Free Paris! Petition asks Schwarzenegger to terminate sentence

Paris Hilton is backing an online campaign to request California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger issue a pardon following her 45-day prison sentence for driving on a suspended license.

In a blog posted on her homepage at social networking website MySpace.com on Tuesday, Hilton urges fans to sign a petition being organized by a supporter calling for the socialite to be spared jail time.
"My friend Joshua started this petition, please help and sihn it. i LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!," Hilton said in a message above a link to the petition (http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/PH21781).

The petition calls on Schwarzenegger to issue a pardon, claiming that she has been used as a scapegoat by authorities seeking to highlight the dangers of drink-driving.

The Hilton hotel heiress "provides hope for young people all over the US and the world. She provides beauty and excitement to (most of) our otherwise mundane lives," the petition reads.
"We, the American public who support Paris, are shocked, dismayed and appalled by how Paris has been the person to be used as an example that Drunk Driving is wrong," it adds.
"We do not support drunk driving or DUI charges. Paris should have been sober. But she shouldn't go to jail, either."

Hilton must begin her prison sentence at the Los Angeles Century Regional Detention Facility on June 5 or else risk seeing her sentence doubled.
She was handed her jail term after a court ruled she had broken her probation by twice driving while banned earlier this year following a conviction for drink-driving.

www.turkishpress.com

Buying a house in Malta

The islands of Malta in the Mediterranean are an ideal holiday destination, as well as their natural beauty and the peaceful way of life in Malta they are English speaking, with a rich cultural heritage and offering a warm climate, beautiful sea.

Purchase of Malta Real Estate

Maltese law states that citizens from the European Member States can under Chapter 246 of the Laws of Malta obtain the permit required to purchase a secondary property in Malta.When you have chosen your property in Malta, a member of the European Union, you enter into a written agreement / contract (convenium) binding the seller to sell to the purchaser the property at the agreed price and within an agreed timescale. Usually a 10% deposit is paid by the purchaser at this time, and a copy of the convenium is attached to the AIP application form which is obtained from Capitol Transfer Duty Department of the Inland Revenue.Along with the completed form you have to enclose 2 passport photos and a photocopy of your passport showing all the details (As with all purchases abroad you should seek legal representation to assist you with your property purchase). In the meantime the Notary Public chosen by yourself will carry out searches to confirm title deed validity. The AIP section are obliged to issue the permit within 35 days provided that the application form has been completed correctly and your purchase can go ahead.The fee for this permit is Lm 100 A copy of the notarial deed (title deed) must be sent to the AIP section after its publication which normally takes about 3 months.

Maltese Law states that a non resident cannot purchase a flat/apartment property under the value of Lm34158 and Lm56930 for any other type of property and that the property can only be used for residential purposes. Should you be purchasing a property in Malta for investment purposes please note that the only properties legally permitted to be rented out to third parties are villas with a pool or top quality apartments.

Mortgages

The main banks in Malta are the HSBC, Lombard and the Bank of Valletta and mortgages of 90% are available to non residents of Malta to assist with property purchase. A larger deposit can affect the final interest rate charged by the bank.

Expenses

A Transfer tax of 5% is payable on the declared value of the property purchased.Legal fees anticipated between 1%-1.5%

These guidelines are meant for guidance only and describe a straightforward purchase scenario. However this information is not meant to replace proper legal advice, which we always insist you take.

Purchase of Property in Malta by Foreigners

Conditions for Purchasing Property in Malta

An AIP Permit for the Acquisition of Immovable Property will be granted subject to the following conditions:

1. Minimum value of property:

Villa or house: Lm50,000

Apartment, flat, maisonette: Lm 30,000

if in shell form / unconverted, finish costs included in total amount.

(Lm 1 = approx. Euro 2.41 = approx. USD 2.38)

2. Property of historical interest or situated in historical area cannot be bought.

Select an Architect to inspect property and decide whether of historical importance or not. (does not apply to Houses of Character or Farmhouses, which can be bought).

3. Property purchased must be destined:

• for personal residential use of applicant only(private guests may stay when the owner is present)
• for other purposes approved by Government,
• for an approved industrial or touristic project, or
• for any other project or purpose which is considered to contribute to the development of Maltese economy.

4. Documentary evidence of foreign origin of funds transferred to Maltese bank account, satisfactory to Central Bank of Malta, must be produced before signing the final contract.

5. Maximum property that can be purchased in Malta and Gozo: 1

Except in Special Designated Areas e.g. Portomaso (St Julians), Chambray (Gozo), Tigné, Manoel Island and Cottonera – property purchased by company or trust.

6. Resale of property is allowed only to Maltese resident.

Negotiations with the European Union

Malta is now a full member of the European Union. During pre-accession negotiations, Malta successfully reached an agreement with the EU regarding the acquisition of immovable property. As a result of this agreement, the situation regarding AIP will be retained on a permanent basis even after membership even though EU law allows EU citizens to purchase property in any EU country without restrictions.

During negotiations, the EU agreed that considering the limited number of residences in Malta and the limited land available for construction, which can only cover the basic needs of the present residents, Malta may maintain restrictions, on a non-discriminatory basis, on the right of EU citizens, who have not legally resided in Malta for at least five years, to acquire and hold secondary residences.This means that EU citizens seeking to buy a secondary house in Malta will still need to apply for authorisation and satisfy conditions as is now. They will also not be entitled to buy more than one property unless they reside in Malta for at least five years.The five-year period as a residence requirement was the balance that was struck between the two diametrically opposed positions in Maltese and EU law. Under Maltese law, foreigners can never have full rights to buy property in Malta unless they obtain Maltese nationality. Under EU law, EU citizens would have full rights to buy as much property in Malta as they like without any need to reside in Malta.

Instead, Malta agreed to give equal rights to EU citizens to buy property freely in Malta only if they first resided here for a period of five years. In practice, this means that only those EU citizens who settle in Malta permanently can do so.This was done in order to eliminate the possibility of foreigners freely buying as much property in Malta as they like. More important, Malta wanted to reduce the possibility of an increase in property prices because of EU membership.

Conditions for buying immovable property

Citizens of all European Union member states, including therefore Maltese Citizens, who have resided in Malta continuously for a minimum period of five years at any time preceding the date of acquisition may freely acquire immovable property without the necessity of obtaining a permit under Chapter 246 of the Laws of Malta.Citizens of all European Union member states, including therefore Maltese Citizens, who have not resided continuously in Malta for a minimum period of five years may only purchase their primary residence or any immovable property required for their business activities or supply of services without the necessity of obtaining a permit under Chapter 246 of the Laws of Malta.Citizens of all European Union member states, including therefore Maltese Citizens, who have not resided continuously in Malta for a minimum period of five years, require a permit under Chapter 246 of the Laws of Malta to acquire immovable property for secondary residence purposes.Individuals who are not citizens of a European Member state may not acquire any immovable property unless they are granted a permit in terms of Chapter 246 of the Laws of Malta.There are defined zones in Mata, referred to as special designated areas, where there are absolutely no restrictions to acquisition. There is also no restriction on acquisition through inheritance and there are also several other special exemptions. Different rules apply to the acquisition by bodies of persons. continue

Acquisition by bodies of persons:

A body of persons, other than a commercial partnership, established in and operating from an European Union member state may freely acquire immovable property that is required for the purpose for which it has been set up as long as it is directly controlled by citizens of a European Union member state who have resided in Malta continuously for five years. A commercial partnership established in and operating from an European Union member state (therefore including Malta) may freely acquire immovable property that is required for the purpose for which it has been set up and at least 75% of its share capital is held by a person (or persons) who is a European Union Member state citizen.Any other body of persons will require a permit which is only granted if the property is required for an industrial or touristic project or as a contributor to the development of the economy of Malta.
* A permit will not be granted if applicant has already acquired immovable property in Malta; other conditions also apply.

1 This presupposes a change of ordinary residence if the purchaser is not already a resident of Malta.

2 This would typically include holiday homes where there is no change of ordinary residence.

Please click here to download the Immovable Property (Acquisition by Non-Residents) Act. Text last updated on Thursday, April 29, 2004.

application form to acquire immovable property in Malta

Microsoft Surface - coffee-table computer

Microsoft unveiled a coffee-table-shaped "surface computer" on Wednesday in a major step towards co-founder Bill Gates's view of a future where the mouse and keyboard are replaced by more natural interaction using voice, pen and touch.

Microsoft Surface, which has a 30-inch display under a hard-plastic tabletop, allows people to touch and move objects on screen for everything from digital finger painting and jigsaw puzzles to ordering off a virtual menu in a restaurant.

It also recognizes and interacts with devices placed on its surface, so cell phone users can easily buy ringtones or change payment plans by placing their handsets on in-store displays, or a group of people gathered round the table can check out the photos on a digital camera placed on top.

The world's largest software maker said it will manufacture the machine itself and sell it initially to corporate customers, deploying the first units in November in Sheraton hotels, Harrah's casinos, T-Mobile stores, and restaurants.

The company is selling the Surface for between $5,000 and $10,000 each, but aims to bring prices down to consumer levels in three to five years and introduce various shapes and forms.

"We see this as a multibillion dollar category, and we envision a time when surface computing technologies will be pervasive, from tabletops and counters to the hallway mirror," Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said in a statement.

Analysts say the first few applications only hint at what is possible.

"The potential for the interface is huge," said Matt Rosoff, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft, an independent research firm. "Once you open it up to applications, what you can think of is limitless."

Microsoft held demonstrations of the technology last week and Ballmer will officially introduce it at the Wall Street Journal's "D: All Things Digital" conference on Wednesday.

Microsoft shunned its usual PC manufacturing partners and decided to take control of the surface computer's hardware production using an undisclosed contract manufacturer. It will run the Windows Vista operating system.

BETTER THAN A TABLET?

Microsoft has a mixed record with new technology. Its Zune music player has not yet become a major challenger to Apple Inc.'s iPod, but its Xbox 360 game console has enjoyed early success in the battle of next-generation game machines.

For years Gates has championed touch-screen technology such as the tablet PC with little success, but the Surface is a totally different shape and allows for multiple users at once.

In a demonstration, Microsoft placed a digital camera with a wireless chip on the tabletop. The Surface recognized the camera and sent its pictures to the display, allowing people around the table to sift through them, grabbing and turning pictures or making them bigger or smaller by spreading or narrowing their fingers.

Microsoft showed in another demonstration how Deutsche Telekom cell phone operator T-Mobile USA, one of its launch partners, could deploy the computer in its stores.

A customer can grab a phone off the shelf, place it on the tabletop where it will recognize the device and pop up the handset's specifications and information to the screen. For a side-by-side comparison with another phone, the customer can put down a second handset next to the first phone.

"It's drop-dead simple and people really like it, because it mimics what they do in the real world," said Pete Thompson, general manager of Microsoft's surface computing business.

Microsoft said at launch it will deploy a virtual concierge for Harrah's Entertainment Inc.'s casinos in Las Vegas and place the surface computers in the lobbies of Starwood Hotel & Resorts Worldwide Inc.'s Sheraton hotels.

It also signed a distribution and development agreement with slot-machine maker International Game Technology.

www.reuters.com

Google a step versus the future - making the Web work offline

Google Inc. said on Wednesday it had created Web software that runs both online, and offline, marking a sea change for the Internet industry by letting users work on planes, trains, spotty connections and even in the most remote locations.

The technology, called Google Gears, would allow users of computers, phones and other devices to manipulate Web services like e-mail, online calendars or news readers whether online, intermittently connected to the Web or completely offline.

By bridging the gulf between new Web services and the older world of desktop software, where any data changes are stored locally on users' machines, Google is pushing the Web into whole new spheres of activity and posing a challenge to rival Microsoft Corp., leader in the desktop software era.

"The Web is great but it doesn't work very well when you don't have a Web connection," Jeff Huber, Google's vice president of engineering, said in an interview. "Gears addresses a functional gap on the Web."

Google plans to make the Gears technology available for free as "open source" software, meaning other developers are free to use and enhance the software in their own products.

Gears promises to expand the usage of scores of Google products and services, as well as thousands of programs from independent software makers, by making them more accessible at previously inconvenient times and places.

The technology also allows developers to build Internet search and indexing of Web pages into their own software applications, Huber said.

Many such products will be able to make limited searches offline, since they will have downloaded data automatically when connected. Google's full Web search functions would return once the user reconnects to the Internet.

Early partners who will use Gears in their products include design software leader Adobe Systems Inc., maker of Flash animation and Acrobat document-sharing software, as well as new Apollo tools that work online and offline, Adobe said.

Other organizations working with Google are Norway's Opera Software ASA, maker of a Web browser popular with mobile phone users, and Mozilla, the group behind Firefox, the biggest alternative to Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser, according to Google.

BEYOND DESKTOP

Analysts said Google's move capitalizes on a growing trend over the past couple of years for Web applications to behave as responsively as desktop software.

Microsoft already offers technologies like Groove, which allows users to work offline, then synchronize changes when connected later. But the software giant has been reluctant to make existing products work both online and offline.

Technologies such as AJaX, shorthand for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, Adobe's Flash or Microsoft's new Silverlight technology have made this increasingly possible.

"Now the Web is becoming so good that there is less and less of a reason to build software that just runs on desktop computers," said Gartner analyst David Smith of Bedford, New Hampshire. "In the past, developers had to make some pretty clear trade-offs between the Web and software for desktops."

Google Gears promises to help further close the gap for software developers across the industry. "This is a very big step, but I would say it is an obvious step," Huber said.

The first Google product to feature Gears will be Google Reader, which allows consumers automatically to track updates to hundreds of Web sites. Users could connect temporarily for updates, then go offline and read up on recent Web news.

"We expect this to be extended to other Google applications over time," Huber said, without setting any timeframes.

Once retrofitted, for example, Google Apps, the company's free, advertising-supported group of Web programs including word processing and spreadsheets that can be shared and edited by groups, could work with only periodic Web connections.

Huber said Gears' biggest impact could be in parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America, where poor or non-existent Internet connections hobble access to digital information.

Google made the announcement ahead of its Google Developer Day conference, which is taking place on Thursday in 10 cities around the world starting in Sydney and culminating at the San Jose Convention Center in Silicon Valley later in the day.

www.reuters.com

Paris Hilton's Campaign

First the bible, now the Virgin Mary.

Paris Hilton has been continuing her PR campaign as she was conveniently photographed wearing a shirt featuring the Virgin Mary.

Since being sentenced to jail, the Heiress has been photographed with a Bible, visiting a Buddhist bookshop, and praying outside a church. Ridiculous! We already had enough of it!!!

Later on that same night, Paris Hilton ran into Lindsay Lohan at LA HotSpot Les Deux before Lindsay's crash. At least the Heiress won't be lonely in jail, maybe her and Lindsay can share a cell.

Phonological Awareness Development and Intervention

Let me introduce the subject with some definitions:

PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS

The ability to attend to the phonological or sound structure of language as distinct from its meaning. Types of phonological awareness include: phonemic awareness, rhyme awareness, syllable awareness, word awareness, and sentence awareness.

PHONEMIC AWARENESS

The ability to think consciously about and perform mental operations on speech-sound units such as segmenting, blending, deleting, and changing order of speech-sound sequences. The awareness that spoken words or syllables can be thought of as a sequence of phonemes. Phonemic awareness is a sub-category of phonological awareness.

PHONEMIC AWARENESS TRAINING

This type of training approaches sound-symbol association in a different way from the traditional phonics approach. Pupils have to explore speech sounds by first of all hearing, feeling and seeing the characteristics and comparing and contrasting the properties. Later the pupils can approach letters with a fuller knowledge of speech sound characteristics. They will be able to make more concrete connections between the auditory speech sound and the letter name. Activities which improve phonemic awareness are sound deletion, segmentation, manipulation and blending.

EARLY PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS INTERVENTION:

• LISTENING - the ability to attend to and distinguish both environmental and speech sounds from one another.
  

Listening skills can depend on a number of auditory processing factors. The basis for the development of oral language are auditory abilities such as determination of direction from where the sound comes, recalling or memorizing auditory information, intonation of voice and awareness of rhytmic patterns, all these are also very important in the acquisition of early literacy.

Learning to distinguish one environmental sound from another teaches the concept of "same / different", the ability to hear differences and label or identify them. Blindfold games can be used to help students develop a sense of directionality of sounds.

• RHYME - Rhyming is the ability to identify words that have identical final sound segments.

Bryan and Bradley (1985) suggest that rhyming facilitates reading and spelling:

1. Rhyming helps students develop phonemic awareness, which facilitates decoding.
2. Rhyming teaches students to group words together by sounds, thereby reducing the number of words they have to learn to read by making generalizations of larger sound units.
3. Rhyming teaches students to make connections between categories and the letter-string patterns that are used to spell words.

Rhyming activities can include activities such as reading stories that have rhymes, matching the rhyme with pictures, distinguishing rhyming words or odd one out, providing a rhyming word, rhyming memory games, and rhyming using songs.

• WORD AWARENESS - the knowledge that sentences consist of words and that these words can be manipulated

Word awareness should precede word segmentation into phonemes. The pupil needs to develop reading and therefore the first activities in word awareness should be activities which can help reading develop such as songs and identification of missing words, later comes the manipulation of words in a sentence.

• SYLLABLE AWARENESS - ability to hear parts or segments of phonemes

Usually this step is quite easy to learn, with the appropriate activities children learn to segment words into syllables. Activities can vary from compound words to syllable counting, deletion or addition. This task preceeds phonemic manipulation at a higher level.

• PHONEMIC AWARENESS - ability to attend to, identify, and manipulate the sounds that are representative of graphemes

The manipulation of sounds include segmentation, deletion, blending, substitution and addition of sounds both in nonsense and real words.

The speech therapist or teacher has to work on sound awareness. Sound awareness includes:

• phoneme identification or rather the identification of a sound which is heard in the beginning, final or middle position of a word.
• phoneme segmentation which is the seperation of a word into its phonemes. Different studies highlight the importance of phonemic segmentation as a predictor of reading and spelling skills. Activities which can be employed in this stage are phoneme segmentation, phoneme counting and word segmentation.
  
• phoneme blending is the blending of sounds to make a spoken word.
• phoneme deletion is the identification and omission of a specific sound from a string of sounds, nonsense words or real words.
• phoneme substitution or rather the identification and replacement of a sound with another sound from a string of unrelated sounds, nonsense words or real words.

Phonological Therapy

Stoel-Gammon and Dunn (1985, page 168) provided a neat summation of the principles of phonological therapy. They believed that it:

(1) is based on the systematic nature of phonology;
(2) is characterised by conceptual, rather than motoric, activities; and,
(3) has generalisation as its ultimate goal

In general agreement, Grunwell (1985) said that the aim of the therapy was: "...to facilitate cognitive reorganisation of the child’s phonological system and his phonologically-oriented processing strategies" (p. 99).

Similarly, Fey (1992) stated that: "phonological therapy approaches are designed to nurture the child’s system rather than simply to teach new sounds" (p.277).

Red flags of Autism

What is autism?

Autism is the most common condition in a group of developmental disorders known as the autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). Autism is characterized by impaired social interaction, problems with verbal and nonverbal communication, and unusual, repetitive, or severely limited activities and interests. Other ASDs include Asperger syndrome, Rett syndrome, childhood disintegrative disorder, and pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (usually referred to as PDD-NOS). Experts estimate that three to six children out of every 1,000 will have autism. Males are four times more likely to have autism than females.

What are some common signs of autism?

There are three distinctive behaviors that characterize autism. Autistic children have difficulties with social interaction, problems with verbal and nonverbal communication, and repetitive behaviors or narrow, obsessive interests. These behaviors can range in impact from mild to disabling.
The hallmark feature of autism is impaired social interaction. Parents are usually the first to notice symptoms of autism in their child. As early as infancy, a baby with autism may be unresponsive to people or focus intently on one item to the exclusion of others for long periods of time. A child with autism may appear to develop normally and then withdraw and become indifferent to social engagement.
Children with autism may fail to respond to their name and often avoid eye contact with other people. They have difficulty interpreting what others are thinking or feeling because they can’t understand social cues, such as tone of voice or facial expressions, and don’t watch other people’s faces for clues about appropriate behavior. They lack empathy.
Many children with autism engage in repetitive movements such as rocking and twirling, or in self-abusive behavior such as biting or head-banging. They also tend to start speaking later than other children and may refer to themselves by name instead of “I” or “me.” Children with autism don’t know how to play interactively with other children. Some speak in a sing-song voice about a narrow range of favorite topics, with little regard for the interests of the person to whom they are speaking.
Many children with autism have a reduced sensitivity to pain, but are abnormally sensitive to sound, touch, or other sensory stimulation. These unusual reactions may contribute to behavioral symptoms such as a resistance to being cuddled or hugged.
Children with autism appear to have a higher than normal risk for certain co-existing conditions, including fragile X syndrome (which causes mental retardation), tuberous sclerosis (in which tumors grow on the brain), epileptic seizures, Tourette syndrome, learning disabilities, and attention deficit disorder. For reasons that are still unclear, about 20 to 30 percent of children with autism develop epilepsy by the time they reach adulthood. While people with schizophrenia may show some autistic-like behavior, their symptoms usually do not appear until the late teens or early adulthood. Most people with schizophrenia also have hallucinations and delusions, which are not found in autism.

How is autism diagnosed?

Autism varies widely in its severity and symptoms and may go unrecognized, especially in mildly affected children or when it is masked by more debilitating handicaps. Doctors rely on a core group of behaviors to alert them to the possibility of a diagnosis of autism. These behaviors are:

• impaired ability to make friends with peers
• impaired ability to initiate or sustain a conversation with others
• absence or impairment of imaginative and social play
• stereotyped, repetitive, or unusual use of language
• restricted patterns of interest that are abnormal in intensity or focus
• preoccupation with certain objects or subjects
• inflexible adherence to specific routines or rituals

Some screening instruments rely solely on parent observations; others rely on a combination of parent and doctor observations.

Autism is a complex disorder. A comprehensive evaluation requires a multidisciplinary team including a psychologist, neurologist, psychiatrist, speech therapist, and other professionals who diagnose children with ASDs. The team members will conduct a thorough neurological assessment and in-depth cognitive and language testing. Because hearing problems can cause behaviors that could be mistaken for autism, children with delayed speech development should also have their hearing tested. After a thorough evaluation, the team usually meets with parents to explain the results of the evaluation and present the diagnosis.

Children with some symptoms of autism, but not enough to be diagnosed with classical autism, are often diagnosed with PDD-NOS. Children with autistic behaviors but well-developed language skills are often diagnosed with Asperger syndrome. Children who develop normally and then suddenly deteriorate between the ages of 3 to 10 years and show marked autistic behaviors may be diagnosed with childhood disintegrative disorder. Girls with autistic symptoms may be suffering from Rett syndrome, a sex-linked genetic disorder characterized by social withdrawal, regressed language skills, and hand wringing.

What causes autism?

Scientists aren’t certain what causes autism, but it’s likely that both genetics and environment play a role. Researchers have identified a number of genes associated with the disorder. Studies of people with autism have found irregularities in several regions of the brain. Other studies suggest that people with autism have abnormal levels of serotonin or other neurotransmitters in the brain. These abnormalities suggest that autism could result from the disruption of normal brain development early in fetal development caused by defects in genes that control brain growth and that regulate how neurons communicate with each other. While these findings are intriguing, they are preliminary and require further study. The theory that parental practices are responsible for autism has now been disproved.

What role does inheritance play?

Recent studies strongly suggest that some people have a genetic predisposition to autism. In families with one autistic child, the risk of having a second child with the disorder is approximately 5 percent, or one in 20. This is greater than the risk for the general population. Researchers are looking for clues about which genes contribute to this increased susceptibility. In some cases, parents and other relatives of an autistic child show mild impairments in social and communicative skills or engage in repetitive behaviors. Evidence also suggests that some emotional disorders, such as manic depression, occur more frequently than average in the families of people with autism.

Do symptoms of autism change over time?

For many children, autism symptoms improve with treatment and with age. Some children with autism grow up to lead normal or near-normal lives. Children whose language skills regress early in life, usually before the age of 3, appear to be at risk of developing epilepsy or seizure-like brain activity. During adolescence, some children with autism may become depressed or experience behavioral problems. Parents of these children should be ready to adjust treatment for their child as needed.

How is autism treated?

There is no cure for autism. Therapies and behavioral interventions are designed to remedy specific symptoms and can bring about substantial improvement. The ideal treatment plan coordinates therapies and interventions that target the core symptoms of autism: impaired social interaction, problems with verbal and nonverbal communication, and obsessive or repetitive routines and interests. Most professionals agree that the earlier the intervention, the better.
Educational/behavioral interventions: Therapists use highly structured and intensive skill-oriented training sessions to help children develop social and language skills. Family counseling for the parents and siblings of children with autism often helps families cope with the particular challenges of living with an autistic child.
Medications: Doctors often prescribe an antidepressant medication to handle symptoms of anxiety, depression, or obsessive-compulsive disorder. Anti-psychotic medications are used to treat severe behavioral problems. Seizures can be treated with one or more of the anticonvulsant drugs. Stimulant drugs, such as those used for children with attention deficit disorder (ADD), are sometimes used effectively to help decrease impulsivity and hyperactivity.
Other therapies: There are a number of controversial therapies or interventions available for autistic children, but few, if any, are supported by scientific studies. Parents should use caution before adopting any of these treatments.

domain .eu

Da un recente studio è stato dichiarato che dopo un anno che è stato attivato per il pubblico l'utilizzo del dominio '.eu', le registrazioni hanno superato ogni aspettativa. Con piu di 2.6 millioni di indirizzi registrati, UE online è più potente di prima. Da Aprile 2006, il dominio '.eu' sta offrendo un identità potenziale per piu di 450 millioni di persone, contribuendo a migliorare il marchio UE ed ad aiutare le compagnie Europee. In Germania ci sono piu di 750,000 indirizzi internet registrati '.eu', segue l'Ingilterra con 430,000 cittadini registrati seguita dall'Olanda con poco piu di 320,000 registrati.

E' facile registrarsi con un nome sul dominio '.eu' e il servizio base costa dai 10 ai 30 euro annuali. L'unico requisito è di essere residente Europeo.

Per la serie ... RICCO NON SIGNIFICA STRONZO

La coppia celebre Jolie Pitt hanno donato 1 millione di dollare per aiutare gruppi di volontari che lavorano nella regione del Darfur. L'attrice Jolie ha viaggiato 3 volte fino in Sudan e Chad per incontrare i refugiati che sono stati forzati via dalle loro case per cause della guerra.

La coppia insieme hanno fondato la Jolie-Pitt Foundation.

La somma deve essere divisa fra l'agenzia dei refuggiati delle Nazioni Unite (International Rescue Committee) e l'organizzazione internazionale non governativa (SOS Children's Villages).

Questo non è la prima donazione che la coppia fa ... A marzo hanno donato 100 mila dollari per costruire un ospedale in Sudan.

Secondo me questa bella coppia è un esempio per tutti ... magari tutti i ricchi del mondo facessero un piccolo sforzo per aiutare i meno fortunati e migliorare un po il mondo.

La Strega di Portobello - Paulo Coelho

Anche Paulo Coehlo ha ceduto alle lusinghe del web. La tendenza ormai è stata tracciata: sempre più libri, soprattutto di autori poco noti, vengono presentati sul web, per essere giudicati dagli utenti che possono leggere l’incipit e qualche capitolo in più. Ora anche un grande scrittore come Paulo Coehlo ha deciso di fare lo stesso, presentando sul web la sua nuova fatica letteraria, intitolata “La strega di Portobello”.

Andate a leggereIl primo capitolo del nuovo libro, che è pubblicato sul blog in italiano del suo sito.

Abiti di preservativi: la nuova tendenza nella lotta contro l’Aids

Pubblicato da PatChi in Tendenze STYLOSOPHY

Lunedì, 19 Marzo 2007.

La lotta contro l’Aids è un tema che sta a cuore a molti. E per combattere questa piaga della nostra umanità, sono molti i metodi: campagne di sensibilizzazione, raccolte firme, manifestazioni di ogni genere che vengono realizzate in tutto il mondo. Questa, davvero originale, ci arriva da Bangkok e riguarda proprio una campagna di sensibilizzazione condotta per la promozione dell’uso del condom: ecco a voi i primi abiti realizzati con dei preservativi.

Ci sono costumi di Babbo Natale e abiti più tradizionali. L’unico filo conduttore è l’utilizzo del condom per realizzarli. In Thailandia, ed in modo particolare a Bangkok, questo è un tema molto sentito. Così molti negozianti hanno deciso di aderire a questa iniziativa esponendo nelle proprie vetrine manichini con addosso abiti interamente fatti di condom o semplicemnte decorati con i preservativi.

Fiera del Libro: internet aiuta la scrittura

Pubblicato da PatChi in Internet Style, Eventi STYLOSOPHY

Alla Fiera del Libro di Torino si è parlato di tecnologia. In particolare è stato presentato un interessante progetto promosso dal Premio Grinzane Cavour e dal sito Repubblica.it: all’interno del concorso letterario lanciato ogni anno dall’associazione torinese, è stata inserita una nuova sezione intitolata “Blogmania”: i giovani dovranno analizzare lo stretto rapporto tra le nuove generazioni e i linguaggi delle ultime tecnologie.

I giovani dai 15 ai 25 anni, anche stranieri, potranno inviare i loro progetti: un breve racconto che descriva questo particolare rapporto oppure la descrizione del proprio blog. Ci sarà tempo fino al 27 maggio 2007 per spedire il materiale via mail all’indirizzo webmania@grinzane.it, oppure mandare un cd-rom a “Premio Grinzane Cavour Concorso Scrivere web, webmania” via Montebello 21 10124 Torino. I racconti verranno giudicati da due giurie, una di critici e una di lettori internet. Il premio finale è di 1500 euro.

Festival di Cannes: il cinema diventa glamour

Pubblicato da Redazione Stylosophy in Eventi STYLOSOPHY

Martedì, 15 Maggio 2007.

I Festival del Cinema di fama internazionale, non sono eventi attesi solamente per i film in concorso e per cercare di capire chi sarà il vincitore. Sono anche delle grandi passerelle mondane per scrutare con attenzione look e tendenze dei vip che partecipano. E non a caso il Festival di Cannes è uno dei primi cinematografici più chic e glamour. E quest’anno in occasione del suo 60esimo compleanno lo sarà ancora di più.

Tutti gli occhi saranno puntati sulla Monteé des Marches, la scalinata rivestita con il tappeto rosso che sarà la vera protagonista del Festival di Cannes. Qui grandi nomi dello spettacolo sfileranno sotto gli occhi curiosi degli spettatori e l’obiettivo attento dei fotografi. Il programma dell’edizione 2007, che avrà luogo dal 16 al 27 maggio, sarà ricco di sorprese. A partire dai film in gara e fuori gara e dagli ospiti presenti sulla Costa Azzurra.

THE IMPACT AND BENEFITS OF TOURISM ON THE MALTESE ENVIRONMENT

Malta is dependent on tourism in order to improve its national economy ... as I was surfing I came across an article which discusses the impact of tourism on the maltese environment ... tourism shouldn't be seen only as a negative impact but also the Maltese should find the best way to reduce the damage provided by this important economic activity.

Building of tourist accommodation, notably hotels and blocks of flats, has increased at a very rapid rate as a result of intensive development in certain areas. The St. Paul’s Bay area and the Sliema/St. Julians area have been completely transformed because of such development. Other negative outcomes of this development include the intense noise arising from construction activity, the vast amount of waste material and dust from demolished structures and from excavations. Newly developed tourist structures, sometimes forming a whole village, have also obliterated habitats in the Maltese countryside.
One can add here additional negative impacts associated with aesthetics, especially where new high rise concrete structures have replaced beautiful traditional Maltese houses. Moreover, since lime-stone is used extensively in building, ancillary activities in quarrying has given rise to unsightly scars in many parts of the Maltese islands, besides causing considerable environmental damage to natural habitats and water tables.

The sewage network in Malta is very heavily taxed by the native population alone. The relatively large number of tourists intensifies this problem. The outcome of this is that in recent years a number of popular bays were closed for swimming due to sewage pollution. This has caused considerable discomfort associated with foul smells and inability to swim in the bays, and perhaps more importantly, it has damaged marine and coastal life and induced an accumulation of toxic substances in marine organisms. Household wastes is a very big problem in Malta, and tourism has of course accentuated it. One of the commonest sights in Malta are overfilled rubbish bins, and huge waste disposal areas within a short distance of residential centres.

High tourist densities. As already explained, Malta is very densely populated, even without tourism. Tourism has intensified the use of transport, beaches, and other entertainment and cultural facilities. This congestion not only creates discomfort for the local residents, especially those living in tourist areas, but has additional side-effects, including destruction of beach habitats (especially the sand dunes), trampling on fragile habitats in the country side, and over-visitation rates in fragile archaeological sites.

Although tourism is often associated with environmental degradation, it should be kept in mind that non-tourism activities also have major negative impacts on the environment, and therefore the identification of environmental harm by tourism need not be a case for alternative forms of development. In Malta, for example, the manufacturing industry, with its reliance on machinery, fuel, and water consumption, may at times be more environmentally unfriendly than tourism. The ship-repair industry, which uses considerable amount of grit in sandblasting, and the agriculture industry, with its reliance on pesticides, also cause irreversible environmental damage in Malta. To be sure, no economic activity is environmentally neutral, and tourism is not always the worst culprit in this regard.

Some Environmental and Cultural Benefits of Tourism

Having listed a number of dangers, and the list is by no means exhaustive, it is pertinent to emphasise a number of positive points associated with the impact of tourism on the environment.
Tourists who come to Malta are often more environmentally aware than the local residents. Dumping waste in residential areas and littering the beaches is associated more with Maltese residents than with tourists. Building without any aesthetic and environmental considerations is more common in domestic residences than in hotel and tourist complexes. Most tourists visiting Malta, come from Western European countries, where economic affluence and stronger civic awareness has enabled the local population to assign more importance to environmental protection than is the case in Malta.

Certain traditional arts and crafts of the Maltese Islands, such as lacemaking and filigree work, have been revived because of demand from tourists.

Malta is renowned for its wealth of historical and archaeological heritage, which, before the advent of large scale tourism, were probably not appreciated enough. The places of cultural importance are, even now, more valued by tourists than by the locals, probably because the local residents take this patrimony for granted.

taken from : SUSTAINABLE TOURISM IN SMALL ISLANDS THE CASE OF MALTA by Lino and Marie Briguglio

Nanoparticelle e moda

Abiti anti malannni....

Prendi una giovane stilista di origine cinese e un attrezzato laboratorio di scienza delle fibre della Cornell University di New York. Mettili assieme e avrai "Glitterati", la prima linea di abbigliamento salutare: contro lo smog, i malanni di stagione e le allergie. La prestigiosa università americana ha infatti deciso di produrre due bozzetti dell'allieva del corso di Design, Olivia Ong, realizzati con tessuti resi "funzionali" dalla presenza di nanofibre di metallo. Il primo è uno scintillante abito da sera, dove il luccichio è frutto di nanoparticelle d'argento che, grazie alle proprietà anti-batteriche dell'argento stesso, sarebbe in grado di uccidere i virus del raffreddore e dell'influenza prima che colpiscano. Il secondo modello è un giubbino al palladio, metallo usato nei convertitori catalitici per le auto. Nelle intenzioni della Ong indossarlo dovrebbe offrire una buona protezione contro le allergie da inquinanti dell'aria. Senza contare altri preziosi effetti collaterali delle nanoparticelle che, tenendo lontano lo sporco, richiedono pochi lavaggi. continua ...

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Malta's sun as an alternative to oil for energy

Should the Maltese government try to find an alternative to oil in order to generate energy?



In the EU recently a lot of countries have been debating alternative energy ... this is because in the future we will not be able to rely any more on the production of oil for energy.

Go and see read about Solar Photovoltaic (PV)

Unlike technologies using fossil fuel, solar energy doesn't lead to harmful emissions during operation and if placed on sides of buildings or roofs they only add to our renewable power. In Germany and Italy there has been a boom in solar photovoltaic which in my opinion can be adapted to all the countries in the Mediterranean because of the high sun radiation which is provided during the year. Given the geographical location of Malta and its high incident solar radiation, photovoltaic is a potential resource.

Can the Maltese goverment run a financial incentive for PV?

Incentive policies serve to grow the industry even when the cost of PV is very high and to promote independent national energy production and reduce CO2 emissions.

Living in Italy I can present the incentive presented by the Italian government - Conto Energia.


The Regional Roof-Top Programmes, are mainly aimed at enforcing the diffusion of PV technology among the Italian citizens.

A contribution percentage, ranging from 50 % to 70 % of the investment cost, has been requested by the applicant and constitutes the main parameter for financing grants.

The tariff of produced electric energy varies with the nominal power of the plant and ranges from 0,445 EUR/kWh to 0,490 EUR/kWh.

The duration of the support is 20 years and the tariffs are updated on a yearly basis, taking into account the official inflation rate.

The electricity produced by the PV plant can be used for its own consumption or sold to the local utility and this benefit is maintained also after 20 years. For plants larger than 50 kW, the tariff is subject to a tender mechanism, which favours the tariff with a lower value. For these plants, a bank guarantee of 1 500 EUR/kWp is requested as a penalty, in the case the PV plant is not installed within the deadline fixed by the decree.

The decree states that promotion tariffs:

• are reduced by 30 % if combined with fiscal incentives,
• are not applicable to PV plants which have obtained incentives from public bodies exceeding
• 20 % of investment cost and are not compatible with green certificates.

The overall power, which is expected to be supported by this decree, is 100 MWp, of which 60 MWp assigned to plants up to 50 kWp and 40 MWp for the larger ones. A final target of 300 MW is expected by 2015.

(taken from http://www.iea-pvps.org)



Such incentives cost millions of euros which probably Malta cannot afford but if it is beneficial to the Mediterranean the EU could provide financial help to carry out this project in the beautiful and sunny Malta.

You are free to leave comments and suggestions on this topic.

thank you

Malta out from the Eurovision 2007

Even though Olivia Lewis performed excellently in Helsinki, Malta for the first time in years didn't even have the opportunity to compete with the other countries. Maltese quality in the years has really improved and this can be seen with the final product presented this year. Olivia gave a very good performance which you can see in the following link ...



This means that next year we really have to make a double effort !!!!!