Must try Hakka cuisine: Ban

Well, Max asked me today that what kind of culture do I supposed to introduce to foreigners visiting Shenzhen during this Summer Universiade. Proudly I would treat you guys to Ban.

Maybe Ban ( 粄 ) is not a commonly used character in Mandarin, probably only used in Hakka people. Generally speaking, Ban are fried, steamed or poached carbohydrates, most are glutinous foods, but some are rice noodles.

I prefer glutinous Ban the most. Steamed mugwort Ban, bowl shaped Ban, Tangyuan Ban are the most popular. They have salt or sweet flavor.

By no means Ban cuisines are daily food in Hakka's life, only in Luna calendar festivals they can have a taste. The Tangyuan Ban is for Lantern Festival, mugwort Ban is for Double Nine festival and penis shape Ban is the celebration for a boy's birth.

And Parsley Ban soup is one of my favourite.

photo zdic.net

Chinese register fee before visiting doctors

There're resources on Internet telling you how to see a doctor in China. The procedures in details demonstrate how medical services are. If English levels are good enough in these health workers, it will be more helpful.

I was told by Tom Anderson in a language class last year, that foreigners would fill loss when they were asked to pay before getting any services or merchandise. So it is probably akin to medical services in Chinese hospital. Health buyers pay before seeing doctors, laboratory tests or drugs.

So medical managers should declare their procedures as a routine to bridge the cultural gap. Web pages publishing, booklets or electric billboard, anything that help a visitor in the hospital to understand the procedures are not extravagant. Actually these are necessary for I recognize that even many local visitors have no idea about register procedure and register fee.

Well, here comes the key topic. There're two parts for register fees for visiting a doctor in China. The basic register fee charged at ￥1 ( one yuan ) shows that service is set up between the hospital and you, and the second part, which I like to call it consultant fee, varies from 3 yuan to 50 yuan in Shenzhen just for once, depending on the physician's rank.

So, whatever for prescription, diagnosis or consultation, people pay before that see any doctor.

Read twitter updates without proxy

Finally you find it's not a rumor that twitter is blocked when you arrive in the Red Country, even you are on a trip, go for business or exchange program, or attend the 2011 Summer Universiade. How to read twitter updates without proxy? mail2me @medecinsam
First you should have a gmail account. If you have none of it, sign up one before you visit this country.

Go to mail setting after signing in Google mail, then set up web clips. In the "search by topic or URL" blank, fill in

https://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/twitter_username

Gmail Web Clips will fetch twitter user's feed url back in numbers like this:

https://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/19890604.rss

But there are chaos if you have followed many users while they twits a lot every they. For better reading, you can copy the url above into Google Reader. Remember there is a https at the beginning at the browser's address.

Now you get encryption for both twitter subscription and online feed reader.

To update your twitter in this kind of country, surf the Internet with VPN/SSL tools, or sync your twitter account with Google Buzz https posting.

Happy twitting.

Eat fatty food but in a healthy range

每日郵報有一個爭議性的話題，低脂食物會增加心臟病風險，細讀字裡行間卻不是這麼回事。

專題命名 Low-fat foods can INCREASE the risk of heart disease 足以吸引眼球，暗示了：低脂食物增加心臟病風險、高脂食物屬於膳食均衡、為了降低心臟病風險應該吃高脂肪食物。文章提到了 Natasha Campbell-McBride ，我查閱了一下，她是有神經學科、營養學的學位和相關頭銜。

如果不仔細閱讀，不稍加思考，一些讀者將理所當然受到"劍橋營養門診部"、以上頭銜和報導手法的灌輸。Natasha，從名字看是一位典型的斯拉夫人，並沒有對記者說低脂食物有害。報導報導引用的一些話語，僅僅說飽和脂肪酸、低密度球蛋白對健康的積極意義，研究者和支持者建議大眾不必畏而遠之。

從幾個國家的研究看，學術界與行政部門對飽和脂肪酸、LDL 沒有誅之而後快。美國、英國、日本在健康診斷標準中允許低密度脂蛋白檢出陽性，只不過血生化結果超出一定水平後，醫生有責任開始健康干預，甚至確診為高脂血症。

同樣在英國，NHS，也就是國家保健系統，對成年男性、成年女性每日飽和脂肪酸攝入量提出指引，而非禁止攝入。我拿商場一款常見的調和油進行模型推算，假如英國成年男子所有脂肪全部來源於從烹飪油，沒有任何肉、禽、蛋、奶、零食等額外油脂，大致服用250克食物油的情況下飽和脂肪酸攝入量才超標。這相當於5兩食油。哈，不同的飲食模型，每個人食物結構各有差異，如此可以推算出各人油脂性熱量的結構及數量。但是要留意，食物測量法是最精確可靠的評價辦法，臨床營養師秤一秤飯前食物的重量、测一测飯後剩餘食物的重量，經過一段時間的連續評價或者隨機評價，得到測量結果，供GP或專科醫生參考。

每日郵報報導健康主題的風格獨特，不提及醫學研究結果、隨意概括醫學結論，還不引用反對意見給讀者比較和思考，不怪得它未取得 HONcode 認證。嗯，讀了作罷即可，每個人都應該獨立思考。

Chinese nostalgia

Foreigners can easily find that many Chinese are still filled with nostalgia of days in Feudal Empires, who believes that their ancestors was the men in a top country in the Globe. China, which in Chinese means "centre of the universe", still misleads the majorities that they will revive the nation some day.

-nostagia

a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition; also :something that evokes nostalgia

Pronunciations correcting device

Ah, I've heard compliments to my dialect such as "where do you improve your pronunciations", "you talk like a native speaker" or "I cannot imagine you have never live abroad". Lucky enough no one skepticizes my pale vocabulary, my awful grammars and ridiculous logic. Young people nowadays consume enviable resources to learn English, which are native textbooks from reputable publishers, listening training or interactive language game. Face to face with a licensed Laowai teacher for learning English? Never ever think about it in my years.

There was shortwave BBC broadcasting in English but it was too difficult for a beginner like myself, and soon after we have ran into radio interference since June of 1989. Well, I was not in a family financially good, so my parents didn't buy me cassette tapes anymore since the second year after I started my English in school education. I thought I was the abandoned as I realized few months later that pupils in some other classes in a same school were educating with Look, Listen and Learn, for I confidently imagined more As will be mine in the English subject.

I would stay in low level till now if Tyche had not visit me. A cultural exchange project, American Music Hour, showed up in the local radio channel not long after my depression. It's more clear compared to BBC talk time and Pop music are good topics with attractions, disk jockey and female deejay hosted the program rotationally in easy English. I just cooked my lunch, finished the meal whilst American Music hour finished in the noon time. Well, by subconsciously repeating after the sentences for those DJs, I caught a few words firstly, then successfully repeated the whole paragraph. What is the motivation? Maybe speaking in Uncle Sam's tone is fashionable.

Beginners and learners today are more lucky. For you unwilling to pay too much for English, you will encounter more online resources, or more interaction course. Recently the Chinese University of Hong Kong has developed a language system, which can correct the pronunciation errors from any speaker by a single word. The system called Enunciate, is leaded by professor Helen Meng, a PhD. I am sure it will be not far away the day English conversation robots come to us.

That's a great invention and more students will achieve there success while learning the second language. I missed so much chance to improve my English ability that I am not going to let it happen again on my daughter, whatever teaching machines exit.

Auto text and url plugin for Live Writer: Text Template

mail2me 有朝一日GFW升級，VPN和SSL齊齊失效，直接訪問 medecinsamuel.blogspot.com 變得不再輕鬆，訪客留言有可能難於上青天。為此我安裝 Text Template ，以便博客訂閱者直接在閱讀器中發電郵與我。@medecinsam

到 Text Template 託管頁面下載這一插件，最新版本是1.2。按照項目說明新增 auto text 模板，逐一完成命名、html編輯，還有保存。我利用 Text Template for Windows Live Writer 的方法是在日誌起始處添加 recapcha 郵件加密功能，一段極長的加密字符通過 Text Template 簡化成兩次鼠標點擊，確實效率極高。

效果如本日誌所示，一個 mail2me 鏈接，一個防抄寫字符。

Proxy demonstration

In the corner of a pub in Beijing Sanlitun, a young geeker is surrounded by several teenagers, demonstrating the latest VPN/SSL techniques to break through the wall, which bring them real freedom of Internet surfing, whilst these students only know QQ, Tudou and Tianya before.

- demonstrate

to illustrate and explain especially with many examples

In the name of public security

Finally I have to blog by email, for my second VPN proxy is encroached by Great Fire Wall. Some bloggers abandon blogger.com for GFW brings too much difficulties to manage it, but it's surely only a matter of time before blog service providers delete their posts or accounts without warning. Tom, the host of Seeing in Red China blog, shares his experience about censorship in China to us. Now it proves that secret department will erase anything if they want whatever you think it a common topic, or even you post it in other language.

So, should I speak the following stuff in different characters, such as Italian or Japanese, huh? My friend Derek is going go visit Shenzhen this August as he's an athlete for this summer Universiade. Therefore I keeps my eyes on this event, which is originally none of my business. One of the report shocks me by its content, not just the title "Shenzhen disperses 80,000 suspects out, for the sake of public security". According to the journal, schizophrenias "prone to be dangerous" are on the list. Well, we don't need any evidence, for the police authority have already admitted what they have done.

Not just 2011 Universiade, also 2008 Olympics and 2010 Asian Game have done this. A psychiatrist told me that the mayor in Beijing was awake all the eve of the Olympic Opening Ceremony, totally sleepless under the anxiety of any mental disorders were going to suicide, protest or other accidents that the central government dislike. Perhaps Shenzhen follows Beijing, Shanghai or Guangzhou this time.

Even before the Funding Schemes' declaration, public psychiatric hospitals or clinics dropped off patients to another city or municipal district, for he or she has no local Hukou. Sure it is that the hospital or clinic can not afford the fee for these patients, as no one paid for them. Up to now these hospitals can supply basic treatment to the schizophrenias although they have no residence in Shenzhen, and the patients will be send back to the cities, counties or villages they belong to.

Please be not so serious, for Dr. Who tells me the stories above and maybe they are another Roswell classified.

Professional or not

mail2me 政府鼓吹的家庭醫生竟然套上了不專業的光環，這令人懷疑他們在耍一場戲法，並進一步削弱醫生的專業操守。

像那天上海周家橋的陳醫生，公然自稱額外擁有心理諮詢師、營養師、健康管理師資格。一般民眾必然輕信醫生身外的頭銜，砂紙（文憑）越多，醫生吸引力越高。如果廖新波、鐘南山等級的人物充任家庭醫生，必定被居民里三層外三層環繞，醫療服務趕美超英指日 @medecinsam 可待。可惜，政府官員和科學院士從來就不到基層掛職，只有醫院閒置人員才被流放到居民區坐診。

心理諮詢師、營養師、健康管理師是人力資源和社會保障部發放的工作技能證書。以報章各角落刊登的廣告而論，無需醫學高等教育經歷，無論你是執業醫師還是執業護士，花上幾千一萬參加培訓並且通過考試，必然持“師證”在手。一般人看到證照上帶有似是而非的醫學名稱，當讓相信持證人有能力為自己提供健康，那裡管他是否衛生當局認可的專業人士。

執業醫師法仍然嚴格限定醫師執業範疇，不允許一個醫生同時擁有兩個行醫範疇，所以陳醫生僅僅是外科醫師，無法兼任臨床心理學醫師、臨床營養師。身懷若干個其他社會勞動技能證書從事家庭醫學，可能是她本人的意願選擇，也可能是上海市衛生當局的默許。

那政府是否讓每一個家庭醫生都持有社會勞動技能證明從事不專業的醫療服務呢？

Hack Blogger XML Template for Wider Title

mail2me 正在用的這個 Evidens 模板固定使用兩個右邊欄，因此正文區塊自動浮動時，日誌標題有可能因為過寬而自動換行。昨天的日誌 Pointing Magnifier for motor impairments 無端端這樣丟失了最後一個單詞，以致自動生成的固定鏈接變成了無意義的pointing-magnifier-for-motor.html。@medecinsam

首先刪除 html 中的sidebar1部分

〈b:section class='r1' id='sidebar1' preferred='yes'〉
……
〈/b:widget〉
〈/b:section〉

接著編輯CSS中的正文區塊 #center 的右邊距、邊欄 #sidebar-wrapper 的寬度，令其和sidebar2一致

/*-- (Principal) --*/
#center {
margin-right:350px;
height:auto!important;}

/*-- (Lateral) --*/
#sidebar-wrapper {
float:right;
width:310px;
height:auto!important;}

最後把CSS中邊欄1的編碼r1全數刪去。

修改後的模板 Evidens White 有1個右側欄，固定寬度300px，正文寬度自適應。為了保證屏幕分辨率為800×600的閱讀體驗，博客貼圖的寬度應為460px。仍然保留了原始 Evidens White xml template for blogger.com 的特質。

Pointing Magnifier for motor impairments

在 Eurekalert 上讀到一則新聞，知道運動障礙人士將更輕鬆地使用電腦，這歸功於美國華盛頓大學幾個團隊開發的輔助軟件。@medecinsam

這些運動障礙主要表現為眼手配合性差，病人精確運動功能低下，當他們使用鼠標時定位艱難。查閱後發現帕金森症( Parkinson's disease )、腦癱( Cerebral Palsy )都會有motor impairment ，大陸把它翻譯為運動損傷。

我想，用醉酒狀態解釋運動損傷最適合不過。醉酒者分不清東南西北、爛醉如泥、在家門前摸摸索索掏鑰匙半天不果，或者鑰匙無法插入匙孔，這些都是肢體運動受到損害的表現。往往這些僅僅是一過性的，只要不是酗酒者，腦部都不會發生器質性永久變化。

不過以上兩類病人可沒有那麼幸運。根據 Catherine O'Donnell 介紹，病人控制下的鼠標頭總是在屏幕上飄移不定，結果沒辦法擊中關閉鍵、確認鍵。

我下載了其中一款 Pointing Magnifier 試用，證實了開發團隊得到的結果。Pointing Magnifier 首先大致指向屏幕中的目標區域，作為一個淡藍色半透明的圓形，無論對運動障礙人士或是視力受損人士都是清晰易見的：

如同開發者介紹一樣，任意鼠標按鍵放大了整個藍色區域，在Pointing Magnifier激活狀態下，鼠標頭定位到目標上變得輕而易舉。

目前的殘疾人輔助電腦操作同步放大顯示區域和鼠標移動距離精度，僅僅解決了閱讀障礙，沒有幫到鼠標操作。似乎 Pointing Magnifier 是成本低下的解決方案，它無需更改或定制電腦硬件。我個人認為，這個軟件甚至對弱視患者幫助甚大。

Pointing Magnifier 是一款免費軟件，你可以到華盛頓大學 Aimgroup 項目的主頁下載。其安裝包約665K字節，使用時佔用17兆字節內存。

Your public family doctor

Family doctors, primary practitioners, barefoot doctors, they are all the same that refer to doctors practicing in communities. Different from GPs in western countries, they are full time employed by local government, none of them practices individually, while patients are able to paid 100% by social insurance directly in any hospitals without these doctors' referring.

Here we call them community doctors, who only register mainly in none-surgery, surgery, or Chinese Medicine. These community physicians handle any symptoms, diagnose and prescribe for the visitors, even sometimes they give free consultancy. But doctors in the community have to face dilemmas, they must treat general health problems, but they can only serve in specific registration. So a surgeon prescribe for pediatrics' patient is going to lose in any suit cases according to Law of the People's Republic of China on Medical Practitioners.

As health authorities have design the assertive healthcare systems, compulsory and routine services are increasingly accumulated to community health care. Now China already launched its family doctor project, hoping it step forward at the crossroads.

Chen Hwa, a surgeon in Zhoujiaqiao Community Health Service Centre,  is that kind of family doctor in Shanghai city. Routine family visits, health course for citizens and answering health enquiry hotlines are doctor Chen's daily common work. "We have sign up health contracts with approximately 200 families up to now," Chen said in a speech yesterday, "but the plan was 2000 contacts for every family doctor in 2008."

"The patients choose family doctor for lower fees." an unnamed offical says, "But wealthy citizens keep visiting hospitals for simple physical problem, and many patients prefer doctors in big hospital to those in community clinics."

Zhoujiaqiao Community Health Service Centre is quite big as the hospital in west China, such as the Yingxiu Hospital.

Hospital queue to assault

Yesterday morning there was a hospital violence in local municipal hospital, four health workers were injured. News reports say that the patient cannot wait anymore and he thinks somebody jump  the queue. The only way to reveal the truth is that victims and the attackers come to the public and tell us what exactly have happened, both of the offence and the defense. But this will not works, for the health workers are going to say nothing under some anonymous pressure.

Another Tom ( not Tom Anderson) posts what he knows about Chinese healthcare. Huge patients flow flood everywhere and the doctors are deficient. But the government never admit that, meanwhile none protest from the health workers confirm the shortage.

And more hospital assaults will come.

村舍城市化

昨天在東莞的一個村子過夜，發現農村城市化負面影響不小。

水泥地面覆蓋率增加，同時綠地覆蓋率減少，讓農村重複了城市熱島的失敗。日曬後村里白天熱，晚上也熱，而現在僅僅是清明而已。

寬8米、長15米、高4層，這是典型丁地結構，也就是所謂的宅基地模式。從外觀來看當然是受人詬病的火柴盒樣式，問了問，這並非村民相互效仿風格的結果，而是村國土所“標準化管理”的結局。在城市而言，規劃國土局似乎沒有這樣簡單粗暴的標準化，否則中國海外、万科、金地的樓盤全部要按照一個模板建成。

村級水平的規劃結果，樓房佈局單調機械，村里滿佈的樓宇被縱橫交錯的小巷分割，以往平房結構雖然簡樸，但是晚飯時候捧著飯碗、提著筷子，串門邊吃邊聊，倒也維繫著一段鄰里關係。現在丁屋往高處建，人均居住面積大了好幾十倍，反而社區關係越見淡薄，恐怕不是村民願意見到的新變化。作為管理者，對這個變化不聞不問，或者僅僅無動於衷。

昨天留夜的這條村子，基本上村民都在一樓留有車庫，日子過得比我好，同樣漸漸被城市化的冷漠相互隔絕。

Golden armor protects you

2012, thirty years after Project Golden Armor launched, the government has been encroaching imperceptibly netizens' awareness, so that these poor man believe that corruption have been already eliminated, and Gilded Era comes to them. But this is only the mirage of Red Intranet.

- encroach

to enter by gradual steps or by stealth into the possessions or rights of another

- stealth

the act or action of proceeding furtively, secretly, or imperceptibly

- imperceptible

not perceptible by a sense or by the mind : extremely slight, gradual, or subtile

Shenzhen Universiade to ban smoking

Shenzhen Universiade will come in this August, now they are still improving their English service, also finishing venues construction in a hurry. @medecinsam

Meanwhile Shenzhen is not ready for smoke control. Till on April 2, local health authority declares a tobacco curbing policy for three kinds of area.

A strict regulation to ban smoking will be carried on in venues. Smoking will be prohibited, while there will be none of a cigarette advertisement. The rules should be followed in universiade village, cafeteria and offices beside of the stadium.

But there will be smoking area in common restaurants, hotels and shopping centers. Indoor smoke are even harmful to our health, so the policy to ban smoking only for 2011 Summer Universiade  is ridiculous.

單純隨機抽樣

評估病歷質量，100份病歷可以逐一過目。那1000份呢？10000份呢？單純隨機抽樣（simple random sampling）莫過是最適合病歷抽樣的辦法。對於醫院信息系統功能不足的地方，可通過 Microsoft Excel 生成隨機數字，以實現隨機抽樣。

調用Excel工具欄 Tools – Macro - Visual Basic Editor
在 Microsoft Visual Basic Book 左側欄 VBAProject 中定位完全隨機數字羅列的工作表，複製下列 VBA 代碼：

Sub ExcelNoRepeatSampling() 'define macro name
Dim TempArr1(@) As Integer, TempArr2(0 To @, 1 To 1) As Integer '@ here means total overall number N
Dim RndNumber As Integer, i As Integer
Randomize (Timer)
For i = 0 To @
TempArr1(i) = i
Next i
For i = @ To 0 Step -1
RndNumber = Int(i * Rnd)
TempArr2(@ - i, 1) = TempArr1(RndNumber) + 1
TempArr1(RndNumber) = TempArr1(i)
Next i
Range("A1:An").Value = TempArr2 'Set sampling size as n, and list them in a row from 1 to n
End Sub

Ctrl + H 把字符@替換為抽樣研究的總體數，把n替換為本次抽樣的樣本數。接著，運行用戶窗體，得到毫不重複的隨機數字。最後可以按照從小到大順序對這些隨機數字排序。

病歷產生依照嚴格的時間順序，即，一個醫生一次只接診一個病人，產生一次處方。病歷存放依據年月日時分，適合通過完全隨機抽樣解決。

以上 Excel Macro VBA Randomized Number 同樣適用於藥物處方抽樣。

Excel no repeat sampling

Sub NoRepeatSampling() 'define macro name
Dim TempArr1(@) As Integer, TempArr2(0 To @, 1 To 1) As Integer '@ here means total overall number N
Dim RndNumber As Integer, i As Integer
Randomize (Timer)
For i = 0 To @
TempArr1(i) = i
Next i
For i = @ To 0 Step -1
RndNumber = Int(i * Rnd)
TempArr2(@ - i, 1) = TempArr1(RndNumber) + 1
TempArr1(RndNumber) = TempArr1(i)
Next i
Range("A1:An").Value = TempArr2 'Set sampling size as n, and list them in a row from 1 to n
End Sub

Replace @ with your overall number, such as shortcut key Ctrl+H in Notepad. Then replace n with your sampling size number. Press F5 and then it generates randomized number from cell 1 to cell n in a column.

This is a workable way of randomized control by using Excel or spreadsheet, for quality control in health record sampling.