Widespread and Increasing Vitamin D Deficiency

the problem of vitamin D deficiency across the globe has not only been increasing but also has become widespread, with potentiallt severe repercussions for overall health and fracture rates, according to a new report issued by the International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF) which was published in the Osteoporosis International scientific journal.

the skin mainly produces vitamin D upon exposure to sunlight. it plays an important role in the maintenance of organ systems through the influence of calcium and is needed for normal bone mineralization and growth. Deficiency in vitamin D leads to an increased risk of osteoporosis and fractures, particularly hip fractures and, in severe cases, to the development of rickets which is a softening of bones in children that can lead to skeletal fractures and deformity.

there are several factors for decreased vitamin D levels, it includes old age, female, lower latitudes, winter season, darker skin pigmentation, less sunlight exporuse, dietary habits and the absence of vitamin D fortification in common foods. further more, it includes increase in urbanization, where people tend to live and work indoors, also cultural practices that ten towards sun avoidance and the wearing of traditional clothing that covers the skin. these are common in the Middle East and South Asia, and the severity of the problem arises from the combo of the said factors.

the report reviews the scope and causes of low vitamin D levels in six regions: Asia, Europe, Latin America, Middle East and Africa, North America and Oceania. their findings suggest that prevention strategies must be initiated at the national level - partiuclarly given the increasing ageing of populations in many regions of the world. safe, limited exposure to sunlight and improved dietary intake of vitamin D, and considering fortification of foods are encouraged as a part of the national plans.

Mactan Island, Cebu Beach Resorts - BE Resorts

Be Here. Drenched in sun, greeting the breeze, and welcoming the sea, Be Resorts is nestled in Punta Engaño, Mactan Island. Located minutes away from Mactan International Airport and easily accessible via the Marcelo B. Fernan Bridge, getting to your stylish getaway at Be Resorts is closer than you think.

BE Active. Offering a wide variety of games ans sports, Be Resorts lets you burn off those calories in fun and engaging ways! To mention them: AQUA Sports Activities like Banana Boat Ride, Kayak Ride, Pedal Boat Ride, Jet Ski & Waverunner, Water Sports Adventure, Island Hopping and Scuba Diving.

Be Resorts Activity Center features WII, Billiards, Manual Soccer, Super Chexx, Board Games and Children Lounge Day Care.

Address: Punta Engaño Road, Mactan Island, Cebu 6015, Philippines
Telephone no. (6332) 2368888 local 8800 (Sales); local 8832 (Reservations)
Fax no. (6332) 2368088
Email: sales-mactan@beresorts.com
website: http://www.beresorts.com/

The Call center industry in the philippines..

This industry is regarded as one of the fastest growing industries in the world. International investment consultancy firm McKinsey and Co. predict that the demand from outsourcing services will reach $180 billion in 2010, with the costumer contact services, finance and accounting, and human resource sub-sectors taking up the biggest shares. When it comes to the trend in primary business requirements, expert are seeing a shift from cost effectiveness to skills quality and competence. This development are the more strengthens the Philippines' position as an emerging global leader in the BPO industry (BPAP 2006).

The BPO boom in the philippines is currently led by demand for offshore call center. The Philippines raked in offshore service generating revenues of $ 2.1 billion in 2006, placing third behind India and China and slightly ahead of Malaysia. That's up 62% over the $1.3 billion it gained in 2004, and a huge increase from the start of the decade when the outsourcing industry in Manila employed just 2,400 people and the industry had revenues of merely $24 million. It is estimated that 200,000 people are working in 120 BPO (mostly Contact Center) in the Philippines in 2006. Overall, Philippines BPO is forecasted to earn US$11 billion and employing 900,000 people by the year 2010 (Shameen 2006).

The recent growth spurt in the outsourcing industry in the Philippines has been fueled not by traditional low-value-added call centers but more higher-end outsourcing such as legal sevices, web design, medical transcription, software development, animation, and shared services. Though call centers still form the largest part of the sector, the Philippines has begun leveraging its creative design talent pool of lawyers, and its professionals in acccounting (Shameen 2006).

Majority of the BPO facilities are located in Metro Manila although other regional areas such as Baguio City, Bacolod City, Cagayan De Oro, Cebu City, Clark (Angeles City), Dagupan City, Davao City, Dumaguete City, Lipa City and Ilo-ilo City are now being promoted and developed for offshore operations.

Major companies that already operate in the Philippines include AIG, AOL, Barnes and Noble, Chevron, Citigroup, Dell, HP, HSBC, IBM, Intel, JPMorgan Chase, Motorola, Procter and Gamble, Siemens AG and Trend Micro. Roster of outsourcing clients include NEC Telecom, Caltex, Fujitsu and Alitalia. Notable BPO vendors include Accenture, Convergys, and Unisys. There are numerous smaller operations that either support larger vendors during seasonal demands, or directly service Small and Medium overseas companies. Major vendors are managed jointly by expatriate and local managers whereas smaller operations maintain thier viability through direct management by its owners, who themselves are most likely to be from the BPO and ICT industries. Industry associations include BPO ServicesAssociation (BSA/U) and Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPA/P). Here are some examples of services provided by call centers in the Philippines.

border-collapse:collapse IE problem

I ran into this problem a while ago where css border-collapse:collapse on Internet Explorer 7 and 8 is having a 1px space in between table cells. But its just fine in Firefox, Chrome and Opera. I thought IE8 already has the fix for most IE bugs, well IE ruined my mood again.

Just in case you were having trouble with this one too so here's what I found. On IE7 and IE8, the border-collapse: collapse does not overrule cellspacing even if cellspacing is set to 0. cellspacing should be set to null or empty in order to have it the look it should be.

PHP function to strip only selected tags

The following function is somewhat same with the php strip_tags function with added functionality to select what tags you want to strip.

function strip_only($str,$tags){
/*
usage:
echostrip_only($str,array('table','a'));
echostrip_only($str,'');
*/
if(!is_array($tags)){
$tags=(strpos($str,'>')!==false? explode('>',str_replace('<','',$tags)):array($tags));
if(end($tags)=='')array_pop($tags);
}
foreach($tags as $tag)
$str=preg_replace('#.$tag.'[^>]*>#is','',$str);
return $str;
}
?>

Javascript onclick return false does not work in IE6, IE7

Workaroud:

Instead of:

onclick="yourFunction(); return false;"

Use this:

onclick="yourFunction(); event.returnValue=false; return false;"

View genereated source in IE

You can view the generated source in IE just like on the Firefox Web Developer toolbar. Just copy and paste the code below in the URL then hit enter.

javascript:''+window.document.body.outerHTML+''