Well: Ask Well: Long-Term Use of Nicotine Gum

In small doses, like those contained in the gum, nicotine is generally considered safe. But it does have stimulant properties that can raise blood pressure, increase heart rate and constrict blood vessels. One large report from 2010 found that compared to people given a placebo, those who used nicotine replacement therapies had a higher risk of heart palpitations and chest pains.

That’s one reason that nicotine gum should, ideally, be used for no more than four to six months, said Lauren Indorf, a nurse practitioner with the Cleveland Clinic’s Tobacco Treatment Center. Yet up to 10 percent of people use it for longer periods, in some cases for a decade or more she said.

Some research has raised speculation that long-term use of nicotine might also raise the risk of cancer, though it has mostly involved laboratory and animal research, and there have not been any long-term randomized studies specifically addressing this question in people. One recent report that reviewed the evidence on nicotine replacement therapy and cancer concluded that, “the risk, if any, seems small compared with continued smoking.”

Ultimately, the biggest problem with using nicotine gum for long periods is that the longer you stay on it, the longer you remain dependent on nicotine, and thus the greater your odds of a smoking relapse, said Ms. Indorf. “What if the gum is not available one day?” she said. “Your body is still relying on nicotine.”

If you find yourself using it for longer than six months, it may be time to consider switching to sugar-free gum or even another replacement therapy, like the patch or nasal spray.

“Getting people on a different regimen helps them break the gum habit and can help taper them off nicotine,” Ms. Indorf said.

Read More..

The Caucus: LaHood to Leave Transportation Department

Ray LaHood, the former Republican congressman from Illinois who has run the nation’s Transportation Department under President Obama, will not serve a second term, he told department employees in a letter on Tuesday.

“I’ve told President Obama, and I’ve told many of you, that this is the best job I’ve ever had. I’m grateful to have the opportunity to work with all of you,” Mr. LaHood wrote. He cited the department’s efforts to curb distracted driving and to increase the efficiency of automobiles by raising emissions standards.

As transportation secretary, Mr. LaHood was at the center of efforts to reduce fatigue among pilots and called for greater investment in high-speed rail. He also pushed for large fines against Toyota for safety problems and for a new transportation bill in Congress.

“We have made great progress in improving the safety of our transit systems, pipelines, and highways, and in reducing roadway fatalities to historic lows,” he said. “We have strengthened consumer protections with new regulations on buses, trucks, and airlines.”

Mr. LaHood’s decision makes him the latest in a series of members of the president’s original cabinet to announce their departure in the last several weeks.

In a statement, Mr. Obama praised Mr. LaHood, the last remaining Republican from the president’s first-term cabinet, as a public servant who has been more interested in practical solutions than in partisan politics.

“Years ago, we were drawn together by a shared belief that those of us in public service owe an allegiance not to party or faction, but to the people we were elected to represent,” the president wrote. “And Ray has never wavered in that belief.”

Several people have been mentioned as possible replacements for Mr. LaHood at the Transportation Department. Among them: Antonio Villaraigosa, the Democratic mayor of Los Angeles; Ed Rendell, the former governor of Pennsylvania; Debbie Hersman, the chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board; and Jennifer Granholm, the former Democratic governor of Michigan.

---

Follow Michael D. Shear on Twitter at @shearm.

---

This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 29, 2013

Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this post said that Mr. LaHood was the sole Republican to serve in Mr. Obama's first-term cabinet. Robert Gates, a Republican who served as defense secretary under President George W. Bush, was re-appointed by Mr. Obama.

Read More..

Before Dawn, Funerals Begin for Victims of Brazil Nightclub Fire

SANTA MARIA, Brazil — The first funerals began before dawn on Monday for the more than 230 people killed after a fire ignited by a flare from a band’s pyrotechnics spectacle swept through a nightclub filled with hundreds of university students early Sunday in this city in southern Brazil.

The disaster in Santa Maria, a city of about 260,000 residents that is known for its cluster of universities, ranked as one of the deadliest nightclub fires. President Dilma Rousseff left a summit meeting in Chile to meet with survivors, and the government declared three days of mourning.

The circumstances surrounding the blaze, including reports that guards briefly blocked the exit, immediately raised questions about whether the club’s owners had been negligent and whether enforcement of safety measures was lacking. The police were questioning several band members and club owners.

Officials revised the toll downward overnight, according to news agency reports, to 231 from 233 — most killed by smoke inhalation — while 82 were hospitalized, at least 30 in serious condition.

“The smoke spread very quickly,” Aline Santos Silva, 29, a survivor, said in comments to the television network Globo News. “Those who were closest to the stage where the band was playing had the most difficulty getting out.”

Witnesses said the fire started about 2 a.m. after the band, Gurizada Fandangueira, began performing at the club, Kiss, for an audience made up mostly of students in the agronomy and veterinary medicine programs at a local university. Murilo de Toledo Tiecher, 26, a medical student at the University of Caxias do Sul who was at the club, said the band’s singer lighted a kind of flare and held it over his ahead, accidentally setting the ceiling on fire.

The band’s guitarist, Rodrigo Martins, told Brazilian radio that the band had played about five songs when he saw that the ceiling was on fire, according to The Associated Press. “A guard passed us a fire extinguisher,” he was quoted as saying. “The singer tried to use it, but it wasn’t working.”

He confirmed that the band’s accordion player, Danilo Jacques, 28, died, but he said five other members made it out safely.

With panic spreading, people stampeded to the exit, only to find it blocked by security guards, according to witnesses and fire officials. While it was not clear why patrons were initially not allowed to escape, it is common across Brazil for nightclubs and bars to have customers pay their entire tab upon leaving, instead of on a per-drink basis.

Survivors described a frenzied and violent rush for the main exit. Mr. Tiecher said he and his friends had to push through a crush of people to get around a metal barrier that was preventing the crowd from spilling out into the street. He said some people became trapped after they rushed into the bathroom near the exit, thinking it was a way out. Once he was outside, he said, he tried to pull others to safety.

“If we saw a hand or a head, we’d start pulling the person out by the hair,” he said in a telephone interview. “People were burned; some didn’t even have clothes.”

He said the guards initially thought that a fight had broken out inside, and that customers would use the opportunity to leave without paying their bar tabs. Only after they realized that a fire was raging inside did the security guards let the crowd go, Mr. Tiecher said.

Fire officials said they had trouble getting into the club because of the pileup of bodies at the entrance, according to news reports. Valdeci Oliveira, a local legislator, told reporters that he saw piles of bodies in the nightclub’s bathrooms. Health workers hauled bodies from the club to hospitals in Santa Maria all through Sunday morning. Some of the survivors were taken to the nearby city of Porto Alegre to be treated for burns.

The disaster recalls the 2003 blaze in Rhode Island that killed 100 people, one in 2004 in Buenos Aires in which 194 were killed, and a fire at a club in China in 2000 in which 309 people died.

Preventable disasters commonly claim lives in Brazil, as illustrated by Rio de Janeiro’s building collapses, manhole explosions and trolley mishaps. However, the nation’s civil service has grown significantly over the past decade, tax revenues are soaring and there is no shortage of laws and regulations governing the minutiae of companies large and small.

“Bureaucracy and corruption also cause tragedies,” said André Barcinski, a columnist for Folha de São Paulo, one of Brazil’s largest newspapers.

Brazilian television stations broadcast images of trucks carrying corpses to hospitals where family members were gathering. Photographs taken shortly after the blaze and posted on the Web sites of local news organizations showed frantic scenes in which people on the street outside the nightclub pulled bodies from the charred debris.

Parents and other family members wandered through Santa Maria on Sunday searching for their loved ones. “I still think she hasn’t died,” Cibela Focco, 35, whose daughter was in the nightclub and still had not been heard from, told reporters Sunday evening.

The tragedy took place in a region of Brazil where Ms. Rousseff spent much of her early political career before rising to national prominence as a top aide to former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and running for president herself. Before leaving the meeting in Chile, she appeared distraught, crying in front of reporters as she absorbed details of the blaze.

“This is a tragedy,” she said, “for all of us.”

Jill Langlois contributed reporting from São Paulo, Brazil, and Michael Schwirtz from New York.

Read More..

Tiger headed toward another win at Torrey

SAN DIEGO (AP) — The Pacific air was so cold at the end of a 10-hour day at Torrey Pines that Tiger Woods thrust both hands in the front pockets of his rain pants as he walked off the course at the Farmers Insurance Open.

It was a fitting image. Woods made a marathon day look like he was out for a stroll.

Staked to a two-shot lead going into the third round of this fog-delayed tournament, Woods drove the ball where he was aiming and was hardly ever out of position. Even with a bogey on the final hole — the easiest on the back nine — Woods still had a 3-under 69 and expanded his lead by two shots.

In the seven holes he played in the fourth round later Sunday afternoon, Woods hit the ball all over the course and still made three birdies to add two more strokes to his lead.

Thanks to the fog that wiped out an entire day of golf on Saturday, the Farmers Insurance Open didn't stand a chance of finishing on Sunday.

Woods just made it look like it was over.

He had a six-shot lead with 11 holes to play going into the conclusion of the final round on Monday. The two guys chasing him were Brandt Snedeker, the defending champion, and Nick Watney, who won at Torrey Pines in 2008. Neither was waving a white flag. Both understood how much the odds were stacked against them.

"I've got a guy at the top of the leaderboard that doesn't like giving up leads," Snedeker said. "So I have to go catch him."

"All we can do tomorrow is go out and try to make him think about it a little bit and see what happens," Watney said.

And then there was Erik Compton, a two-time heart transplant recipient who had a birdie-eagle finish in the third round that put him in third place through 54 holes, still five shots behind Woods. Someone asked Compton about trying to chase Woods. He laughed.

"I'm trying to chase myself," he said.

Woods was at 17-under par for the tournament, and more than just a six-shot lead was in his corner.

He finished the third round at 14-under 202, making it the 16th time on the PGA Tour that he had at least a four-shot lead going into the final round. His record on the PGA Tour with the outright lead after 54 holes is 38-2, the exceptions being Ed Fiori in 1996 when Woods was a 20-year-old rookie and Y.E. Yang in the 2009 PGA Championship.

Woods attributed his big lead to the "whole package."

"I've driven the ball well, I've hit my irons well, and I've chipped and putted well," he said. "Well, I've hit good putts. They all haven't gone in."

Woods has a good history of Monday finishes, starting with Torrey Pines. It was on this course along the coast north of La Jolla that Woods won a 19-hole playoff against Rocco Mediate to capture the 2008 U.S. Open for his 14th major.

He also won the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am on a Monday in 2000 when he rallied from seven shots behind with seven holes to play. He won his lone title in The Players Championship on a Monday, along with a five-shot win in the Memorial in 2000, and a scheduled Monday finish in the Deutsche Bank Championship outside Boston.

Woods even gets to sleep in.

A Monday finish because of weather typically resumes in the morning so players can get to the next tournament. CBS Sports, however, decided it wanted to televise the conclusion, and so play won't begin until 2 p.m. EST. That decision might have been based on Woods being headed toward victory — just a hunch.

Woods already has won seven times at Torrey Pines, including the U.S. Open. That matches his PGA Tour record at Bay Hill and Firestone (Sam Snead won the Greensboro Open eight times, four each on a different course).

The tournament isn't over, and Woods doesn't see it that way.

"I've got to continue with executing my game plan. That's the idea," he said. "I've got 11 holes to play, and I've got to play them well."

He seized control with his 69 in the third round that gave him a four-shot lead, and he might have put this away in the two hours he played before darkness stopped play.

He badly missed the first fairway to the left, but had a gap through the Torrey pines to the green and had a two-putt par. He missed his next shot so far to the left that the ball wound up in the first cut of the adjacent sixth fairway. He still managed a simple up-and-down for par.

After a 10-foot birdie on the par-3 third, Woods couldn't afford to go left off the tee again because of the PGA Tour's largest water hazard — the Pacific Ocean. So he went miles right, beyond a cart path, a tree blocking his way to the green. He hit a cut shot that came up safely short of the green, and then chipped in from 40 feet for birdie.

"I was able to play those holes in 2-under par," Woods said. "And then I hit three great drives right in a row."

One of them wasn't that great — it was in the right rough, the ball so buried that from 214 yards that Woods hit a 5-wood. It scooted down the fairway and onto the green, setting up a two-putt birdie the stretched his lead to six shots. And after another good drive, the horn sounded to stop play. Because it was due to weather, Woods was able to finish the hole, and he two-putted for par.

Eleven holes on Monday were all that were keeping him from his 75th career win on the PGA Tour, and delivering a message to the rest of golf that there could be more of this to follow no matter what the golf course.

Read More..

Recipes for Health: Gluten-Free Banana Chocolate Muffins

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

My son Liam still doesn’t know that the muffins he has been devouring all week are gluten-free. I am a big believer that there is no need to forego gluten unless you are truly gluten intolerant; indeed, nutritionists are concerned that a gluten-free diet can be lacking in essential nutrients and digestive enzymes. But I have a sister who is gluten intolerant, so this year I finally made some forays into gluten-free baking in preparation for her annual visit. When she comes I make sure to pick up plenty of gluten-free pasta and bread for her, and we go to holiday parties armed with gluten-free crackers so she doesn’t have to forego hors d’oeuvres.

This year I decided to experiment with gluten-free pastries. I substituted a commercial gluten-free flour mix for all-purpose flour in a pâte sablée recipe and the resulting cookies and tart shells had a wonderful texture – no threat of toughening the dough by working the gluten too much. But I wasn’t crazy about the flavor because the commercial mix I used had a fair amount of bean flour in it and it tasted too strong.

So I put together my own gluten-free flour mix, one without bean flour, and turned to America’s favorite Gluten-Free Girl, Shauna James Ahem for guidance. I was already thinking about making muffins and I wanted a mix that could replace the whole wheat flour I usually use in conjunction with other grains or flours. Her formula for a whole-grain flour mix is simple – 70 percent ground gluten-free grain like rice flour, millet flour, buckwheat flour or teff (the list on her site is a long one) and 30 percent starch like potato starch, cornstarch or arrowroot. For this week’s recipes, I used what I had, which was brown rice flour, potato starch and cornstarch – 20 percent potato starch and 10 percent cornstarch -- and that’s the basis for the nutritional analyses of this week’s recipes. I used this mix in conjunction with a gluten-free meal or flour, so the amount of pure starch in the batters is much less than 30 percent.

When you bake anything it is much simpler and results are more consistent if you use grams and scale your ingredients. This is especially true with gluten-free baking, since you are working with grain and starch formulas. Digital scales are not expensive and I urge you to switch over to this method if you like to bake. I have given approximate cup measures so the recipes will work both ways, but scaling is more accurate.

Gluten-Free Banana Chocolate Muffins

These dark chocolate muffins taste more extravagant than they are. Cacao – raw chocolate -- is considered by many to be a “super food.” It is high in antioxidants and an excellent source of magnesium, iron, chromium, manganese, zinc, and copper. It is also a good source of omega-6 fatty acids and vitamin C.

75 grams (approximately 1/2 cup) buckwheat flour

75 grams (approximately 3/4 cup) almond powder (also known as almond flour)

140 grams (approximately 1 cup) whole grain or all-purpose gluten-free flour mix*

32 grams (approximately 6 tablespoons) dark cocoa powder

10 grams (2 teaspoons) baking powder

5 grams (1 teaspoon) baking soda

3.5 grams (rounded 1/2 teaspoon) salt

100 grams (approximately 1/2 cup) raw brown sugar or packed light brown sugar

2 eggs

75 grams (1/3 cup) canola or grape seed oil

120 grams (1/2 cup) plain low-fat yogurt or buttermilk

5 grams (1 teaspoon) vanilla extract

330 grams ripe bananas (peeled weight), about 3 medium, mashed (1 1/4 cups)

115 grams (about 2/3 cup) semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate chips or chopped bittersweet chocolate

*For the gluten-free flour mix I used 98 grams (about 2/3 cup) rice flour and 42 grams -- about 1/3 cup -- of a mix of cornstarch and potato starch)

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Oil or butter muffin tins. Sift the dry ingredients into a large bowl. Pour in any bits that remain in the sifter.

2. In another large bowl or in the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the whip attachment beat together the oil and sugar until creamy. Beat in the eggs and beat until incorporated, then beat in the yogurt or buttermilk, the vanilla and the mashed bananas. Add the dry ingredients and mix at low speed or whisk gently until combined. If using a mixer, scrape down the sides of the bowl and the beaters. Fold in the chocolate chips.

3. Using a spoon or ice cream scoop, fill muffin cups to the top. Place in the oven and bake 30 minutes, until a muffin springs back lightly when touched. Remove from the heat and if the muffins come out of the tins easily, remove from the tins and place on a rack. I like these best served warm, but if they don’t release easily allow them to cool, then remove from the tins.

Yield: 16 muffins (1/3 cup capacity)

Advance preparation: These keep for a couple of days out of the refrigerator, for a few more days in the refrigerator, and for a few months in the freezer.

Nutritional information per serving: 217 calories; 10 grams fat; 2 grams saturated fat; 2 grams polyunsaturated fat; 3 grams monounsaturated fat; 24 milligrams cholesterol; 29 grams carbohydrates; 2 grams dietary fiber; 251 milligrams sodium; 4 grams protein

Martha Rose Shulman is the author of “The Very Best of Recipes for Health.”

Read More..

Media Decoder Blog: Dodgers, Signing Lucrative TV Deal, Plan to Start Regional Sports Network

The owners of the Los Angeles Dodgers said Monday that they intended to start a regional sports network in southern California, confirming weeks of reports about the team’s plans.

The network, to be named SportsNet LA, will be backed by Time Warner Cable, one of the main television distributors in the region, with a commitment of $7 billion to $8 billion over the next 25 years. The price tag, though not made public by the parties, was confirmed by a person with direct knowledge of the deal. Analysts said it was the most lucrative television deal for a single team in sports history.

Time Warner Cable will carry the Dodgers network and will be in charge of convincing others to carry it, as well. In exchange, Time Warner Cable will keep all the advertising revenue that it sells for the network. The Dodgers owners said in a news release on Monday that SportsNet LA would carry all the team’s games and “comprehensive behind-the-scenes Dodger programming.”

The multibillion-dollar deal with the Dodgers seemingly flies in the face of Time Warner Cable’s public statements about tamping down on the rising costs of programming. SportsNet LA is likely to amount to $4 to $5 a month per subscriber in southern California, and some of that cost will be passed on subscribers through their monthly cable bills, with Time Warner Cable also absorbing some of the cost.

But Time Warner Cable says that doing business directly with the Dodgers cuts out the middleman, in this case Fox Sports, which was also bidding for rights to the Dodgers games. The company said the same thing when it outbid Fox to carry Los Angeles Lakers games in 2011, a 20-year deal valued at $3 billion.

“This deal, like our Lakers’ deal, furthers our efforts to attain greater certainty and control over local and regional sports programming costs,” David Rone, the president of Time Warner Cable Sports, said of the Dodgers agreement in a statement.

Fox Sports, owned by the News Corporation, disputes this notion, in part because its bid for the Dodgers was significantly less than Time Warner Cable’s bid. Dodgers games will continue to be televised on Fox Sports’ Prime Ticket network until the new network starts in 2014.

A group led by Magic Johnson and financed by Guggenheim Partners bought the Dodgers last year in a deal valued at $2.3 billion. “We concluded last year that the best way to give our fans what they want — more content and more Dodger baseball — was to launch our own network,” Mark Walter, the founder of Guggenheim Partners and the chairman of the Dodgers franchise, said in a statement.

The network will be operated by American Media Productions, a subsidiary of the Dodgers ownership group. “The creation of AMP will provide substantial financial resources over the coming years for the Dodgers to build on their storied legacy and bring a World Championship home to Los Angeles,” Mr. Walter said.

The financial terms of the arrangement were not released. The arrangement will require the approval of Major League Baseball.

Assessing the impending deal last week, the Nomura analyst Michael Nathanson said Time Warner Cable should “be careful what they wish for.” In a note to investors, he pointed out that the News Corporation is likely to use the high rates for the Lakers and Dodgers channels as negotiating leverage for other regional sports networks. News Corp. recently acquired 49 percent of YES, the Yankees channel in New York, and full ownership of a channel that carries the Cleveland Indians in Ohio. Time Warner Cable is a major distributor in New York and Ohio.

Mr. Nathanson said Los Angeles, which will have six regional sports networks once the Dodgers network starts, is “experiencing significant price inflation.” It’s too soon to know, he said, “whether these levels of investments will prove to be justified many years down the road or if we have reached the top of the sports-rights bubble.”

Read More..

The Lede Blog: Fire at a Nightclub in Southern Brazil

Victims of the fire are attended by medics.

An intense fire ripped through a nightclub crowded with university students in southern Brazil early on Sunday morning, leaving behind a scene of horror with bodies piled in the club’s bathrooms and outside on the street.

At least 245 people were killed, police officials said.

As my colleague, Simon Romero reports, a flare from a live band’s pyrotechnic show ignited the fire in the nightclub, called Kiss, in the southern city of Santa Maria. Throughout the morning on Sunday, rescue workers hauled bodies from the still smoldering building.

One video posted to YouTube showed several bodies of apparently unconscious victims splayed on concrete outside of the club as medics check them for signs of life.

Shortly before the fire, a club D.J. posted a photo on Facebook from inside the crowded club with the caption: “Kiss is pumping.”

A short time later, another photo purportedly taken inside the club and widely disseminated through social media showed smoke billowing on the crowded dance floor.

BOATE KISS PEGANDO FOGO! http://t.co/tdV2DO4q

— Boatos SM ® #LUTO (@BoatoSM) 27 Jan 13

The fire quickly engulfed the building.

Firefighters, apparently joined by volunteers who shielded their faces with T-shirts, struggled to pull people from the burning building.

Firefighters and volunteers tried to pull people from the burning building

Photos from the scene showed frantic friends and family members gathered outside the club and the hospital.

---

Read More..

Djokovic beats Murray for 3rd straight Aust. title

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Novak Djokovic became the first man in the Open era to win three consecutive Australian titles when he beat Andy Murray 6-7 (2), 7-6 (3), 6-3, 6-2 in Sunday's final.

Little wonder he loves Rod Laver Arena.

"It's definitely my favorite Grand Slam," he said. "It's an incredible feeling winning this trophy once more. I love this court."

Djokovic has won four of his six major titles at Melbourne Park, where he is now unbeaten in 21 matches.

Nine other men had won back-to-back titles in Australia over 45 years, but none were able to claim three in a row.

Only two other men, American Jack Crawford (1931-33) and Australian Roy Emerson (1963-67), have won three or more consecutive Australian championships.

Born a week apart in May 1987 and friends since their junior playing days, Djokovic and Murray played like they knew each other's game very well in a rematch of last year's U.S. Open final. There were no service breaks until the eighth game of the third set, when Djokovic finally broke through and then held at love to lead by two sets to one.

Djokovic earned two more service breaks in the fourth set, including one to take a 4-1 lead when U.S. Open champion Murray double-faulted on break point.

"It's been an incredible match as we could have expected," Djokovic said. "When we play each other, it's always, we push each other to the limit and I think those two sets went over two hours, 15 minutes, physically I was just trying to hang in there. Play my game and focus on every point."

The 25-year-old Serb didn't rip his shirt off this time, as he did to celebrate his epic 5-hour, 53-minute win over Rafael Nadal in last year's final. He just did a little dance, looked up to the sky and then applauded the crowd after the 3-hour, 40-minute match.

Murray's win over Djokovic in the U.S. Open final last year ended a 76-year drought for British men at the majors, but he still is yet to make a breakthrough in Australia after losing a third final here in the last four years.

Djokovic's win went against the odds of recent finals at Melbourne Park. In four of the past five years, the player who won the second of the semifinals has finished on top in the championship match. But this year, Djokovic played his semifinal on Thursday — an easy 89-minute minute win over No. 4-seeded David Ferrer. Murray needed five energy sapping sets to beat 17-time major winner Roger Federer on Friday night.

"You don't wake up the next day and feel perfect, obviously," Murray said of the Federer match. "It's the longest match I played in six months probably. It obviously wasn't an issue today. I started the match well. I thought I moved pretty good throughout."

The win consolidated Djokovic's position as the No. 1-ranked player in the world, while Federer and Murray will be second and third when the ATP rankings are released Monday.

Their last two matches in Grand Slams — Murray's five-set win at last year's U.S. Open and Djokovic's victory here last year in five in the semifinals — had a total of 35 service breaks.

It was a vastly different, more tactical battle on Sunday, with the first two tight sets decided in tiebreakers.

"All our matches in last three years have been decided in a very few points, so it's really hard to say if I've done anything different," Djokovic said. "I tried to be more aggressive. So I went for my shots, especially in the third and fourth; came to the net quite often. I was quite successful in that percentage, so it worked well for me."

Murray, who called for a trainer to retape blisters on his right foot at the end of the second set, was visibly annoyed by noise from the crowd during his service games in the third set, stopping his service motion twice until the crowd quieted down. After dropping the third set, he complained about the noise to chair umpire John Blom.

"It's just a bit sore when you're running around," Murray said. "It's not like pulling a calf muscle or something. It just hurts when you run."

Djokovic came from 0-40 down in the second game of the second set to hold his serve, something he called "definitely one of the turning points."

"He missed an easy backhand and I think mentally I just relaxed after that," Djokovic said. "I just felt I'm starting to get into the rhythm that I wanted to. I was little more aggressive and started to dictate the play."

Although Djokovic went into the match with a 10-7 lead in head-to-heads, Murray had beaten Djokovic five out of eight times in tiebreakers, and that improved to six of nine after four unforced errors by Djokovic to end the first set.

Djokovic pegged back that edge in the second set, when Murray also didn't help his cause by double-faulting to give Djokovic a 3-2 lead, and the Serbian player didn't trail again in the tiebreaker.

On the double-fault, Murray had to stop as he was about to serve to pick up a feather that had fallen on the court.

"I could have served, it just caught my eye before I served ... I thought it was a good idea to move it," he said.

"Maybe it wasn't because I obviously double faulted. At this level it can come down to just a few points here or there. My probably biggest chance was at the beginning of the second set; (I) didn't quite get it. When Novak had his chance at the end of the third, he got his."

Djokovic will have little time to savor the win — he's playing Davis Cup for Serbia next weekend against Belgium.

"It's going to be a lot of fun ... to see how I can adjust to clay court in indoor conditions, playing away Davis Cup, which is always tricky," he said.

Andre Agassi was among those in the capacity crowd — the four-time Australian champion's first trip Down Under in nearly 10 years — and he later presented the trophy to Djokovic.

Victoria Azarenka, who won Saturday's women's singles final over Li Na, was also there with her boyfriend rapper Redfoo. Actor Kevin Spacey met in the dressing room with both players ahead of the match and later tweeted a photo of himself with them.

In the earlier mixed doubles final Sunday, wild-card entrants Jarmila Gajdosova and Matthew Ebden of Australia beat the Czech pair of Lucie Hradecka and Frantisek Cermak 6-3, 7-5.

Read More..

Well: Ask Well: Squats for Aging Knees

You are already doing many things right, in terms of taking care of your aging knees. In particular, it sounds as if you are keeping your weight under control. Carrying extra pounds undoubtedly strains knees and contributes to pain and eventually arthritis.

You mention weight training, too, which is also valuable. Sturdy leg muscles, particularly those at the front and back of the thighs, stabilize the knee, says Joseph Hart, an assistant professor of kinesiology and certified athletic trainer at the University of Virginia, who often works with patients with knee pain.

An easy exercise to target those muscles is the squat. Although many of us have heard that squats harm knees, the exercise is actually “quite good for the knees, if you do the squats correctly,” Dr. Hart says. Simply stand with your legs shoulder-width apart and bend your legs until your thighs are almost, but not completely, parallel to the ground. Keep your upper body straight. Don’t bend forward, he says, since that movement can strain the knees. Try to complete 20 squats, using no weight at first. When that becomes easy, Dr. Hart suggests, hold a barbell with weights attached. Or simply clutch a full milk carton, which is my cheapskate’s squats routine.

Straight leg lifts are also useful for knee health. Sit on the floor with your back straight and one leg extended and the other bent toward your chest. In this position, lift the straight leg slightly off the ground and hold for 10 seconds. Repeat 10 to 20 times and then switch legs.

You can also find other exercises that target the knees in this video, “Increasing Knee Stability.”

Of course, before starting any exercise program, consult a physician, especially, Dr. Hart says, if your knees often ache, feel stiff or emit a strange, clicking noise, which could be symptoms of arthritis.

Read More..

J. Richard Hackman, an Expert in Team Dynamics, Dies at 72

J. Richard Hackman, a Harvard psychology professor whose fieldwork sometimes took him to the cockpit of an airliner to observe the crew in a nearly five-decade quest to determine the dynamics of teamwork and effective leadership, died on Jan. 8 in Boston. He was 72.

The cause was lung cancer, his wife, Judith Dozier Hackman, said.

Dr. Hackman, the author or co-author of 10 books on group dynamics, was the Edgar Pierce professor of social and organizational psychology at Harvard.

In one of his best-known books, “Leading Teams: Setting the Stage for Great Performances” (2002), he replaced the popular image of the powerful “I can do it all” team leader with that of someone who, as he wrote, had the subtle skills “to get a team established on a good trajectory, and then to make small adjustments along the way to help members succeed.”

The conditions for a successful team effort — among them “a compelling direction, an enabling team structure, a supportive organizational context and expert team coaching” — “are easy to remember,” Dr. Hackman wrote.

“The challenge,” he continued, “comes in developing an understanding of those conditions that is deep and nuanced enough to be useful in guiding action, and in devising strategies for creating them even in demanding or team-unfriendly organizational circumstances.”

Besides tracking the interplay of pilots, co-pilots and navigators aboard civilian and military planes, Dr. Hackman observed corporate boards, sports teams, orchestra players, telephone-line repair crews, hospital workers and restaurant kitchen staff members.

And in recent years, for his 2011 book, “Collaborative Intelligence,” he was allowed to observe interactions within the American intelligence, defense, law-enforcement and crisis-management communities.

“Although my main aspiration has been to provide guidance that will be useful to team leaders and members,” he wrote, “there are no ‘one-minute’ prescriptions here — creating, leading and serving on teams is not that simple.”

Anita Woolley, a professor of organizational behavior and theory at the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, said, “The key thing about Dr. Hackman’s work is that it stands in contrast to some of the more popular models of leadership that focused very much on style or how leaders behave, versus what they do.”

Rather than viewing pay as a prime motivator for good performance, she continued, “he focused on features of people’s jobs that made them more intrinsically satisfied: the freedom to determine how they conduct their work, having a variety of tasks, having knowledge of the ultimate outcomes of their work, knowing how their work affects or is received by other people.”

He also liked to overturn some of the received wisdom about teamwork. In a 2011 article for The Harvard Business Review, Dr. Hackman listed “Six Common Misperceptions About Teamwork.” Among them was this:

“Misperception No. 2: It’s good to mix it up. New members bring energy and fresh ideas to a team. Without them, members risk becoming complacent, inattentive to changes in the environment, and too forgiving of fellow members’ misbehavior.

“Actually: The longer members stay together as an intact group, the better they do. As unreasonable as this may seem, the research evidence is unambiguous. Whether it is a basketball team or a string quartet, teams that stay together longer play together better.”

John Richard Hackman was born in Joliet, Ill., on June 14, 1940, the only child of J. Edward and Helen Hackman. His father was an oil pipeline engineer, his mother a schoolteacher.

Dr. Hackman received a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from MacMurray College in Jacksonville, Ill., in 1962, and a doctorate in psychology from the University of Illinois in 1966. He soon joined the psychology and administrative sciences department faculties at Yale, where he taught until 1986, when he moved to the psychology and business departments at Harvard.

Besides his wife, who is an associate dean at Yale, he is survived by two daughters, Julia Beth Proffitt and Laura Dianne Codeanne, and four grandchildren.

After Dr. Hackman died, The Harvard Crimson wrote that for years he had “devoted countless hours to improving one team in particular — the Harvard women’s basketball squad, for which he volunteered as an honorary coach.”

Read More..