Mouse Computer has just listed a new 15.6-inch notebook on its product page, the m-Book B501E. Powered by a 1.60Ghz Intel Celeron N3160 processor, this budget-minded notebook has a 15.6-inch 1366 x 768 HD LED-backlight display, an Intel HD Graphics 400, a 4GB DDR3 RAM and a 120GB SSD.

Apart from that, the system sports a 1MP webcam, a multi-card reader, 2x USB 3.0 ports, 2x USB 2.0 ports, 1x HDMI output port, 1x LAN port and built-in stereo speakers.

For connectivity, it provides WiFi 802.11ac and Bluetooth 4.2 + LE. Finally, the m-Book B501E runs on Windows 10 Home 64-bit OS. The Mouse Computer m-Book B501E is available now for just 39,800 Yen (about $380). [Product Page]

The post Mouse Computer m-Book B501E 15.6-Inch Notebook appeared first on TechFresh, Consumer Electronics Guide.

WASHINGTON — Presumptive Republican Party presidential nominee Donald Trump entered June with just $1.3 million cash on hand in his campaign account, according to a campaign finance report filed on Monday. The tiny sum is the result of Trump’s poor first month of fundraising from donors that netted just $3.1 million.

The total is unbelievably paltry for a major party nominee, and places him further behind his opponent in terms of funds and campaign infrastructure than any other modern presidential candidate. In 2012, the collected efforts of the candidates, parties and super PACs of both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney spent more than $1 billion each.

Clinton, by comparison, raised $26.4 million for her campaign in the same time period as Trump’s $3.1 million. In May 2012, when Romney was the presumptive Republican nominee, he raised $23.4 million.

When party committees and supportive super PACs are factored in, the disparity between Clinton and Trump becomes astronomical.

Aside from the $26.4 million raised for Clinton’s campaign, Priorities USA Action (the super PAC endorsed by her campaign) pulled in an additional $12.4 million. The Democratic National Committee also raised $12.3 million. In total, these three committees comprising Team Clinton entered June with $103.4 million cash on hand.

Team Trump — his campaign, the Republican National Committee and the super PAC Great America — had a combined $21.7 million cash on hand. That is five times less than what Team Clinton has available to spend.

Team Clinton and Team Trump Cash on Hand (May 31, 2016)

The astonishing gap in funding has produced massive disparities in both television advertising and staff on the ground.

Priorities USA Action just launched a $20 million ad buy across swing states and has already spent $10.5 million attacking Trump and another $5 million boosting Clinton on air. The Clinton campaign just reserved television air time across eight states.

The Clinton campaign boasts a massive staff of 685 people, while the Trump campaign’s payroll sits at 69. Both numbers are down from April, but the presumptive Democratic nominee also has already begun to farm out her campaign staff to the DNC and state parties to begin to organize in key swing states and beyond. She has further promised to place staff in all 50 states to help get out the vote for her campaign and down-ballot Democrats.

Trump effectively became the party nominee on May 4 after defeating Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in the Indiana primary. He quickly stated that he would cease self-funding his campaign and start raising money for both his own committee and the Republican Party.

“I’m not looking for myself, I’m looking out for the party, so the party can compete in Senate races and House races. I want to raise money for the party,” he said on Fox at the time.

And he did raise $3 million through a joint fundraising committee called Trump Victory, formed in the waning weeks of May, for the Republican National Committee. That is about a quarter of the $13 million the RNC raised last month. The problem, though, is that Trump’s fundraising totals are both little and late, especially compared to both Clinton’s current total and the 2012 total of Romney, who became his party’s leader nine days earlier in the election year than Trump did.

The majority of Trump’s available cash is housed at the RNC, but the central party committee may have expected much more. In 2012, with the help Romney’s formidable network of wealthy donors, the RNC raised $34 million in May — $21 million more than this year. Romney, meanwhile, raised $23.4 million in May 2012, his best fundraising month of the cycle and $20 million more than Trump.

Overall, the RNC has raised $163 million through May, or $6 million less than in 2012 at the same point. But the RNC’s fundraising strength is centered on the large contributions it has received in special accounts that cannot be used to pay for election expenses. The committee has pulled in $33.4 million for its convention, building and recount accounts from donors who can give up to $100,200 to each one. That leaves just $129 million in their main campaign account to help Republican get elected this fall — far less than they had in 2012 at this juncture.

The DNC trails the RNC, with $108 million raised overall and $100 million raised when not including the convention, building and recount accounts.

This will not help make up the astronomical gap between Clinton’s $42 million cash on hand and Trump’s $1.2 million cash on hand. Candidates pay the lowest unit price for advertising, while parties and outside groups pay the expensive going rate. This means that candidate money goes much, much further — as Romney, who leaned too hard on super PACs in 2012, learned the hard way.

Trump has increased his fundraising schedule, and has already made stops in Texas, New York, Arizona, Georgia and Virginia in June. It is increasingly likely, however, that political scientists will finally get to see a real-world test of whether having a fully funded and fully functioning campaign really matters for its results.

Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Why new-fangled mosquito controls should not replace tried and tested methods

Utibe Effiong, University of Michigan

In the last 40 years of mosquito-borne viruses such as malaria, yellow fever and dengue, scientists have introduced myriad interventions to control the population of mosquitoes. This is because controlling mosquitoes has a large effect on controlling the diseases since the mosquito is the vector that carries them.

Novel mosquito-control approaches have included everything from deploying sterile male mosquitoes to soaps that could prevent people in high-risk malaria areas from contracting mosquito-borne diseases.

Zika, the latest mosquito-borne virus to be declared a global health emergency, has once again propelled innovations to tackle the control of mosquitoes.

There is talk of trying to stop Zika by giving mosquitoes a sexually transmitted disease and even injecting plants with a bacterium that would alter the mosquito’s genome and eliminate its thirst for blood.

Many of these innovations are good ideas but collectively they are only one of the tools in the armament of fighting mosquito-borne diseases. And they should not draw focus away from the tried and tested public health measures to control mosquito-borne diseases. These include environmental sanitation and access to clean water.

Different innovations

Making male mosquitoes sterile was one of the first innovations introduced in the 1970s when malaria was considered a problematic disease. This was becase the malaria parasite had become resistant to front line drugs.

Several other quick fixes have also been offered. These include fungi, worms and fish that parasitise and kill larval mosquitoes before they transform into adult mosquitoes. But these innovations were all found to be ineffective.

Changing the genetic makeup of the mosquito has also been explored. It results in mosquitoes that are not susceptible to the parasite. But this approach is still many years from application in field settings.

Having grown up on the banks of a heavily polluted canal in Nigeria and with limited access to potable water, the innovation that most fascinated me is a mosquito-repellent soap.

Two African scientists created the soap from natural oils and plants. The hope was that it could successfully prevent mosquito-borne diseases because it is cheap to produce and relies on existing habits such as bathing, cleaning and doing laundry.

But there is a catch. People need access to clean water to use the soap. Given that globally more than 700 million people still lack access to safe water, an innovation like a mosquito-repellent soap could become just another quick fix that only serves some but distracts from the complex task of providing more workable solutions.

The use of mosquito-repellent soaps is in fact not a new idea. Natural insect repellents have been in use for millennia and soaps containing such ingredients have been available for at least 30 years.

But natural mosquito-repellent soaps have been shown to have lower efficacy when compared to soaps containing the synthetic repellent DEET. More so, most of those natural ingredients could be harmful to health. Many of them cause cancer.

Some of these innovations have worked on a small scale but are not as effective on a larger scale. And although the innovations focus on mosquito control, this is only one of many factors that result in the spread of mosquito-borne diseases.

A complex set of diseases

The reality is that there are many factors responsible for the persistence and global spread of mosquito-borne diseases. These are complex.

They include:

• insecticide and drug resistance;

• changes in public health policies;

• emphasis on emergency response;

• demographic and societal changes; and

• genetic changes in pathogens.

Climate change is also implicated. Since insects have no internal control over their body temperature, as ambient temperatures rise their distribution may expand through increased reproductive rate, biting behaviour, and survival.

Humidity and the availability of water for breeding in areas that are usually dry also promotes vector distribution and longevity. The incubation period of pathogens in vectors is temperature-dependent and becomes shorter in warmer conditions.

Unprecedented population growth, mostly in developing countries, has resulted in major movements of people, primarily to urban centres. This unplanned and uncontrolled urbanisation has led to inadequate housing and deteriorating water, sewage, and waste-management systems. These produce ideal conditions for mosquito-borne diseases to be transmitted.

My personal experiences and those of the hundreds of patients I treated for recurrent malaria in the slums of southern Nigeria are proof of this.

The best approach

So, what is the best way to prevent mosquito-borne diseases?

The variation in malaria’s epidemiology in and between countries shows that a multi-pronged approach is needed. This includes:

• providing and improving public health infrastructure;

• research to develop effective drugs and vaccines; and

• improved vector control using proven techniques while taking up new innovations.

Research has shown that mosquito control measures built around environmental management are non- toxic, cost-effective, sustainable and highly effective in reducing morbidity and mortality. Those environmental measures including standing water, vegetation and drainage management all rely on access to clean water and sanitation.

The impact of adequate access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene go beyond mosquito control. They are essential for human survival. Access to these basic needs has a positive impact on the overall health, wealth and economic development of people and communities around the world.

Improving access to water also goes a long way in preventing – and even eliminating – other water and sanitation-related diseases such as cholera, trachoma, schistosomiasis, worm infestations and guinea worm disease.

UNICEF estimates that if countries in need were able to get basic, low-cost water and sanitation facilities, the world would save around US$263 billion a year. Those savings would come from obviated health and labour expenses.

The threats that mosquito-borne diseases pose to global health are as real as the are complex. The response must be broad and calculated. It must apply proven interventions while trying out new ideas.

Public health innovations should be considered as just one tool in our armament. They should not distract us, as they sometimes have, from the complex task of protecting and promoting global health through interventions like improving access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene.

Utibe Effiong, Resident Physician at St Mary Mercy Hospital and Research Scientist for the Exposure Research Laboratory, University of Michigan

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

If you’re an Apple Pay user with access to the cardless ATMs Bank of America installed earlier this year, you might be able to withdraw cash from the machines using your phone. Reports that BoA’s machines will support Cupertino’s mobile wallet began…

Dear Dr. Right,

You were right. Ten years ago this August, I left your office with my husband, round belly bulging with my nearly full-term first child, cursing your name. It was our first appointment together and you basically told me I was going to fail. When I explained to you that I had been off meds and symptom-free from my bipolar disorder for almost a year and that I wanted to stay off medication to breastfeed, you nodded with a sympathetic smile on your face, scribbled in your notebook and simply said we needed to have a plan.

A plan for which hospital I’d go to when I became manic to the point of needing that level of care. That level of care that you were so sure I’d need.

You were right.

At that stage of my fight, Dr. Right, I was still in denial about the fact that I had been diagnosed with a mental illness. I thought maybe, just maybe, since I had nearly a full year of stability without meds, the past had been a misdiagnosis. Perhaps those eight psychiatrists I had seen over the years since my two hospitalizations for mania were all wrong. I mean, I hadn’t experienced any significant episodes of depression or mania since 2006 and most importantly, I felt solid and stable. Didn’t that count for anything?

Didn’t that make me normal again?

I was so excited to be a mom and every spare moment I had was spent preparing for this new little life who would soon enter the world. His crib was set up, clothes had been washed and lovingly put away, and diapers and wipes sat waiting on the changing table in his nursery. One of the last things on my list was meeting with you, a psychiatrist who agreed to treat me without medication for the remainder of my pregnancy and beyond, according to my wishes.

Man, am I glad we met when we did. Because you were so right. And when the time came, four weeks after his birth, when the compounded lack of sleep and absence of meds in my bloodstream caught up to me in the form of full-blown postpartum psychosis, my husband had someone to call for help.

He called you.

How terrifying it must have been for him to see me unravel the way I did. How helpless he must have felt watching me slowly lose touch with reality, my eyes glazing over, unable to focus on the simplest task of taking a shower or eating a bowl of cereal. And when the psychosis reached its peak, he saw me scrambling to pull together every journal I had ever written in, piling them up before the blazing gas fireplace in our family room like an offering before I died. My legacy, scrawled in ink for my son to read someday since in my mind, I wasn’t going to make it back to the surface. I was hurling to the depths of hell which to me felt like being dragged to the floor of the ocean, my ankles cuffed with a ball and chain pulling me to the bottom. I was sinking faster than I could breathe. And I was so scared it was my day to die and I’d never see my baby again.

Mania to the point of psychosis can do this to a person.

I was taken under a Temporary Detention Order to the Emergency Room where I was held handcuffed to the bed. The doctors and nurses eventually determined I was a threat to myself or others and the green light was given to find me a bed. I was lucky, beds aren’t always available, as the Deeds’ family tragedy unfortunately proved. I only had to wait overnight and the next morning I was transferred to our local hospital’s geriatric psych ward, the only open bed in the surrounding area.

I made it through. It wasn’t easy, in fact, it was pretty awful being in a psych ward for a week of my new baby’s life. My mental illness had landed a forceful blow to the gut, showing me it was in control of my body. Still, wandering the halls at night I’d stumble, groggy from the antipsychotics, to the nurses station to ask for another dose of whatever sleeping pill they could give me. I knew sleep was my friend in there. After a week, I got well with your help, and with support from my husband and family.

Once home, I focused on getting stable. I followed my treatment plan and took my meds religiously. Then it happened again. I thought I knew what was best for my next baby. I didn’t. Acute mania reared its ugly head to the point of psychosis, repeating the nightmare a year and a half later when I found out I was pregnant with my daughter because I had stopped my medication.

You were right again. At five weeks pregnant I landed in the psych ward again.

Those days are tough for me to look back on, the times I was in the hospital and the weeks and months of recovery afterwards. But I wouldn’t trade them for anything because they are a part of who I am now and they tell the story of how I’ve evolved. Those slices of my life do not define me, but when added into everything else that makes me the person I am today, I am grateful for those agonizing, terrifying, heart-wrenching experiences.

You are the expert when it comes to psychiatry, Dr. Right. Me, I’m just the patient. During one of our sessions, I brought up whether or not to disclose my mental illness, and I asked for your opinion. Of course only I could make that call. You expressed the same sadness that so many in this world share over the injustice mentally ill people experience when they expose their conditions. I was looking for justification that it would be okay if I wrote openly about what I had been through, but I didn’t get that from you. In fact, you recommended that I keep my illness hidden, lest I be discriminated upon because of it. Once more, it was as if I were hearing “destined to fail” all over again.

Good thing I didn’t listen that time.

I’m writing now, Dr. Right. Remember when I told you I wanted to write a book? Well, I still do, but first I’ve started self-publishing online, to gain experience. I have a blog, and over the past two years my readership has grown tremendously, all organically, due to my dedication to sharing my story in order to help others.

I’ve met so many incredible people through blogging and social media. It blows my mind how I can write about the struggles I’ve gone through and in return, I get emails from people saying, “Me too!” and “Thank you so much for being so brave.” My heart is blissfully content because I know I’ve uncovered my purpose in life and my words are having an impact on people, a positive impact. I can feel it. And every time I put my thoughts out there for the world to read, my voice grows a little stronger.

I’ve created a show and non-profit organization called This Is My Brave where others like me who live with mental illness can stand up on stage and share our personal stories, our suffering and our breakthroughs, the hope we’ve found in long-term recovery. This is our chance to show the world our vulnerability in an effort to raise awareness and acceptance.

For years after I was handed my diagnosis I feared the backlash of people who knew me finding out about my mental illness. Conversations were uncomfortable, I cared too much about what other people thought of me. It didn’t take me very long to realize that living in fear is not really living. Taking off my armor and choosing to expose myself and my story was one of the best decisions I ever made about my mental health and my life in general.

Revealing my vulnerability freed me to follow my dreams.

And I have you to thank. Thank you for being right. Thank you for letting me fall. Thank you for being there when I needed you. Finally, thank you for doubting me and advising me to stay silent. Because I needed my chance to prove someone wrong and you were that person for me.

Respectfully yours,
Jennifer Marshall (your patient from 2008-2011)

This letter was originally posted on BipolarMomLife.com.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.