The holidays aren’t a time for giving presents to members of the relatives and loved ones. Young Yun, director of the Platinum Card Concierge Service for American Express, believes in showing appreciation to business associates and bosses, . ‘Recognition is an very important part of professional relations — more so now since we’re all being asked to do more with less,’ he says.

in the coursework of the holiday season, Ms. Yun orders about a dozen gifts for her business associates — and helps American Express clients select and order thousands of their gifts as well.

‘To show that there was additional thought put in to it,’ Ms. Yun tries to reflect the recipient’s interests as much as feasible. he keeps gift-giving in mind all year long, filing away tidbits he hears in conversations. If someone mentions liking wine, for example, he may get him a leather-bound wine journal embossed with his initials; if a person mentions liking a sure spa, he may arrange for a gift certificate there. ‘People have a lot of information at their disposal,’ he says, noting that he pays close attention to casual chats before meetings start so that he can pick up on people’s likes and dislikes.

It’s important to select a gift that is neither generic nor personal. The first will disappear in to the mound of gifts that show up at this time of year, and the latter could make the recipient uncomfortable.

in case you haven’t been filing away tidbits in the coursework of the year, Ms. Yun suggests doing a little sleuthing via Google or social-network sites like Facebook to get a general idea of the person’s hobbies or preferences. Associates who like to travel have received set of stylish Luxe guides to various cities. someone with a sweet tooth received sets of Vosges chocolates that featured bacon and other unusual ingredients, which he said was ‘less typical’ than a box of chocolates.

After hearing one of her bosses, an avid cook, mention that he liked the sauces at a specific restaurant, Ms. Yun arranged for a gift basket from the restaurant that featured a quantity of its sauces — and a sauce recipe from the chef. ‘She was surprised that I recalled that he liked the restaurant,’ he says.

If he doesn’t have much information about a gift recipient, he generally turns to food, since ‘most people like to eat.’ One and: ‘It allows the recipient to share it with their team, so it’s not one person getting a gift.’

Ms. Yun cautions gift-buyers not to get personal, however. People generally ought to not buy ‘clothing, jewelry or anything overly extravagant’ for business associates, he says. ‘If you don’t know them well, you don’t want to cross personal boundaries,’ he says.

Gifts to business associates ought to always go to the recipients’ workplaces, even in case you have the people’s home addresses. The gifts ought to arrive no later than Dec. 15, as ‘many people take time off at the finish of the year.’

Ms. Yun avoids anything that looks pre-packaged, in lieu placing orders with atypical purveyors such as a local bakery that’s famous for cupcakes or another baked nice. ‘Flowers are OK’ but not her first choice, he says, as the recipient can’t share those with his or her colleagues as simply.

One last thing Ms. Yun does before her gifts go out: ‘I write down what I’ve given to everyone,’ he says. When you go to a lot of trouble to come up with a thoughtful gift, he says, ‘you don’t want to repeat that gift down the road.’

Scientists are developing ways of making trees glow so they can be used as natural streetlights without the need for electricity. A team of researchers are experimenting with genes to allow the trait that causes fireflies to glow -bioluminescence – to be implanted into a variety of different organisms.

As well as replacing traditional streetlights, bioluminescent plants would be useful for people who are not hooked up to the electricity grid. And if more lights were ever required, they could simply be grown.

Geneticist Theo Sanderson, one of the members of the team, told New Scientist: ‘We didn’t end up making bioluminescent trees, which was the inspiration for the project.‘But we decided to make a set of parts that would allow future researchers to use bioluminescence more effectively.’The team say that there is huge commercial potential in replacing the street with natural bioluminescent systems. The idea is also extremely environmentally friendly as no electricity would be required and the process which produces the photons of light is extremely energy-efficient.

The scientists have also considered the possibility that the fuel to fire the chemical reaction in the trees could come from human waste or food waste.

Ray Dalio is deluded, insensitive, emotionally illiterate, simplistic, breathtakingly smug, weird and plain wrong.

Harsh words, but I know the founder of one the world’s most successful hedge funds will welcome them. The Bridgewater chief has just made a list of his top 300 rules for life and number 31 is to write down the weaknesses of others. Number 11 is never to say anything about a person you would not say to them directly, while number 22 is to “get over” fretting about whether comments are positive or negative. All that matters in Dalioland is whether they are accurate or inaccurate.

These rules are contained in the most curious management document I have ever come across. Simply entitled “Principles”, it is being handed out to staff at Bridgewater to help them be as successful as their boss. It is also being passed gleefully from pillar to post on the internet.

Yet just as I was feeling vaguely invigorated, I came upon a rule that tells managers to think of their underlings like baseball cards. This, more than any of the others, explains why “Principles” is such a dud. Ray might be a brilliant investor, but he is still a little boy in emotional terms. For grown-ups, managing is not like collecting baseball cards. People cannot be swapped in playgrounds, graded exactly according to batting averages and errors. Instead they are complicated mixtures of rationality, irrationality, emotion, ambition, laziness, goodness and spite.

People who enjoy a dream-filled sleep are significantly better at recalling information and making links between facts when they wake, scientists found.

But recharging with a shallow nap offers no such mental boost, the research suggests.

　The results of the study add to the growing body of evidence that Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep is crucial to the brain’s ability to lay down and consolidate memories.
An average night’s repose includes four or five spells of REM sleep, but these bursts tend to be lengthier towards the end of the night.

This means that adults who get less than the recommended seven to eight hours a night – and therefore insufficient REM sleep – may be damaging their mind’s ability to form strong memories.
For the most recent study, participants were shown groups of three words – such as “cookie”, “heart” and “sixteen” – and asked to find another word that can be associated with all three words.

There was a lot of speculation and now it’s been confirmed: Taylor Swift’s Speak Now sold more than one million copies in its first week of sale.

According to Billboard, Swift’s third album sold 1,047,000 million copies, making it the highest selling album in the U.S. since Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter III reached the million mark back in 2008. The milestone also puts her into some impressive company, alongside Britney Spears’ Oops … I Did It Again (1.31 million), Whitney Houston’s Bodyguard soundtrack (1,061,000) and Norah Jones’ Feels Like Home (1,022,000), as one of the four women to reach one million sales in a week.

Of course, the this is most impressive compared to the first week sales of her previous album, 2008′s Fearless, which sold 592,000 copies.

Looks like Kanye West’s railroading at last year’s MTV VMAs is now officially a moot point.

Webber, who has accused Red Bull of preferring team-mate Sebastian Vettel, has a contract for the 2011 season.

But asked by BBC Sport whether he would quit the team, Webber said: “That’s a pretty big step to take.

“As long as I’m enjoying my driving and performing really well, then of course I’ll be here next year.”

Webber’s remarks came in his post-practice news conference, at which all media were present.

In a separate conversation with BBC Sport, he added: “There’s a good chance I’ll stick around to have another crack at it.”

606: DEBATE
I personally think Mark Webber is playing a dangerous game

Kelli_F1
Although Webber is the team’s leading driver in the five-way title battle as the season comes to its climax, he has made it clear this season that he feels marginalised at Red Bull – and on Thursday here he said it was “obvious” that the team were emotionally more behind Vettel than him.

Webber trails Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso by 11 points with 50 remaining in the final two races of the season in Brazil on Sunday and Abu Dhabi next weekend.

Vettel is in fourth place, behind McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton, 25 points adrift of Alonso.

Webber’s remarks on Thursday have increased the already tense atmosphere at Red Bull, but the 34-year-old insisted on Friday that there were no problems at the team.

“Yesterday was a few comments which I don’t think were a big surprise to people, so things are fine with the team, absolutely fine,” he said.

“I have a great relationship with the right people and they give me everything I need technically to have a great chance to do a very good job.”

His remarks on Thursday came in a tense news conference, in which Webber uttered expletives on several occasions as he discussed his title hopes and position within Red Bull.

Team principal Christian Horner responded by insisting the team backed both drivers equally.

The legal profession had the worst result, with almost 16 per cent reporting symptoms of clinical depression. Next were accountants and insurance underwriters, both on 10 per cent.

People in IT services, architecture and engineering also had depression rates above the average.

The survey conducted by Beyondblue, an organization devoted to fighting depression, also showed that those under 30 had the highest rates of depression and were the most likely to “self-medicate” with drugs and alcohol.

Beyondblue deputy chief executive and psychologist, Dr Nicole Highet, said the survey-the largest of its kind- was first to reveal the extent of the problem.

“We often associate depression with the most socially disadvantaged (and) people under financial pressure, but here’s a whole different group,” Dr Highet said.

She said while it was difficult to know exactly what made some groups more prone to depression, it was likely to be driven by work pressures.

“It seems, with law in particular, there’s a problem with employee expectations and their working reality,” Dr Highet said.

“People base their whole identities on being successful in their role and when it doesn’t live up to expectations, and they fail to keep a work-life balance, that impacts on their mental health.”

Among female lawyers, the average age of first pregnancy was 39, “reflecting the all-or-nothing pressure that the sector places on individuals”, she said.

Law Institute of Victoria chief executive Michael Brett Young said the survey supported anecdotal evidence that depression was a growing problem.

Being more efficient and more valuable to your company is the best way to put your career on the fast track. If you are always working hard, getting more done and bringing more value to your company than your peers, you will get noticed.

My wife is a great example of this. She is working as a writer, working on her first book. When we moved to Norway (we moved about 6 months ago for my job) she decided that she wanted to take a part time job.

She looked around and before long she was working as a salesman for a local gym chain. She worked 3 times a week. Every time she was at work she would work hard. She made about twice as many sales as the other salesmen because she was talking to 3 times as many people.

She also helped update their signs, their offers and presentations to make it easier for customers to understand the offer and buy a membership.

After three months she was promoted. Even though most of the staff had worked longer then she, she got the job and no one was surprised, she was doing the best work.

My wife and thousands of others practice time-proven techniques that make sure you move forward:

1. Ask yourself and your boss what the best use of your time is

If you don’t know exactly what your boss feels is the best use of your time and what the highest value activity is for you, ask! It is by doing that or those tasks that you can move forward quickly. Building the most value will get you noticed and to do that you have to find out what it is you are expected to do.

2. Ask your boss to help you clear away other tasks so that you can focus on the highest value task

Once you have found out what your most important task is you will probably notice that only a small portion of your time is spent on it. Talk to your boss about it and see if you can get rid of or delegate some of the tasks to other people so you can spend your time building as much value as possible to the company.

3. Plan your week so that you spend as much time as possible working on the most important task

Make a weekly plan trying to free up as much time as possible to your important task. List everything you do in a week and figure out how you can get the most possible out of your workday.

4. Organize each day

Once you have planned your weeks you can start organizing each day. What is most important? What needs to be done first? What second? Once you have that daily plan, get to it and start checking them off one by one.

5. Get in earlier, work harder, stay later

By working focused you will get a lot more done then your peers. But if you also make the great impression of being first to the office and the last to leave whilst all the while producing at a high rate, you will get noticed, appreciated and promoted.

6. Be proactive

Don’t let the circumstances control you. Instead, control the circumstances. If you want to be promoted you have to show that you can shoulder the responsibility. Ask for more responsibility and when you get it, do it well and do it fast!

Even if you aren’t given responsibility, you can do like my wife. She noticed that the signs weren’t working; the customers didn’t know instantly what they were offering. So she made new ones and presented them to her bosses, they liked them and before weeks end they were using her ads.

Just as adults have a hard time putting down their iPhones, so the device is now the Toy of Choice for many 1-, 2- and 3-year-olds. It’s a phenomenon that is attracting the attention of some childhood development specialists.

Natasha Sykes, a mother of two in Atlanta, remembers the first time her daughter, Kelsey, then barely 2 years old, held her husband’s iPhone. “She pressed the button and it lit up. I just remember her eyes. It was like ‘Whoa!’ ”

The parents were charmed by their daughter’s fascination. But then, said Ms. Sykes, “She got serious about the phone.”

Kelsey would ask for it. Then she’d cry for it. “It was like she’d always want the phone,” Ms. Sykes said.

Apple, the iPhone’s designer and manufacturer, has built its success on machines so simple andintuitive that even technologically befuddled adults can figure out how to work them, so it makes sense that sophisticated children would follow. Tap a picture on the screen and something happens. What could be more fun?

Many iPhone apps on the market are aimed directly at preschoolers, many of them labeled “educational,” such as Toddler Teasers: Shapes, which asks the child to tap a circle or square or triangle; and Pocket Zoo, which streams live video of animals at zoos around the world.

There are “flash cards” aimed at teaching children to read and spell, and a “Wheels on the Bus” app that sings the popular song in multiple languages. Then there’s the new iGo Potty app, with automated phone calls reminding toddlers that it’s time to “go.”

Along with fears about dropping and damage, however, many parents sharing iPhones with their young ones feel nagging guilt. They wonder whether it is indeed an educational tool, or a passive amusement like television.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has long advised parents not to let their children watch any TV until they are past their second birthday.

Jane M. Healy, an educational psychologist in Vail, Colo. said: “Any parent who thinks a spelling program is educational for that age is missing the whole idea of how the preschool brain grows.

What children need at that age is whole body movement, the manipulation of lots of objects and not some opaque technology. You’re not learning to read by lining up the letters in the word ‘cat.’ You’re learning to read by understanding language, by listening.

Reporter yesterday from the Third China Health Education and Health Promotion Conference was informed that the country has nearly 20 cities in the health of urban construction work.

World Health Organization and the National Patriotic Health Campaign Committee will jointly set up health city incentives. It is the first time the World Health Organization together with the establishment of such a national mechanism.

At present, China is in rapid economic and social development and economic transition, urbanization, industrialization and globalization continue to accelerate. This gives the people working and living facilities provided to improve the quality of life, but also bring the more prominent environmental and health problems, such as environmental pollution, disease change, traffic congestion, accident increase, population aging, food security events. Building Healthy Cities, conform to the current economic and social development, with the ultimate goal is to achieve “healthy environment, healthy community, healthy people.”

World Health Organization (WHO) initiated in the 20th century to carry out the construction of 80 healthy city activities, and as a global strategic initiatives. In 1994, China carried out with the WHO Western Pacific Region Healthy Cities project cooperation, and began to try and explore this area. Dongcheng District, Jiading District, Shanghai, Haikou, Hainan Province, Yuzhong District, Baoding, Hebei Province, was listed as cooperation projects and other cities (districts).

The end of 2007, the National Patriotic Sanitation approval of Shanghai, Hangzhou, Dalian, Liaoning Province, Changzhou City, Jiangsu Province, and Zhangjiagang City, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Karamay City, Dongcheng District and Xicheng District of Beijing and other cities to carry out construction of health, district ( town) pilot project to explore the city for construction of the health situation of China’s standards system and evaluation system.

2008, Beijing by the Olympic Games to the pace of building steps towards a healthy city. Subsequently, the development of the “Healthy Beijing – National Health Action Plan of the Decade.” Shanghai, Chongqing, Tangshan and Guangzhou, Changchun and other cities to carry out many of the health practices of urban construction.