Global Digital Store – Ebooks and Softwares

Tag: Designs

  • Global leaders unite to ensure everyone everywhere can access new vaccines, tests and treatments for COVID-19

    Global leaders unite to ensure everyone everywhere can access new vaccines, tests and treatments for COVID-19

    Heads of state and global health leaders today made an unprecedented commitment to work together to accelerate the development and production of new vaccines, tests and treatments for COVID-19 and assure equitable access worldwide.

    The COVID-19 pandemic has already affected more than 2.4 million people, killing over 160,000. It is taking a huge toll on families, societies, health systems and economies around the world, and for as long as this virus threatens any country, the entire world is at risk. 

    There is an urgent need, therefore, while following existing measures to keep people physically distanced and to test and track all contacts of people who test positive, for innovative COVID-19 vaccines, diagnostics and treatments.

    “We will only halt COVID-19 through solidarity,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. “Countries, health partners, manufacturers, and the private sector must act together and ensure that the fruits of science and research can benefit everybody.”

    Work has already started. Since January, WHO has been working with researchers from hundreds of institutions to develop and test vaccines, standardize assays and standardize regulatory approaches on innovative trial designs and define criteria to prioritize vaccine candidates.  The Organization has prequalified diagnostics that are being used all over the world, and more are in the pipeline. And it is coordinating a global trial to assess the safety and efficacy of four therapeutics against COVID-19.

    The challenge is to speed up and harmonize processes to ensure that once products are deemed safe and effective, they can be brought to the billions of people in the world who need them. Past experience, in the early days of HIV treatment, for example, and in the deployment of vaccines against the H1N1 outbreak in 2009, shows that even when tools are available, they have not been equally available to all.

    So today leaders came together at a virtual event, co-hosted by the World Health Organization, the President of France, the President of the European Commission, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The event was joined by the UN Secretary General, the AU Commission Chairperson, the G20 President, heads of state of France, South Africa, Germany, Vietnam, Costa Rica, Italy, Rwanda, Norway, Spain, Malaysia and the UK (represented by the First Secretary of State).

    Health leaders from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), GAVI-the Vaccine Alliance, the Global Fund, UNITAID, the Wellcome Trust, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement (IFRC), the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers (IFPMA), the Developing Countries Vaccine Manufacturers’ Network (DCVMN), and the International Generic and Biosimilar Medicines Association (IGBA) committed to come together, guided by a common vision of a planet protected from human suffering and the devastating social and economic consequences of COVID-19, to launch this groundbreaking collaboration. They are joined by two Special Envoys:  Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Gavi Board Chair and Sir Andrew Witty, former CEO of GlaxoSmithKline.

    They pledged to work towards equitable global access based on an unprecedented level of partnership. They agreed to create a strong unified voice, to build on past experience and to be accountable to the world, to communities and to one another.

    “Our shared commitment is to ensure all people have access to all the tools to prevent, detect, treat and defeat COVID-19,” said Dr Tedros. “No country and no organization can do this alone. The Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator brings together the combined power of several organizations to work with speed and scale.”

    Health leaders called on the global community and political leaders to support this landmark collaboration and for donors to provide the necessary resources to accelerate achievement of its objectives, capitalizing on the opportunity provided by a forthcoming pledging initiative that starts on 4 May 2020. This initiative, spearheaded by the European Union, aims to mobilize the significant resources needed to accelerate the work towards protecting the world from COVID-19.

     

    Global leaders unite to ensure everyone everywhere can access new vaccines, tests and treatments for COVID-19
    Read More
    https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/24-04-2020-global-leaders-unite-to-ensure-everyone-everywhere-can-access-new-vaccines-tests-and-treatments-for-covid-19

    Views: 0

  • Assuaging Plight Of The Poor In This Perilous Time By Okechukwu Nwanguma

    Assuaging Plight Of The Poor In This Perilous Time By Okechukwu Nwanguma

    Assuaging Plight Of The Poor In This Perilous Time By Okechukwu Nwanguma 1

    Assuaging Plight Of The Poor In This Perilous Time By Okechukwu Nwanguma 2

    Google


    Rule of Law and Accountability Advocacy Centre has been monitoring and receiving information on public compliance with the Federal Government ordered lockdown in Abuja, Lagos and Ogun states, which contain measures to contain the ravaging Covid-19 pandemic.

    Our monitoring of the compliance with the lockdown and stay-at-home orders in Lagos, Abuja and few other states indicate that most people are finding it difficult to effectively comply for various reasons. 

    First, there are those, who still don’t believe that Covid-19 is a real life-threatening pandemic and that precautionary measures such as social distancing, personal hygiene and other outlined measures can prevent its infection and spread. 

    In fact some have been made to believe that the lockdown is a deception by government to achieve other ulterior motives. Those, who promote this narrative are mainly the apocalyptic Pentecostal ‘Men of God’, who push arguments linking Covid-19 to 5G mobile technology, which they argue is a part of the biblically ordained designs of the Anti-Christ.

    Second, some Nigerians are simply lawless or lack discipline, just like when passengers are asked to switch off their phones prior to flight take off and you still find some people, seemingly ladies and gentlemen, fiddling with their phones.

    To illustrate, a relative of mine called me yesterday to complain that he was arrested by the police somewhere in Lagos when he drove out to buy pap for his baby. I asked him whether he knew about the lockdown order and whether there was nowhere around his neighbourhood he could walk down to buy the pap. He said ‘but other vehicles are on the road’. I told him that he had broken the law as much as those other people. Everybody may not be arrested at once.

    He wanted me to talk to the police officers, who arrested him and ordered him to drive to their station. I asked him what he wanted me to tell them.

    Third, and most significantly, there are yet others, who are forced out of their homes by want and hunger. They can’t stand the site of their tender children crying for hunger.

    As I said elsewhere, majority of the population fall within the poor and vulnerable category. Usually, many feed themselves and their dependents on their daily earnings. They live from hand to mouth.

    Under the prevailing difficult and uncertain situation, many families and individuals are already suffering and starving, just one week into the lockdown, with one more week left to go, with the probability of an extension.

    The Federal Government’s Social Intervention Policy, the so-called conditional cash transfer is not yet addressing mass poverty, deprivation and hunger. The billions, which government announced that it has released and made available for conditional cash transfer to the poor and vulnerable in communities are not reaching the targets. There are still cries of woe and anguish in most communities.

    We have seen videos of caricature of the ‘social intervention’, of food items shared to some communities. In one video, we saw a street in Lagos of over 30 families, who said they were given two loaves of bread and few cups of rice and garri and few condiments (tomato paste sachets) to share. And we see members of the community lamenting and asking how a whole street of over 30 families could be given such quantity of food items not enough to serve one family for two days to share!

    Corruption has become our national culture. A seemingly intractable challenge to our progress and development. Most of our politicians and public office holders are unscrupulously avaricious.

    Given our past experiences where public funds meant for and released to assuage the sufferings of poor and vulnerable communities were  either unconscionably used to ‘cut grasses’ or inexplicably got ‘swallowed by snakes’, we call for transparent and community-based approaches to the management and disbursement of social intervention funds.

    Considering complaints by many local communities about not benefiting from the released billions of naira announced and meant to alleviate poverty and hardship, especially during this difficult and uncertain period, we call for a transparent and effective investigation of the management of the funds so far allocated. Efforts must be put in place to ensure that the funds are not diverted as usual.

    Independent community committees must receive these funds and be charged with identifying those in their midst, who qualify to benefit.

    The management of the funds should be monitored by a multi-stakeholder committee including government and community representatives as well as credible media and civil society representatives.

    Government must put effective measures in place to check corrupt public officials, who want to steal or divert funds meant to relieve the sufferings of the poor and vulnerable people in this perilous times.

    This is the only way to help the people comply with the law and stay at home for now!

    Finally, since government has been announcing huge numbers of beneficiaries of cash transfer program running into millions and claiming to have paid billions, can the government make the system transparent by publishing the names and addresses of the beneficiaries on an electronic portal so that Nigerians can do the verification?

    Okechukwu Nwanguma is the Executive Director of Rule of Law and Accountability Advocacy Centre

    Opinion

    AddThis

    : 

    Original Author

    : 

    Okechukwu Nwanguma

    Disable advertisements

    : 
    Assuaging Plight Of The Poor In This Perilous Time By Okechukwu Nwanguma
    Read More
    http://saharareporters.com/2020/04/08/assuaging-plight-poor-perilous-time-okechukwu-nwanguma

    Views: 0

  • 3Q: Collaborating with users to develop accessible designs

    3Q: Collaborating with users to develop accessible designs

    Academic researchers and others have long struggled with making data visualizations accessible to people who are blind. One technological approach has been 3-D printing tactile representations of data, in the form of raised bar graphs and line charts. But, often, the intended users have little say in the actual design process, and the end result isn’t as effective as planned.

    Read More
    https://techxplore.com/news/2020-03-3q-collaborating-users-accessible.html

    Views: 0

  • Dating Vintage Jewellery – The Back View

    [ad_1]

    When I pick up a piece of vintage jewellery maybe a brooch, I almost immediately turn it over. Quite a few times the seller has commented “Its not gold or silver”.

    For me this is annoying as that is not what I am looking for.

    Gold and silver do not particularly interest me and more often than not I can distinguish fine jewellery at a glance before handling.

    So what am I looking for:

    First I am looking to make sure the brooch pin or back of the jewellery is intact and not broken/damaged.

    Then I am looking to see if there is a signature. With familiarity to various signed vintage costume jewellery pieces, I can now identify who the company or manufacturer is at first look for many pieces, without picking it up and looking at the back. So when you have a spare few minutes take a trip through the vintage jewellery websites and look at the photographs and companies.

    If there is no signature – the jewellery’s construction and the findings used can give valuable clues to dating. But more of that in a later article.

    Back to the signature. Look at the wording can give valuable clues to dates.

    First the name – Exquisite produced jewellery from 1914 until the late 1970s but their signature did not appear until after 1953 (confirmed information from an employer who made the jewellery’s molds) So any Exquisite jewellery with a signature dates to after 1953 to about 1979. Probably more accurately from 1956 but to be confirmed still.

    Look up the company to see when they were in production, will give a time span to work on. Most information is available now on the internet and you may be lucky to find when the jewellery was actually patented.

    The copy right symbol – the c in a circle mark means it was made after 1955. This was because Trifari won a lawsuit in that year, and everyone followed suit of copy right their designs rather than patenting them.

    How is the signature presented – in script, abbreviated, block letters, large capital letter for the first letter of the name then small letters. This can also help to date. Again there are many websites and Yahoo groups that can help. Exquisite, Miracle and Kenneth Lane are just a few that changed their signature and this can date them to when that type of signature was in use.

    Pat pending and design numbers are also clues. Pat pending dates to before 1955. Again many sites have lists of patents. Boucher and Sphinx are two companies that used numbers for their designs. With or without the name signature.

    So just looking at a signature on a plaque or cartouche can give you many opportunities for dating your vintage jewellery

    [ad_2]

    Source by Susan C Weaver

    Views: 0

  • Old World Style Kitchen Designs

    [ad_1]

    With the emergence of new styles and modern amenities, today’s kitchens have undergone complete transformation. Along with the appliances, the set ups of the tiles, boards and kitchen counters also have been reformed. Even so, there are certain individuals who prefer to give their kitchens an authentic and traditional look and hence, the Old World style kitchens have been successful in sustaining their standing.

    Old World kitchens were designed in a unique manner. They typically were heavily decorated with distinctive door styles, layered finishes, and stacked with moldings to provide a visual feast. The most frequently used wood for the Old World furniture was either Oak or Cherry. The Old World style kitchen accessories included copper posts, baskets, chopping blocks, crocks, and antique serving pieces. The floors were made either of tiles or wood finishing. The wood and tile finishing differed in darkness level, distressing, sandthrough, paint, and edging. The walls of the kitchen were painted with faux finishes, stucco, or textured finishes. The hardware was filled with hammered distressed iron pieces, and heavy bulky pieces. The kitchen designs usually consist of hearth like cooking centers, loose furniture pieces and tables used as islands, but had ample of open storage areas.

    The Old World style kitchens incorporated moldings from the ceiling in large stacked molding combinations, crown posts, large arches, or beamed ceilings. The countertops of such kitchens were preferably in any of the three options of stone, rustic tile and wood.

    The Old World style kitchens were more suitable for big and large households and were not affordable styles for small homes. The original beauty of these kitchens can be still seen in some houses, which were built in the 1800s. They are often termed as dark ages kitchens because of the antique and ancient feel they provide to the entire house.

    [ad_2]

    Source by Damian Sofsian

    Views: 0