SeaWorld San Diego - Daytime Naps Enhance Preschoolers' Memory

Source       - http://www.usnews.com/
By                - Allie Bidwell
Category  - SeaWorld San Diego
Posted By - San Diego Hampton Inn

SeaWorld San Diego

Daytime naps help improve learning in preschool children by significantly enhancing their memories, according to a study released Monday from sleep researchers at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Research psychologist Rebecca Spencer and her team studied the effects of daytime naps on 40 preschool children by measuring their performance on a simple memory game. In the morning, students played a visual-spatial game in which they must try to remember the locations of different images and were then either kept awake during their regular naptime or encouraged to sleep. When the students were re-tested in the afternoon, Spencer and her colleagues found that when the children skipped their naps, they recalled 10 percent fewer of the test locations than when they napped.

"We're providing a simple proof that naps are really critical to the day, and scientific evidence that's needed to protect that as part of the day," Spencer says.

The team also found there was a connection between those students who performed better on the memory tests and the amount of memories that were actively processed during the nap. The researchers monitored the brain activity of 14 children in a sleep lab and found that those who performed better also had higher levels of activity associated with processing memories as they napped. This activity, Spencer says, appeared to be more important than the length of the child's nap.

"Most important is just that the nap exists at all," Spencer says.

To determine whether nighttime sleep affected the students' memory recall, the researchers also tested students the next morning and saw similar results, meaning the children cannot "make up" on missed sleep time.

In his State of the Union address in February, President Barack Obama pledged to push for universal, publicly-funded preschool for all children, and outlined a $75 billion plan to do so during the next 10 years in his 2014 budget. The proposal drew on research that shows children who attend preschool have better mental and physical health outcomes later in life.

But due to that push, Spencer says, some educators are adding academic and curricular activities in an attempt to further enhance those outcomes, sometimes at the expense of children's rest time. Because up until now, there has been no research on the benefits of napping, it has been a target for elimination in order to make more time for more learning, Spencer says.

"What we see in some of the classrooms is there's less and less interest in the nap," Spencer says. "We also see just pressure on these classrooms to put so much other stuff into their day ... which means at the very least, the opportunity [students] have to nap is getting shorter and shorter."

States also have loose guidelines for the length of children's rest times and what they are allowed to do during that time – whether they are required to rest, or if they can participate in other "quiet time" activities, such as reading. In South Carolina, for example, the state mandates that "napping or resting period shall be appropriate to the individual needs of the child," but gives no specification as to what portion of the day is dedicated to resting.

With less strict guidelines, Spencer says it is also important that teachers encourage students to nap during the day because the children appeared to have the best outcomes when their naps occurred closer in time to their instruction. Additionally, in children, the hippocampus (the part of the brain in which memories are stored) is "rather small and immature, with only so much space to take information in," Spencer says. This is why it's important for children to nap and empty out that space before attempting to take in more information.

"So when they skip a nap, you're just piling more and more into there that it just doesn't have a capacity for," Spencer says.

La Jolla Cove Attractions - A Perfect iPhone App For Investors And Traders

Source         - http://blogs.marketwatch.com/
By                 - Cody Willard
Category   - La Jolla Cove Attractions
Posted By  - San Diego Hampton Inn

La Jolla Cove Attractions

Let’s continue our “quest for gestalt” with another round up of key headlines and some Revolution Investing commentary to go with ‘em.

Scutify.com – If you haven’t checked out the site or the Scutify iPhone app, I highly suggest you do so. In full disclosure I liked the Scutify platform so much that I acquired the company and merged it with my WallStreetAllStars.com. I actually got half of today’s headlines from the Scutify ticker news feeds and have also gotten some great trading ideas in there too. The iPhone app itself just hit #16 in the Apple App Store “Top Charts” finance section.

Bogle: Why you should ignore record market highs - I don’t agree with John Bogle here at all. Prices and timing matter and to ignore that is folly. I think you should still be net long here, but I have already trimmed down my net long exposure from the 2010 and 2011 and 2012 levels when prices were lower. And just as importantly, I plan on getting net short again at some point when this stock market bubble finally gets ready to pop. Speaking of which…

Hulbert: Twitter IPO top of a bubble? Mark says it’s not. Funny, see this that I wrote just last: Twitter IPO will signal top of the bubble - I wrote in that article that “Twitter’s recent IPO filing means we are definitely getting much closer to the top of the App Stock Bubble than we are to the bottom. In fact, I would expect that we’ll see the top of the App Revolution Stock Bubble just a few months after the Twitter IPO.”

BlackBerry Patents Key to Raising Buyout Debt - I don’t think BBRY’s patents are worth $4 billion, but then again, do you remember this? AOL Sells 800 Patents For $1.1 Billion To Microsoft. I’d imagine there’s more value in BlackBerry patents than in the old AOL patents. Regardless, as I wrote yesterday in How to trade BlackBerry now that it’s being taken out, “The point is, this is the end of the road for the BlackBerry BBRY  bears and shorts like me.”

Robert Reich, Inequality’s Intellectual Fraudster - I was asked about this and Robert Reich on Twitter yesterday and I answered, “I’ve been on TV several times with Robert. He’s the Democrat Ben Stein. Everybody who served under any recent POTUS are hypocrites at best.”

Five Tonnes of Customer Gold Leave the HSBC Vault - I’ve been citing this dramatic collapse in gold inventories for the last few months. There’s an end game in there somewhere and I think it’s going to result in a reset of gold at higher prices. Maybe 3-12 months still of games to play though.

‘Family glitch’ in health law could be painful - The only thing simple about Obamacare is that it is simply another method for corporations to profiteer on the public.

Speaking at UN, Obama Tries to Claim He Was Always For Diplomacy in Syria  – The Syrian story has gone to the back pages, but I would expect it to hit the headlines again in the next few months. It didn’t make any sense how Obama tried to talk us into a Bush-like logic to go to war in the first place. Why would we think he and whoever is guiding him have suddenly gotten rational?

Petition | Congress: Revoke the Tax-Exempt Status of the NFL – Did someone mention methods that giant corporations use to profiteer on the public?

Alibaba Is Said to Move Toward an I.P.O. in the U.S. - The 13-digit valuation (more than $100 billion) at which Alibaba is coming public is another sign of the bubble.

And if you’ve got an iPhone or an iPad be sure to check out the best app for traders and investors — visit Scutify.com or download the Scutify app and let me know if you agree with me that it’s the best app for traders and investors that you’ve ever used.

Balboa Park San Diego - Scientists Build First Nanotube Computer

Source        - http://online.wsj.com/
By                - ROBERT LEE HOTZ
Category  - Balboa Park San Diego
Posted By - San Diego Hampton Inn

Balboa Park San Diego

In an advance toward a future of smaller, faster and more powerful electronics, researchers at Stanford University on Wednesday unveiled the first working computer built entirely from carbon nanotube transistors.

These seamless cylinders of ultrapure carbon are among many exotic materials researchers are investigating—including the quantum particles inside every atom and the DNA inside every cell—as electronics developers near the limits of conventional silicon transistors.

While primitive, the invention proves that transistors made with these unusual carbon fibers, among the strongest materials yet discovered, can be assembled into a general purpose computer. It can run a basic operating system, perform calculations and switch between different processes running at the same time, the scientists said.

"It really is a computer in every sense of the word," said Stanford University electrical engineer Max Shulaker, who led construction of the device. "This shows that you can build working, useful circuits out of carbon nanotubes and they can be manufactured reliably."

Their research was published Wednesday in Nature.

"They have tamed nanotubes," said carbon electronics expert Franz Kreupl at the Technical Institute of Munich in Germany, who wasn't involved in the project.

Mihail Roco, senior adviser for nanotechnology at the National Science Foundation, which helped fund the work, called the nanotube computer "an important scientific step." If perfected, he said, "this would allow a computer to work faster, and with smaller components and with about one-tenth the energy."

Researchers are tantalized by the digital potential of carbon nanotubes, which are exceptional at conducting electricity and heat, and at absorbing or emitting light. Long a laboratory curiosity, they are made from sheets of carbon just one atom thick and rolled into tubes about 10,000 times thinner than a human hair.

"Of all the candidates that have been considered as a successor to silicon, carbon nanotubes remain the most promising," said Supratik Guha, director of physical sciences at International Business Machines Corp.'s IBM -0.26% Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y.

The first nanotube transistor—a version of the digital on-and-off switch at the heart of almost every commercial electronics device—was invented in 1998. Until recently, though, researchers found it all but impossible to manufacture batches of the infinitesimally small tubes with the perfect alignment, regularity and purity required for a computer's complex integrated circuits. 

Nanotubes are grown, like crystals. They fall into place randomly, like a shower of pick-up sticks, which can cause cross-connections. About 30% develop unpredictable metallic impurities. Any imperfection can cause a short-circuit.

"People said you would never be able to manufacture this stuff," said Stanford electrical engineer Subhasish Mitra, who was part of the project. The researchers developed a special circuit design and a powerful debugging technique to overcome the impurities.

Driven by the commercial possibilities, researchers have been racing to harness the material's promising electrical properties.

Last year, IBM researchers showed off carbon nanotube transistors that run three times as fast as conventional silicon transistors, while using a third of the power. And last October, scientists at the IBM's Watson Research Center reported a way to create batches of 10,000 or more carbon nanotube transistors arrayed on a single computer wafer. They have yet to connect them into a working circuit.

Last week, at Cambridge University in the U.K., scientists said they had devised a simple way to grow the densest array of carbon nanotubes to date—about five times as compact as previous methods, while researchers at the University of Southern California recently found a way to custom-tailor their atomic structure.

At Stanford, the experimental nanotube computer contains 178 transistors formed from "several tens of thousands of carbon nanotubes," Dr. Shulaker said. A conventional silicon chip today can pack two billion transistors in an area the size of thumbnail. The Stanford system contains as many transistors as in the earliest transistor-based computers made in the 1950s. The researchers used a logic design on a par with computers made in the 1960s. 

The Stanford scientists assembled 985 of the nanotube computers—each with 178 carbon nanotube transistors—on a single chip wafer, using standard chip-fabrication techniques and design tools. 

"What we have demonstrated is a very simple computer," said Stanford engineering professor Philip Wong, who worked on the device. "There is a vast distance between what we accomplished and an eventual product."

Attractions In San Diego - 'Afternoon Naps' Aid Children's Learning

Source        - http://www.bbc.co.uk/
By                - Press Release
Category   - Attractions In San Diego
Posted By - San Diego Hampton Inn

Attractions In San Diego

Getting young children to take an hour-long nap after lunch could help them with their learning by boosting brain power, a small study suggests. 

A nap appeared to help three-to-five-year-olds better remember pre-school lessons, US researchers said.

University of Massachusetts Amherst researchers studied 40 youngsters and report their findings in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 

The benefit persisted in the afternoon after a nap and into the next day.

The study authors say their results suggest naps are critical for memory consolidation and early learning.

When the children were allowed a siesta after lunch they performed significantly better on a visual-spatial tasks in the afternoon and the next day than when they were denied a midday snooze. 

Following a nap, children recalled 10% more of the information they were being tested on than they did when they had been kept awake.

Close monitoring of 14 additional youngsters who came to the researchers' sleep lab revealed the processes at work in the brain during asleep. 

As the children napped, they experienced increased activity in brain regions linked with learning and integrating new information.

Lead investigator Rebecca Spencer said: "Essentially we are the first to report evidence that naps are important for preschool children.

"Our study shows that naps help the kids better remember what they are learning in preschool." 

She said while older children would naturally drop their daytime sleep, younger children should be encouraged to nap.

Hotels San Diego Downtown - Apple Sells Nine Million iPhones Over Debut Weekend

Source         - http://online.wsj.com/
By                 - DON CLARK
Category   - Hotels San Diego Downtown
Posted By  - San Diego Hampton Inn

Hotels San Diego Downtown

Apple Inc. AAPL +4.97% may have a hit with its new iPhone 5S, but prospects for the lower-price iPhone 5C are less clear.

Those conclusions emerged after Apple said Monday that it sold nine million of the two handsets in their first three days on the market—well above what analysts had anticipated. 

The company also said that its quarterly sales and profit margin would likely be at the high end of the company's previous forecast. Apple in July projected revenue between $34 billion and $37 billion and gross margin between 36% and 37%. 

The company's stock jumped $23.23, or 5%, to close at $490.64 on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Apple also said that more than 200 million of its devices already were running iOS 7—a free overhaul released last week of the operating system used on iPhones, iPads and iPod Touch devices.

Apple's record volume for the new iPhones compared with five million iPhone 5 models sold on its opening weekend a year ago. Analyst had predicted that six million to seven million of this year's models would be sold in the debut weekend.

But there are caveats with the Apple figures, among them the decision to sell the phone in China in the opening weekend this year. 

And beyond sales by the company to consumers from its own stores and website, Apple's count includes sales to other retailers. While Apple appears to have exhausted inventory of the iPhone 5S, the nine million units include unsold iPhone 5C models at non-Apple retailers, analysts said.

"If you adjust for the 5C, it's not the blowout that it initially looks like," said Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffray. He estimated that three million to four million iPhone 5C models are with retailers and that the number of both handsets in the hands of consumers was 5.5 million.

Apple didn't break down its sales other than to say that demand for the iPhone 5S exceeded supply. "Thanks to all our amazing customers for the fantastic weekend," Chief Executive Tim Cook, a new Twitter user, said in a tweet Monday.

Assessing demand for the phones is particularly difficult because more countries are involved this year: 11, compared with nine for the iPhone 5 release last year. And China, in particular, is a huge smartphone market.

Toni Sacconaghi, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein, said the original iPhone 5 sold two million units in its first weekend of sales in China. He estimated that China likely contributed a similar amount this year.

The cautions aside, analysts still said the rollout was stronger than they expected, as indicated by longer lines at stores than last year. While some Apple analysts were disappointed that the iPhone 5C wasn't priced low enough to attract a new class of buyers, they said there remained a substantial number of iPhone users who wanted to upgrade their phones and that new trade-in programs made the process less expensive.

"People forget that there is a massive installed base out there," said Brian Marshall, an analyst at ISI International Group. As a result, when "each phone comes out, the launch gets bigger and bigger."

Several signs indicated strong customer preference for the iPhone 5S. Cantor Fitzgerald said its survey of buyers in New York found that 88% bought that model but that Apple's figures suggested that the less-expensive iPhone 5C also sold well.

Boston-based research firm Localytics said data generated from apps downloaded by users over the weekend indicated that the iPhone 5S sold 3.5 times as many units as the 5C. 

Raj Aggarwal, the firm's chief executive, cautioned that the initial data didn't necessarily show the long-term prospects for the iPhone 5C since sales on the opening weekend could have been distorted by hard-core buyers. "The people who are excited enough to stand in line on a Friday morning, these are the early adopters," he said. "They are more likely to want the more sophisticated top-end device."

San Diego Hotel Meeting Space - How To Carry a Heavy Bag Without Wrecking Your Body

Source        - http://news.health.com/
By                - Zachary Sniderman
Category  - San Diego Hotel Meeting Space
Posted By - San Diego Hampton Inn

San Diego Hotel Meeting Space

The best bag is an empty bag — perhaps something that looks sharp slouched off the shoulder or slung low by the hip. But more often than not, our bags are loaded with all sorts of junk that make them heavy pains in the neck (and back). With the back to school season upon us, kids aren’t the only ones having to haul huge backpacks around. Here’s how to carry a heavy bag (from messenger bags to totes to double-strappers) without needing a trip to the physical therapist (or worse).

Carry That Weight — The Need-to-Know 

Bags have been a huge boon since very early in human history — ancient texts and drawings show men in particular carrying trinkets around in small bags. Just like us, hunter-gatherers used bags to schlep their stuff (usually wood or food).

More modern packs were used starting in the early 20th century, but they were pretty uncomfortable to wear and heavy. It wasn’t until the 1950s, when avid hiker Dick Kelty developed a lightweight but sturdy bag meant for civilian use, that they became common throughout society. Since then, bags of all shapes and sizes have become a staple of everyday life with ergonomic designs and fancy straps and doodads to make them “easier” on our backs. One 2001 study estimated 40 million American children carried backpacks to school. Smaller bags are just as ubiquitous for young professionals who might need to carry essentials to work like a laptop (guilty), gym clothes (guilty), notebooks (guilty), and more. That extra weight can mess with posture and cause intense pain — especially when taken for long hauls.

If we can’t avoid the heavy stuff, what’s the best way to carry our poor, over-stuffed bags with ease?

Take a Load Off — Your Action Plan

The bad news is that the best way to carry a heavy bag is to not carry a heavy bag. Lighter loads put less stress on the carrier and minimize all sorts of problems like changes in posture to the cranio-vertebral angle (neck) and spinal lordosis angle (small of the back). And it’s not just kids: Adults are just as susceptible to back problems (including scoliosis and kyphosis) from carrying heavy loads, with many of those problems stemming from back injuries suffered at an earlier age.

Even though young ‘uns are more susceptible to bag-induced pain, there are some simple tips to carry a heavy load with (relative) ease:

Only carry 15 percent of bodyweight (at most). When carrying a heavy bag, try to keep the load capped at 15 percent of the carrier’s total bodyweight, with a recommended limit of 10 percent. So, for a person weighing 145 pounds, aim for a bag weighing around 21 pounds, at most. Anything heavier significantly alters posture and can lead to longer term spinal problems.

Place heavier objects on the bottom. Neck straining? Try keeping most of the load low in the bag. One study found that low load placement caused fewer changes in posture and spinal curvature. It also made carrying the bag (relatively) easier for middle-school aged children. Taking breaks (where possible) will also reduce strain. If heavy loads are unavoidable, aim to strengthen core and back muscles to help shoulder the load. This will help keep the spine from twisting and promote better posture.

Use two straps. One study found that the neck, not the back, was the weak point for carrying loads. To help, try using a bag that has two straps instead of one to help correct posture and more evenly distribute weight. The same study found that women were more prone to pain as were people who spent a large amount of time sitting. If one-strapping is the only option, try to periodically swap sides.

Even everything out. When packing a bag, try to distribute the weight evenly to avoid postural stress. One study found that an evenly weighted bag decreased lateral spinal motion when ascending and descending chairs. Asymmetrical bags (for example, totes and messenger bags) should follow the same principles but weigh no more than 10 percent of the carrier’s weight to reduce injury.

Keep it all close to the body. Weight is just one of two factors that can lead to injury. “Postural sway” is the amount of torque and tension placed on the spine by a heavy load. Carrying a bag closer to the body will reduce the amount of sway and stress placed on the spinal muscles. For concerned bag owners, a physical therapist can help find bag with ergonomics best suited to your body type.

Accommodation In San Diego - Electronic Cigarettes Stub Out No-Smoking Signs

Source         - http://www.marketwatch.com/
By                 - Jen Wieczner
Category  - Accommodation In San Diego
Posted By - San Diego Hampton Inncc

Accommodation In San Diego

E-cigarettes, which use liquid nicotine solution and batteries in place of paper and flame, emit vapor instead of smoke, and don’t produce the telltale cigarette odor or ash. Proponents say that makes the devices a discreet (and less harmful) alternative to smoking, enabling people to smoke whatever they want, wherever they want, without attracting attention. 

But lawmakers and public health officials fear that e-cigarettes are helping tobacco sneak back into non-smoking zones as well as the hands of children. And because it’s hard to determine what’s actually in the devices, they also worry that e-cigarettes may not contain nicotine at all, but illegal drugs. 

“Do you want to see a 15-year-old with a vaporizer making like he has an e-cigarette but there’s grass in it, the liquid version of marijuana?” says Massachusetts State Rep. Jeffrey Sanchez, a Democrat, who authored a bill prohibiting youth from buying e-cigarettes and adding the devices to public and workplace smoking bans. “You could vaporize anything if you put it in liquid form,” Sanchez says. 

Now that 20 states, along with Washington, D.C., have legalized medical marijuana, Massachusetts and others are bracing for the arrival of dispensaries, which often sell cannabis solutions for vaporization. While marijuana vaporizers have been on the market much longer than e-cigarettes, there is debate over whether the products can (or should) be used interchangeably to inhale either pot or tobacco. The Tobacco Vapor Electronic Cigarette Association, which represents that industry, says none of its members make marijuana paraphernalia: “It’s a whole different animal altogether,” says CFO Thomas Kiklas. That may be beside the point, as marijuana vaporizers and electronic cigarettes are indistinguishable. Some companies are even marketing vaporizers for both purposes. Rapid Fire Marketing RFMK 0.00%  , for one, makes the CannaCig vaporizer, but is rebranding the device to appeal more to tobacco users than cannabis users, says spokesperson Rick Lutz. “The reality is, whether it’s cannabis or tobacco, it can be used in a vaporizer in order to convert what normally is smoke into a vapor,” Lutz says. “You could conceivably walk out of a restaurant, have cannabis and the effects of cannabis, without the smoke.” 

Indeed, the ability of e-cigarette users to “vape” undetected everywhere from office buildings to bars to airplanes, where smoking is generally banned, has prompted efforts to regulate the new industry. Under current Massachusetts law, “in the hallway of the school, I can’t light up a cigarette, but I can light up my e-cigarette,” Sanchez says, adding that he wouldn’t even be able to prevent members of the House public health committee, of which he is chairman, from smoking during meetings in his office. 

Concern over e-cigarettes has especially focused on youth, who in many states can buy the products without being carded, while sales of traditional cigarettes and tobacco are restricted to ages 18 and over. The number of minors who have used e-cigarettes more than doubled to almost 2 million middle- and high-school students between 2011 and 2012, according to a report last week from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

But where laws do restrict smoking, some people are using e-cigarettes to openly flout them. While actor Alec Baldwin was kicked off a flight in 2011 after defying the electronic device ban by playing smartphone game Words with Friends in the airplane’s bathroom, passengers report that they’ve had no problem smoking an e-cigarette in plane lavatories—or in their seat, for that matter. Rob Fontano, owner and president of Fort Myers Vapor, which sells high-end e-cigarettes out of its Florida showroom as well as online, says he has used them in more than 20 airports, including Chicago O’Hare and Dallas-Fort Worth without being stopped—even while waiting in line to board and in airplane restrooms. “I have a pilot for a customer who will use it in the cockpit from time to time, on a major airline,” he says. 

Smoking has been banned on U.S. flights (and their bathrooms) for more than a decade, with penalties ranging from thousands of dollars to arrest, but electronic cigarettes have landed in a legal gray area. While the Department of Transportation believes the existing rule also applies to e-cigs, it proposed an amendment in 2011 to explicitly prohibit them, says spokesperson Bill Mosley, “as there has been some confusion over whether the department’s ban on smoking includes a ban on use of e-cigarettes.” 

But until the DOT puts an official ban on the books (it plans to by mid-2014, Mosley says), e-cigarette users are coming up with their own rules, or leaving enforcement up to individual carriers. American Airlines’ non-smoking policy also prohibits the “activation” of e-cigarettes, but some European airlines may allow them.“They’re not banned on airplanes at this point—it’s a wandering policy,” says Kiklas, the e-cigarette industry spokesman. “E-cigarette users can use the e-cigarettes on a plane just by holding it in their hand.” 

Fontano, for his part, says he primarily hides his use on planes as a courtesy to other passengers. “If somebody saw a cloud of vapor on an airplane and didn’t know what it was, they would probably lose their mind,” he says. “I don’t really recommend using them on an airplane, but you could, and people do.” Indeed, in response to Fontano’s recent blog post on the subject of plane “vaping,” a commenter by the name of Mike B. wrote on Aug. 5, “I vape on planes all the time. I choose a window seat and am inconspicuous about it.” He’s used e-cigarettes on a dozen planes in the past few months, he bragged in the post: “I don’t even worry about it.”

Affordable Hotels In San Diego - How Your Parents Impact Your Relationships

Source        - http://www.womenshealthmag.com/
By               - Faye Brennan
Category  - Affordable Hotels In San Diego
Posted By - San Diego Hampton Inn

Affordable Hotels In San Diego

Your family relationships are likely being steered, in part, by the way you've experienced your parents' rapport (or lack thereof). These questions can shed light on where some of your impulses stem from.

Who Ruled The Roost?

One person wears the pants in most twosomes, says therapist Chana Levitan, M.Sc., author of I Only Want to Get Married Once. Say it was your father. You might be most attracted to authoritative men (even if you weren't a fan of Dad's strict style). And if you end up with a tenderheart, you might subconsciously pressure him to toughen up.

Do Mom and Dad Depend on You?
If you're used to being the problem-solver, you could be playing that role for everyone in your life, says Kavita J. Patel, a love and relationship coach in New York City. You might lean toward "fixer-upper" guys who seem like they need your help to be happy.

Were Your Folks Into PDA?
If so, chances are you're pretty comfortable with intimacy—in the bedroom and out, says Levitan. If, however, your parents were the hands-off type, you might feel weirded out when a guy gets cuddly (or tries to plant one on you in public).

Were They Hypercritical?
If they both were, you probably are too. But if only one was, things get interesting, says Patel. Let's say your mom forever picked on your dad, and you felt closer to him; you may now not criticize your guy for fear of hurting him. But if you were closer to your mom, you may be inadvertently following her lead.

Trip To San Diego - iPhone 5s review

Source       - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
By              -  Matt Warman
Category   - Trip To San Diego
Posted By  - San Diego Hampton Inn

Trip To San Diego

Apple’s current iPhone 5 is, by common consent, the best iPhone Apple has ever made, in an age when millions simply wouldn’t consider getting a phone made by any other manufacturer. Critics argue it is smaller and heavier than its rivals, with a battery that doesn’t last as long as a Galaxy S4, a camera that’s nowhere near as good as an HTC One, and an operating system that’s outdated compared to anything available on a Nokia. But it has nonetheless outsold all of those devices. The scale of iPhone’s dominance should not be underestimated. No wonder it provides more than a third of Apple’s profits. 

And indeed Apple doesn’t even really seek to compete with those rivals: its iPhone software, even with the new iOS7, doesn’t offer a host of the conveniences afforded with either Google Android or Windows Phone – something as simple as a commuter discovering the time of their next train is many more clicks away on an iPhone that it is elsewhere.

Yet with the iPhone 5s - an upgrade from the iPhone 5 but not a revolution – Apple has produced a phone that does what made it so successful in the first place. This is a device that adds features that make the existing iPhone even easier to use, more powerful and turn it into a better camera, all in a package that remains the classiest on the market. It doesn’t have the most features, but those that are there are accessible in a way the no other manufacturer has yet mastered. That improved ease of use and continued elegance mean the 5s is a worthy flagship to persuade iPhone users to upgrade, and it retains all the apps that have powered Apple’s success.

Its main new feature is called Touch ID - a fingerpint sensor that means there’s simply no longer a need to enter a pin code to unlock your phone. In my experience it works in any orientation around eight out of 10 times, it encourages users to add a vital security feature, and it is particularly useful when it’s used to authorise purchases on Apple’s App Store. It should become an industry standard across manufacturers, for everyone’s sake. While fingerprint scanners have been used before, this is the simplest implementation I’ve come across. Teaching it a new finger takes less than a minute. Security experts have raised concerns that it could encourage thieves to steal both iPhones and their users’ digits. Little do they know it also works with toes.

Place To Visit In San Diego - The Roots Of Creativity Found In The Brain

Source        - http://news.yahoo.com/
By                - Tanya Lewis
Category  - Place To Visit In San Diego
Posted By - San Diego Hampton Inn

Place To Visit In San Diego

The ability of humans to create art, think rationally or invent new tools has long interested scientists, and a new study reveals how the brain achieves these imaginative feats.

Human imagination stems from a widespread network of brain areas that collectively manipulate ideas, images and symbols, the study finds. This "mental workspace" had been theorized before, but this study provides new empirical evidence, the researchers say.

Creativity in art, science, music and other fields requires the ability to combine different mental representations to form new ones.

For example, if a person is asked to imagine a banana spinning around quickly and getting bigger or smaller, he can do so effortlessly, said study researcher Alex Schlegel, a cognitive neuroscientist at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H.

"When you start to look at more complex cognitive process like imagination or creative thinking, it's not just isolated [brain] areas that are responsible, but communication of the entire brain that's required," Schlegel told LiveScience.

In the study, the researchers focused on visual forms of imagination.

Schlegel and his colleagues asked participants to imagine certain shapes, and sometimes manipulate them by either combining them with other shapes or mentally breaking the shapes apart. They put people in a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner to measure their brain activity during the task.

The scans showed that a broad network of brain areas were involved in the imagination task, and they appeared to be working in concert. In particular, manipulating the images involved a network of four core brain areas — the occipital cortex, the posterior parietal cortex (PPC), the posterior precuneus and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) — which are involved in visual processing, attention and executive functions.

In addition, several other brain regions were active during the task, suggesting the brain's mental workspace involves a more extended network.

Previous studies suggested the brain's visual processing areas are also involved in creating imagery. But the new study looked at not only how the brain forms images, but also how it modifies them.

The imagination experiment was somewhat unrealistic compared with creative tasks in everyday life. "It would be great if we could stick someone in an MRI machine and say 'create some art,'" Schlegel said. But for a scientific study, the task must be more uniform, he said.

Understanding imagination reveals what makes humans unique among animals, Schlegel said.

The findings could ultimately help improve artificial intelligence. Computers are good at a lot of things, but are less adept at seeing patterns or thinking creatively. "The more we understand how the human brain does this, the better we can design machines," Schlegel said.

The study was detailed this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

SeaWorld San Diego - How To Work Without Microsoft Office

Source        - http://online.wsj.com/
By               - SHIRA OVIDE
Category  - SeaWorld San Diego
Posted By - San Diego Hampton Inn

SeaWorld San Diego

For decades, people at work have griped about one aspect or another of Microsoft MSFT -10.78% Office. Now, they can do something about it.

The much used bundle of software—including Word to write documents, spreadsheet maker Excel and PowerPoint for presentations—won't lose its dominance in the workplace anytime soon. But there are more appealing alternatives than ever.

The contenders generally fit into one of two camps: services that let you ditch Office, and those that supplement Office, especially on tablets.

Microsoft Corp. says complaints about Office are inevitable given the huge number of users, but the company says customer satisfaction levels are very high.

Here are three common headaches people have with Microsoft Office, and some alternatives that may fit the bill.

Editing Files Together

Many cubicle dwellers work together on documents or PowerPoint presentations by emailing attachments back and forth with colleagues—and wishing for a better way to collaborate. 

The Web-friendly Office 365 is more collaborative than prior editions of Office, but there are kinks. For example, in an online version of Excel, two people can't have the same spreadsheet open at once. (Microsoft says this feature is coming.) Co-workers can all type together into a single Word file, but you get locked out if you and a colleague try to edit the same paragraph.

Emily Davidson, a Web designer in Raleigh, N.C., uses Google GOOG -2.93% Docs. When she and her co-workers have a document open at the same time, each person's markups instantly appear in a different color and with the individual's name in the margin, and more than one person can work on the same paragraph. Google Docs is free for consumer versions. Corporate accounts start at $50 a person annually.

The Quip word-processing tool also stresses collaboration. When a worker checks off a completed item on a project task list, her colleagues on the project get an alert on their phones. Office doesn't have a notification function. Quip also will show you, for instance, that a colleague edited the task list 10 minutes earlier, with his added item highlighted in green. Quip is free for individuals, and businesses can sign up for $12 a person per month.

Working From Anywhere

Word, Excel and some other Office software don't fully work on iPads. (There is a stripped-down version of Office, called Office Web Apps, that Microsoft recommends people use on the Apple Inc. AAPL -1.68% tablet.) Deirdre Reid, a freelance writer, uses CloudOn software, which lets her access and edit Office files when she's away from home and back up everything on Dropbox, a service for saving documents online. Other services that work on iPads and iPhones include Apple's bundle of Pages, Numbers and Keynote software.

Complications and Expense

Tom Eid, a technology analyst with research firm Gartner Inc., IT -1.64% says many people never use some of the features packed into Office that sometimes make the software tough to navigate. He says low-cost or free alternatives may be good enough for some people.

Google Docs, Quip and free software called Kingsoft from Kingsoft Office Software Corp. are options for people who are happy with fewer features. 

The newest version of Office to install on your computer costs $140 or more; Microsoft recently started selling a Web-friendly subscription edition for about $100 a year. And the stripped-down Office Web Apps is free.

La Jolla Cove Attractions - How And Why To Rid Sugar From Your Diet

Source       - http://news.yahoo.com/
By              - Rachel Pomerance
Category  - La Jolla Cove Attractions
Posted By - San Diego Hampton Inn

La Jolla Cove Attractions

Ask most people how they feel about grocery shopping, and they may talk about the supermarket they'll never set foot into, where it smells bad and the produce looks pitiful, or the sunny one with nice cuts of meat and good prices on children's cereal. But to Robert Lustig, a professor of clinical pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, the supermarket is something else entirely. It's ground zero in the fight for your life, where decisions between plain or flavored Greek yogurt, oranges or orange juice, and red kidney beans or Bush's Grillin' Beans mean the difference between sickness and health.

The last 30 years have seen an onslaught of sugar and dwindling of fiber in the food environment, a deadly combination for consumers who have been duped by the food industry, Lustig argues. He sounded this battle cry in his 2009 lecture, "Sugar: The Bitter Truth," which became a viral hit with nearly 4 million views on YouTube, and in his 2012 book, "Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity and Disease."

Now, he's putting his message in more practical terms, offering consumers a handbook for the supermarket with "Sugar Has 56 Names: A Shopper's Guide." An e-book that's meant to travel with shoppers on their smartphones or tablets, the guide, released this month, provides consumers with a new nutrition label for hundreds of processed foods that puts the spotlight on where it should be, he argues: sugar. From soy milk to sausage, and Sara Lee to supermarket brands, the data delineates the quality and quantity of sugar in products. Why the distinction? Because, as the book's title indicates, sugar goes by varied names - from fructose to fruit juice, and these derivatives differ greatly in how they're processed by the body.

"By paying attention to the sugar portion of the label people can do better in terms of making their own decisions," Lustig says. The current nutrition label falls far short of that, he says, noting that the label lacks a percent daily value for sugar, which makes it difficult for people to calculate how much is too much.

Meanwhile, added sugar has crept into the food supply in everything from bread to barbecue sauce, and often the ingredients are cloaked in curious names and orders. For example, products list ingredients according to quantity, but a product might include various forms of sugar as its fifth through ninth ingredients, which, when added together, render sugar worthy of the first listing. But by reading a nutrition label, you can't distinguish between a food's inherent and added sugar, the behemoth between you and good health.

At stake, Lustig argues, is less the issue of obesity than the risk of metabolic diseases, which includes diabetes, heart disease, fatty liver disease, cancer and dementia. And sugar, he says, is a big part of the problem.

More details about the interaction of food substances on our physiology are provided in the book - he also has a low-sugar, high-fiber cookbook slated for release next year - but he leaves readers with some overarching directives, like these six tips: don't go to the supermarket hungry; shop along the perimeter of the supermarket where fresh, whole foods abound; if it comes with a logo you've heard of, it's been processed; avoid anything "partially hydrogenated" ("it will outlive you," he writes); just because it says "whole grain" doesn't mean it is, but if it doesn't say whole grain it isn't; if sugar is listed among the first three ingredients, it's dessert.

What else? Start your supper with a salad free of sugary dressing to fill up on fiber-rich food. Skip the cereal and granola bars and make a fast, healthy breakfast by scrambling eggs or frying some bacon the night before. Let your kids pack their (dessert-free) lunch with items they choose so they're more likely to eat it.

For his part, there's "no such thing as a sugared beverage" in his home. "We have milk, we have water and occasionally we have some alcoholic drinks when we have friends over," he says. "There is no reason to drink your calories." To ensure sufficient fiber, the Lustigs have salad with every meal, which typically consists of a protein and green vegetables and whole-grain bread instead of white rice, pasta and potatoes. For dessert, it's whole fruit, except for weekends, when they treat their daughters, ages 8 and 14, to something "a little more elaborate," he says.

"We have to get back to dessert being once a week, not once a meal," Lustig says. As he writes, "Sugar is reward. Sugar is fun, but if every meal is fun, then no meal is fun. And I promise, you won't be having fun taking your insulin shots while you're on dialysis."

To change the food culture, and the food supply, he encourages consumers to vote with their mouths and wallets. "We, as a society, have to reduce availability, and we cannot do that right now without the food industry helping us do it," he says. "If you won't buy it, they won't sell it."

Balboa Park San Diego - Three Things You Should Never Tell Your Doctor

Source     - http://www.omaha.com/
By            - Michael Huckabee
Category  - Balboa Park San Diego
Posted By - San Diego Hampton Inn

Balboa Park San Diego

I completed a casual, unscientific poll of several doctors I work with and asked them, “What do patients say that make it more difficult to determine their problems?”

Here are the top three responses with stories behind them:

“It just hurts”
The guy was in obvious distress so his impatience with a barrage of questions from the doctor only made the pain worse. All he wanted was someone to make the pain go away.

When you report any pain, clinicians know the go-to-questions that will define the pain and likely point toward a more specific diagnosis.

"OLD CARTS” is a famous medical school acronym reminding us of the needed questions: onset, location, duration, character, aggravating/alleviating factors, radiation of pain, temporal factors and severity.

Determining whether a belly pain is “knife-like,” or more of a “dull pressure,” can tip the scales toward surgery or cancer or something less serious.

“Let's play a game”

OK, the patient doesn't actually say this, but several doctors reported that some patients want to play “hide and seek." In other words, they withhold information and wait to see if the doctor comes up with it.

For example, a male patient of a fellow doctor reported a cough, but didn't seem too concerned about it. After a full history and physical exam revealed little, the doctor asked if there was anything else the patient wanted to add. That's when the patient brought out a letter from the local health department reporting that an exam had suggested he may be at risk for tuberculosis.

If the doctor had that information in the beginning, zeroing in on the patient's concerns would have been much easier.

I remember discovering a breast mass on a patient of mine several years ago. When I asked her if she was aware of it, she said, “Yes, I just wanted to see if you'd find it, too.”

Her diagnosis was cancer, so playing that game can have serious consequences.

“Oh, and one more thing..."
As doctors, we understand that you may think of something at the last minute to ask. Because your time with the doctor is valuable and often scarce, you want to take advantage of every moment.

Too often, the casual "one more thing" is actually something important.

“I've had this little twinge in my chest every so often. It's nothing, right?”

When that comes at the end of a visit, the scheduled time has elapsed and your "one more thing" may deserve significant attention that is not available. In this case, it would have been an evaluation of chest pain to potentially prevent a heart attack.

Attractions In San Diego - Heart Disease: Why Positive Attitude May Bring Longer Life

Source         - http://news.yahoo.com/
By                 - Rachael Rettner
Category  - Attractions In San Diego
Posted By - San Diego Hampton Inn

Attractions In San Diego

Heart disease patients with a positive attitude live longer than those with a negative attitude, and this boost in survival may be due to increased exercise, a new study from Denmark suggests.

In the study, heart disease patients with a positive attitude were 42 percent less likely to die over a five-year period than those with a negative attitude. All patients in the study had coronary artery disease, or a narrowing or hardening of the arteries that supply blood to the heart.

What's more, patients with a positive attitude were about twice as likely to exercise. In fact, a further analysis revealed that those with a positive attitude lived longer because they exercised.

However, the researchers don't know which came first: Does a positive attitude give heart disease patients the motivation they need to exercise, or does exercise put you in a better mood? There is evidence for both hypotheses, said study researcher Susanne Pedersen, a professor of cardiac psychology at Tilburg University, the Netherlands.

"Irrespectively, [the finding] cements what we already know — namely, that exercise is good for the heart," Pedersen said. [4 Reasons to Exercise Even When It's Cold Out]

Until researchers know which comes first, improving mood as well as doing more exercise may help patients live longer, Pedersen said. Generally, interventions for heart disease patients tend to focus on reducing negative mood and depression, but this is not the same as enhancing positive mood, Pedersen said.

Previous studies have found a link between an optimistic, positive attitude and better outcomes for heart disease patients, but the reason for the link was not known.

The new study analyzed information from about 600 patients with coronary artery disease who were treated at a Denmark hospital. In 2005, patients answered questions to assess their mood, and how often they exercised.

Among the 80 patients who died during the study, 30 patients (10 percent) were assessed as having had a positive attitude, while 50 (16.5 percent) had a more negative attitude.

Besides exercise, there are multiple reasons why a positive attitude might be good for heart health, said Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum, a preventive cardiologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York.

A positive outlook may reduce levels of stress hormones and inflammatory markers, Steinbaum said. And people with a positive outlook tend to adopt other healthier behaviors, such as eating better, sleeping better and not smoking.

"I think that people who are positive are more likely to do things to take care of themselves, and to help themselves," Steinbaum said.

The study did not collect information about the duration and intensity of the patients' exercise, which may affect the link between positive attitude and mortality, the researchers said. It is published today (Sept. 10) in the journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes.

Hotels San Diego Downtown - Heavy Kids Face Health Problems, Have Few Options

Source        - http://www.usatoday.com/
By                - Nanci Hellmich  
Category  - Hotels San Diego Downtown  
Posted By - San Diego Hampton Inn

 

Hotels San Diego Downtow

About 4% to 6% of children and teens in the USA are severely obese, and yet there are very few effective options for helping these kids reach a healthy weight, says a scientific statement out Monday from the American Heart Association.

The heart group is promoting a definition for severely obese children as those who fall at the very high end of weight charts. This is also called extreme or morbid obesity.

The percentage of severely obese kids is increasing at a time when the percentage of overweight and obese kids seems to be leveling off, says lead author Aaron Kelly, an associate professor in the department of pediatrics at the University of Minnesota.

The heaviest children in this country have higher rates of type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, liver disease, sleep apnea, musculoskeletal problems and early signs of clogged arteries, he says. "Those are the immediate consequences, but we also know that severe obesity in childhood is a strong predictor of morbid obesity in adulthood."

The heart association statement "is a call to action," Kelly says. "We are saying this is a problem that hasn't been defined really well until now, and we need to get people to wrap their heads around how serious it is. Severe obesity is an extremely difficult disease to treat. Most of the standard approaches often used successfully in children with milder forms of obesity unfortunately do not work very well in those with severe obesity."

About a third of kids in this country are overweight or obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Children are classified as overweight or obese based on where they fall on Body Mass Index (BMI) growth charts.

Children are considered overweight if they fall between the 85th to 95th percentile on BMI growth charts. Kids fall into the obese category if they are at or above the 95th percentile on charts. This means their BMI is larger than 95% of the reference population, a group of children from the 1970s and '80s.

The AHA committee defined kids over age 2 as severely obese if they fall at least 20% above the 95th body mass index percentile, which is about the 99th percentile, Kelly says. For example, a 7-year-old girl who weighs about 75 pounds or a 13-year-old boy weighing about 160 pounds — both of average height — would fall in the severely obese category.

The heart association statement, published online in the journal Circulation, says:

• Lifestyle modification/behavior programs for severely obese children and teens have shown only modest improvements in weight, and kids usually remain severely obese and often regain the lost weight after the program ends.

• Only one medication, orlistat, is approved for the treatment of obesity in adolescents. "The medication has pretty limited effectiveness for weight loss and notable side effects," Kelly says. "We need to start doing some studies on the newly approved adult weight-loss medications to test their safety and effectiveness in children and adolescents. But, because of regulatory limitations, no one has been able to step up to do this yet."

• Bariatric surgery, such as gastric bypass, has generally been effective in reducing BMI and improving cardiovascular risk factors for teens, but "we need to know more about the long-term safety in adolescents because many of these surgical procedures are irreversible," he says. Plus, many children and teens do not qualify for surgery, and access to the procedures is limited by lack of insurance coverage.

Exercise physiologist Melinda Sothern, a professor at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in New Orleans who has treated more than 3,000 overweight children, including many severely obese kids, over the past 22 years, says, "the underlying biological characteristics that predispose children to severe obesity and the environmental and psychosocial factors that allow it to continue are not well understood.

"Unfortunately standard approaches fall short because severely obese children often have emotional problems and this, along with excess weight, makes physical activity" difficult for them, she says. "Treatments need to be tailored to each child."

Sothern, co-author of the 2001 book Trim Kids, which includes meal plans, healthy recipes and exercise guidelines, offers these tips for parents with a severely obese child:

• Recognize that this is a chronic problem that will require full family support and ongoing medical attention including help from a physician, behavioral counselor, registered dietitian and exercise professional.

• Realize that there may be an underlying emotional issue that should be addressed by a mental health professional.

• Create an environment in and around the home that makes it easier for your child to manage their weight so it doesn't worsen and lead to more serious diseases.

• Keep in mind that responsible weight-management programs include training for parents, giving them skills to help their kids make better food choices, increase exercise and reduce TV and computer time. Children are encouraged to replace sugary beverages with water, eat more healthful protein such as lean beef, skinless chicken, broiled fish; good (monounsaturated) fats instead of saturated (animal) fat; and more high-fiber foods, like fruits and vegetables, while cutting back on sugary ones. The programs reduce the portions and thus the calories eaten. But increasing fiber and maintaining healthy protein intake helps the children to not feel so hungry, she says.