of April is observed as autism awareness month. On the other hand, April the 2^nd is the world autism awareness day based on a WHO Resolution which was adopted by more than 60 countries in May 2014. The resolution is entitled “Comprehensive and coordinated efforts for the management of ASD”.

The need for such a resolution was based on the inadequate knowledge and misconceptions of health care providers about ASD, unmet health care needs and vulnerability of individuals with ASD for not having access to health care services, unjust deprivation of health, education and opportunities for individuals with ASD to engage and participate in their communities, significant emotional and economic burden on individuals with ASD and their families including being subject to stigma and discrimination, impact of ASD on social participation and employment opportunities of individuals, and the need for inclusive and supportive environment for people with ASD.

ASD begins in childhood manifesting during the first 5 years of life. It is an umbrella term covering conditions such as childhood autism, atypical autism and Asperger syndrome which is a developmental disorder but not delayed cognitive abilities. It is characterized by severely impaired social skills, repetitive behavior, and often a narrow set of interests. The level of intellectual functioning of individuals with ASD is extremely variable and the condition may be associated with depression, anxiety and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Available scientific evidence suggest that environmental and genetic factors can be the cause of ASD but on the contrary vaccination is not a risk factor at all.

Individuals with ASD often suffer from numerous co-morbid medical conditions which may include allergies, asthma, epilepsy, digestive disorders, viral infections, feeding problems, sensory integration dysfunction and sleeping disorders. About 40% of children with autism do not speak or might speak later in childhood. ASD is diagnosed more often in boys than girls.

Monitoring of child development and early childhood care is an important part of caring for individuals with ASD including providing relevant information, services, referrals and support based on needs assessment. Mortality among individuals with ASD is twice as high as the general population, in large part due to drowning and other accidents.

According to WHO 1 in 160 children has ASD and the prevalence appears to have been increasing globally in the past 50 years but at the same time awareness of people and diagnostic tools and reporting have also improved. Efforts are now focused on enhancing commitment of governments and international advocacy on autism, creating appropriate action plans and policies, and developing effective strategies for assessment and treatment of ASD and other developmental disorders.

Sources:

1. WHO fact sheet, Jan. 2016

2. National Autism Association fact sheet

HAPPY SPRING CELEBRATIONS!

The Persian New Year called NOROOZ is the first day of spring which is Sunday March 20th. 2016. NOROOZ has no religious affiliations, is a cultural celebration and it is an ancient Persian Festival dating back to 1700 BCE.

The last Wednesday of the year is called “Wednesday of Light” and in the evening everyone jumps over the fire saying purification rite.

On New Year’s Day families gather around a traditional table-setting called HAFT-SEEN to observe the rituals of spring season. The name of the items on the table each start with the letter “S” in Persian language and each have their own significance. At least seven items or more from the following list should be on the table:

1.      Sabzeh: Sprouts grown in a dish symbolizing rebirth

S       Seeb: Apple for health and beauty

3.      Senjet: Dry fruit of Lotus tree symbolizing love

4.      Seer: Garlic symbolizing medicine

5.      Sumac berries: Symbolizing sunrise

6.      Samanoo: Wheat germ pudding symbolizing new life

7.      Sekkeh: Coins for affluence

8.      Sombol: Hyacinth flower for constancy

9.      Serkeh: Vinegar symbolizing age and patience

In addition to the above people may also use some other items including:

1.       Gold fish swimming in water symbolizing life

2.       Painted eggs symbolizing spring celebration

3.       Mirror symbolizing the sky

4.       Candles symbolizing fire

5.       Cookies for sweetness of life

6.       Other decorative items

The traditional food of New Year's Day is vegetable rice with white fish.

HAPPY NOROOZ!

GOALS AS OUR LONG-TERM VISION - A BRIEF ACCOUNT

Successful business people and achievers in all fields have sets of goals because they know that having goals minimizes stress, improves decision-making and maximizes personal effectiveness. Goals help people to concentrate their efforts, spot distractions and utilize their time and resources effectively.

According to Maxwell Maltz "we find no real satisfaction or happiness in life without obstacles to conquer and goals to achieve".

Goals are the motivating factors in our day to day life and they are set based on priorities and in terms of personal performance and not expected outcomes. Our goals should be SMART which means specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time bound. They should also be periodically reviewed and adjusted based on what we learn in the process of implementation.

In an online business a goal represents a completed activity, called a conversion, that contribute to the success of the business. Defining goals is a fundamental component of any digital analytic measurement plan. Without goals it is impossible to evaluate the effectiveness of our online business. In this case every goal has a monetary value, so we can see how much that conversion is worth to our business. Using values for goals lets us focus on the highest value conversions, such as transactions with a minimum purchase amount.

When a site user performs an action defined as a goal, that action is recorded as a conversion. The conversion data is then made available in special purpose reports to improve the process of goal achievement in its totality.



Sources:

1. Mind Tools. Essential Skills for Excellent Career
2. About Goals. Google Analytics Help. Conversion Reports

EVOLUTION IN BRIEF

The word evolution is derived from the Latin “evolver” meaning to roll forth. It is defined as a gradual, orderly, and continuous process of change and development from one condition or state to another. It encompasses all aspects of life, including physical, psychologic, sociologic, cultural, and intellectual development, and involves a progressive advancement from a simple to a more complex form of state through the processes of modification, differentiation, and growth.

In genetics it is the theory of origin and propagation of all plant and animal species, including humans, and their development from lower to more complex forms through the natural selection of variants produced through genetic mutations, hybridization, and inbreeding.

Natural selection is the natural evolutionary processes by which those organisms best suited for adaptation to the environment tend to survive and propagate the species, where as those unfit are eliminated. On the contrary, the artificial selection is the process by which the genotypes (the full set of chromosomes; all the inheritance traits of organism) of successive plant and animal generations are determined through controlled breeding.

Evolution does not conform to an uniformitarian principle. When animals originated in a bewilderingly fast and psychedelic 30-50 million years, was an event in which evolution pushed itself to greater heights. The evolution of sight, of burrowing, of active predation, all these innovations allowed animals to explore evolutionary avenues that were until then closed off.

Evolution is a cumulative process where each step builds on the previous steps. The best evidence for evolution through natural selection is comparative molecular biology. By comparing the genomes of all species, you can create an exact tree of “cousinship” by literally counting the number of letters (of DNA) that they have in common. The molecular evidence is overwhelming and the chimpanzee – human resemblance is over 99 percent, however, all this has happened over a long period of time.

The genes affect the body in which they sit. The effect or the physical manifestation of the genes on the body is known as phenotype. In other words, the genes that sit in the body survive by virtue of making the body survive and everything about a body is part of its phenotype. The phenotypes by which genes survive don’t have to be in the body. For example, a bird’s nest is made by the bird’s behavior but the nest is not part of the bird’s body and it is considered an extended phenotype. Natural selection is working on the bird’s genes to influence the phenotype of the bird to make a perfect nest.

Some organisms can change their appearance, physiology and development in response to changes in the environment. This is called phenotypic plasticity. Examples are body builders in humans, water fleas that develop a spiny helmet in the presence of predators or even the effect of learning on the brain – it’s a ubiquitous phenomenon.

The most phenotypically plastic organisms are plants. Unlike animals, plants are evolved to be plastic in their physiology and development, with the best example of this being heterophylly, the ability of many wetland plants to change leaf structure and physiology in global warming, drought and in flood conditions. (Hetero = different; Philly = related to leaf). Phenotypic plasticity is one of the larger areas of current research from developmental biology, ecology, and evolution.

The evolution of genes, a system of heredity and information flow and storage, fundamentally changed how evolution worked. The evolution of multicellularity blew open the concept of individuality. The evolution in unicellular organisms is radically different than in multicellular organisms. Similarly, the evolution of language and culture are representative of new domains for evolution to grow into, where it will work in new ways.

Major evolutionary transition is the coming together of individuals into a single reproductive group: from genes to genome, genomes to cell, cells to multicellular organisms to eusocial colony. Major evolutionary transitions could also be defined by an increase in complexity. A multicellular eukaryote is more complex than a unicellular bacterium. Some transitions are characterized by new inheritance mechanisms - this unites the origin of life, genes, and language. The discoveries of endosymbiosis and of widespread horizontal gene transfer led to acceptance that evolution is no longer as simple as gene frequency changes between populations.

When developmental biology was brought into the picture it led to a major evolutionary transitions paper in 1995. A new Synthesis that acknowledges and explicitly includes all of these developments, has not yet been reached. According to professor Richard Dawkins: “we understand the whole life but we need to understand how that first step was taken – (how we got to) the first self-replicating molecule. There are lots of theories and the truth probably lies somewhere around the ones we’ve already got".

SOURCES

1. McNamara, Alexander. A life in science – An interview with Prof. Richard Dawkins. Focus Science and Technology, November 3, 2015

2. Srour, Marc. Teaching Biology. Phenotypic Plasticity, May 2, 2013

3. Srour, Marc. Teaching Biology. Major Transitions in Evolution, November 7, 2015

ANY FIRM RESOLUTION FOR 2016?

To create what you really want to achieve in the coming New Year, here is what you do:

1. Identify your intentions and what is important to you.
2. Talk about your intentions with others to become more clear.
3. Pay attention to your feelings and have no fears. Feeling good about what you want to do is a high energy vibration and you will attract more of what you want to yourself.
4. Remember, where you are going is where you are standing now. Don't let negative beliefs distract you and know that your bad memories have no significance at this time.
5. Appreciate what you already have and what is around you. Remind yourself that every morning is a new birth.
6. Connect to your inner being by spending time with yourself to receive the inner wisdom.
7. Be passionate about your resolution and keep following up the steps you take at every moment and with eagerness.

IT WORKS!

SINGULARITY AS A VISION OF HUMAN CAPABILITY: A BRIEF ACCOUNT

You must have heard or read about "Singularity" and the famous book "The Singularity is Near" by the well known futurist and author Ray Kurzweil. Usually, when I want to understand and remember things I have to write about them and this time I decided that the best thing I could do is to make a summary of selected responses of the writer to a series of questions in relation to his book.

The book which is really interesting was published in 2005 and we are now almost at the end of 2015 but the content of the book examines the future, the era of a new civilization and a vision of human capability by 2020 through 2045. Singularity as a word is synonymous with "uniqueness" or "distinctiveness" but in this case the writer has used the term in the context of physics and refers to it as the age of "intelligence implosion". Here is the summary of what is supposed to happen:

1. Human intelligence will be vastly enhanced because of the continuing acceleration of information-based technologies as well as the ability of machines to instantly share their knowledge.We will get to a point where technical progress will be so fast that unenhanced human intelligence will be unable to follow it.
2. By 2020 we will have effective models for all of the brain and a full understanding of the methods of the human brain. We will be able to create non-biological systems or super-intelligent computers that match human intelligence and can share knowledge and skills at electronic speeds. By 2030 there will be a web of computing deeply integrated into the environment, our bodies and brains.
3. Artificial Intelligence "AI" programs will be able to diagnose electrocardiograms, evaluate medical images, fly and land airplanes, guide intelligent autonomous weapons, make automated investment decisions and guide industrial processes.
4. With the advent of technology-based manufacturing in the 2020s we will be able to use inexpensive table top devices to manufacture on-demand just about anything from very inexpensive raw materials using information processes that will rearrange matter and energy at the molecular level.
5. We will meet our energy needs using nanotechnology-based solar panels that will capture the energy in .03 percent of the sunlight that falls on the Earth, which is all we need to meet our projected energy needs in 2030. We will store the energy in highly distributed fuel cells.
6. The impact of these developments will be a radical life extension affected by genetics (biotechnology), nanotechnology, and robotics. At one point we will be able to overcome most major diseases and nanobots could deliver to our blood streams an optimal set of all nutrients, hormones, and other substances we need, as well as remove toxins and waste products.
7. The nanobots will keep us healthy, provide full-immersion virtual reality from within the nervous system, provide direct brain to brain communication over the internet, and otherwise greatly expand human intelligence.
8. Adding new genes or gene therapy, regrowing our own cells and creating new tissues and organs are emerging field of rejuvenation medicine. We may have nanobots that replace our red blood cells and as a result one could sit at the bottom of a pool for four hours without taking a breath.
9. We will have the means to meet the material needs of any conceivable size population of biological humans. Nanotechnology will also provide the means of cleaning up environmental damage from earlier stages of industrialization.
10. We need to give a higher priority to preparing protective strategies and systems. One strategy would be to use RNAi, which has been shown to be effective against viral diseases. We need to create a nanotechnology immune system - good nanobots that can protect us from the bad ones.

We could saturate the universe with our intelligence within a couple of centuries and humans will be defined as the species that seeks - and succeeds - in going beyond our limitations.

***

#singularity, #intelligenceimplosion

THERE IS SO MUCH TO DO AND TO BE!

I am inspired to write this post by what boils within me after watching a TV interview with Jean Huston who is a visionary and according to her these are the most potent moments in human life and history.

The inspirations carry my words beyond thoughts to the form in which I can explain and express my feelings. The point is that I can not taste the essence of my thoughts if I don't depict them in writing.

For long I have heard from individuals, young and old, who have given up on life by declaration blaming the outside world for everything. I would like to ask those individuals to change their negative declarations and become the voice of their own love within which enables them to give love and compassion to others. I believe that giving is a kind of receiving as well.

According to Jean Huston "The times have changed. We are pushing the boundaries of human life and these are moments for radical and new possibilities. Whether old or young this is the most important calling in our lives. We must search, explore deeper and expand our inner capacity for radical empathy and love for others. We must see the deeper aspects of everything and be present to the depth and beauty of each and every being".

Dorothy Maclean has said "There is nothing static in the worlds of the one who forever expresses life and love in an outgoing manner. How then can anything stay as it was".

In this calling the earth and the universe are the best teachers and we will be there to shine with our inner love to help. The world needs to sense that we are all in this together and we are here with a great purpose of becoming who we can become. We need to understand the power of love and loving others, and that we are called to a new possibility to serve all beings. That's why, there is so much to do and to be!


#somuchtobe