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The people of Cuba today need permanence, stability and a sense of belonging. This may jar those who have visited Cuba and seen a deprived but proud people. Yet, as the Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez has written, "Most young people's eyes are looking to the outside, because they see that they cannot make change in their country. They desire to take a plane to Miami or Europe and in ten hours change their lives completely." Convincing them that they have a future on the island will require wholesale change: massive amounts of capital, a huge infusion of technical know-how, and restoration of the rule of law (respect for private property, for starters). But even these major fixes won't be sufficient to secure the island's revival. As the Cuban writer Jose Azel recently observed, "Post-Castro Cuba will need to rebuild much more than its economy; it will need to rebuild its national identity." That is because wiping out that identity -- one that had grown organically through the centuries and had produced an enterprising and creative national character -- was Job One for the Revolution; it was a necessity, even an obsession, to communists intent on imposing an alien blueprint on the people of Cuba. "Cubanism" had to be wrung out of the people's consciousness so that the much-touted "revolutionary consciousness" could be installed in its place. Timeless habits had to be changed, ways of thinking rewired, history rewritten. Adapted from the source document.

Discusses Britain-EU relations, attending to the implications for the Bush administration & its policy goals. US & British points of disagreement with the EU are enumerated, especially vis-a-vis trade, sovereignty, & centralization. But the US must be cautious in aligning itself too closely with Britain's "europhobic" Tories. An EU without Britain would have calamitous effects for US-EU trade relations, while Anglo & American conservatives have markedly different views of privatization & downsizing government. K. Coddon

Research on vitamin C and its effects on cancer is growing in popularity around the world as positive research continues to accumulate building a stronger case for its effectiveness. This concise SpringerBrief on Vitamin C and Cancer presents the latest findings on how vitamin C induces apoptosis. A high concentration of vitamin C allows for ascorbate to generate hydrogen peroxide in tissue that can selectively kill cancer cells. Research has confirmed that high-dose vitamin C is cytotoxic to a wide variety of cancer cell lines, and that it also boosts the anti-cancer activity of several common chemotherapy drugs. Vitamin C also does more than just kill cancer cells. It boosts immunity by stimulating collagen formation to help the body wall off the tumor. It inhibits hyaluronidase, an enzyme that tumors use to metastasize and invade other organs throughout the body. This concise and up-to-date Brief is geared towards cancer researchers and scientists, as well as physicians interested in the basic science and the translational potential of vitamin C in cancer therapeutics. Dr. Michael J. Gonzalez is Professor at the Nutrition Program, School of Public Health in the Medical Sciences Campus, University of Puerto Rico. Dr. Gonzalez is a Fellow of the American College of Nutrition, and has authored over 150 scientific publications. He has served as a member on several scientific journal Editorial Boards, such as Biomedicina, the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, and Alternative Medicine Reviews. As a consultant for several companies, he has been responsible for designing formulations of nutritional supplements and pharmaceutical products. He has been a consultant for The Center for the Improvement of Human Functioning (now Riordan Clinic), in Wichita, Kansas. He has obtained several research awards for his work on Nutrition and Cancer. He is currently Co-Director of RECNAC II project, and Research Director of the InBioMed Project Initiative. Dr. Jorge R. Miranda-Massari, is Professor at the School of Pharmacy in the Medical Sciences Campus, University of Puerto Rico, and a Registered Pharmacist. Author of numerous scientific publications including editorials, reviews and research data in peer reviewed journals, Dr. Miranda-Massari is a consultant for the prestigious Center for the Improvement for the Human Functioning, in Wichita, Kansas. He is also Director of the Education Branch of the innovative InBioMed Project and Clinical Research Director of the RECNAC-II Project, specialized in Cancer Research. He is the creator of the first course in Integrative Medicine (Interdisciplinary Classification at a Doctoral Level), and the Advanced Practicum in Integrative Medicine at the School of Pharmacy, Medical Sciences Campus of the University of Puerto Rico.

Social chatbot (SC) applications offering social companionship and basic therapy tools have grown in popularity for emotional, social, and psychological support. While use appears to offer mental health benefits, few studies unpack the potential for harms. Our grounded theory study analyzes mental health experiences with the popular SC application Replika. We identified mental health relevant posts made in the r/Replika Reddit community between 2017 and 2021 ( n = 582). We find evidence of harms, facilitated via emotional dependence on Replika that resembles patterns seen in human–human relationships. Unlike other forms of technology dependency, this dependency is marked by role-taking, whereby users felt that Replika had its own needs and emotions to which the user must attend. While prior research suggests human–chatbot and human–human interactions may not resemble each other, we identify social and technological factors that promote parallels and suggest ways to balance the benefits and risks of SCs.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to compare the life cycle environmental impacts of the University of Cincinnati College of Engineering and Applied Sciences' current printed annual report to a version distributed via the internet.Design/methodology/approachLife cycle environmental impacts of both versions of the report are modeled using the online environmental input‐output life cycle assessment (EIO‐LCA) tool. Most monetary model inputs were obtained from the University of Cincinnati and the others were estimated. Results are presented for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, energy use, water use, and human and ecosystem health impacts. Alternative scenarios reflecting different reader behaviors were evaluated.FindingsThe electronic report reduces economic costs and all categories of environmental impacts so long as the recipients do not print the report at home. Impacts of the printed report were higher than the electronic report due to impacts associated with paper production and disposal and to a lesser extent differences in the impacts of mail versus electronic distribution. The environmental preferability of the options is heavily influenced by the number of users who choose to print the electronic report at home; if more than 10 percent print at home, it offsets the benefits of the e‐report.Research limitations/implicationsUsing the EIO‐LCA tool limited the accuracy of the results by using average US data for a specific supply chain. It was limited by assumptions about reader behavior with the e‐report.Practical implicationsThis case study demonstrates how a screening level life cycle assessment (LCA) might be used by a university administrator to make decisions supported by quantitative environmental information.Originality/valueThe screening level LCA‐based approach can provide grounding for environmental decision making within a reasonable time period and cost while maintaining sufficient accuracy for guiding purchasing or product decisions.

Acknowledgements We would like to thank all the participants, study PIs, trial clinicians, research nurses, Imperial Clinical Trial Unit staff and other site staff who have been responsible for setting up, recruiting participants and collecting the data for the IP5-MATTER trial. We are also grateful for the ongoing support of the Trial Management Group and our IP5-MATTER patient representatives. Finally, we would like to thank our trial funder the Wellcome Trust and University College London Hospitals (UCLH) Charity. Funding MJC's research is support by University College London Hospitals (UCLH) Charity and the Wellcome Trust. Mesfin Genie and Verity Watson are based at the Health Economics Research Unit (HERU), University of Aberdeen. HERU is funded by the Chief Scientists Office of the Scottish Government Health and Social Care Directorate. KTJ acknowledges research grant from the UK National Institute of Health Research Clinical Research Network Eastern and has received educational grants from Bayer UK, Janssen Oncology, Pfizer, Roche, and Takeda. HUA's research is supported by core funding from the United Kingdom's National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) Imperial Biomedical Research Centre. ; Peer reviewed ; Publisher PDF