StemCell Therapy

We achieve this mission through many means, but our primary service is employment, which is provided to the blind and visually impaired in an Omaha-based converting operation that supplies a full line of 100 percent recycled fiber content tissue and towel products to the U.S. Government and other customers.

The largest employer of the blind and visually impaired in Nebraska and the only agency of its kind in a seven-state region, ONI offers additional services for our associates and blind neighbors in our community, including social activities, education, technology and adaptive aids training, and health and wellness programs.

The vision of ONI is to be the premier provider of choice for exceptional employment, training, and experiences that allow the blind and visually impaired to realize their personal and career goals.

Outlook Nebraska, Inc. is a private, nonprofit agency qualified as a 501(c)3 organization under the Internal Revenue code and registered as a charitable corporation in the State of Nebraska. The organization operates under the Javits-Wagner-ODay (JWOD) Act and the AbilityOne Program, which mandates the Federal government to provide preferred vendor status to agencies such as ONI who employ persons who are blind or have other significant disabilities. As a result, in addition to empowering the blind and visually impaired to achieve independence and an increased quality of life. ONI is an economic engine that brings valuable government business to the Omaha metro area.

In addition to product sales, Outlook Nebraska, Inc. is supported by donations from individuals, foundations, and corporations. Donations are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by state and federal law. To make a donation, contact John Wick.

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Outlook Nebraska - Omaha World-Herald

Spotting the illness that can cause sudden blindness BBC News Every year in the UK, 3,000 people's sight is damaged by a condition called giant cell arteritis. The symptoms can appear very suddenly and end in irreversible blindness. Dr Saleyha Ahsan met a group of people who've been affected and explains what to ... and more »

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Spotting the illness that can cause sudden blindness - BBC News

WATERBURY, Vt. A nonprofit group co-founded by a University of Utah professor working to cure blindness in Nepal and other developing countries is one of eight semifinalists for a $100 million grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

The Himalayan Cataract Project, based out of a rented office in a church parsonage in Vermont, has been working for years to train local health care providers to perform cataract and laser surgery in Nepal and other countries.

The organization was co-founded in 1995 by Nepalese Dr. Sanduk Ruit and Dr. Geoff Tabin, formerly of the University of Vermont Medical Center and now at the University of Utah.

"They had a shared motivation that the right to sight is a human right and that no one anywhere in the world should receive care of a different or lower quality," said Job Heintz, chief executive officer of the nonprofit formed in 2003 to carry out the doctors' vision. It now has 10 employees and an annual budget of about $9 million.

The organization has provided eye care for thousands of patients over the years by training health care providers and providing equipment and other infrastructure.

"The quality of eye health care has dramatically risen, nowhere better than in Nepal," Heintz said.

The Chicago-based MacArthur Foundation recently announced that the Cataract Project was chosen as semifinalist from among 1,904 proposals for the $100 million grant program. The foundation says the competition is for "proposals promising real progress toward solving a critical problem of our time in any field or any location."

The winner would receive the entire $100 million.

Other semifinalists include Catholic Relief Services in Baltimore, which is working to change the way children are cared for in orphanages; and the Carter Center in Atlanta, which is working to eliminate river blindness in Nigeria.

The winner will be chosen in December.

The Cataract Project got its start at the Tilganga Eye Centre in Kathmandu, Nepal, which performed its first outpatient cataract surgery in 1994. Ruit and Tabin started the Cataract Project a year later.

The Tilganga Centre now sees about 1,000 patients a day for a variety of eye care needs.

Tabin worked at what is now the University of Vermont Medical Center from 1995 to 2005. The project opened Vermont offices in Waterbury and Norwich in 2003.

The Cataract Project already has expanded its operations to a number of other countries, but the grant would be to expand operations in Nepal, Ethiopia and Ghana.

If it wins the grant, the organization would increase the work it currently does, such as training doctors and support staff in their home countries and at other locations, including the United States.

"We know what we would do with every dollar," Heintz said.

Excerpt from:
Nonprofit seeking to cure blindness up for $100M grant - Deseret News

Closer to Levins home, this militant brand of Protestantism had been stirring in Philadelphia quite a while as well. In 1831, there had been a clash in the streets when Irish Protestants paraded past an Irish Catholic church in celebration of King Williams establishment of Protestant control of Ireland in 1690. More recently, in 1842, an assemblage of Philadelphia preachers named themselves the American Protestant Association, deemed the system of Popery to be, in its principles and tendency, subversive of civil and religious liberty, and destructive to the spiritual welfare of men and resolved to unite for the purpose of defending [their] Protestant interests against the great exertionsto propagate that system in the United States.

Watching this divisive movement gain support and momentum, Levin launched another newspaper, the Daily Sun, to use as a mouthpiece for his own nativist sentiment. Levin approached nativism through the lens of temperance and his steadily increasing resentment of the established political parties, the Democrats and the Whigs. As Levin saw it, candidates for office were decided on not by the people but by party insiders, in groggeries over segars, precisely the equivalent of the perennial smoke-filled room where cabals of secretive power brokers are said to do the dark work of true governance. Levin believed party politics to be tied up in vice and corruption and asserted that only a third party would allow for true democracy; thus he attached himself to the new American Republican Party, lately victorious in the New York mayoral election. In its Philadelphian iteration, under the auspices of Levin and other proponents, this party called itself the Native American Party. While today the term "Native American" refers to indigenous peoples, then it was a term taken up with pride to distinguish those born stateside from the wretched, tempest-tossed refuse that huddled in masses on teeming foreign shores.

While only a secretary of this nascent party, Levin was perhaps the most vocal advocate of its cause and, as a publisher, the most capable of disseminating its message. In addition to regular editorials in the Daily Sun, Levin published a book expressing his feelings on the Irish Repeal Associations campaign to dissolve Irelands union with Great Britain around this time. Predictably, he did not view it as a bid for freedom, for its leader, Daniel OConnell, was a papist who would only make Ireland beholden to the Pope. And it was just this that he warned the predominately Catholic immigrants of Europe, and particularly the Irish Catholic, intended to do in America: stage a coup by voting as a block, raising up their own men to power and subverting American democracy in favor of monarchism and deference to the Catholic Church. Our only hope, as he represented it, was to stem the surging influx of indigents and criminals and papists and to defy the cronyism and corruption of the ruling parties: in short, to support Native Americanism.

*

Before we examine the most outrageous chapter of Levins life, I would like to pause for a moment to offer a caveat regarding my scholarship. I make no claims to being a rigorous historian. I am a storyteller first and foremost, an entertainer; therefore, I may sometimes give short shrift to elements of my subject matter that dont serve well the narrative I am trying to dramatize. However, my promise is that, while attempting to shape and share an engaging story, I will also make my best efforts to present the story accurately and provide reliable sources.

To that end, I should mention some other contemporary circumstances that likely contributed to the anti-immigrant sentiments of the times as well as to the general desire for a change in the status quo of party politics. All of these factors are clearly outlined in John A. Formans Lewis Charles Levin: Portrait of an American Demagogue, a comprehensive source that I have relied on heavily.

Two important dynamics beyond anti-Catholicism that exacerbated this political climate in Philadelphia were a loss of status on the national political stage and a descent into economic depression. In 1836, the most important Philadelphian in the country, Nicholas Biddle, President of the Second Bank of the United States, was stymied in his attempt to recharter the institution by President Andrew Jackson. The Bank War, as it was called, had been a prominent issue in the Presidential campaigns of 1832, and after Jackson successfully blocked the banks recertification in 36, Philadelphia and her people took it as a personal defeat. No longer the central hub of the American economy, Philadelphia lost some of its eminence, and Philadelphians became disillusioned with their political leaders and open to outsider politicians that suggested the established parties were corrupt and/or ineffectual.

Then, in 1837, an economic crisis occurred that led to years of recession. In the absence of the national bank in Philadelphia, federal capital was placed in a variety of pet banks, relocating money from the large banks that relied on it to smaller banks that certainly benefitted from it. The practical effect, however, was panic, as major banks, now carrying far less capital, could not extend credit or offer loans as they had before. In Philadelphia, as well as elsewhere, the Panic of 1837 meant hard times, and as is almost always the case when Americans suffer economic hardship, the poor immigrant, who will often work for lower pay, is blamed for the privations of by natural-born citizens.

While the loss of their national bank and the ensuing recession certainly added to the atmosphere, one issue in particular allowed Lewis Charles Levin to really rile up his audience, and this one, again, Americans will recognize: religion in schools. The debate here, however, was not about its presence but rather about what form it would take. Catholics in the Kensington district protested that the Bible used as a reader in schools was a Protestant King James Bible and contended that Catholic students should be allowed to use a Catholic text. Levin and his Native Americans misconstrued their position, perhaps willfully misrepresenting their complaint, and warned the public that the Irish Catholics of Kensington wanted to have the Bible removed from schools, which, if it were allowed, Levin argued would lead to a new generation of idle, profligate, dissolute youth. In short, the evil immigrant papists were hell bent on undermining the very moral fabric of society.

This was the background and the political narrative when, in May of 1844, Levins incitements finally erupted into violence.

*

The Native Americans rallied first in Independence Square, holding forth to crowds of supporters about the Bible issue. But perhaps that wasnt provocative enough, for next they moved their rally right into the heart if Kensington district so that the Irish Catholics themselves could hear their disparaging speeches. The first of these rallies disbanded when Irish Catholics, predictably, gathered to face their deriders. However, in the spirit of authentic agitation, Levin and the Native Americans were not discouraged from holding their rallies in the very dooryards of Irish Catholic Kensington residents but rather determined to do so again, likely hoping that violence would break out and somehow prove their dispersions against the Irish to be true.

On a stormy Monday in May, Lewis Charles Levin ascended a stage to address his audience. As if on cue, the heavens opened up with a rumble, and a downpour beganthis perhaps a gesture toward divine intervention. But Levin was undeterred. Taking shelter in a nearby marketplace, he resumed his remarks, which have ever been described as passionate and incendiary.

It must have begun as a murmur at the crowds peripherya confrontation between a nativist and an Irishman. Very quickly, then, it came to blows and graduated to full-scale rioting, as men brandished bricks and cudgels. When gunfire boomed in the marketplace, the first struck was a constable, shot in the face. Others received gunshot wounds in their sides, their hips, their legs. Stones and bricks filled the air, crashing down upon those gathered and battering the walls and windows of businesses and houses in the area. With the report of pistols, many dispersed, and others gave chase. Residents homes received barrages of rocks for no other reason than that men had fled into an adjacent alley or fallen against their doors. The damage to property was enormous, and the violence unrestrained.

The next day, the Native American convened again, no longer in Kensington, to counsel restraint. Many among their audience called for Levin, to hear what the chief instigator had to say about curbing their retaliation against the Irish rioters. Levin kept his silence, and the rioting continued for another two days. The militia had to be deployed to bring an end to it, but by then, numerous rioters on both sides as well as bystanders had been wounded, and seven were dead. When the smoke literally cleared, a seminary and two Catholic churches had been destroyed by arson, as well as some thirty private residences.

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Historical Blindness

Posted February 19, 2017 07:14:44

Tim Hughes once caught a plane from New York to LA. Sitting next to him was a woman, a striking brunette with big hair.

Mr Hughes helped her with her bags and then sat back to enjoy the attention of the unusually solicitous airline staff. Upon landing he wished her an enjoyable stay.

"I live here," was her steely-eyed reply.

"It was only two weeks later, after I'd seen a magazine article about her, that I realised that the person I'd been sitting next to was Elizabeth Taylor," recalls Mr Hughes.

The former IT professional has a condition called prosopagnosia, sometimes known as "face blindness".

But people with prosopagnosia aren't actually blind; they know when they see a face, but their brain can't process who it belongs to.

An inability to tell the difference between two similar faces does not necessarily mean that a person has prosopagnosia, and difficulty perceiving differences is not the same as difficulty with remembering faces, though the result can be the same.

"One of the things that we think people [without prosopagnosia] do when they look at faces is to see the face more as a whole, rather than the individual parts that make up the face," says Romina Palermo, associate professor of psychology at the University of Western Sydney.

"We know that people who see faces more as wholes tend to be better at recognising faces. We also know that people who have prosopagnosia don't tend to look at a face as a whole as much, they tend to see the parts more often."

Brain injury, most often a stroke can cause prosopagnosia, but there is also a congenital, or developmental, version in which certain brain mechanisms fail to develop properly, possibly due to genetics.

The neurological explanation for prosopagnosia is complex: to recognise a face, the brain relies on a neural network of at least three core regions in the occipital and temporal lobes of the right and left brain hemispheres which supply different aspects of face processing.

"There are a number of processes, and our understanding is sketchy," says Brad Duchaine, professor in psychological and brain sciences at New Hampshire's Dartmouth College.

"In our posterior lobes we have a fairly simple, image-based representation of the face that you're seeing which is exactly what you're seeing you're encoding the values of the features of that face.

"As you move to more anterior areas in the brain, those areas are giving what's called a 'view independent' manner, where you're extracting a representation of just who a person is. It's not tied to the particular image of the face that you're seeing at that moment."

As for Mr Hughes, he first suspected something wasn't right back in Year Six.

"There were two similar looking blonde-haired boys. I never could tell them apart, even though the other kids could," he says.

Since then, Mr Hughes' inability to recognise faces has put him in some awkward situations, especially once he started dating.

"I knew my girlfriend would be getting on the same bus, and would be wearing school uniform but I was petrified I wouldn't be able to tell who she was. Luckily, she recognised me," he says.

Things didn't work out so well another time: "One time I went to my girlfriend's house to pick her up but after a short while, the woman I was talking to said, 'I think you want my sister.'"

Many people with prosopagnosia don't have as much trouble recognising family members, but unfamiliar situations can make things difficult.

"One time at the beach I thought I'd misplaced my son Stuart," says Mr Hughes. "There was a boy standing next to me who I thought was one of Stuart's friends, so I asked him if he knew where Stuart was. He replied, 'Yes, I'm Stuart.'"

People with prosopagnosia usually develop coping strategies to give them clues to the identity of the person they're interacting with.

They use extra layers of information such as gait, voice, eye colour, clothing, or hairstyle. For people with prosopagnosia, a new hairdo can be quite confusing.

Mr Hughes' coping mechanisms include examining people "top to toe" and having a friend point out who's who, or who he might expect to see at an event.

He also lets people know he has the condition and that he might not recognise them next time he sees them.

He's not a fan of the term "face blindness" because it's not accurate. He prefers to say that he has "facial recognition issues" once he puts facial features together, he can identify who a person is.

The Australian Prosopagnosia Register was begun about 10 years ago, and people can sign up for information, receive updates on research and do tests to help figure out what level of prosopagnosia they have.

There have also been studies on whether people can be trained to improve their facial recognition abilities.

They can, but it's intensive, involving tasks like looking at photos and trying to identify subtle differences in people's eyes or the distance between the eyes.

Research into prosopagnosia also opens a window on to how the human brain processes faces. Facial recognition is a specialised task utilising different areas in the brain, and information about how this happens could assist with other research.

"It's useful to know how everybody processes faces," says Professor Romina Palermo.

"When some people are unable to do it, there can be insights into how the brain works.

"Facial recognition is a specialised task utilising a distributed network of areas in the brain, and information about how this happens can assist with other areas of cognition."

Topics: health, genetic-disorders, brain-and-nervous-system, psychology, australia

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Prosopagnosia: What it's like to live with 'face blindness' - ABC Online

There is no evidence that members of the Trump presidential campaign broke the law when they were in contact with various Russian officials during the campaign and transition period.

Yet that has not stopped some liberals from fantasizing about impeachment proceedings, based on unsubstantiated claims that Trump coordinated with Russian hackers to embarrass Hillary Clinton.

Voters knew months before the election that Trump advisers, including Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort and Roger Stone, had close ties to Russia. This was one of many reasons to oppose Trump's candidacy. But he won anyway. Nothing that was reported last week, all attributed to anonymous sources within the intelligence community, invalidates that result.

President Donald Trump is furious over the constant leaks from the national security apparatus that undermined former National Security Adviser Flynn.

The leaks are definitely a problem. The D.C. bureaucracy is picking out classified information to feed to the press in order to wage a guerrilla campaign against Trump. That is unacceptable.

But such bureaucratic abuse does not excuse the Trump administration's continued blindness to the threat of Vladimir Putin's regime.

Barack Obama promised to show more flexibility to Russia after he was re-elected. But the Trump administration has tied itself in knots excusing Putin's misdeeds.

Like all bullies, Putin responded to this weakness with more aggression. Russia is cruising a spy ship up and down the Eastern seaboard, and Russian planes are buzzing U.S. Navy ships in the Black Sea.

Trump's admiration and excuses for an authoritarian thug like Putin are deeply troubling. Critics should concentrate on Trump's weak foreign policy, rather than on conspiracy theories about the 2016 election.

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Russian blindness: Trump team ties troubling - The Union Leader

We grew up listening to our parents saying that if we use computers for a long time, it will eventually make us go blind. This my friends was something I always believed to be true, but how is it possible to not use a computer when our survival in the modern world depends on it? Computer vision syndrome is the term used for eye strain caused due to staring at a computer for too long. The symptoms, well we all know what they are; blurry vision, headaches, dry eyes, watery eyes, and tired eyes.

The symptoms are generally temporary if you stop computer usage for a while but if you are anything like me and are literally addicted to sitting in front of a computer, then these symptoms can be a problem, but then the question is, we read books too so why arent they bad for the eyes? The answer is pretty interesting actually. According to the University of Iowa, its because while we are using computers, our rate of blinking drops by a third which results in our eyes becoming dry.

According to the American Optometric Association, the contrast that exists on the screen isnt as strong as it is in books and the letters are less precisely rendered. The eyes thus have to work harder and this leaves them tired. If you are looking at a screen from a non-ideal angle then that only worsens the strain. You must be wondering what that ideal angle is. Well, ideally you must be looking slightly down at the screen at an approximate 15-20 degree angle. The computer must also be placed about 20-28 inches away from you. So get a protractor and a ruler and start measuring (no not literally).

It also helps to take breaks while you are at the computer. Every 20 minutes take a 20 second break to stare at something 20 feet away. This is referred to as the 20-20-20 rule by optometrists. If you are planning to use a computer for a longer time, then after every 2 hours take a 15 minute break from computer usage. Some people who dont usually use spectacles can benefit from computer specific glasses. These spectacles are designed to reduce glare and increase the contrast. With age our eyes also become less flexible. Interestingly people who wear contacts may suffer from increased blurriness and dryness because they already blink less because of the contacts. So do your eyes a favor and use spectacles while you are at a computer.

And one more thing, if these things arent helping then its probably the right time to pay your eye doctor a visit because something needs checking.

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Don't Worry You Can Save Your Eyes From Blindness If You Sit In ... - Wccftech

It is estimated that almost one in every ten people over 65 has some signs of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), and its prevalence is likely to increase as a consequence of the aging population. AMD is a form of blindness, common in Caucasians, which causes distorted vision and blind spots. Scientists at the Center for Genome Engineering, within the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) report the use of CRISPR-Cas9 in performing "gene surgery" in the layer of tissue that supports the retina of living mice. Published in Genome Research, this study combines basic research and mouse model applications.

The most common retinopathies causing blindness are 'retinopathy of prematurity' in children, 'diabetic retinopathy' and 'AMD' in older adults. In these diseases, abnormally high levels of the Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor (VEGF) are secreted. In AMD, VEGF causes the formation of new blood vessels in the eyes but also leads to leakages of blood and fluid into the eye, damaging an area at the center of the retina called macula.

Injections of anti-VEGF drugs are the most common treatment against AMD, but at least seven injections per year are required, because VEGF is continuously overexpressed by the cells of the diseased retinal pigment epithelium. Instead of such invasive treatments, IBS scientists believe that gene therapy with the third generation gene editing tool CRISPR-Cas9 could improve the situation. "The injections tackle the effects, but not the main cause of the problem. By editing the VEGF gene, we can achieve a longer-term cure," explains KIM Jin-Soo, Director of the Center for Genome Engineering.

CRISPR-Cas9 can precisely cut and correct DNA at the desired site in the genome. The CRISPR-Cas9 system works by cutting DNA at a target site, in this case, inside the VEGF gene. Two year ago, IBS scientists proved that a pre-assembled version of CRISPR-Cas9, a.k.a, Cas9 ribonucleoprotein (RNP), can be delivered to cells and stem cells to modify target genes. The pre-assembled complex works rapidly and degrades before the body has time to build up an immune response against it. Despite these advantages and previous successes, the difficulty in delivering pre-assembled CRISPR-Cas9 has limited its use in therapeutic applications.

In this study, the research team successfully injected CRISPR-Cas9 into the eyes of a mice model with wet AMD and locally modified the VEGF gene. Initially they found that the delivery of the pre-assembled CRISPR-Cas9 complex is more efficient that the delivery of the same components in a plasmid form. Secondly, the complex disappeared after just 72 hours. Scientists assessed the whole genome of the animals and found the CRISPR-Cas9 complex modified only the VEGF gene and did not affect other genes. The progression of the eye disease was monitored by looking at choroidal neovascularization (CNV), the creation of new blood vessels between the retina and the sclera -- a common problem of 'wet' macular degeneration -- and researchers found the CNV area reduced by 58%. Moreover, a likely side effect, namely cone dysfunction, that takes only 3 days to show in these mice, did not occur a week after the treatment.

"We have developed a treatment to suppress CNV by inactivating the VEGF gene, one of the causes of AMD. We envision that, in the future, surgeons will be able to cut and paste disease-causing genetic elements in patients," explains Kim Jin-Soo.

While CRISPR-Cas9 is conventionally used to correct mutations causing hereditary diseases or cancer, this study suggests a new therapy for non-hereditary degenerative disease."We believe that this is a new therapeutic modality for the treatment of non-hereditary degenerative diseases," points out Professor KIM Jeong Hun (Seoul National University), "We confirmed the effect on the animal models of the disease and now we wish to continue with preclinical trials."

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Genome surgery with CRISPR-Cas9 to prevent blindness - Science Daily

Jaitleys attempt to underplay the damage caused by demonetisation contrasts with the somewhat more sober assessment of the Economic Survey prepared by his Ministry.

THE Union Budget is only one of several instruments of economic policy available to the government. It must necessarily take into account not just the national context and the prevailing distribution of economic and political power among the various social classes in the country, but also the international context, more than ever before, given that the sum of Indias exports and imports amounts to a substantial share of the countrys gross domestic product (GDP). This years Budget, which was presented a few months after the shock and awe of demonetisation, had to contend with that move as well. Notwithstanding these constraints and taking into account the fact that the media hype over the Budget is possibly a bit over the top, the Union Budget is nonetheless very important as the total expenditure of the Union government accounts for between one-eighths and one-sevenths of the countrys GDP.

The Union Budget for 2017-18 was presented in Parliament on the first day of February instead of the last day of that month, as had been the practice for many years. The other distinctive feature this year was that the Railway Budget was subsumed within the Union Budget and not presented separately. Both these features have some negative implications. The database for the Budget is weakened somewhat by its advancement. The subsuming of the Railway Budget within the Union Budget weakens the special attention that the Railways, with its truly all-India character, deserves. Some read this subsuming as a prelude to the privatisation of the Railways.

Be these as they may, Arun Jaitleys fourth Budget as Union Finance Minister is wilfully blind to the serious negative economic impact of the demonetisation exercise imposed on the country by the Central government.

In a Budget speech that was true to form in terms of being long on rhetoric and short on substance, Jaitley hailed demonetisation as a momentous initiative and claimed that it would produce great benefits in the long run. The Minister presented little evidence to back his claim. His attempt to underplay the damage caused by demonetisation contrasts with the somewhat more sober, even if still wishful, assessment of the Economic Survey prepared by his Ministry.

The fact of the matter is that the demonetisation measure inflicted on an economy that was already showing some evidence of decline in momentum has caused considerable economic harm already, not to mention the tragic and entirely avoidable loss of more than a hundred lives. Estimates by various sources, including the Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy (CMIE) and the All India Manufacturers Organisation (AIMO) and several independent economists, suggest substantial monetary loss and a decline of between 1 and 2 percentage points in the rate of economic growth.

Economists of widely different persuasions have shown a rare unanimity in highlighting the serious negative impact of the measure on aggregate demand in the economy. Given the damage caused by demonetisation and the consequent decline in aggregate demand, there was a general expectation that the Union Budget would provide a substantial stimulus to the economy to counteract the deflationary impact of demonetisation. However, an examination of the tax and expenditure proposals, which constitute the core of any budget, shows a failure to recognise the need for a substantial stimulus to the economy.

The Budget Estimate (B.E.) of total expenditure for 2017-18 is Rs.21.47 lakh crore as against a Revised Estimate (R.E.) for 2016-17 of Rs.20.14 lakh crore. This works out to a less-than-7 per cent increase in nominal terms. Taking inflation into account and viewed against a GDP growth estimated at 6.5-6.75 per cent, this is no stimulus at all. The total budgeted expenditure of the Union government for 2017-18 is 12.7 per cent of the GDP as against 13.4 per cent in 2016-17, a reduction in relative terms.

There is a great deal of rhetoric in the Budget speech on large increases in allocations for agriculture and farmers welfare, rural development, education and health. There is also the claim of significantly enlarged spending on infrastructure. The Budget speech suggests a thrust towards agriculture and allied activities and rural development. But the allocation for these two sectors taken together rises from Rs.167,768 crore in R.E. 2016-17 to Rs.187,223 crore in B.E. 2017-18, an increase of 11.5 per cent in nominal terms, implying only a modest increase in real terms. The allocation for education and health was Rs.114,806 crore in R.E. 2016-17. It has risen to Rs.130,215 crore in B.E. 2017-18, again a rather modest increase given the countrys overall low spending on these key sectors. The total expenditure on infrastructure as a share of Budget outlay is also marginally lower in B.E. 2017-18 compared with R.E. 2016-17.

An especially important negative impact of demonetisation has been on employment in the informal sector. There was widespread expectation that the Budget would address this issue by substantially increasing allocation for the rural employment guarantee scheme and possibly initiating a similar urban employment guarantee scheme. However, the allocation for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) in B.E. 2017-18, at Rs.48,000 crore, is barely more than the R.E. 2016-17 figure of Rs.47,499 crore. Given the increase in wages for MGNREGS work, there will be a decline in the number of days of employment per household registered in the scheme. A larger point also needs to be made. As data from the Labour Bureau surveys remind us, job creation has nosedived over the past year, and this was a key issue for the Budget to take into account. However, it has made no serious effort in that direction.

Turning to receipts, the tax proposals in the Budget are estimated to result in a loss of Rs.20,000 crore in direct tax revenues. This continues the trend under the present government of persistent tax giveaways in respect of direct taxes even while the rhetoric is about widening the tax base and increasing the share of direct taxes. What is happening is that the indirect tax burden, a large share of which is borne by ordinary working people, is rising steadily. For instance, the revised excise duty collection in 2015-16 was Rs.2.88 lakh crore as against a B.E. of Rs.2.29 lakh crore. In 2016-17, the excise duty collection was Rs.3.87 lakh crore as against a B.E. of Rs.3.19 lakh crore.

Over the last three years, we have seen the abolition of wealth tax in a country characterised by obscene wealth inequality. We have also seen repeated overtures to tax evaders even while the rhetoric around demonetisation was on wiping out black money. These steps do not enhance the credibility of the governments morality plays. In respect of corporate income taxes, there is reasonable ground for eliminating numerous exemptions. The clamour for lower tax rates on corporate profits is to be assessed against the reality of effective tax rates of hardly 25 per cent on profits accruing to large corporate entities. The several lakh crores in revenue foregone on account of concessions to robust corporate and individual entities does not speak of equity in budget-making.

The economic philosophy underlying the Budget is one which sees the state as, at best, a necessary evil, and believes that the sole path to rapid growth and social well-being is through incentivising corporate investment. It also places exclusive emphasis on so-called fiscal prudence, which is interpreted to mean minimising fiscal deficits essentially through expenditure reduction. The self-serving argument that a lowering of tax rates will lead to an improvement in compliance is not sustained by evidence from across the world. The reason is simple enough: if the marginal costs of tax evasion are perceived to be lower than the benefits from such evasion, compliance need not improve at all.

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Stubborn blindness | Frontline - Frontline

Wilson Ring, Associated Press

Non-profit seeking to cure blindness up for $100M grant

WATERBURY, Vt. (AP) A Vermont-based nonprofit group that works to cure blindness in Nepal and other developing countries is one of eight semifinalists for a $100 million grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

The Waterbury-based Himalayan Cataract Project, based out of a rented office in a church parsonage, has been working for years to train local health care providers to perform cataract and laser surgery in Nepal and other countries.

The organization was co-founded in 1995 by Nepalese Dr. Sanduk Ruit and Dr. Geoff Tabin, formerly of the University of Vermont Medical Center and now at the University of Utah.

"They had a shared motivation that the right to sight is a human right and that no one anywhere in the world should receive care of a different or lower quality," said Job Heintz, the chief executive officer of the nonprofit, formed in 2003 to carry out the vision of the doctors. It now has 10 employees and an annual budget of about $9 million.

Over the years the organization has provided eye care for thousands of patients by training health care providers and providing equipment and other infrastructure.

"The quality of eye health care has dramatically risen, nowhere better than in Nepal," Heintz said on Thursday.

The Chicago-based MacArthur Foundation announced Wednesday that the Cataract Project was one of eight organizations chosen as semifinalists from among 1,904 proposals, for the $100 million grant program. The foundation says the competition is for "proposals promising real progress toward solving a critical problem of our time in any field or any location."

The winner would receive the entire $100 million.

Other semifinalists include Catholic Relief Services in Baltimore, which is working to change the way children are cared for in orphanages, and The Carter Center in Atlanta, which is working to eliminate river blindness in Nigeria.

The winner will be chosen in December.

The Cataract Project got its start at the Tilganga Eye Centre in Kathmandu, Nepal, which performed its first outpatient cataract surgery in 1994. Ruit and Tabin started the Cataract Project a year later.

At the Tilganga Centre providers now see about 1,000 patients a day for a variety of eye care needs.

Tabin worked at what is now the University of Vermont Medical Center from 1995 to 2005. The project opened Vermont offices in Waterbury and Norwich in 2003

The Cataract Project already has expanded its operations to a number of other countries, but the grant would be to expand operations in Nepal, Ethiopia and Ghana.

If they win the grant, the organization would increase the work it currently does, such as training doctors and support staff in their home countries and at other locations, including the United States.

"We know what we would do with every dollar," Heintz said.

More here:
Non-profit seeking to cure blindness up for $100M grant - SFGate

Seoul, Feb 17 (PTI) The gene editing tool CRISPR-Cas9 may be delivered directly into the eye to treat age-related macular degeneration (AMD) efficiently and safely, a new study has claimed.

AMD is a form of blindness, common in Caucasians, which causes distorted vision and blind spots.

Scientists at the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) in Korea used CRISPR-Cas9 in performing gene surgery in the layer of tissue that supports the retina of living mice.

The most common retinopathies causing blindness are retinopathy of prematurity in children, diabetic retinopathy and AMD in older adults.

In these diseases, abnormally high levels of the Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor (VEGF) are secreted. In AMD, VEGF causes the formation of new blood vessels in the eyes but also leads to leakages of blood and fluid into the eye, damaging an area at the center of the retina called macula.

Injections of anti-VEGF drugs are the most common treatment against AMD, but at least seven injections per year are required, because VEGF is continuously overexpressed by the cells of the diseased retinal pigment epithelium.

Instead of such invasive treatments, scientists believe that gene therapy with the third generation gene editing tool CRISPR-Cas9 could improve the situation.

The injections tackle the effects, but not the main cause of the problem. By editing the VEGF gene, we can achieve a longer-term cure, said KIM Jin-Soo, Director of the Center for Genome Engineering at IBS.

CRISPR-Cas9 can precisely cut and correct DNA at the desired site in the genome. The system works by cutting DNA at a target site, in this case, inside the VEGF gene.

Two year ago, IBS scientists proved that a pre-assembled version of CRISPR-Cas9, or Cas9 ribonucleoprotein (RNP), can be delivered to cells and stem cells to modify target genes.

The pre-assembled complex works rapidly and degrades before the body has time to build up an immune response against it.

In this study, the team successfully injected CRISPR-Cas9 into the eyes of a mice model with wet AMD and locally modified the VEGF gene.

Initially they found that the delivery of the pre-assembled CRISPR-Cas9 complex is more efficient than the delivery of the same components in a plasmid form.

Secondly, the complex disappeared after just 72 hours.

Scientists assessed the whole genome of the animals and found the CRISPR-Cas9 complex modified only the VEGF gene and did not affect other genes.

The progression of the eye disease was monitored by looking at choroidal neovascularisation (CNV), the creation of new blood vessels between the retina and the sclera a common problem of wet macular degeneration and researchers found the CNV area reduced by 58 per cent.

Moreover, a likely side effect, namely cone dysfunction, that takes only 3 days to show in these mice, did not occur a week after the treatment.

The study was published in the journal Genome Research.

This is published unedited from the PTI feed.

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Read more here:
Gene editing surgery may prevent blindness: study - India.com

Could bionic eyes restore sight to the blind and give the U.S. military super sight?

Bionic implanted eyeballs, Star Trek-style visors, telescopic contact lenses ... these are just a few of the many exciting projects underway to both restore and provide enhanced sight.

Significant strides have been made in tech that will restore and transform lives - replacing white canes, service animals, braille machines and more for the visually impaired.

There has been a lot in the media about prosthetic breakthroughs for U.S. veterans, but what about vision? Last year the Blinded Veterans Association told the House and Senate Committees on Veterans Affairs that there are an estimated 131,580 legally blinded veterans in the U.S., citing data from the Depatment of Veterans Affairs.

THE 5 COOLEST MILITARY INNOVATIONS OF 2016

Technology is being increasingly harnessed to overcome blindness. So far, much of the key progress has been restricted to restoring sight for those with a specific type of visual impairment in particular retinitis pigmentosa an inherited condition that involves the loss of cells in the retina and causes a decline in vision.

BIONIC EYE IMPLANTS

One of the first and most promising bionic eyes is the Argus II made by Second Sight, which is geared toward patients with retinitis pigmentosa.

The system has two parts: a very high tech retinal implant and a camera mounted on eyeglasses or shades. The bionic eye is surgically implanted in, and on, the eye. It has an antenna, an electronics case, and an electrode array.

The camera processes what it sees and sends it to a small computer that the person wears. The data is processed and translated into instructions that are sent wirelessly to the antenna in the implant.

MARINES GET GROUNDBREAKING, UNSTOPPABLE NEW RIFLE MAGAZINE

The retinal implant has 60 electrodes in it. These electrodes provide information to the optic nerve and the optic nerve relays the data to the brain. The optic nerve understands this data as shapes, light and movement.

This vision is not yet like normal sight and it will not restore vision to 20/20. But with Argus II, folks who were once sightless can see in black and white they can read a book and see their homes and loved ones for the first time. More advances are in the pipeline for Argus II to restore color as well as resolution and brightness.

Argus II bionic eyes require functioning retina so many, including many visually impaired veterans, cant take advantage of that tech Second Sights Orion technology could be the solution.

PLUGGING INTO THE BRAIN

By skipping the optic nerve and directly plugging into the visual cortex, Orion could hold enormous potential for veterans who have visual impairment due to trauma.

'STAR TREK'-STYLE SURVEILLANCE DRONE FOR THE US MILITARY

In fact, this approach could potentially help those blinded by cancer or glaucoma.

This new device bypasses the retinal layer and implants electrodes directly onto the visual region of the brain.

Second Sight announced a major breakthrough for its Orion I project late last year. In a trial at UCLA, the very first of these devices to directly plug into the brain, a wireless visual cortical stimulator, was implanted in a human subject. The test was a success and restored vision to a 30-year old patient with no major side effects.

STAR TREK-STYLE VISOR

Ever seen Star Trek? One American company has created a sort of real-life version of character Geordi La Forges visor.

'STAR WARS'-STYLE SPEEDERS COULD CARRY US TROOPS

With the eSight 3 device, the wearer can see full-color video images without a time lag. Wherever the user looks and whatever he or she looks at, the high-speed, high-def camera captures it for them.

Advanced algorithms are used for the video feed. The video is then displayed on two screens in front of the wearers eyes. The video image is provided in a way that overcomes their vision loss.

eSight isnt a cure-all at this point. If the retina damage is too severe, then it may not work. It tends to be more helpful with macular degeneration, for example, than glaucoma. The company says the technology has about a 50 percent chance of working with all conditions.

GIVING SOLDIERS SUPER SIGHT

Advances in this field are also creating the potential to give US warfighters super vision.

HOW F-35A FIGHTER PILOTS ARE HARNESSING HIGH-TECH 'SEE-THROUGH' HELMETS

One exciting example is a new contact lens funded by DARPA, and made by cole Polytechnique Fdrale de Lausanne, that gives the wearer the ability to zoom like a telescope.

The scleral lens has thin aluminum mirrors built into it that work with special liquid crystal glasses. These glasses are connected to an electronic system.

Think Mission Impossible. If you blink your right eye, then it allows magnifying but if you wink your left then the vision is normal. If you blink normally, it doesnt trigger the magnifying mode.

In addition to the contact lens, other projects have made great headway. Even Second Sight bionic eyes can see in IR with a specific input device.

NEW TECH MAKES TANK ARMOR 'SEE-THROUGH'

Augmenting soldiers with vision-enhancing tech could provide advantages for ground troops and special operations in particular. Warfighters could switch between seeing in night vision, infrared, thermal, zoom, telescopic and more. Whether worn or implanted, it would provide enhanced capabilities that remove the weight of carrying optics and the time lost shifting optics by switching instead at the speed of thought.

Just one specific illustration of how helpful this could be is explosives. If the amazing advances in explosive detection could be miniaturized and adapted for military bionic eyes, then warfighters with enhanced vision could scan and spot these hidden IEDs before they could strike putting an end to injury and death due to IEDs.

Meet a Green Beret who was blinded in combat, but still serves, shoots with remarkable accuracy and explored Antarctica with Prince Harry at Tactical Talk this week.

Allison Barrie consults at the highest levels of defense, has travelled to more than 70 countries, is a lawyer with four postgraduate degrees and now the author of the new book "Future Weapons: Access Granted" covering invisible tanks through to thought-controlled fighter jets. You can click here for more information on FOX Firepower columnist and host Allison Barrie and you can follow her on Twitter @allison_barrie.

Read more:
'Bionic' eye on the future: From 'Star Trek' visors to 'Mission Impossible' contact lenses - Fox News

Dupe Ademola Popoo la, anOphthalmologist with the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital (UITH) said as parts of efforts to prevent and curtail blindness among children in Kwara State, 2500 children have been examined.

Popoola made this known on Wednesday in Ilorin, during a visit of Kwara first lady and medical personnel to the Children Hospital at Centre Igboro in Ilorin.

According to her, the state government has enacted law that makes visionscreening compulsory for children from zero to five years. Adding that because of the effort of the state government, a foundation; the USAID has shown interest in the project where they donated some equipment worth thousands of dollars.

Popoola said: 2500 children had so far been examined and some referral has been made to General Hospital in the state. However, four children were diagnosed with blindness due to premature birth.

The Ophtalmologist pointed out that a survey of 100 blind people carried out in the state suggested that, seven out of 10 were blind from childhood,while being hidden in that condition, till they are old enough to come out to begfor a living.

Some years back, Nigeria rose to the challenge of fighting deficiency in Vit. A and measles among children and they were successful.

Four health facilities have been designated as centres for the vision screening of children, these centres would also act as training of staffs and centres for prevention of blindness and enhancement of sight. she explained. Popoola also said that the programme will capture older children to be examined.

In her address, Omolewa Ahmed, the wife of Kwara State Governor has advocated enactmentof Law that will enforce all mothers to take their children to hospital for vision screening before enrollment in government schools.

The Governors wife who is Founder of Life Empowers Anchors Hope (LEAH) encouraged mothers to take their children to immunization centres and as well undergo vision screening as it is free of charge. Ahmed, who said the visit was embarked upon to influence immunization on children and vision screening, stated that all ministries in the state would be made to key into the programme for Kwara children to ensure preventable blindness.

Vision is important and we must ensure that out of negligence or ignorance our children are not exposed to blindness when we can take them for screening and get help, she said. She noted that some of these cases of blindness are avoidable, saying a child that is blind in young age will not havea qualitative life.

Ahmed also revealedthat recently over 200 blind citizens were empowere and N150,000 cheque was given to them each to help them in their trade. The Governors wife was shown the newly acquired vision screening equipment and how it operates.

See the original post:
Blindness: UITH examines 2500 children in kwara - BusinessDay ... - BusinessDay

This on-line color vision test consists of four cards from the popular color vision test "Color Vision Testing Made Easy". Try and find a circle, star, and/or a square on the Demonstration Card, Card # 1, and Card #2. Try and find a dog, boat, balloon or car on Card # 3. You only have 3 seconds to give the correct answer on each card.

Try to find a circle, star, and/or square on the Demonstration Card

Card # 1 - Try and find a circle, star, and/or square in 3 seconds.

Card # 2 - Try and find a circle, star, and/or square in 3 seconds.

Try and find a dog, boat, balloon, or car (as shown in the below demonstration card) on Card # 3.

Important Disclaimer: Due to the fact there are so many different monitor screens displaying different colors, the accuracy of this "on-line" version of "Color Vision Testing Made Easy" is limited. This webpage is for "screening" purposes only, not a "diagnosis". For a diagnosis, you should see your vision care professional and be given the complete test using all 14 plates of "Color Vision Testing Made Easy" under controlled testing conditions and the proper lighting. You can order the book "Color Vision Testing Made Easy" by clicking on the below picture. Please let the distributor know you were referred by Dr. Waggoner.

Click here if you want to continue testing for colorblindness by taking another popular color vision test like this one called the Pseudoisochromatic Plate Ishihara Compatible (PIPIC) Color Vision Test 24 Plate Edition. It uses numbers instead of objects.

Go here to see the original:
ColorVisionTesting | Colorblind

Date published: Friday 17th February 2017 10:45

Before wrapping up our series, I want to revisit an example from last week, for two reasons: 1) it shows the value of Expected Goals, and 2) it shows that even stats-conscious people (in this case, me) can miss the main point.

Last week we looked at the Crystal Palace Sunderland game, which finished 0-4, but 1.6 0.9 in expected goals. I noted that the xG totals were misleading, because Sunderland had scored several not-so-easy chances, then sat back and let Crystal Palace attack. What I should have added was that the xG were in one sense not misleading at all: they showed that Sunderland won big not by brilliant overall play, but by brilliant finishing. And as weve seen several times in this series, you cant rely on brilliant finishing to carry you for very long.

In other words, Sunderlands 0.9 xG tells us that as decisive as the victory was, it didnt change one of their underlying problems: the failure to create good chances. The next week against Southampton, one of the best defensive teams in the league, they wound up with a minuscule 0.2 xG and, unsurprisingly, no goals at all.

And now to wrap up, because the counter says F365 has let me spend over 10,000 words on football stats. But to say weve only scratched the surface is putting it very mildly. Football stats are a burgeoning field, and literally every day there are new ideas worth reading about. New measures are developed on a regular basis, many of which we havent even had the time to mention here. The one thing you can be sure of with football stats is that therell always be something more to learn.

Even better, many of the chief practitioners show and discuss their work publicly, and are more than willing to answer questions and share their thoughts. There are a number of excellent writers in the field, who can explain things far more complex than weve mentioned here, and write far more entertainingly doing it. There are also several good analytics podcasts, where you can hear intelligent people kick around interesting ideas, and have fun doing so.

Wheres the best place to go for football analytics? Surprisingly, its Twitter. Virtually all the experts have accounts remarking on current developments, and all provide links to the longer articles with the detailed analysis thats the meat of the subject. Here are links to some of the most prominent figures in the field, all of whom are worth reading on a daily basis:

Michael Caley, Paul Riley, Simon Gleave, Ted Knutson, James Yorke, Ben Pugsley, Mark Thompson, Mike L. Goodman, Thom Lawrence, Ben Mayhew, David Sumpter, Sander, and Dustin Ward.

Theres also a great site called Statsbomb which, although not as active as in the past, has an outstanding archive of articles. Its the site that first got me interested in analytics.

I assume anyone whos read this far has some interest in stats. But for all that they show us, we have to remember they dont have all the answers. Last year was a case in point: the stats kept saying that Leicester would fade. Around the middle of last season, having watched all the games to that point, and looked closely at the stats, I decided with self-important assurance that Spurs would win the title.

But it gets funnier. At a gathering of statisticians around the same time, somebody took an informal poll of about ten attendees on who would win the title. Going by Expected Goals and other numbers, half of them picked Arsenal.

So theres a condition which we can call statistical blindness. Stats people sometimes say Trust the numbers, not your eyes, but your eyes are there for a reason. Stats are an aid, sometimes an excellent aid, to understanding. They can tell you what to look for. But you still have to look, and you have to spot the things that stats cant reach.

To close, thanks to all the people who had kind things to say about this series. And thanks to those too who had less than kind things, because they remind you what really counts. Football is first, last, and always about love. I loved the game for almost fifty years before I even suspected there could be such a thing as football stats, and if all the numbers disappeared tomorrow, Id love it just as much. But for me, stats engage the mind in all sorts of fascinating ways. And when the mind and heart go together, theres a special kind of joy.

Peter Goldstein

Here is the original post:
'Statistical blindness', and importance of numbers - Football365.com

Spotting the illness that can cause sudden blindness - BBC News BBC News Every year in the UK, 3000 people's sight is damaged by a condition called giant cell arteritis. Dr Saleyah Ahsan explains what to look out for. and more »

See more here:
Spotting the illness that can cause sudden blindness - BBC News - BBC News

It was such a privilege to be part of the 2012 Paralympics and to witness what felt like a breakthrough at that time. Disability was no longer swept aside in subdued tones but talked about openly. Even celebrated! It was amazing to see the pride everyone had in the athletes and their incredible achievements.

Now, more than four years later, another amazing Paralympics has passed and both events have left a much improved legacy. But sadly, there remains an awkwardness surrounding disability. Especially, from my perspective, of visual impairment. I hope it's true that more people have now been encouraged to approach the person in a wheelchair. But my personal experience tells me that there is still a vast lack of understanding when it comes to blindness.

I have always been a passionate advocate of open discussion and the promotion of visual impairment awareness and this is clearly what John Hull has done with his remarkable film. I've seen and read much that tried to make visual impairment understood by the sighted world, but I have never found any to be as effective in humanising visual impairment as the BBC's Notes on Blindness.

The onset of my gradual sight loss began when I was five, bringing with it a huge range of emotions to deal with - along with people's reactions. I had to come to terms with my sight loss as I entered my teenage years. I do not appear visually impaired, and at times I have been treated as an imbecile, or a fraud.

So hearing John Hull explain, in his own words, the sensation of going blind and the internal battles that come with it was incredibly moving for me. As John lost his sight, so many of his stories and moments resonated deeply. I understood when he said "Every time I wake up, I lose my sight", describing how he had more sight in his dreams. I often find I wake feeling sure that in my dream I was fully sighted, like when I was a child. I was so pleased to hear it so eloquently described by John.

When John describes a strange incidence of meeting a faith healer, who told him that his sight was 'dependent on his will', this felt familiar too. It is one of the more extreme reactions to finding out someone is visually impaired, but actually far more common than you think. I myself have been 'healed' three times!

But this and more common suggestions like "Can't you just wear glasses?" remind me how important it is to keep pushing to create an awareness of visual impairment.

I was thrilled to see this insightful programme and feel the BBC have managed to create something that makes visual impairment relatable. I wish that, rather than making uninformed comments people would feel free to actually ask about the extent and nature of my condition and John Hull has helped to open that door.

It showed the daily practical battles we fight - which for John, was being unable to access books and data in an accessible format, and for me include being unable to drive to fetch a pint of milk, or the fact that reading takes me four times as long as my fully sighted counterparts. And it evocatively highlights how people of all ages can struggle with accepting their visual impairments.

Over a third of older people living with sight loss suffer with depression, which is an issue not often discussed or considered. And more than two million people in the UK live with sight loss. That's 1 in 30, and the figure is rising.

But I was pleased that the film also showed really positive things that many with disabilities will understand - like their relationships with family and friends. When an able-bodied person is married to a disabled person, it doesn't mean that they take the roles of 'carer' and 'patient'. It was incredibly refreshing to see the marriage between John and Marilyn as a partnership - often how it is in real life.

John completed his film with a simple quote, which I'd like to share to complete this blog "To gain our full humanity blind people and sighted people need each other."

*** Notes on Blindness will be on BBC Four, Thursday 16th February, 9pm. Notes on Blindness will be shown with a choice of viewing experiences for the visually impaired audience, available for the first time across BBC Four, Red Button and BBC iPlayer.

A version with enhanced sound will be available from 9pm tomorrow. Find out more about the versions here.

Excerpt from:
My Notes On Notes On Blindness - Huffington Post UK

Blogs | Feb. 15, 2017

Arizona Woman's Blindness Miraculously Cured Through St. Charbel

Within 48 hours after visiting the relics of St. Charbel, her eyesight was completely restored to 20/20 vision. The remarkable and sudden healing was confirmed later by several physicians.

The joy of a Phoenix parish is spreading along with thenews of 30-year-old parishioner Dafne's Gutierrez'scomplete cure of blindness.

The reported miracle of the wife and mother of three is bringing people from around the country to visit St. Joseph Maronite Catholic church in Phoenix, Arizona.

When she was just 13 years old in 1999, Dafne was officially diagnosed withthe medical condition, idiopathic intracranial hypertension (IIH). One effectof thiscondition can be anothercondition called papilledema, where the pressure in the brain is greatly increased. This pressure affectsthe optic nerves, which in some cases such as Dafne's eventuallyresults in complete blindness.

The various medications and treatments which were tried for Dafneall failed. In 2014 theeyesight in her left eye deteriorated dramatically. Her physicians tried two separate surgeries, installing different types of shunts in an attempt to drain and reduce the pressure in her brain, butthese too failed, leading to complete blindness in her left eye. Meanwhile the sight in her right eye was also deteriorating, and she was declared legally blind. She was soon in total darkness, saying in 2015 that she could look directly at the sun and not see any light whatsoever. She also experienced "vise-like" headaches, seizures, tinnitus (ringing in the ears), vomiting, and dizziness. Her doctors declared her blindness to be "permanent and medically irreversible."

Dafne's blindness left her unable to care for her three young children, which completely broke the young mothers heart. On January 7, 2016, "so as to not be an additional burden on her family", she was approved for admittance to a nursing home, because "she could not take care of herself or her children, due to her blindness and seizures", and was scheduled o be admitted soon. "What hurt me the most was not being able to see my children again," she said.

Around the sametime last January 2016, Dafne heard a Spanish radio news report that the first class relics of St. Charbel (or Sharbel) Makhlouf were on a pilgrimage honoring the Lebanese saint's 50th beatification anniversary, and were going to be coming to a nearby church St Joseph Maronite Catholic Church in Phoenix for the weekend of Jan. 16-17.

Neither Dafne or her family had ever heard of this saint. Yet interestingly, later that same day Dafne's sister-in-law called and told her she'd seen an announcement about the visit of the relics, and suggested Dafne and her husband go with her. So theblind mother of three was taken to visit the bone relics of miracle worker St. Charbel during a special veneration and healing service at St. Joseph Church.

Dafne prayed on the way to the church."Please God heal me if not for me, then do it for my kids!I'm tiredI'm tired of going to You praying and asking You to heal me...I am giving in. If You don't want to do it for me, then do it for my kids. That is the way I went in [to the Church] I'm giving in to You. Do it for my kids"

Once at the Church she prayed to God, and then to St. Charbel: "I don't know who you are, but please help me."

After Mass celebrated by parish priest Fr. Wissam Akiki, and the veneration of St. Charbel's relics, her sister-in-law helped her to the confessional. Fr. Akiki was told about her blindnessand blessed her with holy oil touched to the first-class relic of St. Charbel, praying specifically for her to be cured. "I put my hand on her head, then on both eyes, and I asked God to heal her through the intercession of St. Charbel. Fr. Wissam told her that he would be praying for her and that he believed her vision would be restored. Dafne said she "felt very strongly that someone was standing next to me on my right side." Afterwards the priestsaid to Dafne's daughter: "Don't worry, your mom will see again."

After the prayers and blessing with the relic, Dafne asked her sister-in-law, "Who was that standing next to me, on my right side?"Her sister-in-law said,"There was no one standing next to you other than Fr. Akiki." To this day, Dafne is not sure who was standing next to her at that moment, but is sure"someone" was there.

"From that moment" Dafne's stated "I started to feel different. I can't explain it but my body felt different". The next day, Sunday January 17th, 2016, she again went to St. Joseph Church for the 3:00 p.m.Mass and to once again venerate the relic of St. Charbel.

That same Sunday evening at 4:00 a.m. she suddenly awoke with her eyes burning. "They were like burning really burning," and her head hurt "like after an operation." She woke her husband upexclaiming that her eyeswere burning. He asked how that was possible since she had no sensation in her eyes. He then put his hands on her eyes and noticed they felt hot and he said, "They are vibrating and moving" and he also noticed a strong smell like "burning meat". Dafne then realized that she could actually see her husband very vaguely like a shadow. She shouted, "I can see you! I can see you with both of my eyes! I started crying... I wiped my eyes and then opened them again to see if I really could see, and I could."

"I could not believe it. I did not want to close my eyes, she stated afterwards in an interview. My children were shouting: Mom can see! God healed mom!

Within 48 hours (precisely three days after her weekend visit to venerate the relics) her sight was completely restored to 20/20 vision. The remarkable and sudden healing was confirmed that day by an ophthalmologist, and later by several other physicians.

In a statement, Doctor Anne Borik, D.O. stated:

Medically speaking, what is interesting and what captured my interest in this [case] is that you don't see resolution of vision in 48 hours from a long standing optic nerve problem such as Dafne had. My job as a medical physician is to try to find out how this happened medically. We discussed this case with a neuro-ophthalmologist, and also an outside consultant reviewed the entire case, and basically there is no [medical] explanation how Dafne Gutierrez's vision was one day completely blind, and then 48 hours later was restored to normal ...And so based on this information, we as a medical community in reviewing this case cannot explain this medically.

At the very least, the physicians felt that even if she had regained some of her eyesight, there should have been some permanent damage and vision loss in at least her left eye, for that eye had been affected for twoyears. It is expected that there should be at least some optic nerve damage, and that there is simply no medical explanation for a complete restoration of 20/20 vision in both eyes.

"Faith and confession" is what Dafne Gutierrez continues to repeat time and time again when asked about her healing. "I was desperate when I walked into St. Joseph Maronite Catholic Church. Ifelt like God never heard me before, but this time was different, just different. For me to be able to see and read the papers [medical reports] that say that I would never be able to see again...It is such a blessing!"

Exactly one monthafter Dafne's sight was restored,a special Mass of thanksgiving and blessing with the holy oil of St. Charbel took place at St. Joseph Church on February 18, 2016, and was presided by Bishop Abdallah EliasZaidan, Maronite Catholic bishop of Los Angeles, California.

Daffne spoke tothe crowd who had gathered to give thanks to God for her healing through the intercession of St. Charbel: "All the doctors have said: 'There is no explanation'.....God healed me."

In an interview on YouTube, she encouraged everyone: "I just want to keep on telling everybody; Don't lose faith. God does exist. Just have faith ... [go to] confession. Don't lose hope."

Sr Charbel Makhlouf (1828-1898) was a Maronite Catholic monk from Lebanon who died on Christmas Eve at age 73. He spent the last 23 years of his life in a rugged cabin in complete solitude, with poor heat and the bare necessities of life, and was known for his practice of penance and mortifications, eating very little and sleeping on the ground.

Three days after his death he was buried in the monastery cemetery, and for the next 45 nights his tomb was surrounded by a dazzlingly bright light. As the days passed this phenomenon was witnessed by an increasingly large number of local villagers who informed the religious Maronite monastery, none of whom could provide an explanation. Permission was sought from the ecclesiastical authorities for the monks body to be exhumed. Four months after his death permission was obtained, and upon the exhumation his body was found to be completely incorrupt, even thoughhe had been buried in the ground without a casket.Charbel was given fresh clothing before being placed in a wooden coffin in a corner of the monasterys private chapel.

Soon a strange liquid was found exuding continually from the casket, coming from the pores of his body. Described as a mixture of fluid and blood, it continually flowed from his remains day and night. Soon, a local custom began where pieces of cloth soaked in this fluid were soon being distributed as relics, and were being credited with effecting cures. To this day this custom of "holy oil" touched to the relics of St. Charbel used as a blessing is still a very common practice of the faithful, as was used in Dafne's healing.

Read the rest here:
Arizona Woman's Blindness Miraculously Cured Through St. Charbel - National Catholic Register (blog)

A child with nodding syndrome waits for treatment at an outreach site in Uganda's Pader district. Matthew Kielty for NPR hide caption

A child with nodding syndrome waits for treatment at an outreach site in Uganda's Pader district.

Scientists may have solved the mystery of nodding syndrome, a rare form of epilepsy that has disabled thousands of children in East Africa.

The syndrome seems to be caused by the immune system's response to a parasitic worm, an international team reports in the journal Science Translational Medicine. And they think it's the same worm responsible for river blindness, an eye infection that's also found in East Africa.

The finding means that current efforts to eliminate river blindness should also reduce nodding syndrome, says Avi Nath, an author of the study and chief of the section of infections of the nervous system at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

The adult form of the O. volvulus worm, which causes river blindness and may also be responsible for nodding syndrome. Courtesy of Dr. Thomas B. Nutman/NIAID/NIH hide caption

The adult form of the O. volvulus worm, which causes river blindness and may also be responsible for nodding syndrome.

"We can prevent new infections even if we can't treat the ones who already have nodding syndrome," Nath says. Drugs can kill the parasite in its early stages.

Nodding syndrome usually strikes children between 5 and 16 who live in rural areas of northern Uganda and South Sudan. Their bodies and brains stop growing. And they experience frequent seizures.

"These are kids, young kids, you would expect that they should be running around playing," says Nath, who visited Uganda several years ago. "Instead, if you go to these villages they are just sitting there in groups," so villagers can keep an eye on them.

The epileptic seizures weaken muscles in the head and neck. "So their heads tend to fall forward," Nath says. "And because that happens repeatedly as part of the seizure, it is termed nodding syndrome."

Researchers have struggled to find a cause for the syndrome since it was first documented in Tanzania in the 1960s. "We thought it might have to do with toxins, chemicals in the environment or nutritional deficiency," Nath says.

But the only clue that seemed to hold up was that affected children lived in areas where river blindness was common. This clue was puzzling, though, because even though nodding syndrome is a brain disease, the parasite that causes river blindness doesn't seem to infect the brain.

After returning from Uganda, Nath decided to search for an explanation.

"He pulled all of the lab together as a team and asked us to each investigate different components" of the syndrome, says Tory Johnson, an assistant professor of neurology at Johns Hopkins who was working for Nath at the time. She is also an author of the new study.

Johnson's assignment was to see whether the body's own immune system might play a role. So she began screening blood samples from people with nodding syndrome.

Other scientists had also looked for an immune response. But Johnson's search was much more extensive. "We looked at everything that was available," she says.

And eventually, she found something.

Nath remembers being in a meeting one day when Johnson appeared suddenly. "I saw her waving at me and I'm like, 'Okay, what happened?'" he says.

Johnson had discovered that in people with nodding syndrome, the immune system was targeting a protein found in certain muscle cells. It looked as if the body was attacking itself.

The question was whether the immune system's attack also included the brain. So Johnson started looking to see whether the targeted protein was in brain cells.

"And lo and behold she found that yes, it was not only present in the brain, there were actually large amounts of it present in neurons," Nath says. "So the story really came together very nicely."

The full story, the team's hypothesis, goes like this:

When a person is infected with the river blindness parasite, the immune system begins sending antibodies to attack the invader. These antibodies identify their enemy by looking for a specific protein in the parasite's cells.

Unfortunately, the target protein in the parasite looks a lot like a protein found in certain brain cells. So these brain cells become unintended casualties of the body's efforts to protect itself.

The discovery shows why it's important to treat children soon after they are infected with the parasite, Nath says. That might prevent an immune response that attacks the brain. And it would mean that the parasite can't be spread from person to person by black flies.

Because nodding syndrome appears to be the result of an immune response, Nath says, it may be possible to limit brain damage in some children by using drugs that tone down the immune system response.

The finding also raises the possibility that parasites, or other infections, are causing epilepsy in the U.S. and other countries, Nath says.

"We know there are a large number of immune-mediated epilepsies," Nath says. "But the underlying cause is not clear."

And there are plenty of parasitic infections in the U.S. Pinworms, for example, infect millions of children each year.

It's possible that some of these infections are leading to epilepsy, Johnson says. "We don't know because we haven't looked yet."

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Scientists May Have Solved The Mystery Of Nodding Syndrome - NPR

The first Central Superior Services (CSS) examination under revised syllabus was conducted earlier this year. Only 202 out of 9643 candidates qualified the written examination. These successful few will now undergo medical and psychological tests which are likely to cause further screening. In terms of percentage, the success rate in written examination shows a depressing 2.09. While the result puts the countrys education system in poor light, the purpose of this discourse is the want of a crucial yet missing aspect in revised curriculum of the CSS examination which is the National Maritime Sector.

For instance, the national maritime sector encompassing both, economic and military dimension and developments in the Asia-Pacific region are little known subjects across Pakistan. Had it not been for CPEC, the name Gawadar may not have found even a mention in the mainstream political discourse much less in electronic media. The country still does not have a maritime vision while the subject is all together missing from the manifestos of every major political party. Terms like CPEC, Gawadar, Arabian Sea, maritime security etc have frequently appeared in the print media over the past one year or so. Even then, a great percentage of public office holders would surely be found less than familiar with what sea or maritime commerce means for Pakistan.

Despite being a current issue of discussion in most world capitals, the geopolitical trends in the Asia-Pacific find only a fleeting reference in the syllabus of CSS (IR contemporary issues). There is no gainsaying that the region of Asia-Pacific has, and continues to fuel economic growth in larger Asia. It has precipitated a shift in the global economic centre of gravity from Atlantic to this region. The critical need to protect sea lines of communication and scamper to grab sea based resources through claims and counter claims over wider sea expanse has concurrently given rise to friction. It has drawn in more naval and maritime forces than at any other time in contemporary history. The US, China, India, Australia and Pakistan are all understandably concentrating their naval power and focusing strategies in the region.

A new era of geo-politics, cooperation and contest is underway in the region. This is manifest in flexing of naval muscle, expanding alliances and establishing a toehold in the Indian Ocean Islands in furtherance of strategic maritime interests. An ever expanding network of joint USN-IN operations in Indo-Pacific, operational integration of Arihant, Indias first nuclear submarine with Indian navy, establishment of first overseas military base by India in the Island of Seychelles, a New Delhis first tri-services command in Andaman-Nicobar Island are only some of the striking developments. These will have a definitive and cumulative impact in shaping the regions maritime security environment and larger world in future.

On November 14, the first Chinese cargo ship docked at Gawadar. A day earlier, the prime minister, accompanied by chief of the army staff and chief of the naval staff inaugurated the port of Gawadar. The inauguration marked the operationalisation and opening of commercial activities at the port. As CPEC matures, the national maritime security will increasingly define the economic fate of Pakistan. The success of CPEC will hinge on a fully functional port of Gawadar, the hub of all commercial activity. It will as much depend on safety and security provided to the maritime commerce of China, Pakistan and other countries travelling through sea lines of the Indian Ocean. Needless to mention, CPEC will add up to the predominant part of Pakistans trade already shipped through the sea.

The unraveling geo-politics and maritime security, the impact of maritime sector on Pakistans national economy as well as significance of Gawadar-CPEC are all too important issues to be ignored in any major prospective national decision making process. Yet like several other countries, Pakistan remains mired in what is termed as, sea blindness- also maritime blindness. It refers to a state where large segments of population are ignorant or unmindful of oceans and attendant matters. For reasons some of which are cited here, most of Asia is turning towards sea.

Both India and United States view CPEC as inimical to their strategic interests in the region. Wary of Chinas presence in the Indian Ocean, the US and India have already reached a momentous accord, the Logistic Sharing Agreement (LSA) which virtually amounts to war pact. The agreement will provide ease of operations and improve sustainability of the US navy. With CPEC advancing, China is also tipped to become a two ocean navy. It has already set a foothold in the Arabian Sea.

Adding to such developments is the change of guard in Washington. The newly elected US President Trump has already declared that Hindus and India will be Americas best friends. Just what the duo of two extreme right wing leaders in Trump-Modi could do to undermine Pakistans interests and security cannot be over-emphasised. Indias far-right ultra-nationalist Hindu Sena outfit is jubilant over the success of Mr. Trump. An emboldened government in New Delhi is meanwhile aggressively shifting to war mode with Pakistan.

Over the past two decades and as part of its corporate responsibility, Pakistan Navy has made concerted efforts to expand its national outreach. This has included consequential initiatives like moving Pakistan Navy War College from Karachi to Lahore, holding large-scale multinational naval exercises, increased interaction with academia, especially in Punjab, instituting joint seminars in collaboration with public sector universities etc. A revised National Maritime Policy and Strategy is understood to have been finalized by the Naval Headquarters/Ministry of Defence. The first Maritime Doctrine of Pakistan is also anticipated to be published in due course. The doctrine will provide an overarching view of Pakistans maritime sector, maritime security and peace/war time roles expected of Pakistan Navy.

Given the progressing developments and its importance for Pakistan, the present and future public office bearers owe a responsibility to the nation. They must ensure that maritime domain does not escape their attention. Its inclusion in the CSS examination syllabus and institution of appropriate module in the training at the civil services academy is an indispensable and urgent national need. It is time to adopt novel approach and inject new thinking in our national psyche that has for long remained land centric. It can gain considerable momentum if juvenile brains are prepared in time for what is going to be the real battle ground in twenty first century-the Indo-Pacific region. The verse of national poet Iqbal resonates fittingly:

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The CSS and Sea Blindness - Pakistan Today