Trent Consultants News Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words: Program Uses Art to Engage at-Risk Kids and Identify Needs

Trent Consultants News: Identifying the public health and safety needs of children from low-income communities may be best accomplished through art, report University of Pittsburgh researchers in the current online issue of Progress in Community Health Partnerships: Research, Education and Action. In their paper, researchers describe the success of Visual Voices, an arts-based program that engages community members as partners in research.

The study was based on Visual Voices programs conducted with 22 children ages 8 to 15 in two low-income and predominantly African-American communities in Baltimore and Pittsburgh. During the Visual Voices sessions, participants created paintings and drawings to share their perceptions, both positive and negative, of community safety and violence, as well as their hopes for the future. Afterward, they combined their individual art projects into two “visual voice” exhibits that were publicly displayed in each city.

Michael A. Yonas, Dr.P.H., Visual Voices creator and assistant professor, Department of Family Medicine, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and colleagues at Pitt and the Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy, used qualitative research methods to review and code the participants’ art projects for themes. Factors that participants identified as important to safety included school and social networks — family, friends and the local community. Places that they identified as unsafe were corner stores, streets and alleys with poor lighting, and abandoned houses. Other contextual factors identified as unsafe were drugs, smoking, drinking, gambling, guns and violence.

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Do you want to be part of the franchise industry?  Do you see yourself as a great entrepreneur with a great passion to learn about buying a franchise business in your industry of choice?  Do you foresee not only career potential but also financial promise?  If you answered yes to those questions, you’ve got franchise vision, and you see the multiple benefits of becoming a successful franchisee.

To buy a franchise you must take some strategic considerations as well as put some planning to action.  Through MatchPoint’s services, you can learn all you need to know to make your franchise a success.

The first step before buying a franchise is to think about all the factors involved.   In order for yu to be well prepared and ensure that you find the right franchise, you can benefit from the services of a franchise consultant such as MatchPoint.  Franchise consultants provide expert advice in the entire franchise selection process.  The service is at no cost and they help you save time and money as they have the expert knowledge and experience in the franchising field.  Read more...

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Trent Consultants News Children as young as 5 months old are able to tell the difference between human speech and monkey calls, a new study has found.

Trent Consultants News Researchers showed 5-month-old infants from English- and French-speaking homes pictures of human faces and rhesus monkey faces paired with either human speech or monkey calls. The infants looked longer at pictures of human faces when human speech was presented and longer at monkey faces when monkey calls were played.

However, the babies weren’t able to match human non-speech sounds, such as laughter, to photos of human faces. This suggests that infants are especially attuned at an early age to some of the functional properties of speech, said the researchers from New York University and McGill University in Montreal.

In another experiment, human speech, monkey calls and duck sounds were played for the infants while they were shown human and duck faces. The infants didn’t look longer at the duck face when they heard a duck sound, which suggests they’re unable to match ducks’ faces with their sounds.

The researchers concluded that “infants’ expectations about the sources of vocalizations seem not to be based on a simple association between faces and voices and extend beyond their specific experiences,” according to a news release from NYU. “This ability may help infants identify their conspecifics even when they are out of view and allow them to identify the human-produced speech sounds that are relevant for language acquisition.”  Read more...

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Trent Consultants News Possible link studied between childhood abuse and early cellular aging

Trent Consultants News Children who suffer physical or emotional abuse may be faced with accelerated cellular aging as adults, according to new research from Butler Hospital and Brown University.

Trent Consultants News: The findings, which are published online in the journal Biological Psychiatry, draw a direct connection between childhood psychological trauma and accelerated reduction in the size of telomeres, the “caps” on the end of chromosomes that promote cellular stability. Telomeres typically shorten with age.

After measuring DNA extracted from blood samples of 31 adults, researchers found accelerated shortening of telomeres in those who reported suffering maltreatment as children, compared to study participants who did not.

“It tells us something. It gives us a hint that early developmental experiences may have profound effects on biology that can influence cellular mechanisms at a very basic level, said Dr. Audrey Tyrka, the study’s lead author. Tyrka is assistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, and associate chief of the mood disorders program at Butler Hospital in Providence, R.I.

The work of Tyrka and the other authors builds on previous research that established psychological stress and trauma as risk factors for a number of medical and psychiatric illnesses. Other work has linked some of these psychiatric and medical problems with shortened telomere length. This study now establishes a link between early psychosocial stress and shorter telomere length.  Read more...

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When deciding to buy a franchise opportunity, you will benefit from a franchise consultant’s expertise in the industry. MatchPoint operates the largest physical office of Franchise Consultants in the industry, where Franchise Consultants receive regular briefings from leading Franchisors around the world. Well informed Franchise Consultants are uniquely positioned to offer the best advice and value to individual franchise buyers.

With a variety of franchise opportunities available today, selecting the right franchise that meets your interests, goals and expectations is much easier today than it had been years ago. You are no longer bound to magazines, trade shows, or newspapers. Now franchise opportunities can easily be found online, but how do you choose the right one?

Entrepreneurs ask themselves this question to ensure that their investment is profitable. Therefore, just as you would use a real estate agent when you buy a house, or an investment broker to buy stocks, you can turn to a franchise consultant when you want to buy a franchise opportunity. Franchise consultants provide expert advice in the entire franchise selection process. Their service is at no cost to you and they help you save time and money as they have the expert knowledge and experience in the franchising field. They will introduce you to the best franchise opportunities, based on your interest, investment level, your entrepreneurial background and your financial goals.  Read more...

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Hotel management consultants

With professionalism being the buzz word in practically all the sectors, newer and newer avenues are opening for trained professionals. Hotel management consultancy is just one of the avenues among them.

Hotel management is an old concept with a large number of hotel management institutes churning out scores of graduates. After passing out all these graduates eventually join any of the big hotel chains of the country like Taj, Oberois etc. Some of them seek greener pastures by joining international brands. The spread of these hotels was limited to major cities or tourist centers.

With the rapid urbanization and industrialization the demand for hotels increased in tier II and tier III cities. Sensing opportunities many builders constructed hotels. However, building hotels was one thing managing them was a different ball game altogether. The big daddies of the industry were not willing to run their hotels.

Realizing good prospects in smaller cities, some of the experienced hotel management professionals met these owners/builders and started working for them. That is how hotel management consultants were born.

By and large these consultants form an experienced lot with most of them having an experience of successfully running big hotels in major cities.  The owners also felt comfortable working with them as they carried the necessary experience to run their respective properties.
Many of these hotel consultancy firms are doing good business; one of them is Shaw Hospitality. It started its operations this financial year has managed to bag 15 hotels (4 hotels in Dubai and 11 hotels across the country) in the first six months of its operations. As of now the company is managing/marketing more than 1050 rooms, 602 rooms are in four states across the country where as 462 rooms are in Dubai.  Read more...

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