China Human rights violations: China Finally bans electric shock treatment for Internet addiction

Internet Webmasters and Bloggers have written about being tied down and given electric shocks for 30 minutes at a time at one notorious hospital

China has finally banned the use of shock therapy to treat, what they describe as, ' Internet addiction', after its use at one hospital sparked nationwide controversy.

Widespread Protests
The hospital drew widespread protests and media coverage in recent months after Internet users, claiming to have received shock treatment, wrote in their blogs and forums about being tied down and subjected to electric shocks for 30 minutes at a time.

Chinese Health Ministry
A statement on the Chinese health ministry's Web site said the practice had no medical foundation and forbid its clinical use. The order banned the practice nationwide but specifically mentioned the notorious hospital in eastern Shandong province.

Shandong Hospital
Calls to the notorious Shandong hospital went unanswered Wednesday morning, but a hospital spokeswoman last week said "sensationalised" media reports had already led it to a cesation of the shock treatment. The shocks were meant to cause subjects to associate a negative result with Internet use, according to the hospital. Subjects were forced to admit to faults in their behaviour and thinking, while receiving the electric shocks.

Government Funded
Government-funded treatment centers for Internet addiction have sprouted up around China in recent years, though the health ministry has not officially labeled it a diagnosable condition. Many children are coerced and tricked by parents into going to the centres, which often deliver a mix of military boot camp treat ment and shock therapy sessions.

World of Warcraft
Staff at the 'treatment centres' blame hugely popular online games like World of Warcraft for getting most Chinese teens hooked on the Web.

Many Chinese medical experts still believe that electric shock treatment for Internet addiction and other 'behavioural issues' does not harm children, but others disavow it, said Tao Ran, during a recent interview. He is the founder of a Beijing 'treatment centre' for Web-addicted teens. Experts meeting at the health ministry last month signed a document recommending its ban, he said.

Internet users celebrated the move

"This news should truly make people happy," one user wrote in a forum run by local search engine Baidu. "After all, this kind of thing is inhuman cruelty."

H1N1 Pandemic in UK: Sudden Increase in Cases

pa.press.net

GPs have seen a leap of almost 50% in the numbers of people contacting them with fears they have swine flu in the last week, new figures reveal.

Around 40,000 people a week in England and Wales are now complaining to their doctor of "flu-like illness", with a dramatic rise in the number of young children being affected.

The Royal College

The figures, from the Royal College of GPs' monitoring system, showed 50.3 people per 100,000 were reporting flu-like illness between June 29 and July 5, but this leapt by 46% to 73.4 people per 100,000 between July 6 and 12.

Financial Times

Almost one in eight workers are likely to be kept at home with the virus in the next few weeks, according to Government figures. This could leave many businesses struggling to run as normal, the Financial Times reported.

Sir Liam Donaldson is expected to announce that 30% of the population is likely to be infected during this first wave of the pandemic, the FT newspaper said.

Young at most Risk
Wednesday's weekly report from the Royal College of GPs said: "National incidence of influenza-like illness increased for all regions and is now evident in all age groups but remains highest in five to 14 age groups."

Central England Hotspot
The study said the highest number of cases was being seen in central England but the North had seen "a marked increase compared to previous weeks".

There has been a small decrease in the number of cases being seen in London although the capital remains a major hot spot for the virus.

Statistics
The rate of influenza-like illness is highest among those aged five to 14, at 159.57 per 100,000 population. The next most affected group is youngsters and babies aged up to four, at 114.12 per 100,00 population. This is followed by people aged 15 to 44, those aged 45 to 64 and then people aged 65 and over.

Ant-viral Vaccine
The Government has insisted that the swine flu vaccine should begin arriving at the end of August, amid genuine fears of a delay in this delivery date, and further delay before people receive jabs.

The UK claims, it is in line to get around 60 million doses of the vaccine - enough to cover half the population - by the end of December, with the rest of the doses following next year.

Vaccine Production Delayed
This is a substantial turn around in their earlier claims and the first phase of the virus should have run its course by then. The mutated second phase will take over and the vaccine will be ineffective against it.

Virus Dictates Timeline
It is impossible to determine how the H1N1 virus will mutate, so scientists are unable to prepare in advance for this strain. Only when the new strain is identified will they be able to start on development of a new anti-viral vaccine.

So, the development, testing and distribution of a second antiviral vaccine will need to start after January 2010 and is therefore unlikely to be in production before the Spring 2010.

Bad Dreams, Nightmares and ERP Systems

I had the good fortune this week to be invited to the inner sanctum of the European Commission offices in Luxembourg. If it is not the famed 'Emerald City' of the European Community, then it is certainly a semi-precious substitute.

The offices themselves are tired, uncomfortable and functional, at best, lacking the sparkle and seductiveness of modern commercial enterprises and high-tech locations. There was a definite feeling of stepping back into Eastern Europe under the Communist regime.

Legacy mud baths
My hosts were very keen to distance themselves from the environment and the legacy 'systems' that they had inherited. They were seeking a rapid improvement in their physical situation and in their technological environment and that was why I was there. To help pull them from the clawing and energy sapping mud of stale and redundant legacy systems.

The offshore island of Luxembourg
Luxembourg is an island of prosperity in the vast ocean of unemployment and economic doldrums of France, Germany and Belgium, that surround it. It is the great white hope of some 120,000 people from these other nations that commute daily to work there. Beware of peak time traffic jams at the borders.

This does not take into account those that travel from much further afield, living in hotels for most of the week and travelling home on weekends. Expanding the catchment area into the UK, Spain, Italy and Eastern Europe.

My brief but interesting meeting with the technological worker gnomes of the Commission was both enlightening and concerning. The fear of legacy systems seemed out of all proportion to their overall threat and effect, a bit like the extreme measures that the UK government is currently taking against the H1N1 virus outbreak.

Bad Dreams and Software Solutions

The urgency with which these issues are driving the tactics, has more to do with political pressures than sound economic strategy. The pressure to appear active and 'moving' on the issues far out-strips the effectiveness of the results achieved. Never mistake 'movement' for 'action', or 'tactics' for 'strategy', they are completely different entities.

The headlong rush to implement a 'tool' that will absolve and absorb the responsibility for good management, is the 'holy grail' of all government bodies and corporation managers. This makes them very vulnerable and accomodating to the consultants' pitch to sell ERP system solutions, an SAP or a Tivoli, snake-oil software that will 'assume' command of the enterprise and take all your problems away.

Unfortunately, although ERP systems are sold as 'solutions' by 'solution providers', this is a 'misnomer', an elegant piece of marketing. An ERP system will not solve your problems but they will capture most of them in the one location, inside the ERP system itself. Does this help you?

'A fool with a tool, is still a fool'.

Operational Legacy systems
There are a number of reasons why a 'legacy' system remains operational; a) the management has not addressed the impact of the structural issues surrounding it, b) it is still economically viable and change cannot be justified on the grounds of a good Business Case and ROI, c) the outlay and investment in the original system has not been 'realised'.

a) The structural issues will not be resolved by shoe-horning a round-pegged ERP system into a square-wholed enterprise. Bite the bullet and address the structure first. In this way you have greater chance of success, by overlaying and mapping a new ERP system into an organisation, rather than inflicting one.

b) Unjustifiable ROI and Business Case. Do the maths, and if this is the correct answer, stick with it. Stand firm. Do not go back and change the question to fit the consultants' solution. This way monsters lie!

c) If the outlay and investment in the original system has not been 'realised' then loading another burden on top, with additional gearing, will also not work.

Who is the Villain here?

Rememeber that, although today your system is shiny and new, another year or so down the road you will have to face the withering criticism as to why your latest ERP 'rocket-to-the-moon' system is now overloaded, running out of power and falling back to Earth. Preparing to take its place as your biggest ever obsolete 'legacy' system.

'I have a garage full of tools to repair my car. Now, if only I knew why it wasn't working!'

Schrödinger's cat and Economic Recovery

The White Tiger of Economic Recovery

I am currently re-reading one of my all time favourite books; Schrödinger's cat trilogy written by Robert Anton Wilson.

Schrödinger's cat is a thought experiment, often described as a paradox. It was devised by Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger in 1935.

It illustrates what he saw as the problem of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics applied to everyday objects.

The thought experiment presents a cat that might be alive or dead, depending on an earlier random event. In the course of developing this experiment, he coined the term Verschränkung—literally, entanglement.

Quantum Economics
Thought experiments are still alive and well, we hope but unfortunately, this book is now out-of-print. I am fortunate enough to have an old copy, originally published in 1979. Whilst reading the book, I am continuously reminded of how little has changed since then. To illustrate this, I would like to provide you with a short extract from the book concerning economics.

"DR. Rauss Elysium had summed up the entire science of economics in four propositions;

1. Find out who profits from it?

This is merely a re-statement of the old Latin proverb - cui bono, a particular favourite of Lenin.

2. Groups never meet together except to conspire against other groups;

This is a generalisation of Adam Smith's more limited proposition 'Men of the same profession never meet together except to defraud the general public.' Dr. Rauss Elysium had realised that it applies not just to merchants, but to groups of all sorts, especially in the government sector.

3. Every system evolves and expands until it encroaches upon other systems;

Ths is just a simplification of most of the discoveries of ecology and General Systems Theory. (Does chaos currently exist in the gaps? Waiting for a systematic order to restore itself or is it a different order that we do not comprehend and categorise, interpret or dismiss as chaos? - KB)

4. It all returns to equilibrium eventually;

This is based on a broad Evolutionary Perspective and was the basic belief structure of the Invisible Hand mystique.

Dr. Rauss Elysium had simply recognised that he Invisible Hand, first noted by Adam Smith, operates everywhere but most vehemently in economics."

Summary

In his book Robert Anton Wilson describes the Invisible Hand as a secret society of powerful, egotistical and self-promoting individuals. In our life time this has been replaced by the altruistic support of a benevolent, stable and civilising uber-organisation of global proportions, promoting co-operation, synergy and harmony, allegedly. Discuss!

Franklin D. Roosevelt: Public Speaking and Presentations

'You've got to have appeal as well as power in your voice. You must convince your audience that you have something to offer them'

This was the adage that Franklin D. Roosvelt lived by when presenting in public, on the radio and latterly on TV. Very few people realise that he gained this incredible insight from the Winner of the Hog-Calling Contest, held in his hometown in Texas.

Errant Children misbehave
I always tell my students that when presenting, they must consider there audience as a group of errant children who will run around and misbehave as soon as your back is turned. Therefore, they must face their audience at all times and not turn away, for any reason. Certainly not to read their own presentation, because as soon as they do they will direct the audiences attention away from you, the presenter and onto the screen. You want to hold them enthralled by your presence, your sincerity, your enthusiasm and your gaze, like a professional actor.

Make eye contact
Another important thing to remember, is to make eye contact with each and every one of them. Direct your presentation to all areas of the room and include all your audience. Believe that, as soon as you miss someone's eye contact, they will fall fast asleep, check their emails or just run off.

Use an even hypnotic pace when making eye contact. Move or flow gently around the audience. Do not attempt to flash a quick glance at everyone, like a startled animal, this will simply confuse your audience or worst, trigger a chase or flee response from the crowd.

Orchestrate your public performances and presentations, as if you were conducting a concert.

The structure of your presentation and the concert, depends very much on what the subject matter is and your audience. Once you have decided what you want to achieve then you can select the style. Here are a few I made earlier;

The Wave: Have an introduction, build up to a climax, plateau and then subside. It ends with the wave crashing spectacularly onto the shore, in a cascade of sound and images.

The Surfboard: Sometimes you will want to end the presentation on a high level of energy so that the audience will run out the door ready for action, riding the wave of energy you have developed. Very popular with charismatic figure-heads, dictators and revolutionaries.

The Mole: This is appropriate for mid-Project Rescue & Recovery, Trouble-shooting and Brain-storming sessions. In this situation you begin at ground level and start to dig your way through the problems and issues, listing and defining them as you go.

Once you have collected and considered these, you should be at the lowest point for the audience. Keep the doors locked and don't allow anyone to leave at this point, for their own good.

Now start to look at options and examine potential solutions, matching them to the issues. In this way you start to dig your way back to the surface and your audience will, hopefully, see some light at the end of the tunnel. Try and gather pace as you near the 'surface'.

H1N1: How Swine Flu kills

As the H1N1 swine flu pandemic continues to spread around the world, most cases are still mild but reports are starting to emerge of people who sicken and die very quickly of what appears to be viral pneumonia. Now two independent groups of scientists have now found out why and it's all down to where the virus binds within the body.

H1N1 swine flu comes from pigs, so it binds well to cell-surface molecules in the respiratory tracts of other mammals, including humans but there are slight differences in the way different flu proteins bind to these receptors.

Two separate teams – one led by Ron Fouchier at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and the other by Terrence Tumpey at the Centres for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia – both report that the pandemic virus binds deeper than ordinary flu in the respiratory tract of ferrets, the animal most like humans when it comes to flu.

A virus of the same H1N1 family as the pandemic flu has been circulating as ordinary seasonal flu since 1977. Both groups found that the seasonal virus binds almost exclusively to cells in the ferrets' noses. But, the pandemic H1N1 binds deeper, in the lung's trachea, bronchi and bronchioles. The pandemic virus also replicated more, and caused more damage, though none of the ferrets were severely ill.

Still Waiting on the Express Train to Financial Recovery? - Jose Manuel Gonzalez-Paramo

Trust me, you will have plenty of time to check out the RISK in Europe 2009 - Frankfurt Conference

If you missed the Risk Europe 2009 conference in Frankfurt in June, catch up with our exclusive video footage, including the keynote address by European Central Bank board member Jose Manuel Gonzalez-Paramo.