Annual Asian Parent Night set

CHAPEL HILL — The 2nd Annual Asian Parent Night will be held at 7 p.m. Oct. 14 at Smith Middle School Auditorium.

Robin Visser, associate professor of Asian studies at UNC, and Ji-Yeon Jo, lecturer of Asian Studies at UNC, will speak on cultural and communication differences between the Asian and American cultures.

There also will be a panel discussion with four to six college students who have gone through Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools. They will share their experiences of growing up in one culture and attending school in a different culture.

Parents with any connection to Asian culture, middle and high school students, principals, ESL teachers, and any staff/faculty who would like to learn about the cultural differences are invited. Child care will be provided for children from K-5th grades.

Rho division wins 5-year grant

CHAPEL HILL -- The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute has awarded a five-year grant to Rho's Federal Systems Division, a division of Rho, Inc., to conduct "TCD with Transfusion Changing to Hydroxyurea (TWiTCH)," a Phase III clinical trial of a novel therapy to reduce the risk of stroke and prevent iron overload in children with sickle cell anemia.

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital will host the TWiTCH Medical Coordinating Center and Rho will host the TWiTCH Statistics and Data Management Center. Patients will be recruited, treated and evaluated at about 25 clinics in the U.S..

Almost 10 percent of U.S. children under the age of 18 with sickle cell anemia suffer strokes, a devastating clinical event that results in severe motor and neurocognitive problems. Previous studies have shown that the risk of stroke is closely related to the velocity of blood flow in arteries in the neck, which can be measured by transcranial Doppler (TCD) ultrasound.

The novel therapy initially developed by RussellWare, then at Duke University and now at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, with the assistance of UNC Professor Emeritus and Rho co-founder Ronald Helms, is two-pronged. Hydroxyurea, a generic drug that increases the percentage of on-sickling red blood cells, is used to reduce stroke risk, and a monthly phlebotomy procedure that withdraws a unit of blood from the body reduces iron accumulated from previous transfusions.

Indoor compost bin workshop

CHAPEL HILL -- Muriel Williman, education and outreach director at Orange County Solid Waste Management, will be among those helping anyone interested in making an indoor composting bin at a workshop at the Make and Take Worm Bin Workshop from 6- 8 p.m. Wednesday.

The cost is $40, which includes supplies, and the program is at The Scrap Exchange, 548 Foster St., Durham.

The tidy and efficient indoor composting bins are specially designed for composting in apartments or tight spaces. Composting expert Bianca Howard of the City of Raleigh Solid Waste Management will help lead the instruction.

Composting creates humus, the organic component of healthy soil and a natural fertilizer, from your kitchen vegetable and fruit scraps. Learn to recycle your food waste, care for your worms, harvest the compost and feed your plants.

To register for the Make and Take Worm Bin Workshop, email: events@scrapexchange.org or call the Scrap Exchange at (919) 688-6960.

Young artists contest set

CHAPEL HILL -- The Orange County Partnership for Young Children, the local Smart Start agency, invites young artist ages 6 months to 6 years to participate in the 2009 Young Children's Art Contest. The theme of this year's contest will be Family and Community. Children's original drawings on 8 ¬