Ho Jewelry

In a paper just published in the Lancet, with the provocative title “Secret science: tobacco industry research on smoking behaviour and cigarette toxicity”, David Hammond, of *Waterloo University in Canada and Neil Collishaw and Cynthia Callard, two members of Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada, a lobby group, criticise the behaviour of British American Tobacco (BAT). They say the firm considered manipulating some of its products in order to make them low-tar in the eyes of officialdom while they actually delivered high tar and nicotine levels to smokers.
It was and is no secret, as BAT points out, that people smoke low-tar cigarettes differently from high-tar ones. The reason is that they want a decent dose of the nicotine which tobacco smoke contains. They therefore pull a larger volume of air through the cigarette when they draw on a low-tar rather than a high-tar variety. The extra volume makes up for the lower concentration of the drug.
But a burning cigarette is a complex thing, and that extra volume has some unexpected consequences. In particular, a bigger draw is generally a faster draw. （3）That pulls a higher proportion of the air inhaled through the burning tobacco, rather than through the paper sides of the cigarette. This, in turn, means more smoke per unit volume, and thus more tar and nicotine. The nature of the nicotine may change, too, with more of it being in a form that is easy for the body to absorb.
Regardless of how this came about, the irony is that low-tar brands may have ended up causing more health problems than high-tar ones.[/color][/b] As one of BAT’s medical consultants put it as early as 1978, “Perhaps the most important determinant of the risk to health or to a particular aspect of health is the extent to which smoke is inhaled by smokers. If so, then deeply inhaled smoke from low-tar-delivery cigarettes might be more harmful than uninhaled smoke from high-tar cigarettes.” The firm, meanwhile, points out that the ISO test has been regarded as unreliable since 1967, and says its scientists have been part of a panel that is working on a new ISO standard.

eeping fit requires a combination of healthy eating and regular exercise. On the second of these at least, the world’s food companies can claim to be setting a good example: they have been working up quite a sweat in their attempts to fend off assaults by governments, consumer groups and lawyers who accuse them of peddling products that encourage obesity. This week saw the unveiling of another industry initiative: five leading food producers—Danone, Kellogg, Nestlé, Kraft and PepsiCo—introduced a labelling scheme for the British market which will show “guideline daily amounts” for calories, fats, sugar and salt on packaging. The new labels will start to appear on the firms’ crisps, chocolate bars, cheese slices *and the like over the next few months. A number of other food giants, such as Cadbury Schweppes and Masterfoods, have already started putting guideline labels on their products.
Nevertheless, the food companies argue that the traffic-light system is too simplistic and likely to scare people away from certain products that are fine if consumed in moderation, or in conjunction with plenty of exercise—which most observers, including the medical profession, agree is crucial for anyone wanting to stay in shape. They also point out that they have competitors to worry about—namely the big supermarket chains with their own-label products. Last April, Tesco, the biggest of these, announced that it was rejecting the traffic-light system in favour of a less stark “signposting” approach. Its rivals fear that adopting colour-coding could put them at a competitive disadvantage.
Better labelling has become an important weapon of the food giants’ armoury as they fight back against their critics. In October 2005 McDonald’s, the world’s largest fast-food company, said it would start printing nutritional facts on the packaging of its burgers and fries, including the fat, salt, calorie and carbohydrate content. Before that, information about big-sellers such as the Big Mac, which contains 30g of fat, could only be found on the firm’s website or in leaflets.
But labelling is not enough; the food firms know they must also offer healthier fare. McDonald’s has introduced salads and fruit to its menus. Kraft and others have brought out low-carbohydrate ranges. Last year, McDonald’s even announced a sporty makeover for Ronald McDonald, its mascot clown, in a bid to encourage children to be more active. But some in the industry suspect that consumers are keener on seeing lighter, healthier meals on the menu than they are on actually buying and eating them; such products are not what the industry calls “business builders”. That said, some of Nestlé’s more nutritional products, like its PowerBar range for athletes, enjoy higher margins and growth than its traditional fare.

At the end of last week, Bodega Aurrerá, a Mexican subsidiary of the world’s biggest retailer, Wal-Mart, opened a new store in the village of San Juan Teotihuacán, just north of Mexico City. Normally, such an event would cause little stir. Wal-Mart is already Mexico’s biggest retailer too. And its shops seem to go down very well with its millions of bargain-hungry customers. But this particular opening was, in fact, the culmination of months of protests, legal actions, hunger strikes and hyperbole by those determined to stop it.
The reason is the location. Just 2.5km (1.6 miles) away is the ancient city of Teotihuacán, probably Mexico’s most famous archaeological site. Amongst other attractions, it boasts the third-largest (by volume) pyramid in the world. For many Mexicans, the ancient site, abandoned by its mysterious inhabitants centuries before the Spanish conquerors arrived, remains the ultimate symbol of Mexican identity and nationhood. Thousands troop up to the top of the Pyramid of the Sun to celebrate the summer solstice.
To them, the idea of having a Wal-Mart next door is abhorrent. In the words of Homero Aridjis, a writer and one of the leading opponents, “it is like driving the stake of globalisation into the heart of old Mexico.” The controversy is only the latest in a string of protesters’ attempts to save Mexican culture from what they see as a creeping menace. They won a famous victory by blocking a McDonalds restaurant from opening in the main square of the pretty southern colonial town of Oaxaca.
But this time they were on much thinner ground. For a start, Wal-Mart went through all the appropriate regulatory hoops, even getting permission from the Paris-based International Council on Monuments and Sites, which judged that the store would cause no harm to the nearby ruins. A small stone platform was indeed found during construction of the new car park, but was preserved.
Just as importantly, the claim that the new store spoils the famous view from the top of the Pyramid of the Sun is clearly bogus, as anyone who cares to get to the top can testify. The problem is not so much that you can see the Wal-Mart, but one of trying to distinguish it from the 30-odd other ugly, squat buildings that litter the surrounding countryside–to say nothing of the car parks, the electricity pylons and the large power station. Sadly, unrestricted building long ago ruined this particular view, as well as many others in Mexico.
To the diehards, the issue counts more than the view. But neither mattered much to the hundreds of locals who queued up for the opening, delighted to be freed of the small and expensive local shops. Despite a legal case pending against Wal-Mart and local officials, brought by an irate local left-wing politician, this is one battle that the American retailer has probably won.

Brain drain is a delicate problem with which our country is confronted. In the last ten years or so, a lot of scientists and technicians have swarmed into developed countries for further studies or research work, let alone numerous promising students. And there are no indications that they will be back home before long. Our country has paid the expenses of training them but lost them. How did that come about?
It is self-evident that their delay of coming back is due to those favorable working and living conditions which are essential to research work. Sophisticated equipment makes it easier for one to gain academic achievements. Our competent scientists abroad are offered higher rewards and greater opportunities which contribute to their success in career.
It seems that it isn’t impossible to solve the problem and attract the scientists and the like back home so long as great importance is attached to the intellectual’s deserving treatment and effective measures are taken to provide them with excellent pay and agreeable conditions.

The prevalence of fake commodities has been a big problem in our society. Almost every day in newspapers carry articles pertaining to fake commodities. Although measures have been implemented to deal with this problem, it still remains a serious threat.
Fake goods are harmful on many levels. People sell fake commodities to make a quick profit which undermines the economy and fake goods can also be dangerous to one’s health. The effect is a general mistrust among consumers toward sellers and the free market in general. In addition, many fake commodities have been exported overseas which has resulted in a poor reputation for goods coming out of China and has had a negative influence on exports.
There are several ways to address this problem. Laws and regulations should be implemented/make/work out to ban the manufacturing and distribution of fake goods. At the same time, consumers should be educated to/enhance the awareness of identify these fake goods. With tough laws and an educated public, fake goods will become a thing of the past.

Tanna Oldfield’s software company needed to establish rapport between some new hires and the firm’s old guard. She says the company, which is based in Austin, Texas, wanted to do something different–to “step out of the box.” So she asked her employees to step out of a plane. At 14,000 feet. Oldfield says the sky-high bonding exercise left the workers “exhilarated” and “more confident” in just one day. “If they could conquer fears about sky diving,” she says, “they could overcome work issues.”
Even in a climate of corporate cost-cutting, Oldfield’s company (she prefers that it remain unidentified) and many other New Economy survivors continue to invest money in training sessions that do not involve blackboards, computers or conference rooms. Instead, they send their employees on increasingly elaborate, and even risky, “team-building” trips. From white-water rafting to caving and rock climbing, corporate trainers are raising the difficulty level on challenges for the cubicle set.
Hard times may even persuade some companies to loosen their purse strings. Diane Katz, who has a doctoral degree in conflict resolution, says half the clients who go on her year-old Working Circle team-building exercises in Arizona are there because bosses want to reward them for good work. “People need to let off steam in harder times,” says Katz, who uses horse whisperers–who claim to speak to the animals, a practice popularized by Robert Redford’s movie “The Horse Whisperer”–as facilitators on singing trail rides in the Sonoran desert (the people sing, not the horses).
After an office shake-up, Elizabeth Burg, a project coordinator for Visa U.S.A. in Foster City., Calif., staged a regatta to help employees learn how to work together in a new environment. A corporate training firm, Adventure Associates of El Cerrito, Calif., taught boating basics to Burg and 20 landlubber co-workers and then set them loose on 34-foot sailboats for a race on San Francisco Bay (with a professional skipper aboard each yacht, just in case). “As adults, we don’t usually get to play in areas where we’re not experts,” Burg says. “People cooperated and interacted differently.”
After a reorganization last fall, DMR, a New Jersey-based telecommunications consulting firm, flew more than 100 employees of various ages to the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia for a four-and-a-half-day program run by the Outdoor Wilderness Leadership School. “I expected a total disaster,” recalls John Tedesco, a fiftysomething sales executive. But after dangling 90 feet above the ground in a rope harness on a granite rock face, Tedesco learned to rely on much younger colleagues. “You’re taking risks you usually don’t deal with, and suddenly your co-workers are helping you,” he recalls. “Nothing has been the same since.” That’s because rugged outdoor challenges can topple rigid office hierarchies and encourage the sort of camaraderie often missing from traditional off-site work events. “You see people in a different light,” says Tedesco. And when the most junior employee turns out to be more wilderness-savvy than the CEO, everyone relaxes–except possibly the CEO.