(Question)
SEOUL Arms control experts estimate that the dismantlement of North Korea's nuclear program could take a decade to complete, and cost $20 billion, if a nuclear agreement is reached between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un when they meet in Singapore on June 12. "The hard work has not yet begun, and it is gong to take sustained energy on the part of the United States, South Korea, Japan, China and North Korea. It's going to be a multiyear long process," said Daryl Kimball, the executive director of the Arms Control Association in Washington. President Trump has said he expects a "very positive result" from the North Korea nuclear summit, but he also said it will likely be the beginning of a process to resolve differences over the extent of the North's denuclearization, and the specifics regarding what sanctions relief, economic aid and security guarantees would be offered in return. U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Sunday that North Korea would only receive sanctions relief after it takes "verifiable and irreversible steps to denuclearization." This position aligns closer to the Kim government's stance that denuclearization measures and concessions be matched action for action. And it backs away from demands made by some in the president's national security team that Pyongyang quickly and unilaterally dismantle all its weapons of mass destruction before any concessions would be offered. North Korea is estimated to have 20 to 80 nuclear warheads, both known and covert nuclear research and processing sites, and thousands of ballistic missiles that can be launched from mobile vehicles, and submarine based launchers have been tested in recent years. With such an extensive nuclear arsenal it could cost $20 billion to achieve the U.S. goal of complete, irreversible, and verifiable nuclear dismantlement (CVID), according to a recent study conducted by Kwon Hyuk-chul, a Kookmin University professor of security strategy. Kwon based his assessment in part on past nuclear deals... How long would it take for North Korea to obtain sanctions relief? Pick the correct answer from the following options: - Years - Minutes - not enough information - Days
(Answer)
Years

(Question)
The sound of the clacking grew unbearable, so we turned the volume down. "Mute it." We muted it. "Turn it up; we might miss something." It's a silent movie. We won't miss anything. The sound of clacking gradually fills the room as my brother reluctantly turns up the volume. I can tell he's pressing hard on the button, jamming his thumb down in defiance or muted anger. He doesn't like for anyone to tell him what to do with the remote. But my grandmother wants the volume up, so we turn it up. We're all sitting along the edges of the tiny living room, staring at the fuzzy black-and-white images as they hazily walk across the television screen. I can hear a siren outside, barely discernable and then gone entirely. "Who's that?" my brother asks, evidently past his momentary and barely-noticeable indignation over the remote. "Uncle Arehl, and maybe his sister, Edna," my grandmother says, leaning in closer. "I think it's Edna," she says, in the tone of a doctor diagnosing a disease, as if the verdict was somehow relevant to someone who has only the vaguest idea who Arehl's sister is, or was. Uncle Arehl (I don't know precisely whose uncle he is, or for what the two initials of his name once stood) saunters slowly across a dry, patchy lawn, and the camera follows him. For some reason I'm more interested in the lawn--if it can be called that--than in the people on it. The sun in the movie is blazing, and everyone filmed looks only briefly at the camera before averting their faces once again to look at the stubbly grass. The camera pans once again and I can see an incredibly rutted path leading from the porch to the fence at the edge of the yard, broken pieces of concrete amid deep tire tracks fossilized in sun-baked mud. The fence is low, wire like a chain-link, but lower, with metal stakes holding it up instead of tubes. When did the brothers watch the movie? Pick the correct answer from the following options: - While it was shot - not enough information - Long after it was shot - Before it was shot
(Answer)
Long after it was shot

(Question)
And once again, high blood pressure is making headlines in the news: the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology (AHA/ACC) have just released new guidelines about hypertension. Since this development is likely to cause confusion and concern for many, I'm writing this post to help you understand the debate and what this might mean for you and your family. By the way, if you've read any of my other blood pressure articles on this site, let me reassure you: I am not changing my clinical practice or what I recommend to others, based on the new AHA/ACC guidelines. The core principles of better blood pressure management for older adults remain the same: * Take care in how you and your doctors measure blood pressure (more on that here), * Start by aiming to get blood pressure less than 150/90 mm Hg, as recommended by these expert guidelines issued in 2017 and in 2014, * And then learn more about what are the likely benefits versus risks of aiming for more intensive BP control. Perhaps the most important thing to understand is this: treatment of high blood pressure in older adults offers "diminishing returns" as we treat BP to get lower and lower. Scientific evidence indicates that the greatest health benefit, when it comes to reducing the risk of strokes and heart attacks, is in getting systolic blood pressure from high (i.e. 160-180) down to moderate (140-150). From there, the famous SPRINT study, published in 2015, did show a further reduction in cardiovascular risk, when participants were treated to a lower systolic BP, such as a target of 120. However, this was in a carefully selected group of participants, it required taking three blood pressure medications on average, and the reduction in risk was small. As I note in my article explaining SPRINT Senior, in participants aged 75 or older, pushing to that lower goal was associated with an estimated 1-in-27 chance of avoiding a cardiovascular event. (The benefit was even smaller in adults aged 50-75.) Who should be careful how they measure blood pressure? Pick the correct answer from the following options: - The reader. - The author. - not enough information - The AHA.
(Answer)
The reader.