Sensasi Bermain Di IMVU

Limit Komputer | Pada tahu gak kalian, apa itu Imvu? Imvu, merupakan sebuah game atau jejaring sosial yang mana kita bisa membuat Avatar kita sendiri sesuai selera kita. Imvu memberikan sensasi yang luar biasa karena di sana kita bisa berbelanja,chatting sesama user,berdandan,memperbanyak teman, atau memutar musik (rock dan metal,dangdut,pop,reggae,dll). Imvu juga sangat tidak membosankan untuk di mainkan setiap hari karena sangat unik dan menarik, yang pastinya berbeda dari jejaring sosial lainnya. berikut beberapa screenshotnya

Imvu juga memberikan fitur berbelanja perlengkapan seperti baju,celana dan aksesoris yang semuanya itu harus di beli dengan credit (uang imvu). namun mendapatkan credit imvu di butuhkan waktu yang lama kecuali kalian membelinya dengan pulsa. 

kalau kalian berminat untuk mendaftar bisa langsung melihat tutorialnya di http://limitkomputer.blogspot.com/2012/04/imvu-jejaring-sosial-yang-keren-dan.html

Salam Limit Komputer

Old Mystery Solved? Former FDA Reviewer Speaks Out About Intimidation, Retaliation and Marginalizing of Safety

At my Dec. 2005 post "Report: Life Science Manufacturers Adapt to Industry Transition" I wrote:

... The recognition of a gap in formally-trained medical informatics-trained personnel in the pharmaceutical industry [by Gartner Group] is welcome. For example, from my own experience:

I recall an interview I had last year with the head of the Drug Surveillance & Adverse Events department at Merck Research Labs in a rehire situation [after a 2003 layoff]. I came highly recommended by an Executive Director in the department, to whom I had shown my prior work. This included well-accepted, novel human-computer interaction designs I'd developed for use by busy biomedical researchers for a large clinical study in the Middle East, as well as my work modeling invasive cardiology and leading the development and implementation of a comprehensive information system to detect new device and treatment modality risks in a regional center performing more than 6,000 procedures/year. In addition, I'd worked with the wife of the Executive Director in years prior, when she ran the E.R. of the hospital where I was director of occupational medicine.

Despite all this in my favor, the Executive Director's boss, himself a former FDA adverse events official [a former deputy director of CDER’s office of drug safety, who'd recently moved to the pharma industry he once regulated - ed.], dismissed me in five minutes as I was showing him the cardiology project, saying flatly "we don't need a medical informatics person here." I had driven 80 miles to Rahway for this interview to save the executive a trip to Pennsylvania, where I was originally scheduled to come for the interview, since the executive's father was ill in the hospital. In an instance of profound social ineptness, my effort was not even acknowledged. Perhaps he was in a bad frame of mind, but the dismissal under the circumstances was all the more disappointing.

I recall this was one of the most puzzling hiring debacles I'd ever experienced, as all the senior people in his dept. had recommended he hire me - I was really only there for his approval and signoff - and the work I'd shown him had improved care, saved lives, and saved money.

I may not need to be puzzled any longer.  This story just appeared:

Former FDA Reviewer Speaks Out About Intimidation, Retaliation and Marginalizing of Safety
By Martha Rosenberg, Truthout
July 29, 2012

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is often accused of serving industry at the expense of consumers. But even FDA defenders are shocked by reports this week of an institutionalized FDA spying program on its own scientists, lawmakers, reporters and academics that included an enemies list of "actors" and collaborators

... Ronald Kavanagh [FDA drug reviewer from 1998 to 2008]:  ... In the Center for Drugs [Center for Drug Evaluation and Research or CDER], as in the Center for Devices, the honest employee fears the dishonest employee. There is also irrefutable evidence that managers at CDER have placed the nation at risk by corrupting the evaluation of drugs and by interfering with our ability to ensure the safety and efficacy of drug ... While I was at FDA, drug reviewers were clearly told not to question drug companies and that our job was to approve drugs.

Read the entire story at the link.  I won't cover it more here, except to say it's certainly possible to believe certain FDA officials don't want serious people around -- who in addition to being MD's can write serious software to detect drug and device problems -- whose work can get in the way of drug approvals.

-- SS

A Bonus for Bankruptcy? - KV Pharmaceutical Reveals CEO's Bonus, then Declares Bankruptcy

The latest example of the disconnect between compensation for leaders of health care organizations and their and their organizations' performance comes from a report in the St Louis Business Journal. 

Executive Compensation and KV Pharmaceutical

Its essence was:

KV Pharmaceutical Co. President and CEO Gregory Divis Jr. earned $976,270 in the fiscal year ended March 31, more than double the $385,102 he was paid in fiscal 2011, according to a proxy statement the company filed Thursday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

His 2012 earnings were comprised of a $638,750 salary, a $130,000 bonus, $204,189 in option awards and $3,331 in other compensation, which includes a $2,909 car allowance, a 401(k) match and group term life insurance.

The total pay for other top executives was as follows:

Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer Thomas McHugh earned $506,615 in fiscal 2012, including a $65,000 bonus. Hit total comp in fiscal 2011 was $320,950.
Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary Patrick Christmas earned $530,604 in fiscal 2012. He joined the company in June 2011.

Admittedly, compensation of just under $1 million a year does not seem that high for the CEO of a pharmaceutical company in this day and age. Furthermore, as noted in Forbes, Mr Divis' compensation is less than that of his predecessor:

who was interim ceo and president, received $1.25 million before Divis succeeded him, and so the ceo is now being compensated at a lower amount.

The Troubled History of the Company

However, first consider that the company was not exactly in the best financial health at the time Mr Divis was getting his pay, as per the St Louis Business Journal:

KV Pharmaceutical Co. officials said July 20 that the company has been notified by the New York Stock Exchange that it is below listing standard criteria due to the company’s average market capitalization being less than $50 million over a 30-day trading period and its stockholder’s equity being less than $50 million.

After years of missteps, mismanagement and mounting losses, KV Pharmaceutical’s ability to survive is in question. The company itself raised doubts as to its ability to continue as a going concern in its quarterly filing Feb. 9 with the Securities and Exchange Commission. [Note that this filing occurred during the same fiscal year in which the CEO received the compensation noted above - Ed.]

In fact, as we discussed here in 2010, a former KV Pharmaceutical CEO and Chairman is one of the very few for-profit health care corporate leaders who actually received personal punishment due to a US government prosecution. Former CEO and Chairman Marc Harmelin was banned from doing business with the US government for 20 years after a fraud prosecution that lead to "a KV subsidiary's conviction on criminal charges earlier this year for shipping oversize morphine tablets" per the St Louis Post-Dispatch.

The Failed Strategy to Get a License for a Previously Generic Drug, and Increase its Price by Ten Thousand Percent (10,000%)

Then consider the direction company leadership took after that setback.  As described in an August, 2012, St Louis Post-Dispatch article, the company's main strategy was based on a license to sell Makena, an injectable form of hydroxyprogesterone. Hydroxyprogesterone had first been approved in the 1950s. In 2003, a National Institute of Health funded study showed that injecting it reduced the risk of premature birth [Meis PJ, Klebanoff M, Thom E et al. Prevention of recurrent preterm delivery by 17 alpha-hydroxyprogesterone caproate. N Engl J Med 2003; 348: 2379. Link here.]. Somehow, with funding from KV Pharmaceutical, "the FDA granted the approval to Hologic, which presented the application and argued for the drug based on medical research sponsored by the National Institutes of Health." After that, while "KV neither invented nor patented Makena, but agreed to pay Hologic nearly $200 million for 'orphan drug' status – and seven years of market exclusivity – for the rights to sell the branded drug." I cannot figure out why either company should have been granted an exclusive right to sell this drug under these circumstances. Nonetheless, once KV Pharmaceutical obtained the rights,

Makena sparked a national controversy over its sky-high price – a 100-fold increase over the average cost – about $15 – for an already widely available non-branded version of the drug produced by compounding pharmacies.

Leading national medical organizations and advocacy groups, including the March of Dimes and two U.S. senators, publicly blasted the pricing.

On March 30, 2011, the FDA announced that it would not enforce KV’s market exclusivity because of concerns that the drug would be unaffordable to many women. Hours later, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services indicated that states could purchase the compounded version, called 17P, from specialty pharmacies.

The resistance prompted KV executives to dramatically lower Makena’s cost, but the move failed to forestall the backlash. As a result, KV’s ambitious sales projections for its latest drug failed to materialize.

Bankruptcy

That sealed the company's fate, and the same article reported,

KV Pharmaceutical Co., once among the St. Louis region’s strongest public companies, now faces yet another survival struggle after filing for bankruptcy.

Summary: A Bonus for Bankruptcy

So a company that suffered a criminal conviction for selling morphine tables whose dose was twice what was on their label, whose former CEO was banned from the pharmaceutical industry, which based its survival on a scheme to game the regulations to allow it to sell a previous $15 drug for $1500, then paid its CEO nearly $1 million, including over $330,000 in cash bonus and stock options just before it filed for bankruptcy.  Note that the CEO "earned" that compensation over a time period during which the company revealed doubts that it could survive as a "going concern."

This is a simple, relatively small, but especially graphic example of how leaders of health care organizations are not simply overpaid, but seem to personally profit from their organizations' mismanagement, poor financial results, and last but not least, exploitation of patients. Describing these incentives as perverse seems euphemistic.

Economists seem to like to justify outsized executive compensation by citing shareholder value they create, realistically defined as short-term stock price (look here).  One could argue that companies that sell health care products or provide health care directly should measure performance in terms of effects on patients' and the public's health.  Putting this aside, however, in this case, the executives seemed to be receiving bonuses not based on shareholder value, or stock price, but for continuing a course that resulted in the complete destruction of shareholder value.  (Stock shares lose essentially all their value when a company goes bankrupt.) 

In this case, and in others we have discussed, executive compensation seems to be based on the ability of executives to control their own pay, which seems more like what economists like to call "rent-seeking," as defined by Wikipedia, gaining from "manipulating the social or political environment in which economic activities occur, rather than by creating new wealth." 

Clearly, as long as health care leaders can personally profit however bad their performance is, or even due to their poor performance, we can expect nothing other than worsening performance.  Health care will become continually more dysfunctional until true reform makes health care leaders accountable for their actions, and all their effects, on stockholders, but also on patients' and the public's health.

Me & "The Community" ~ Part II: Is it time for a PALEO Diet?

Pragmatic Ancestral-Lineage and Evolutionarily Oriented  

(Claiming copyrights!  You read that here first!)

It's been a while since I wrote Me & "The Community" ~ Part I: Where I'm coming from ..., and this time of reflection in the aftermath of AHS12 seems like as good a time as any to finish off Part II which is about where I see myself fitting -- or not -- into the community as a whole.  These two posts were inspired by an email I received way back in June that read in part:

Subject: Here's some support from a random paleo dieter

Read more »

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10 Bangunan Menakjubkan Peninggalan Romawi Kuno yang Perlu Kita Ketahui

1. Tiang Marcus Aurelius

     Tiang Marcus Aurelius sebenarnya tidak dibangun oleh kaisar Marcus Aurelius, melainkan oleh putranya Commodus, sekitar tahun 180-190 M. Commodus ingin mengabadikan kemenangan ayahnya dalam perang melawan suku Marcommani di utara Romawi (Swiss modern). Tiang Marcus Aurelius mirip dengan Tiang Trajanus, tapi reliefnya lebih detail dan pengambarannya lebih dalam dan kejam. Selain itu Marcus Aurelius tidak sesukses Trajanus dalam perangnya, jadi ada banyak adegan sedih dalam tiangnya. Di keseluruhan sisi tiang, digambarkan para tentara Romawi yang sedang berperang.

2. Istana Emas Nero

     Setelah terjadi Kebakaran Besar di kota Roma pada tahun 64 SM, banyak lahan-lahan yang menjadi kosong. Kaisar Nero memanfaatkan lahan-lahan kosong itu untuk membangun sebuah istana di pusat kota Roma. Dia menyebutnya Istana Emas (Domus Aurea). Istana Emas digambarkan oleh Suetonius dalam tulisannya. Kini reruntuhan Istana Emas sudah berhasil digali.

     Istana Emas adalah bangunan yang sangat mewah. Di dalamnya ada ruang makan berdinding delapan dengan atap berlukiskan bulan dan bintang. Atap itu dapat dibuka sehingga pemandangan lanngit dapat dilihat dari sana. Di depan Istana Emas, ada patung kaisar Nero yang dilapisi emas. Patung itu disebut Colossus.

3. Insulae

     Di kota-kota besar, banyak orang Romawi yang tinggal di bangunan apartemen yang disebut Insulae. Pada tahun 100-an M, ada hampir 50.000 bangunan apartemen di Roma, sementara rumah pribadi berjumlah kurang dari 2000. Pada awalnya insulae dibangun dari kayu dan terdiri dari tiga atau empat lantai. Di kemudian hari, karena kayu mudah terbakar, insulae pun dibangun dari batu bata.

4. Akuaduk

     Seiring kota-kota Romawi menjadi semakin besar, maka kebutuhan terhadap pasokan air pun bertambah. Saluran pembuangan dialirkan ke sungai sehingga sungai tidak layak untuk dijadikan sumber air oleh rakyat Romawi. Akhirnya pemerintah Romawi memutuskan untuk membangun saluran air dari batu yang sangat panjang dan digunakan untuk mengalirkan air bersih dari bukit terdekat sampai ke kota. Bangunan ini disebut Akuaduk, dari kata aqua (air) dan ductus (saluran). Akuaduk pertama dibangun di kota Roma sebelum kemudian dibangun juga di kota-kota lain. Pada akhirnya, sebagian besar kota di Romawi punya setidaknya satu Akuaduk, sementara kota besar seperti Roma bisa punya sampai sepuluh Akuaduk.

5. Plengkung Titus

     Pelenngkung Titus dibangun di ujung Forum Romawi pada tahun 80-an M untuk mengenang kemenangan kaisar Titus dalam perang melawan kaum Yahudi di Israel. Pelengkung ini dibuat dari marmer dan travertin. Titus sebenarnya sudah meninggal ketika pelengkung ini dibuat. Adiknya, Domitianus, menjadi kaisar dan ia ingin kakaknya tetap diingat, jadi di bangunan itu ditulis nama Titus, yang huruf-hurufnya dibuat dari perunggu.

     Bagian dalam pelengkung ini diukir dengan ukiran timbul. Ukirannya menggambarkan parade kemenangan Titus ketika kembali ke kota Roma. Diperlihatkan tentara Romawi membawa menorah (tempat lilin) besar milik orang Yahudi. Di sisi lainnya, digambarkan kaisar Titus menaiki kereta perang yang ditarik empat ekor kuda.

6. Pasar Trajanus

      Setelah dibuatnya Forum Julius Caesar dan Forum Augustus, para kaisar pada masa selanjutnya juga membuat perluasan dari Forum Romawi, untuk memberi lebih banya ruang untuk bisnis. Kaisar Trajanus membangun forum baru sekitar tahun 100 M.

     Dalam forum, ada dua perpustakaan (satu untuk buku-buku Yunani dan satu untuk buku-buku Latin). Di antara dua perpustakaan itu, berdiri Tiang Trajanus. Di bagian belakang forum, dibangun pula banyak toko yang menghadap bukit. Apollodoros, arstitek Romawi, membuat suatu inovasi dalam kompleks pertokoan ini. Dia membangun suatu mal (pusat perbelanjaan) yang megah.

     Apollodoros membangun mal Trajanus dari bata dan beton, seperti istana Domitianus yang dibangun beberapa tahun sebelumnya. Batu bata itu ditutupi dengan marmer dan plesteran. Beberapa toko berada di luar, menghadap jalan yang telah dilapisi batu hampar basalm, seperti trotoar zaman sekarang. Sementara beberapa toko lainnya ada di dalam bangunan mal, yang terdiri dari dua lantai dengan ruangan yang sangat luas.

7. Kuil Kastor dan Pollux

     Kuil Kastor dan Pollux ada di ujung Forum Romawi, di dekat Pelengkung Septimius Severus. Dalam pertempuran Danau Regillus melawan pasukan Etruska pada 496 SM, beberapa prajurit berkata bahwa mereka telah melihat dua dewa kembar Kastor dan Pollux. Kedua dewa itu membantu pasukan Romawi. Setelah menang dalam pertempuran itu, rakyat Romawi memutuskan untuk membangun sebuah kuil untuk kedua dewa itu. Kuil itu selesai dibangun pada tahun 494 SM pada awal masa Republik. Kuil itu dipugar lagi pada tahun 117 SM dan 73 SM.

     Pada akhirnya Kuil Kastor dan Pollux mengalami kebakaran dan hancur. Pada tahun 6 SM, kaisar Tiberius membangunnya lagi dengan arsitektur bergaya Korinthos. Kuil itu dipakai sebagai tempat penyimpanan harta kekaisaran. Setelah Romawi runtuh, banyak bagian dari kuil itu diambil untuk dipakai pada bangunan lain hingga tinggal tiga tiang saja yang tersisa. Ketiganya runtuh saat terjadi gempa bumi. Kini ketiga tiang itu sudah dipugar kembali.

8. Basilika Maxentius

     Basilika Maxentius adalah bangunan terakhir yang dibangun di Forum Romawi sebelum kejatuhan Romawi. Basilika ini dibangun oleh kaisar Maxentius pada awal tahun 300-an M, dan merupakan tempat pertemuan yang besar. Di sana para pejabat melakukan pengadilan atau mengadakan musyawarah. Basilika ini memiliki dinding dan atap berkubah yang dibangun dari batu bata dan beton.

     Maxentius dibunuh oleh Konstantinus dalam Pertempuran Jembatan Milvianus pada 312 M, sementara basilika belum selesai. Pembangunan basilika kemudian diambil alih oleh Konstantinus. Maxentius dulunya merencanakan bahwa orang-orang akan memasuki basilika melalui sisi panjangnya, tapi Konstantinus kemudian memutuskan bahwa orang-orang akan memasuki basilika dari sisi pendeknya. Konstantinus juga menaruh patung besar dirinya di dinding ujung, berseberangan dengan pintu masuk, jadi orang yang masuk akan langsung melihat patungnya.

Pada tahun 800-an M, Basilika Maxentius rusak diguncang gempa bumi.

9. Tiang Trajanus

     Tiang Trajanus dibangun tidak lama setelah tahun 100 M untuk mengabadikan kemenangan Trajanus dalam perang melawan Dacia (Rumania modern). Tiang Trajanus berdiri di Forum Trajanus di kota Roma, di dekat Pasar Trajanus dan Forum Roma lama. Tiang ini seluruhnya diukir dengan ukiran yang menggambarkan para prajurit yang sedang bertempur. Diperlihatkan tentara Romawi yang menyeberangi sungai Danube menggunakan perahu dengan dayung. Para tentara Romawi dalam ukiran ini digambarkan sebagai pasukan yang kuat, tangguh, dan disiplin, dan Trajanus adalah jenderal yang hebat, sedangkan pasukan Dacia digambarkan kacau, acak-acakan, dan kebingungan.

10. Pemandian Umum Caracalla

     Kaisar Romawi sering membangun tempat pemandian umum supaya rakyat Romawi dapat bersantai. Pemandian terbesar dibangun oleh kaisar Caracalla sekitar tahun 200 M. Pemandian ini memiliki halaman dengan banyak kamar ganti. Halaman ini berfungsi untuk berolahraga. Halaman semacam ini ada dua, masing-masing ada tiap ujung pemandian. Dindingnya dilapisi marmer dan plesteran dan dihiasi mosaik. Di bagian atasnya ada balkon.

     Di balik halaman, ada bak air hangat, disebut tepidarium. Di atasnya ada atap kubah. Di dekatnya ada bak air panas, disebut caldarium. Bak itu dipanaskan dengan batu bara, dan para budak dipekerjakan untuk memasukkan batu baranya. Di sebelahnya ada bak air dingin, disebut frigidarium atau natatorium. Bak ini berukuran besar dan dapat dipakai sebagai tempat berenang. Pada bagian dasarnya, kolam renang ini memiliki hiasan mosaik bergambar beragam makhluk laut. Untuk mendukung pemandian ini, kasiar Carcalla membangun akuaduk khusus yang menyalurkan air ke tempat pemandian ini.

Sumber: http://id.wikibooks.org

Mari melihat Keindahan Teater Peninggalan Yunani Kuno

     Terater Yunani tertua, kemungkinan berasal dari Zaman Batu, hanyalah lereng bukit berumput dengan tempar datar di bagian bawahnya. Orang-orang duduk di lereng bukit dan menonton oorang lain berbicara di bagian bawah, atau meonton sekelompok orang bernyanyi atau menari. Selain itu, penonton juga dapat melihat keindahan pemandangan alam di balik panggung.

Teater di Epidauros

     Namun, terkadang tidak nyaman ketika harus duduk di rumpur, yang membuat sejumlah orang kemudian membawa tikar atau kain sebagai alas duduk. Pada periode Arkaik sekitar tahun 600 SM, orang kaya yang menggelar pertunjukan mulai membawa kursi kayu sebagai tempat duduk bagi para pentonton. Dengan adanya tempat duduk, penyelenggara pertunjukan pun mulai menjual tiket.

Ilustrasi yang menggambarkan Teater Dyonisos

     Pada periode Klasik, sekitar tahun 450 SM, banyak kota Yunani yang menjadi lebih kaya, jadi pengembangan teater pun mulai lebih diperhatian. Selain itu, sandiwara juga diciptakan, beberapa penulis sandiwara yang terkenal adalah Aiskhylos dan Sphokles. Sejak saat itu, teater tidak hanya menampilkan nyanyian dan tarian. Di banyak kota, pemerintahnya mengganti tempat duduk kayu dengan batu kapur atau marmer. Terkadang mereka menaruh platform batu rendah untuk digunakan sebagai pemandangan.

Denah Teater Yunani Kuno dengan Bagian-bagianya

Teater di Dodonoa

     Pada tahun 200 SM semua teater di kota-kota Yunani memiliki tempat duduk dari batu kapur, mulai dari Spanyol, Sisilia, Afghanistan, hingga ke. Namun mereka tetap membangun teater di lereng bukti alam, sama seperti pada Zaman Batu. Pada tahun 54 SM, orang Romawi mulai membuat lereng bukit buatan bagi teater dan amfiteater mereka.

Sumber: http://id.wikibooks.org