Character biographies, journals, connections, and other reference guides for any in character information necessary for your players! Job1
Circ wrote:When I first joined RolePlayGateway, it was a place where positive conflict fostered creativity and friendships were formed rather than cliques. Honesty and transparency were valued, new people were incorporated into the community rather than judged based on what style of writing they preferred, and despite the youthfulness and zeal of the population there prevailed a reasonable degree of common sense.
Patcharoo
Member for 2 years
Thanks Patch, duly noted.
Gasmask
Member for 1 years
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IRVING, Texas (AP) ? Commercial Metals Co. has rebuffed billionaire investor Carl Icahn's $1.73 billion takeover offer, saying the proposal undervalues the scrap-metal processor.
Commercial Metals said Monday that Icahn's offer undervalues its future prospects and the company as a whole and "is opportunistic and not in the best interest of Commercial Metals' stockholders."
"It's important that our stockholders understand that Mr. Icahn is making an aggressive push to acquire the company at this time in an attempt to achieve a bargain basement price for Commercial Metals," Anthony Massaro, the company's lead director, said in a statement.
On Friday, Icahn told Commercial Metals' board that it had until Monday at 9 a.m. Eastern time to set up a meeting to discuss his $15 per share offer, which was a 7 percent premium to Commercial Metals' Friday's closing stock price of $13.99.
In an open letter to Commercial Metals' board, Icahn said that if his company did not hear from Commercial Metals by the designated time, "we intend to take matters into our own hands." He did not elaborate further.
A call to Icahn Enterprises LP, which made the offer, was not immediately returned.
Icahn, known for buying and shaking up struggling companies with mixed success, already owns almost 10 percent of Commercial Metals. He had wanted to combine Commercial Metals with his existing metals recycling businesses and sell off the rest of its assets, refocusing on its core North American operations. Icahn already owns PCS Metals Inc.
Commercial Metals, based in Irving, Texas, makes, recycles and markets steel and metal products, among other materials.
Massaro said that Commercial Metals has taken steps to improve its long-term financial and operational performance ? including streamlining operations, and cutting its overall cost structure ? under the new leadership of CEO Joe Alvarado and CFO Barbara Smith, who both joined the company earlier this year.
MONTGOMERY, Ala. ? A 29-year-old postal employee has been charged with two counts of attempted murder for firing shots inside the main post office in Alabama's capital city.
Officials said Arthur Lee Darby Jr. was jailed Friday under $1 million bond.
Darby is accused of carrying two guns into a mail processing room at the beginning of his shift Thursday evening and firing several shots. No one was injured.
The police chief said officers apprehended him within 10 minutes of receiving a 911 call from the post office at 6:38 p.m.
Nearly 1 million votes were cast in the contest for MTV News' tournament to crown the Best Britney Video of All Time. By Vaughn Trudeau Schoonmaker
Britney Spears Photo: Jive
Over the course of two weeks, nearly one million votes cast in MTV News' Britney Spears Tournament: 30 Videos for 30 Years, and on Friday (December 2) — which also happens to be the pop superstar's 30 birthday — we reached our final tally.
You, the fans, decided the crown for the Best Britney Video of All Time is goes to ... "I'm A Slave 4 U"!
Released in September 2001, the Francis Lawrence-directed video is still as influential a pop music clip 10 years later. Britney performed the song for the first time at the '01 MTV Video Music Awards, using a jungle-themed set filled with exotic animals, including a tiger and a now-iconic white boa constrictor snake, which she wrapped around her shoulders.
"Slave" defeated the Chris Marrs Piliero-directed runner-up "Criminal" by a wide margin, with nearly 69 percent of the vote. "Criminal," Britney's most recent video from this year's Femme Fatale release, made its way to the top two by beating out some of Britney's best-loved videos, from "Stronger" to "I Wanna Go" to (in a shocking defeat) her debut video "... Baby One More Time."
We want to know what you think of "Slave" winning it all in our 30 Videos for 30 Years tournament. Sound off in the comments section and send your birthday wishes to Britney!
Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich speaks at the First Coast Tea Party town hall meeting in Jacksonville, Florida, Nov. 17, 2011.
All fall in New Hampshire, Republican presidential candidates have been auditioning for the role of Mitt Romney?s foil. With 43 days before the nation?s first primary, it?s finally Newt Gingrich?s turn on stage. Gingrich?s surge to No. 2 status in the state was punctuated Sunday with a coveted endorsement from the state?s largest newspaper, and so far he?s relishing the resurrection. ?I don?t claim to be the?perfect candidate,? the former House Speaker told a South Carolina radio station on Monday. ?I just claim to be a lot more conservative than Mitt Romney and a lot more electable than anybody else.?
FRIDAY, Dec. 2 (HealthDay News) -- Major depression and conflicts with intimate partners increase the risk of suicide among pregnant women and new mothers, a new study indicates.
"We have a more complete picture now of who these women are and what led up to these tragic events," study author Dr. Katherine Gold, an assistant professor of family medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School, said in a university news release. "These deaths ripple through families and communities and cause a lot of sorrow and devastation."
She and her colleagues analyzed 2,083 suicides among women aged 15 to 54 that were recorded over five years in the U.S. National Violent Death Reporting System.
More than half of the women who killed themselves had a known mental health diagnosis. Nearly half were in a depressed mood prior to their suicide.
"Previous research has shown that depressive disorders affect 14 to 23 percent of pregnant and postpartum women and anxiety disorders affect 10 to 12 percent," senior study author Dr. Christie Palladino, an obstetrician/gynecologist with the Education Discovery Institute at Georgia Health Sciences University, said in the news release.
"We've known that major depression is a factor in suicide for a long time," she said. "But this data tells us, for example, that pregnant and postpartum women had a much higher incidence of conflicts with intimate partners than their counterparts."
The study also found that new mothers who committed suicide were more likely to be depressed in the two weeks before they killed themselves.
Hispanic women were far more likely to commit suicide while pregnant (10 percent of such suicides) or within a year of pregnancy (9 percent of such suicides), compared to when they were not pregnant (4 percent of suicides among non-pregnant women).
The study appears online ahead of print publication in the journal General Hospital Psychiatry.
"As a society, we tend to avoid talking about suicide," Gold said. "But it's important to try to understand and talk about risk factors if we are going to address suicide from a public health perspective."
More information
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about suicide prevention.
Training peers improves social outcomes for some kids with ASDPublic release date: 30-Nov-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Karin Lee NIMHpress@mail.nih.gov 301-443-4536 NIH/National Institute of Mental Health
NIH-funded study finds engaging peers in social skills intervention may be more helpful than training children with ASD directly
Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who attend regular education classes may be more likely to improve their social skills if their typically developing peers are taught how to interact with them than if only the children with ASD are taught such skills. According to a study funded by the National Institutes of Health, a shift away from more commonly used interventions that focus on training children with ASD directly may provide greater social benefits for children with ASD. The study was published online ahead of print on Nov. 28, 2011, in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.
"Real life doesn't happen in a lab, but few research studies reflect that," said Thomas R. Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), a part of NIH. "As this study shows, taking into account a person's typical environment may improve treatment outcomes."
The most common type of social skills intervention for children with ASD is direct training of a group of children with social challenges, who may have different disorders and may be from different classes or schools. The intervention is usually delivered at a clinic, but may also be school-based and offered in a one-on-one format. Other types of intervention focus on training peers how to interact with classmates who have difficulty with social skills. Both types of intervention have shown positive results in studies, but neither has been shown to be as effective in community settings.
Connie Kasari, Ph.D., of the University of California, Los Angeles, and colleagues compared different interventions among 60 children, ages 6-11, with ASD. All of the children were mainstreamed in regular education classrooms for at least 80 percent of the school day.
These children were randomly assigned to either receive one-on-one training with an intervention provider or to receive no one-on-one intervention. The children were also randomized to receive a peer-mediated intervention or no peer-mediated intervention. The two-step randomization resulted in four intervention categories, each with 15 children who had ASD:
Child-focused: direct, one-on-one training between the child with ASD and intervention provider to practice specific social skills, such as how to enter a playground game or conversation
Peer-mediated: group training with the intervention provider for three typically developing children from the same classroom as the student with ASD; the affected student did not receive any social skills training. The participating children were selected by study staff and teachers and were taught strategies for engaging students with social difficulties.
Both child-focused and peer-mediated interventions
Neither intervention.
All interventions were given for 20 minutes two times a week for six weeks. A follow-up was conducted 12 weeks after the end of the study. After the follow up phase, all children with ASD who had received neither intervention were re-randomized to one of the other treatment categories.
Children with ASD whose peers received trainingincluding those who may also have received the child-focused interventionspent less time alone on playgrounds and had more classmates naming them as a friend, compared to participants who received the child-focused interventions. Teachers also reported that students with ASD in the peer-mediated groups showed significantly better social skills following the intervention. However, among all intervention groups, children with ASD showed no changes in the number of peers they indicated as their friends.
At follow-up, children with ASD from the peer-mediated groups continued to show increased social connections despite some of the children having changed classrooms due to a new school year and having new, different peers.
According to the researchers, the findings suggest that peer-mediated interventions can provide better and more persistent outcomes than child-focused strategies, and that child-focused interventions may only be effective when paired with peer-mediated intervention.
In addition to the benefits of peer-mediated interventions, the researchers noted several areas for improvement. For example, peer engagement especially helped children with ASD to be less isolated on the playground, but it did not result in improvement across all areas of playground behavior, such as taking turns in games or engaging in conversations and other joint activities. Also, despite greater inclusion in social circles and more frequent engagement by their peers, children with ASD continued to cite few friendships. Further studies are needed to explore these factors as well as other possible mediators of treatment effects.
###
The study was supported by NIMH, the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, and the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders through the Studies to Advance Autism Research and Treatment (STAART) network program and received additional funding from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA).
Reference
Kasari C, Rotheram-Fuller E, Locke J, Gulsrud A. Making the Connection Randomized Controlled Trial of Social Skills at School for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders. J Ch Psychol Psychiatry. 2011 Nov 28. [epub ahead of print]
Clinical Trials Number: NCT00095420
The mission of the NIMH is to transform the understanding and treatment of mental illnesses through basic and clinical research, paving the way for prevention, recovery and cure. For more information, visit http://www.nimh.nih.gov.
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Training peers improves social outcomes for some kids with ASDPublic release date: 30-Nov-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Karin Lee NIMHpress@mail.nih.gov 301-443-4536 NIH/National Institute of Mental Health
NIH-funded study finds engaging peers in social skills intervention may be more helpful than training children with ASD directly
Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who attend regular education classes may be more likely to improve their social skills if their typically developing peers are taught how to interact with them than if only the children with ASD are taught such skills. According to a study funded by the National Institutes of Health, a shift away from more commonly used interventions that focus on training children with ASD directly may provide greater social benefits for children with ASD. The study was published online ahead of print on Nov. 28, 2011, in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.
"Real life doesn't happen in a lab, but few research studies reflect that," said Thomas R. Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), a part of NIH. "As this study shows, taking into account a person's typical environment may improve treatment outcomes."
The most common type of social skills intervention for children with ASD is direct training of a group of children with social challenges, who may have different disorders and may be from different classes or schools. The intervention is usually delivered at a clinic, but may also be school-based and offered in a one-on-one format. Other types of intervention focus on training peers how to interact with classmates who have difficulty with social skills. Both types of intervention have shown positive results in studies, but neither has been shown to be as effective in community settings.
Connie Kasari, Ph.D., of the University of California, Los Angeles, and colleagues compared different interventions among 60 children, ages 6-11, with ASD. All of the children were mainstreamed in regular education classrooms for at least 80 percent of the school day.
These children were randomly assigned to either receive one-on-one training with an intervention provider or to receive no one-on-one intervention. The children were also randomized to receive a peer-mediated intervention or no peer-mediated intervention. The two-step randomization resulted in four intervention categories, each with 15 children who had ASD:
Child-focused: direct, one-on-one training between the child with ASD and intervention provider to practice specific social skills, such as how to enter a playground game or conversation
Peer-mediated: group training with the intervention provider for three typically developing children from the same classroom as the student with ASD; the affected student did not receive any social skills training. The participating children were selected by study staff and teachers and were taught strategies for engaging students with social difficulties.
Both child-focused and peer-mediated interventions
Neither intervention.
All interventions were given for 20 minutes two times a week for six weeks. A follow-up was conducted 12 weeks after the end of the study. After the follow up phase, all children with ASD who had received neither intervention were re-randomized to one of the other treatment categories.
Children with ASD whose peers received trainingincluding those who may also have received the child-focused interventionspent less time alone on playgrounds and had more classmates naming them as a friend, compared to participants who received the child-focused interventions. Teachers also reported that students with ASD in the peer-mediated groups showed significantly better social skills following the intervention. However, among all intervention groups, children with ASD showed no changes in the number of peers they indicated as their friends.
At follow-up, children with ASD from the peer-mediated groups continued to show increased social connections despite some of the children having changed classrooms due to a new school year and having new, different peers.
According to the researchers, the findings suggest that peer-mediated interventions can provide better and more persistent outcomes than child-focused strategies, and that child-focused interventions may only be effective when paired with peer-mediated intervention.
In addition to the benefits of peer-mediated interventions, the researchers noted several areas for improvement. For example, peer engagement especially helped children with ASD to be less isolated on the playground, but it did not result in improvement across all areas of playground behavior, such as taking turns in games or engaging in conversations and other joint activities. Also, despite greater inclusion in social circles and more frequent engagement by their peers, children with ASD continued to cite few friendships. Further studies are needed to explore these factors as well as other possible mediators of treatment effects.
###
The study was supported by NIMH, the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, and the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders through the Studies to Advance Autism Research and Treatment (STAART) network program and received additional funding from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA).
Reference
Kasari C, Rotheram-Fuller E, Locke J, Gulsrud A. Making the Connection Randomized Controlled Trial of Social Skills at School for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders. J Ch Psychol Psychiatry. 2011 Nov 28. [epub ahead of print]
Clinical Trials Number: NCT00095420
The mission of the NIMH is to transform the understanding and treatment of mental illnesses through basic and clinical research, paving the way for prevention, recovery and cure. For more information, visit http://www.nimh.nih.gov.
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
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Public release date: 30-Nov-2011
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