Epilepsy Care Group Singapore Awareness Association: Dietary supplement may help to prevent seizures

Researchers found that a dietary supplement called glucosamine helped to reduce neural excitability in rodents.

A new study reveals how a dietary supplement could be used to reduce excitability in brain cells " a known trigger of seizures " opening the door to possible new treatments for epilepsy.

Researchers speculated that reductions in a protein modification called O-GlcNAcylation in the brain cells of rats and mice might lead to neural excitability, which is a known trigger of seizures.

In the new study, increasing levels of this protein with glucosamine " which is a supplement used to help reduce pain in osteoarthritis, among other conditions " was found to reduce neural excitability in rodents.

The findings not only help to shed light on the processes behind neural excitability, but they may also have identified a new treatment target for epilepsy.

Study co-author Prof. John Chatham, of the Department of Pathology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and colleagues recently reported their findings in The Journal of Neuroscience.

Epilepsy is a neurological disorder that is estimated to affect around 3 million adults and 470,000 children in the United States.

The condition is characterized by unpredictable, recurrent seizures, which can occur when brain cells become hyperactive. This may cause surges of electrical activity that disrupt signaling between brain cells.

In a previous study, Prof. Chatham and team found that increases in protein O-GlcNAcylation are associated with a reduction in the strength of synapses in the hippocampus of the brain. Synapses are structures that allow neurons to transmit signals to each other.

The team notes that neural excitability in the hippocampus " or the learning and memory region of the brain " is often implicated in people with epilepsy.

Given their previous findings, the researchers hypothesized that increasing O-GlcNAcylation levels could help to reduce neural excitability, thereby preventing seizures.

Tokyo MK Taxi: De voordelen van het reizen

Reizen is geweldig op verschillende manieren. Het kan een gevoel van vervulling, de vreugde, de groei en de ervaring toevoegen aan iemands leven. Onderzoekers staat dat reizen zeer gunstig voor uw fysieke, mentale en emotionele gezondheid als goed is. Dus pak uw koffers en afbreken van uw normale routine omdat hier zijn een aantal prachtige voordelen van reizen:

Reizen kun je eigenlijk gezonder.

Wanneer u reist, blootgesteld u zelf aan een andere omgeving waardoor sterker antilichamen en helpt verhoogt uw immuunsysteem aanzienlijk. Bovendien, studies vastgesteld dat mensen die ten minste twee keer per jaar reizen een lager risico tonen van lijden aan een hartaanval dan degenen die dat niet doen neem een jaarlijkse vakantie.

Reizen kan verlichten uw stress.

Hoewel geconfronteerd met vertragingen of verlies van bagage in een buitenlandse luchthaven zeker iemands angst stimuleren kan, is het wetenschappelijk bewezen dat reizen kan stress niveaus lager, verhogen van uw geluk en uw depressie verminderen. En deze voordelen de neiging naar de laatste weken na afloop van de reis.

Het is het beste om te kiezen voor een chauffeur service zodra uw vlucht geland om te voorkomen dat de stress van zich het ongerust maken hoe om uw verdere bestemmingen te bereiken. Daarom is het belangrijk om vooruit te plannen niet alleen uw vlucht en accommodatie maar ook een betrouwbaar vervoermiddel om u duidelijk te maken waar u wilt zijn. Met de hulp van Tokyo MK Taxi zul een taxi en chauffeur dienstverlenend weg te nemen, globaal bedrijf nooit je ongerust maken over het bereiken van uw bestemmingen op tijd, met stijl en comfort.

Reizen kan verbeteren van iemands creativiteit.

Studies zeggen dat reizen in een vreemde plaats kan ook u meer creatief. Adam Galinsky, een professor aan de Columbia Business School die studies dat de relatie tussen creativiteit en internationale reizen verklaarde dat buitenlandse ervaringen vergroten zowel cognitieve flexibiliteit, diepte en integratie van gedachte, het vermogen om diepe verbindingen tussen verschillende vormen te maken. De nieuwe taal, smaken, sensaties, geluiden, geuren en milieu sparks verschillende synapsen in de hersenen waardoor de geest te revitaliseren en meer creatief.

Reizen kan opvoeren, geluk en tevredenheid

Reizen is een ideale bron van geluk voor elke één van ons. In een studie komt de impuls in opwinding en geluk van eenvoudige daden van de planning van de vakantie, de verpakking van uw outfits en de planning van uw route. Al deze eenvoudige dingen kunnen positieve invloed op iemands welzijn.

Als u wenst te reizen met comfort en stijl, kan kiezen voor Tokio MK groot voor u werken. Tokyo MK Taxi functies Lexus groep liefhebbers high-class sedans - Lexus LS600hL en Lexus LS460. Van luxe auto's zoals Mercedes Benz S500L naar Toyota Crown Royal Saloon is er een auto aan uw verschillende behoeften.

Galveston Capital Tourism and Marketing - Jakarta’s Old Town to Host 2017 Asean Literary Festival

Jakarta. Jakarta's Old Town, or Kota Tua, is set to host the 2017 Asean Literary Festival on August 3-6. The festival will be attended by writers, scholars and artists from over 20 countries.

This year is the fourth anniversary of the festival and coincides with the 50th anniversary of the Association of South East Asian Nation, or Asean.

One of the founders and the program director of the festival, Okky Madasari, said ALF will carry the theme of "Beyond Imagination" this year, with a goal to make culture and literature a central part of life in Asean member countries.

"We are one big community," Okky said on Sunday (11/06), adding that the festival also focuses on introducing the achievements of Asean writers to global audience.

"This is an important role for ALF. Only literature and culture can create a true bond between us. Relying only on economic and political partnerships will leave 'Asean community' as a mere slogan, an empty rhetoric," she said.

This year, the ALF is fully supported by the Indonesian Education and Culture Ministry, Tourism Ministry and Foreign Ministry.

As it does every year, ALF has a series of warm-up events in store, among them "Sastra Masuk Kampung" (Literature Goes to Kampung), a residency program to introduce literature to local communities. This year they will also have a national jamboree of literature.

Discussions — arguably the highlight of the festival — will be centered on the topics of freedom of expression amid increasing radicalism and the constant threat of terrorism, and the central role social media plays in everyday life.

The festival will also feature art performances, culinary workshops and a book fair.

The Tourism Ministry’s marketing development deputy, Esthy Reko Astuti, praised the festival, saying it would be an interesting event for Kota Tua and a marquee event for Indonesia's literary community.

"ALF has shown literature adds many different colors to people's perception of Indonesia," Esthy said last Friday.

"Literature encourages people to exchange ideas and thoughts," she added.

Tourism Minister Arief Yahya had announced Kota Tua as one of ten priority tourist destinations in Indonesia along with Lake Toba in North Sumatra, Tanjung Kelayang in Belitung, Tanjung Lesung in Banten, Borobudur Temple in Central Java, the Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park in East Java, Mandalika in Lombok, Labuan Bajo in East Nusa Tenggara, Wakatobi in Southeast Sulawesi and Morotai in North Maluku.

Galveston Capital Tourism: Indonesia to promote golf tourism in Japan

The Tourism Ministry is set to hold the 2017 Indonesia Golf Sales Mission event in Katori city, northern Chiba Prefecture, Japan, on June 8.

This event is part of the ministry’s effort to achieve this year’s target of welcoming 762,000 Japanese tourists to Indonesia.

“Four sellers are set to participate in this event, namely Bali Fantastic, Riverside Golf Club, Multi Holiday and the Garuda Indonesia [branch] in Tokyo. They are at the frontlines in selling golf travel packages to 50 buyers consisting of travel agents, golf communities and associations in Katori,” said I Gde Pitana, the ministry's deputy for overseas promotion.

The event, supported by the Indonesian Embassy in Japan, Visit Indonesia Tourism Office (VITO) Japan and the Indonesian Golf Course Owners Association (APLGI), will be held at the Narita no Mori Country Club.

The ministry's deputy assistant for Asia Pacific tourism promotion, Vinsensius Jemadu, said the sales mission will promote Indonesia's 10 priority destinations of Lake Toba, Tanjung Kelayang, Tanjung Lesung, Thousand Islands, Borobudur temple, Bromo - Tengger - Semeru, Mandalika, Wakatobi, Labuan Bajo and Morotai.

“A number of foreign and local investors are invited to develop these destinations. But apart from them, the historic relations between Japan and Indonesia have resulted in plenty of Japanese caves located across the archipelago. The tight relationship between the two countries was also evidenced during Japan’s fifth anniversary [event] of the tsunami disaster a few months ago at the Aceh Tsunami Museum,” said Vinsensius.

Heimdal Online Security: 17 Online Shopping Security Tips to Protect Your Money

Would you like some online shopping security tips to keep your purchase secure?

The times when you had to go to the shop to buy every little thing are long gone. Now, we simply go online, find what we need, compare prices and we buy! It couldn’t have been easier than this.

In case we are not sure about a product or a website, we address our question online and we find user reviews, independent and expert testing sites. It’s so easy. Even more, it doesn’t take longer than 2 or 3 days to receive a package, even from another part of the world. You name it, they deliver it fast!

But the net is dark and full of terrors!

We have financial and data stealing malware, we have faceless online criminals from any possible part of the world and countless spam phishing campaigns.

So, how do we secure our online shopping? As Brian Krebs noticed:

"Retail is an industry that has traditionally been focused on physical security, not cyber security.

Specialists in online shopping analyzed the present tendency in the market and noticed we are dealing with a growing industry:

If we take a look at just a few online shopping stats, we definitely understand why online criminals may become interested:

• Consumers ages 25 to 34 lead the way in smartphone usage in-store, comparing prices, reading reviews, buying products, etc.
• Seventy-two percent of Millennials research and shop their options online before going to a store.
• Nearly 50 percent of Millennials say they regularly browse for items that they don’t necessarily plan on buying.
• Two-thirds of Americans 50-plus buy from e-retailers online.
• Overall, satisfaction with online shopping is high, at 83 percent.

So, how do we protect our online shopping?

Here are the security tips you can follow to secure your online shopping:

Best 17 online shopping security tips

1. Make sure you’re buying from a real website

Check for signs of certification like third-party seals of approval:

It is important to check the website, because hackers can use fake or infected domains to redirect your traffic and steal your financial information. Though the website may appear real, don’t forget to check the URL.

To avoid any unpleasant surprise, always purchase from well known websites. For example, if you look for a major retail outlet that sells like anything (Amazon, Target or Best Buy), use their online stores.

To quote Neil Rubenking:

"It’s ridiculously easy to create a phishing website, a fraud that looks just like a real shopping or banking site.

2. Access secure websites that protect your information

If you want to purchase from a website, make sure it is one that contains SSL (secure sockets layer) encryption installed.

To know this, the site should start with HTTPS:// and you should notice the lock symbol, which is in the address bar at the top.

To access secure websites, we recommend a useful browser extension like HTTPS Everywhere that encrypts connection to major sites and increases your information security.

3. Location is everything. Where do you purchase from?

Don’t purchase from unknown or public networks. If you still want to buy online from an unsafe network, at least follow some protection steps.

We recommend running a financial transaction from your home network, which is not that easy to access by cyber-criminals. Nevertheless, protection measures still need to be followed.

4. Update your system and your browser

Keep your system and your vulnerable applications up-to-date with the latest security updates and patches available.

Online criminals always try to use security holes in popular – but vulnerable – software from our systems, from Java, Adobe Flash to most popular browsers like Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer.

To make it easy, just use a free tool that makes sure you have all the latest security patches installed, fast and without interrupting your work.

5. Check your bank account

You don’t have to wait for the end of the month to know how much you spent. Check your credit or debit card to know where you are in terms of spending. At the same time, discover any potential fraudulent charges and keep the bank phone number close by.

6. Use antivirus protection for your PC

Though it may not be enough, it is still good to have. To choose a good reliable antivirus product, check the independent testing sites and the expert reviews. You should be able to find a big name there to keep your data safe.

7. Bulletproof your system against cybercriminals

Though you have antivirus protection for common viruses and privacy breaches, against the criminal masterminds you need the best tools available.

For this reason, a software that protects your financial information from data stealing malware includes:

a real-time Internet traffic scanner that looks for malicious software activities

a malware removal to catch and delete any infection

an online scanning engine that detects malicious code inserted into legitimate websites

Since they target your financial data, by launching “zero-day” attacks and phishing campaigns, you need an advanced technology that is specially designed for these threats.

8. Get a credentials manager for your passwords

It has become obvious that we register for so many online accounts, that we lose track of our passwords.

Most people address this issue either by using one general password for most online accounts, or by letting the web browser remember the various passwords that were set.

None of these methods will do any good, especially when hackers hope you’ll make these mistakes.

The best solution is to use a password manager, like LastPass.

But nothing is better than learning all the necessary details to become a credentials expert!

9. Don’t fall for their tricks

Security products do a great job at keeping you safe from most online dangers and a lot of time is spent developing and improving these solutions.

But they can’t keep you safe from yourself.

To stay safe online, you need to educate yourself on cybersecurity and follow a set of common sense rules on the things one can and can’t do online.

To give you a few examples, we need to say that you just can’t go online clicking any link and accessing any suspicious content, download any program that you see and start posting personal information on every social media platform.

At the same time, you need to protect your transactions from fraud and online scams. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

10. Educate your children on Internet safety

Where are you keeping your credit cards and your financial information? Did you teach your children about online dangers? Do they know what they should do and what they shouldn’t?

Talk to them so they may understand our actions have real consequences and outside the familiar home, there is little protection.

11. Do not purchase from spam or phishing e-mails

The statistics report on spam from Kaspersky, that analyzes spam e-mail, phishing attempts and malicious attachments, indicates the spam campaigns affect the user in 3 main ways:

• steal private data from computers
• make computer part of a botnet
• installs malicious software

We all receive these e-mails. We mark them as spam and they keep coming. It’s not difficult to recognize them, they all display incredible low prices for all sort of things and they urge you to take an immediate action.

To increase their chances of success, cybercriminals employ these e-mails in social engineering schemes and spear phishing attacks that mask the real sender and simulate a banking or official authority.

Combining financial information theft and private data retrieved in such operations, cybercriminals launch identity theft attacks, which once successful, it is quite difficult to report and stop.

As Lee Munson pointed out:

Never click on links in emails that offer amazing deals unless you are sure they come from a reputable company.

12. Keep a record of your transactions

If you are a frequent online shopper, it may be difficult to remember where and when you bought something. It is even more difficult to track your spending habits.

So, write it down: what you bought, when and from what website.

Compare your spending details with the banking records from your online banking account in case you have a doubt about a certain purchase.

13. Send sensitive or private data over encrypted channels

First, you should not provide this type of information to unknown sites or reply to spam e-mails, messages, applications or social media requests.

If you really need to send them over the Internet, make sure you use some encryption methods.

You can archive and password-protect your file before sending it. You can also use some encrypted channels before you send private data, like a proxy server or a Virtual Private Network.

We recommend that you use a VPN software, such as CyberGhost, to encrypt your traffic and hide your valuable information from hackers or unprotected public networks.

14. Don’t just throw to thrash bills or transactions papers

You ordered online and you got the package, but you also received some receipt for your purchase. Don’t just throw immediately the paper, you may need it later to confirm the purchase.

If you want to throw it away, make sure you destroy it totally, so that any possible identity thief won’t be able to find any little information about you.

15. Block your smartphone

These days, everybody keeps the personal and important data on the mobile phone. The device has lost its initial function to contact people and is now used to take photos and connect mostly on social media accounts. Which is not a really bad thing.

But, without realizing, we also store important data on these devices, which we carry everywhere. And this is what makes us vulnerable.

Before you travel in a less familiar place, just think before if you really need all those apps on the phone.

For example, do you really need the Dropbox app on the device, since that is the location where we all put lately the personal files, like photos, documents and numbers?

16. Buy from a mobile device, not from PC

Are you buying from a major retailer, like Amazon or Walmart? Well, now all of them have dedicated mobile apps. This means that hackers need to create specific attacks for specific apps, which is more difficult than launching attacks on system browsers.

For this reason, mobile app are less vulnerable to cybercriminals’ attacks and you should use them, if you have the option.

17. Use a credit card, not a debit card

They may look the same, but in case something goes wrong, like an online criminal attack that accessed your money or a shop that blocked your account, you have greater protection from the bank if you’re using a credit card.

Banks consider some of the credit cards money as their money and they act to protect them fast. At the same time, it is more useful to have a credit card while travelling, just in case you need a large sum of money fast.

Conclusion

The online environment is by definition a place where we are free to access and disseminate information, free of charge and most of the times free of any censorship or regulations.

But does this make the Internet a safer place? We all know the answer to this question.

If it’s true that no one can guarantee total freedom in the online sphere, the same is valid for security and privacy.

So, how do you shop online keeping yourself free of phishing attempts, data breaches or identity theft operations? Do you have other solutions?

Frank Owens Limited Home Building Industry

Summary

Over 25 years as an executive recruiter for the Home Building Industry.

Specialties: A Retained Executive Search Firm for the Home Building Industry.

Experience

Owner

Frank Owens LTD

January 1985 – Present (31 years 8 months)

Executive Search firm founded in 1985 at a time when the Home Building Industry was entering a decline from it’s heydays of the late seventies and early eighties. Armed with over 10 years of relationship-building experience with senior level managers in the Home Building Industry and knowledge of the cyclical nature and market dynamics of the sector, Frank acted on advice of friends in the real estate community to start Frank Owens Ltd.

Twenty years later, Frank’s 1985 theory that industry consolidation and securitization of the mortgage portifolios would combine to be a driving force in the country’s economic growth has proven true.

On the heels of the success of his search firm comes THE FRANK REPORTS, a compilation of housing permit activity for over 110 MSAs from 1960- 2008. This one-of-a-kind document is available along with other housing related reports at www.thefrankreports.com

Singapore Trip Day 1 - Transportation Guide To Singapore by Bacall Associates

Singapore is my second out of the country trip early last year.  This prosperous city-state is so well known because of many Filipinos working here, mostly in tourism and IT industry.  This became memorable for me because of the misadventures we had during planning and the trip itself.  Nonetheless, Singapore is worth visiting I'd love to come back.

What You Need To Know:

• Singapore is one of the 25 countries Filipinos (with Philippine passport) can visit without a visa. The tourist visa is good for 30 days.
• Immigration officers in the Philippines are pretty strict to Filipinos going here. A lot of Filipinos visit Singapore as a tourist but they never came back instead start working there. Most often than not, they process the working permit in Singapore once they got the job.  I hope you already read my Hong Kong series because I already stated the things you need to show to an immigration officer.  But just to refresh, make sure you show you’re:

1. Fully filled and signed departure / embarkation card
2. Philippine passport
3. Itinerary Flight Details - make sure that you have a flight going back to the Philippines
4. Hotel/Hostel booking
5. Company ID - if you are employed it is best to show your company i.d. to ensure the officer you will come back again. Be confident. Officers might ask a lot.
6. Government ID and/or other supporting documents for self-employed and students.

• Singapore is a multicultural country comprises of Singaporeans, Indians, Malays, and a home to blue collar workers coming from Philippines, Indonesia, and Bangladesh. English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil are four official language in Singapore. The influence of Chinese and Malay language is apparent in their informal English they called Singlish.
• Money in Singapore is in Singapore Dollars (SGD). 1 SGD = 34-35PHP as of writing.