August 1, 2014

Homework Help: Physics

Posted by Anonymous on Sunday, December 5, 2010 at 3:09pm.

Need help with part b... I got a to be k = 94.985 N/m
I can't figure out how to go about doing part b..

A platform of mass 0.79 kg is supported on four springs (only two springs are shown in the picture, but there are four altogether). A chunk of modeling clay of mass 0.63 kg is held above the table and dropped so that it hits the table with a speed of v = 0.77 m/s.

The clay sticks to the table so that the the table and clay oscillate up and down together. Finally, the table comes to rest 6.5 cm below its original position.
a) What is the effective spring constant of all four springs taken together?

k = N/m *
94.985 OK

HELP: What is the net displacement Δx of the spring from its former equilibrium position? What force F was required to compress the springs? The effective spring constant is the ratio F/Δx.
b) With what amplitude does the platform oscillate immediately after the clay hits the platform?

A = cm

HELP: You might find it useful to find the speed of the table+clay system just after the collision, using momentum conservation.

HELP: Look at this from an energy point of view. Just after the collision, the total energy is partly potential (since the spring is now stretched from its new equilibrium position) and partly kinetic. When the spring is at its maximum displacement from equilibrium, all the energy is potential.

HELP: Remember that for a vertical spring, one can ignore gravity if one takes the equilibrium position as the origin. The equilibrium position is the place where the restoring force of the springs equals the weight of the clay.

HELP: Just after the collision, what is the potential energy stored in the spring? Remember that it is now displaced from its new equilbrium position. What is the kinetic energy? The sum of these is the total energy.

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Kids Health

Kids Need Dogs

children and dogs

As you would expect, owning a dog helps to keep you fit. All those hours walking round the park, endless tennis ball throwing, grooming and brushing all help to improve your overall health and fitness. There are also people who firmly believe that dogs can help to lower stress levels, the petting of their fur alone can help you wind down after a hard day at work.

Now, believe it or not, researchers have found that children who grow up with a dog in the house can have better immunity than children who don’t. Babies are less likely to have breathing problems, coughs, colds and to need antibiotics too. The findings were made in the Kuopio University Hospital in Finland, where a study of 397 infants showed that those with contact with dogs were healthy for 72-76% of their first year compared with 65% for infants who had no dog contact.

It is not known why the babies appeared to be more healthy, but it is suspected that the exposure to the dirt that a dog carries plays a major part. Babies who live with any furry pet may also have a lower risk of allergies in later life according to past studies.

So it appears that the family pooch may be contributing to the health of everyone – definitely not just man’s best friend, but the kids’ too!

Categories: General Health


2009-10 Travel Expedition

The Wyatt Exploration Year 2009-2010 focuses on Poland. At the heart of Europe since medieval times, Poland was a cultural bridge between east and west. United with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Poland formed a Commonwealth of diverse cultures. Art and architecture, manuscripts and printing, royal and municipal documents, trade, and costume reflect the Commonwealth’s varied populations: Lithuanians and Ruthenians, Germans, Jews, and Italians, Armenians and Tatars. The Renaissance and Reformation entered Poland through cultural ties with the west. Old Poland’s unique tradition of electoral monarchy and parliamentary rule was finally overwhelmed by empires. Divided in 1795 for the third and final time by Prussia, Russia, and Austria, Poland persisted---resilient, rebellious, and romantic. Polish emigration established vibrant communities in Europe and the Americas; Tadeusz Kos´ciuszko and Kazimierz Pulaski fought “For Our Freedom and Yours.” Poetry, music, and an abiding Catholic faith sustained Polish identity until 1918. The Nazi occupation of Poland, the fiercest in Europe, more than decimated the Polish population and annihilated the Jews. Over four decades of communist rule did not diminish Polish faith or fortitude. In 1980 Poland’s Solidarity movement led the way to the end of the communist era. A member of the European Union since 2004, Poland with its music, art, literature, poetry, drama and film contributes to the vibrant culture of Europe today.

“Poland Between East and West” involves the history and culture of Poland, Poland’s relations with her neighbors, Germany and Russia, and the centuries-long development of Jewish civilization in Polish lands.

Krakow, former capitol of Poland, is our destination in May 2010. Seat of kings on the castle mounted (the Wawel), home of Jagiellonian University and a center of the arts, Krakow symbolizes the continuity of Polish political and cultural tradition. Krakow was also the home to a centuries-old-Jewish community and major city of Galicia in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Headquarters of the Nazi General Government, Krakow survived World War II intact. This Wyatt Exploration Program offers students insight into the significance of medieval and Renaissance Poland in East Central Europe, Jewish life in Poland up to World War II, post Communist life, and 21st century challenges of Poland today.

Jagiellonian University

Founded as the Cracow Academy in 1364, Jagiellonian University is the second oldest university east of the Rhine (after Prague).  It was revitalized in 1400 by funds from Queen Jadwiga and in the 19th century renamed for the dynasty of her husband, King Ladislaus Jagiellon. Today Jagiellonian University has 52,000 students and 15 different faculties plus other programs. Jagiellonian University has a Center for European Studies; we meet with Professor Aleksander Fiut (specialist in Central European culture and politics and 20/21st century Polish literature) and students in the Masters in Central European Studies Program.

The largest and most notorious Nazi extermination camp is just an hour's ride from Kakow--- its location chosen for its rail connections and centrality in Nazi-occupied Europe. Only Auschwitz I and Birkenau (Aushwitz II) remain of the original 40 square km. camp territory. A site of remembrance and memorial visited by millions, the camp today is also a research center where Nazi atrocities continue to be documented through archives and collections; the physical site and its objects are maintained by experts at one of the most advanced conservation workshops in the world.

Wieliczka Salt Mines

One of the European continent's great mineral deposits, the salt mines at Wieliczka were part of medieval Poland's resource wealth.  Wieliczka links Poland to the great European salt sites---Austria,  Germany---known to prehistoric peoples and then later to the Romans.  Mined since the 13th century, Wieliczka is on UNESCO's World Heritage Register. The mine microclimate also enables it to serve as a sanatorium for respiratory diseases. Wieliczka also contains chapels mined completely in salt.

Dunajec River

The Dunajec river, a tributary of the Vistula, winds south of Krakow beneath limestone cliffs in the Pieniny mountains.  The Pieniny National Park and the Dunajec border Slovakia. The limestone and dolomite formations and their plants and animals are unique forming a small but rich ecosystem. The trip begins at Niedzica Castle, originally built in the 14th century by the Hungarians to protect an important trade route through the Dunajec valley. Raftsmen from the region pole barges along the river route through mountain gorges.


WHEN Chicago's Hypnotic Brass Ensemble plays, its sound seems different from that produced by other brass bands, especially those from New Orleans. The group's tunes have an air of melancholy and also an earnest youthfulness. Yet what has really grabbed the attention of fans and media alike is the family connection: the eight members of the band are all brothers.

The ensemble are sons of Phil Cohran, an African-American jazz trumpeter best known for his work with Sun Ra in 1960. The boys grew up in the same house in Chicago's South Side, with two different mothers and Mr Cohran, who organised the family around daily music rehearsals and a strong, independent, Afro-centric ideology.

The boys eventually ventured out to become street performers, and released CDs of their own music to passers-by. A chance encounter with Mos Def, a New York rapper, during one of those performances led to a collaboration with him at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City. This high-profile show led to similar collaborations with Prince, the Wu Tang Clan and Blur, a British group. They have now toured the world and have made roughly a dozen recordings, both live and in the studio.

A new documentary film by Reuben Atlas, called "Brothers Hypnotic", looks at the group's journey and focuses heavily on two areas: their family background and the heavy influence of their father, and their struggles and triumphs in navigating the music industry on their own, independent terms. The film airs on April 7th on PBS's Independent Lens.

"I wanted to make the film because I loved Hypnotic's music and the way it seemed to, without words, directly reveal their life experiences," Mr Atlas said. "I was also inspired by the way their sense of purpose drove their life decisions."

At the core of the film is the boys' split from their father: not only do they stop attending family rehearsals, they also make career decisions their father may not always approve of (collaborating with record labels and mainstream artists, incorporating rapping into their brass-and-drums sound). By the end of the film, though, Mr Cohran has been looped back into the group.

What's particularly interesting are the group's democratic debates and arguments: which label to sign with, who to collaborate with, how to raise their own children. These are questions that audiences don't often have a chance to hear musicians grapple with. Their journey from childhood to adulthood is something out of the ordinary: all eight emerged from a poor upbringing to create art that is wholly their own, coincidentally just as the popularity of brass bands has become more robust.

They may not be the most technically accomplished brass band working today, but their sound is undeniably unique and clearly rooted in those early days of practice with the entire family. In live performance, once the group and the venue start warming up, it's difficult for audiences to do anything other than support their efforts.


Angular Tips

Join us in our way to learning Angular.js

Why Will Angular 2 Rock?

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Note: If the “foo” alerts from the plunkers starts popping out without reason, please leave a comment and I will look for a different solution.

DISCLAIMER: Angular 2 is still in Alpha stage so the syntax I present in here is subject to be changed and|or simplified. I am using Angular 2.0.0-alpha.26. Also, what I write in here is just my opinion and I could be wrong.

Angular 2 is around the corner and there are mixed opinions about it. Some people can’t wait for it and other people are not any happy with it. Why is that? People are afraid to change, thinking that they wasted their time learning something that is now going to change in a radical way.

Angular is a great framework, but it is 6 years old, and that for a framework is too much. The web evolved a lot since Angular inception in 2009 and the Angular team can’t simply implement those new stuff without breaking half of the actual implementation.

So if they have to break Angular to be able to make it “modern”, it is better to write it from scratch. How so? Angular itself has other problems like the complex syntax for directives, 5 types of services that confuses new users, writing stuff in the wrong scope…

They decided to kill 2 birds with one stone. A new simplified Angular with all the new stuff like shadow dom and also none of the Angular 1 problems.

So my friend, don’t worry, Angular 2 will rock.

An Introduction to Angular 2

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DISCLAIMER: Angular 2 is still on a developer preview, so it has a lot of missing features, broken stuff and it is also subject to change.

Ready for Angular 2? You bet!

For this demo, we are going to code an application which requests german words. The word will also come with its translation if the user is authenticated.

First, grab the KOA backend from here, then:

$ npm install
$ node server.js

A Backend-less Plunker

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So you are asking for help and someone says… hey plunk it so we can see it.

Right, even when we should be able to reproduce any problem in a small example, there are some difficult ones.

Imagine this conversation:

  • Hey I am creating a todo list but when I try to update a todo it changes and then immediately changes back.
  • Good, can you make a plunker for that?
  • Uhm no, it uses my (insert here a backend) and I can’t use it on a plunker.

It is not an uncommon issue at all. What could be a good solution? Swap our service that talks with the backend with a different one swapping the $http calls with fake data? Yeah, we could, but if you start modifying your original implementation, it will be harder to debug, because the problem could lie on that original service and it is not there to test.

Working With Laravel + Angular - Part 2

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Last time we saw a couple of different options on how to integrate Angular and Laravel. Today we are going to learn how to create our backend and frontend as separate applications but having them work together under the same domain. Every request will go to angular except the ones for /api which are going to be managed by Laravel.

Working With a Laravel 4 + Angular Application

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So you decided that Laravel is a great choice for a backend and that Angular is going to fit perfectly as the framework of choice for the frontend. Yeah! That is correct and I am starting to like you.

How to start? So many question, so little time (someone said :P)

My New Angular Workflow With Gulp

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NOTE: The workflow readme will be always a little more updated than this article.

Here is yet another angular boilerplate opinionated in how I work with Angular. I made it for myself but if you find that my opinions are good for you, feel free to use it and collaborate with issues or pull requests.

Let’s start with the app folder:

App folder


FYE 1092: The American Dream

Books in the Main Stacks

This search takes you to a selection of items in the library that deal with the idea of the American Dream:

American Dream

After you have a specific book for your paper, you can search for more information by using keywords that match what your book focuses on. Some examples from this class might include: “middle class”, “consumer culture”, housing, families, suburbs, etc.


Cincinnati Preservation Association is a not-for-profit organization that serves the Greater Cincinnati community as the recognized resource and catalyst for the preservation of historic cultural resources such as architecturally significant buildings, archaeological sites, historic public art and monuments and landscapes. This is accomplished through education, advocacy, and technical support.


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Obama Announces Steps to Boost Biofuels, Clean Coal

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama on Feb. 3 announced a series of steps his Administration is taking as part of its comprehensive strategy to enhance American energy independence while building a foundation for a new clean energy economy, and its promise of new industries and millions of jobs.
At a meeting with a bipartisan group of governors from around the country, the President laid out three measures that will work in concert to boost biofuels production and reduce our dangerous dependence on foreign oil.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has finalized a rule to implement the long-term renewable fuels standard of 36 billion gallons by 2022 established by Congress.  The U.S. Department of Agriculture has proposed a rule on the Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP) that would provide financing to increase the conversion of biomass to bioenergy. The President's Biofuels Interagency Working Group released its first report - Growing America's Fuel. The report, authored by group co-chairs, Secretaries Vilsack and Chu, and Administrator Jackson, lays out a strategy to advance the development and commercialization of a sustainable biofuels industry to meet or exceed the nation's biofuels targets.

In addition, President Obama announced a Presidential Memorandum (linked below) creating an Interagency Task Force on Carbon Capture and Storage to develop a comprehensive and coordinated federal strategy to speed the development and deployment of clean coal technologies. Our nation's economy will continue to rely on the availability and affordability of domestic coal for decades to meet its energy needs, and these advances are necessary to reduce pollution in the meantime. The President calls for five to ten commercial demonstration projects to be up and running by 2016.

President Obama said, "Now, I happen to believe that we should pass a comprehensive energy and climate bill.  It will make clean energy the profitable kind of energy, and the decision by other nations to do this is already giving their businesses a leg up on developing clean energy jobs and technologies. But even if you disagree on the threat posed by climate change, investing in clean energy jobs and businesses is still the right thing to do for our economy.  Reducing our dependence on foreign oil is still the right thing to do for our security.  We can't afford to spin our wheels while the rest of the world speeds ahead."

"Advancing biomass and biofuel production holds the potential to create green jobs, which is one of the many ways the Obama Administration is working to rebuild and revitalize rural America," said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. "Facilities that produce renewable fuel from biomass have to be designed, built and operated. Additionally, BCAP will stimulate biomass production and that will benefit producers and provide the materials necessary to generate clean energy and reduce carbon pollution."

"President Obama and this Administration are strongly committed to the development of carbon capture and storage technology as a key part of the clean energy economy.  We can and should lead the world in this technology and the jobs it can create," said Energy Secretary Steven Chu.

"The actions President Obama has taken today will create jobs, slash greenhouse gas emissions and increase our energy security while helping to put America at the leading edge of the new energy economy," said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. "The renewable fuel standards will help bring new economic opportunity to millions of Americans, particularly in rural America. EPA is proud to be a part of the President's effort to combat climate change and put Americans back to work - both through the new renewable fuel standards and through our co-chairmanship with the Department of Energy of the Interagency Task Force on Carbon Capture and Storage."

Background on today's announcements:

Renewable Fuels Standard. EPA has finalized a rule implementing the long-term renewable fuels mandate of 36 billion gallons by 2022 established by Congress. The Renewable Fuels Standard requires biofuels production to grow from last year's 11.1 billion gallons to 36 billion gallons in 2022, with 21 billion gallons to come from advanced biofuels.  Increasing renewable fuels will reduce dependence on oil by more than 328 million barrels a year and reduce greenhouse gas emissions more than 138 million metric tons a year when fully phased in by 2022.  For the first time, some renewable fuels must achieve greenhouse gas emission reductions - compared to the gasoline and diesel fuels they displace - in order to be counted towards compliance with volume standards.
To read the rule: http://www.epa.gov/otaq/renewablefuels/index.htm

To read the rule:

Biofuels Working Group. In May, President Obama established the Biofuels Interagency Working Group - co-chaired by USDA, DOE, and EPA, and with input from many others - to develop a comprehensive approach to accelerating the investment in and production of American biofuels and reducing our dependence on fossil fuels.  Today the Working Group released its first report:  Growing America's Fuel - a new U.S. Government strategy for meeting or beating the country's biofuel targets. The report is focused on short term solid government solutions supporting the existing biofuels industry, as well as accelerating the commercial establishment of advanced biofuels and a viable long-term market by transforming how the U.S. Government does business across Departments and using strategic public-private partnerships.
To read the full report:

Presidential Memorandum for a Comprehensive Federal Strategy on Carbon Capture and Storage. Charting the path toward clean coal is essential to achieving the Administration's clean energy goals, supporting American jobs and reducing emissions of carbon pollution.  Rapid development and deployment of clean coal technologies, particularly carbon capture and storage (CCS), will help position the U.S. as a leader in the global clean energy race.  The President's memorandum establishes an Interagency Task Force on Carbon Capture and Storage to develop a comprehensive and coordinated federal strategy to speed the development and deployment of clean coal technologies.
The Task Force will be co-chaired by representatives of from DOE and EPA and include participants from at least 9 different agencies and offices.   The Task Force shall develop within 180 days a plan to overcome the barriers to the deployment of widespread affordable CCS within 10 years, with a goal of bringing five to ten commercial demonstration projects on line by 2016.  The plan should address incentives for CCS adoption and any financial, economic, technological, legal, institutional, or other barriers to deployment.  The Task Force should consider how best to coordinate existing federal authorities and programs, as well as identify areas where additional federal authority may be necessary.  The Task Force shall report progress periodically to the President, through the Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality.
To read the full memorandum:
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What is the definition of "coroniform"?

"Coroniform" is defined as resembling or having the form of a crown or coronet. The adjective may be used to describe objects that are not actually crowns but possess a similar appearance.

A crown is recognized as an accessory worn by a monarch to reflect position and sovereignty. A crown is often crafted of valuable metal and set with stones. A coronet is similar but may be smaller. The term "coroniform" can be used in botany to describe characteristics of flowers like the asteraceae, also known as the daisy, which has a crown-like appearance. The term may also be used in creative writing to describe natural forms that possess the appearance of a crown.

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Organizational skills help you stay organized so that you can manage your time, keep your workspace clutter-free, prioritize projects and stay on top of your schedule. Someone who


Explore BrainMass

During the current year, Black Corporation incurred the following expenditures which should be recorded either as operating expenses or as intangible assets:

A. Expenditures were made for the training of new employees. The average employee remains with the company for five years, but is trained for a new position every two years.

B. Black purchased a controlling interest in a vinyl flooring company. The expenditure resulted in the recording of a significant amount of goodwill. Black expects to earn above average returns on this investment indefinitely.

C. Black incurred large amounts of research and development costs in developing a dirt resistant carpet fiber. The company expects that the fiber will be patented and that sales of the resulting products will continue to revenue for at least 25 years. The legal life of the patent, however, will be only 20 years.

D. Black made an expenditure to acquire the patent on a popular carpet cleaner. The patent had a remaining legal life of 14 years, but Black to produce and sell the product for six more years.

E. Black spent a large amount to sponsor the televising of the Olympic Games. Black's intent was to make television viewers more aware of the company's name and its product lines.

Explain whether each of the above expenditures should be recorded as an operation expense or an intangible asset. If you view the expenditures as an intangible asset, indicate the number of years over which the asset should be amortized, if any. Explain your reasoning.

Swanson Corporation issued $ 8 million of 20 year, 8 percent bonds o n April 1, 2009, at 102. Interest is due on March 31 and September 30 of each year, and all of the bonds in the issue mature on March 31, 2029. Swanson's fiscal year ends on December 31.

Prepare the following journal entries:

a. April 1, 2009, to record the issuance of the bonds.

b. September 30, 2009, to pay interest and to amortize the bond premium.

c. March 31, 2029, to pay interest, amortize the bond premium, and retire the bonds at maturity(make tow separate entries).

d. Briefly explain the effect of amortizing the bond premium upon (1) annual net income and (2) annual net cash flow from operating activities. (Ignore possible income tax effects).

Note: Part C: The journal entry would include a debit to Bond Interest Payable for $160,000.


Beef is the meat of adult cattle (cows & bulls). Use this tag for questions about selecting, identifying, storing, preparing, replacing or cooking with beef as an ingredient. Questions about dishes which include beef, but are not focused on beef, should not use this tag.

learn more… | top users | synonyms

How long does it take to cook ground meat on a skillet?

I was wondering how long it exactly takes to cook ground meat in a skillet on the stove on medium heat for these meats? 1) pork 2) bison 3) beef 4) chicken


Africa economic report won’t have its zest if it does not have who is who of African economies. Like year, the top 12 largest African economies are the same with some modification at the top of the chart. The Republic of South Africa remains the biggest and strongest African economy with a GDP $272.2 billion and the second largest and strongest African economy is Nigeria with a GDP of $141.3 billion the third is Algeria with a GDP of $137.2 billion and the fourth largest and biggest African economy is Egypt with a GDP of $111.8 billion. The changes noted in the classification this year are the great leap forward of Angola and war ravaged Sudan. Angola, which is recovering from 25 years civil war, has over taken the Kingdom of Morocco as the fifth largest African economy with a GDP of $ 66.1 billion.

Following Angola, Morocco is now the sixth largest African economy with a GDP of $ 61.1 billion; Libya is the seventh largest African economy with a GDP of $ 56.0 billion. Sudan is the eighth largest African economy with a GDP of $ 45.7 billion, Tunisia is ninth with a GDP of $ 33.1 billion, Zimbabwe is tenth with a GDP of $ 26.4 billion, Kenya is eleventh with a GDP of $ 24.8 billion and Cameroon is twelfth with a GDP of $ 20.1 billion. Meanwhile, Ivory Coast, the erstwhile largest and strongest French-speaking black African economy is thirteenth with a GDP of $ 18.7 billion.

Mind you, this is the list of Africa’s biggest economies, it is simply a measure of goods traded in the markets and not the wellbeing of the citizens in the aforementioned nations. The African Economist will soon public a report of countries ranked based on GDP per capita, a better indicator, though not the best, than simply the size of the economy.


Follow free turorials on colored pencils, soft-block or eraser carving and color theory.
Return to the Designedly, Kristi home page.

Introduction to Three Types of Colored Pencils

Colored Pencils: Intro

There are three main types of colored pencils available on the market today that I am going to speak of. These include wax-based pencils, which are the plain colored pencils available from most any discount store all the way up to the fine art supply stores. There are also oil-based pencils, which are often used in the related craft of Pergamano. And, the last type, gaining popularity among the rubberstamping community, is the watercolor pencil. All of these types can be purchased at art supply stores and often craft stores as well, I believe RubberArt carries the wax-based and the watercolor pencils as do other vendors on this list. If you are having difficulties locating any of these, feel free to let me know and I will try to steer you in the right direction. There are other types of pencils on the market as well, but I felt I did not have sufficient experience to comment on them.

Colored Pencils: Wax-Based

As I mentioned in the introduction, wax-based are the standard colored pencils that can be purchased anywhere, in any degree of quality. There are generic brands, Crayola makes small and large sets, as does Prang, Prismacolor, Derwent and the list goes on. If you are hesitant about using colored pencils with your stamping I'd suggest trying a smaller set of the Crayola. They are really quite good pencils for the cost. I think those and the Prismacolor are the two more popular brands among the stamping community. I myself have a large set of Crayola, a set of Brunzeel pencils and a large set of Prismacolors.

The key to using colored pencils (wax or oil) is to be patient and use layers or what is sometimes referred to as "glazing." With practice, amazing amounts of shading and details can be achieved. You can layer different colors. For example, if you know you want a darker or lighter shade of a particular pencil you have, lay down a layer of black, grey, white or a complimentary color before laying down your main color. You can add more pressure to deepen a color or lighten the pressure to lighten the color. And you can add the additional colors on top of the main color. Just remember that the top layer is usually the most prominent so you may want a light touch when adding the darkest colors. All of these techniques are great for adding dimension to your stamped images. Just remember to be consistent in where your perceived light source is.

When I first started to use colored pencils I did not like them at all. Mostly it was the "streakiness" of them that I disliked so I put them away for a very long time. I did not realize the tools that are out there to be used with colored pencils. The cheapest thing you can use if you finger and a facial tissue or paper towel. The harder you press with your finger the more you move around the color. There are also tools called blending stubs or Tortillons that can produce a similar affect. These can also be purchased from any art supply store in addition to the craft stores. They are quite inexpensive and can be "sharpened" with sandpaper and come in a couple different sizes. The other wonderful tool available is a blender pen (this is different from the ones you use with watercolor markers like the Dove Blender Pen and the Tombow Blender Pen). I only know of the ones Prismacolor puts out, but there may be others. They are the same thing as the Colorless Blender for the Prismacolor markers. They are alcohol based and that helps break up the wax and make it more blendable.

WARNING: If you are using a wet blending technique for any of these types of pencils you need to be sure to use a permanent ink and follow all directions for making it permanent, such as heat setting (if required). You may also emboss the image.

I strongly urge playing with your colored pencils without any real result in mind. Try layering different colors, try layering the same colors, try using cross-hatching or making dots to blend colors. Experiment and most importantly, have fun! Also remember, in most cases, if the tools you are using are mediocre the results will be mediocre. (Think of this in terms of an instrument. For instance, if you play a piece technically flawless, it's gonna sound bad if the piano is out of tune.) So, if you are feeling comfortable with your Crayola set and think you still like the techniques involved with colored pencil, but would like a bit better outcome, you may wish to upgrade to Prismacolor pencils. There is a distinct difference.

Colored Pencils: Oil Based

Oil Based pencils have lead that is oil based - similar to oil pastels. In general the same rules apply about laying down your color and creating depth and dimension. The main difference is that instead of using a colorless alcohol-based marker as a blender, you use turpentine or the odorless turpentine (Turpenoid is one of the "brands" if I recall correctly). I like dipping a Tortillon in it, but you can use a cotton swab, cotton ball, facial tissue, paper towel or anything else you can think of to apply it. As in the case of the wax based colored pencils the turpentine breaks down the oil slightly, making it easier to blend.

CAUTION: These blending materials are harsh chemicals and can be very hard on the skin. You may wish to wear latex or rubber gloves when using the chemicals. And use them only in well ventilated areas or with the use of an approved vapor mask.

As I mentioned in the intro, this is a common medium for using in Pergamano. Usually they lay down color almost like a wash in watercoloring and use the turpenoid to blend it so it looks soft just like watercoloring. It doesn't wrinkle the vellum because it's much drier. It is also a medium that works well on wood.

I have seen small sets of maybe 6 or 8 colors available in the craft area of Wal-Mart near the wooden shapes and wood burning tools for a reasonable price. Also, some of the stamping stores or web sites that also sell Pergamano supplies sell sets. These generally don't come in as wide a variety of colors as the other two types of pencils discussed in this article.

Many of the tips and techniques out there for oil pastels can be applied to the oil based color pencils.

Colored Pencils: Watercolor Pencils

The third and final pencils I will discuss are the watercolor pencils. These are highly versatile pencils and it seems there are about as many ways to use them as there are people that own them. Ok, so I'm exaggerating a bit.

Again, these are available in a variety of grades, from Crayola to Derwent and Staedtler Karat. If you are uncertain, go ahead and start out with the Crayola. They will serve the casual user quite well and give you an idea if you like their uses.

If you are looking for the effect like that of a watercolor painting, the best technique, IMHO is to lay down a bunch of color, real heavy like on some scrap paper. Then, take a wet brush (not dripping wet, but good and damp) and pick the color up and then apply it to your paper using the same techniques that are used in watercoloring. For me, this is my preferred method as I love the watercolor effect. I also like how this is much more portable than my watercolors in tubes. I can take my Niji Waterbrushes, watercolor paper that has images stamped on it and my set of watercolor pencils and I can amuse myself the whole weekend at the in-laws, or if the traffic isn't bad while riding in the car.

You can also draw right inside the lines where you want the color to be darkest and drag the color inward with a damp brush. This also allows for wonderful depth and dimension and makes the outlines of the images "pop." Kind of like when you were older and still coloring in coloring books and you traced the lines with lots of pressure on the crayon and then filled in the area with lighter pressure. It gives a similar, but slightly more subtle effect.

There are also people who never use the "water" part of watercolor pencils. Many feel they are great for laying down large portions of one color. They do seem much more vibrant with less layering and pressure than the wax-based pencils.

Colored Pencils: Summary and Additional Resources

As with any new medium I encourage you to experiment and play. Become familiar with the medium. Use different pressures, different papers, different patterns for laying down the color, different layering. Combine the different types of pencils for interesting effects. It really helps. But, overall, this is not a difficult medium to work in. When used with stamps, it's not much different than coloring in a coloring book. I swear!

I could go into much further detail on technique and such, but I would just be repeating what others have said. So, I will provide you with links to more information about using colored pencils. Remember that in many cases, the techniques can be applied to the use of any of these pencil types (except, of course, the blending fluids used are dependent upon the pencil used).

More info/opinions on the different kinds (includes brand specific information):

Info on different techniques and how to lay down the color from Crayola:

From Tyra's Cloud 9 Tips and Techniques Files:

From Gingerwood, a tutorial that takes you step-by-step through coloring an image:

If you have any further questions, feel free to e-mail me. I will do my best to answer your questions.

Now, for the necessary evil: A lot of time and effort was put into preparing this information. Please do not distribute in any form with out the author's written consent. Thank you.

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Longest recorded drift video! Supra

import toyota supra insane drifting.

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Longest Drift - Guinness World Record (2,308 meters)
Ensconced behind the wheel of a Mercedes C63 AMG, Mauro Calo was able to drift a total of 2,308 meters (7,572 feet) by completing nearly eight laps around the handling circuit at Mercedes-Benz World in Surrey, UK.

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NM drifting runde kristiansand 23.05.09

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Book Review: The Way We Eat

Peter Singer, a bio-ethicist at Princeton University and Jim Mason, who grew up as a fifth generation farmer, have written this book, an engaging tell-all about the origins of the food in your fridge.

Their voyage literally begins at the dinner table of three average American families with differing tastes and socio-economic backgrounds and continues as the authors set out to trace the provenance of the foods we eat, with stops along the way to check out the validity of labels such as “Certified Humane.”

One highlight of The Way We Eat, is that it concludes with five simple principles that consumers can use to make better food choices.

However, a warning is in order. After reading this book, you will never look at turkey in the same way (let alone want to eat it) and will understand why the terms “turkey” and “sexual politics” can be appropriately used in the same sentence.


A Study to Evaluate the Efficacy and Safety of a Vaccine, ASP0113, in Cytomegalovirus (CMV)-Seronegative Kidney Transplant Recipients Receiving an Organ From a CMV-Seropositive Donor

Diseases and Conditions Researched

Kidney Transplantation Cytomegalovirus (CMV) Negative Recipients

What is the purpose of this trial?

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of ASP0113 compared to placebo in reducing the incidence of cytomegalovirus (CMV) viremia in CMV-seronegative subjects receiving a kidney from a CMV-seropositive donor. This study will also evaluate the safety of ASP0113 in this patient population.

Participation Guidelines

Age: 18 Years and older
Gender: Both

Click here for detailed participation information for this trial.

Sponsor: Astellas Pharma US, Inc.
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abdominal paragonimiasis

Overview: abdominal paragonimiasis (celiac paragonimiasis) and yield due to trematode infection caused by autoimmune diseases, is the Paragonimus metacercariae through the intestinal tract into the abdominal cavity, lungs and central nervous system tissue and organ growth, parasites of different developmental stages of antigen-induced immune responses in the body to produce the corresponding and immune pathology. As the parasite Paragonimus mainly to the lungs, so it is known as paragonimiasis.

1930, China's scholars, Orchid Pavilion, Shaoxing County, Zhejiang Province, the first report of two Paragonimus infection. 1952 domestic scholars and Paragonimus infections etiology, epidemiology, pathology and clinical etc made a lot of research and found many new species and new epidemic, and in the prevention and treatment has made great achievements.

abdominal paragonimiasis is what causes?

(a) causes

pathogens of abdominal paragonimiasis Paragonimus metacercariae. Paragonimus major parasites in the human lung, with its eggs after the first sputum or feces develop into miracidia in the water, and then invade the first host (freshwater snails) develop into cercariae, cercariae invaded 2 host (crustaceans animals) develop into metacercariae. People with eating undercooked freshwater crabs, and metacercaria

early symptoms of abdominal paragonimiasis what?

abdominal paragonimiasis is a lung disease based systemic diseases, clinical manifestations of a complex of symptoms and the severity of invasive insect species, organ involved, the extent of infection, the body response and other factors. Onset and more slowly, because many do not know who exactly the date of infection, it is difficult to extrapolate the incubation period, the elderly over 10 years, who only a few short days, but most in the 6 to 12 months. Patients may have fever, cough, cough and bloody sputum sputum samples rotten peach, fatigue, night sweats, loss of appetite, abdominal pain, diarrhea or other clinical manifestations of urticaria, according to different violations of the major organs, can be divided into four clinical types.

1. lung lung fluke Paragonimus is the most common site of parasite, symptoms of cough, hemoptysis, chest pain the most common, typical of sputum was jam-like mucus such as necrotic tissue is associated with the lungs were rotten peach-like bloody sputum. 90% of patients can be repeated hemoptysis, after years of continuous, sputum, or can be found in eggs. When the migration into the chest of paragonimiasis, often causing chest pain, exudative pleural effusion or pleural thickening and other changes. Sichuan Paragonimus infection, cough, bloody sputum and chest pain rare, pleural effusion more. A few patients may have hives or asthma attacks.

2. especially the right lower quadrant abdominal pain is more common, uneven, may also have diarrhea, liver, bloody stools, or sesame, or which can be found in adults or eggs, tenesmus obvious. Examination of abdominal tenderness, occasional liver, spleen, lymph nodes and abdominal nodules, lumps or ascites. Palpable abdominal mass in the capsule seems sexy, ranging from the number, diameter of 1 ~ 4cm. Sichuan Paragonimus often eosinophilic abscess formation in the liver, causing liver and liver dysfunction.

3. Cerebral often caused by Paragonimus flukes, common in children and young adults in endemic areas the incidence may be as high as 2% to 5%. Its performance:

(1) increased intracranial pressure symptoms: such as headache, vomiting, slow, optic disc edema, common in patients with early.

(2) brain tissue destructive symptoms: such as paralysis, aphasia, hemianopia, ataxia, etc., usually in late.

(3) irritating symptoms: such as seizures, visual hallucinations, abnormal physical sense, are caused by lesions close to the cortex.

(4) inflammatory symptoms: such as chills, fever, headache, meningeal irritation, etc., common in early disease.

4. nodules caused by Paragonimus Sichuan and more common, the incidence rate of 50% to 80%, can occur in the abdomen, chest, back, groin, thigh, scrotum, neck, eyes and other parts of soybeans to the big duck. Nodules typical eosinophilic granuloma, there Charcot crystals or worms can be found, but no eggs. About 20% of patients with Paragonimus flukes may have the signs, nodules in the lower abdomen and thigh deep subcutaneous or intramuscular, 1 ~ 6cm size, isolated or clusters exist within the Charcot crystalline nodules, parasites or eggs.

1. epidemiological data where growth in the endemic area of paragonimiasis endemic areas or have been to have the consumption of raw or undercooked crabs or clam mantis, etc., or drink had a history of health of the stream, there may be infected with this disease.

2. the early clinical manifestations of diarrhea, abdominal pain, followed by cough, fever, cough with rust-colored sputum pleural effusion, or migratory subcutaneous nodules or mass, are should consider this disease. If headache, epilepsy, paralysis, etc., should consider the possibility of this type of brain disease.

3. laboratory examination of sputum, feces and eggs found within the various body fluids is the basis for diagnosis of this disease. Subcutaneous nodule or mass on a patient, can Zuohuo histopathology. Immunological tests such as skin test and serology, have the value of diagnosis. Especially for Sichuan (or Steinmann) and the diagnosis of paragonimiasis more.

4.X ray and CT examination for lung and brain-based type of patients.

abdominal paragonimiasis ate?

suitable food: fresh raw fish, raw and cooked food, regardless of treatment, metacercariae by chopping boards, knives, dishes and other contaminated food, sashimi, sashimi, sashimi style porridge. Fiber foods and gas production more and more foods such as celery, chives, bean sprouts, sweet potatoes, dry beans. Alcohol and all the spicy and pungent foods.

suitable food: low-fat foods such as cereals porridge, buckwheat, taro, starchy dishes such as steamed sweet potatoes, sweet corn, potatoes, etc., drinking beverages containing vinegar , such as World No. One, low fat, low cholesterol diet, eat more zinc, magnesium-rich foods, vitamin C, should be light, soft, easy to digest, no stimulation of food.

diet: (1) black sesame porridge Poria: black sesame seeds 10 g, Poria 15 grams, ginger, 3, 100 grams of rice. The ginger slices, Poria mashed, soaked for half an hour later Jianqu concoction of fried twice. The two soup mixture, then cooked with rice and sesame seeds to porridge.

(2) Lily porridge: Lily 60 grams, 100 grams of rice, ginger, 3. The lily washed, chopped, with rice porridge.

(3) Jen duck soup lotus medicine: lotus 50 grams, 500 grams of fresh duck, drug Ren 100 grams. Wash the fresh duck chopped into pieces, together with drugs Jen leaves, add boiling water to rotten meat, no salt and other condiments, 2 times a day, each 250 ml, even for 10 to 14 days , a diuretic, swelling effect, the blood line of the water.

(4) Elsholtzia porridge: Elsholtzia 10 grams, rice 50 to 100 grams. Elsholtzia first wash, dextrose water, to the residue, then add rice porridge.

(5) Chixiaodou carp melon soup: fresh carp a treaty 500 grams, 100 grams red bean, melon 200 grams. Fresh carp to the scales will be gutted to the post with half-cooked red bean cooked with added melon 200 g, then cook until the white meat, rotten soup, no salt and other spices, cooked with a gauze filter to the residue. 2 times a day, 250 ml each time, even for 10 to 14 days. Can increase the plasma protein, has strong water swelling effect.

(6) Garlic steamed watermelon: 60 to 90 grams of garlic, watermelon 1 about 1500 to 2000 grams. First in the watermelon rind with a knife dug holes in a triangle, into the watermelon, peeled garlic inside, and then digging a hole blocking melon Pusey, to hole up steam cooked. Eat garlic and West rang, hot dose, garlic has anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory effect, eliminate watermelon hot hot weather, favorable water swelling function.

(7) steamed frog: frog 250 g, Onion, Ginger and 3 grams, rice wine, salt, a little MSG. Skinning the frog to the internal organs, into the bowl, add water, add rice, onion, ginger, salt, cook until thoroughly cooked with fire. Decoction and food, there is tonic diuresis effect.

(8) Fort wolfberries Nanzao eggs: date 10 South, West, medlar 30 grams, 2 eggs. The wolfberry, Nanzao wash, add water, simmer 1 hour into the eggs, cook for a moment, made of egg and serve. 2 times a day Decoction and eggs. Liver and kidney for AIDS.

(9) Longan turtle stew yam: yam tablets 30 grams of dried longan meat 20 grams, a turtle (about 500 grams). First turtle at 45 ℃ warm water to drain urine, after being burnt to death to intestinal mixed and head claw; then with a band of meat, add water, and yam, longan meat, fried well-done. Decoction and meat, Yin deficiency is appropriate.

(10) Shouwu jujube boiled eggs: Radix 20 grams, jujube 10, 2 eggs. The Radix, date, amount of water cook eggs, cooked eggs, peeled and cook, will cook to a bowl, seasoning to dregs again. 1 day, Decoction eggs, and even served 15 days to 20 days. Liver and stomach.

abdominal paragonimiasis should be how to prevent?

1. to prevent human infection in endemic areas of extensive publicity and education, get rid of eating raw or undercooked crabs, clam mantis habits, not to drink unboiled water streams.

2. 控制传染源 thorough treatment of patients and animals suffering from this disease. Kill harmful to people or animal reservoir hosts.

3. cut off the transmission management manure, kill sputum, fecal eggs, to prevent the eggs into the water. Not raw crabs, raw clam mantis feeding dogs, cats, livestock to prevent infection.

abdominal paragonimiasis precautions before treatment?

Chinese medicine treatment of abdominal paragonimiasis

insecticide treatment

1. unilateral prescription:

(1) pija meat 30g, betel nut 15g, the gentleman 10g, water simmer in water, 1 / , 15 days for a course.

(2) pumpkin seed 30 ~ 60g, made from powder, 1 time / day, continued for 2 weeks.

2. unilateral prescription:

(1) ebony, Poria, Hawthorn 12g, Agrimony 30g, woody , flavescens, Atractylodes 6g, betel nut, so that a gentleman of 9g, Angelica 5g, water simmer in water, a / day, and even served a few days.

(2) Sophora child, Sunburn 100 each 6g, licorice 1.5g, water simmer in water, 1 / day, even for 5 days.

Western medicine treatment of abdominal paragonimiasis

(a) treatment

1. anti-infection treatment

(1) praziquantel (praziquantel): praziquantel treatment of paragonimiasis drug of choice for all patients, for adults, schistosomula, eggs have a role in rapid oral absorption, 0.5 ~ 1.0h peak plasma concentration, drug concentration in portal blood 10 times in the peripheral blood, no savings effect.

adult patients with acute schistosomiasis dose 30mg / (kg · d), 3 times orally, even for 4 days, total dose of 120mg/kg. Adult patients with chronic lung fluke dose of 30mg / (kg · d), even for 2 days, total dose of 60mg/kg. Brain of patients should be given two treatment interval of 1 week. Side effects of dizziness, fatigue, palpitations, contraction, etc., but are mild.

(2) sulfur-chlorophenol (sulfur double-dichlorophenol): also known as other small (bitin), adult day 3g, children 50mg/kg, orally 3 times , for taking 15 days or 10 days between taking 20 to 30 days for treatment. Recently the cure rate of 84% to 100%, about 5% a year after the review of recurrence, can be the first two courses. Lower cure rates of brain spinal cord, which require 2 to 3 courses. This product is the main side effects are diarrhea, abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting and anal irritation and so on. Serious heart, liver, kidney disease and pregnant women should be banned or suspended treatment.

acute abdominal symptoms such as severe paragonimiasis may be appropriate to use of steroids.

2. symptomatic treatment of cough, chest pain can be applied antitussive and analgesic agent. Epilepsy can be made by phenytoin, phenobarbital (Luminal) and diazepam (stability) and oral prevention. Increased intracranial pressure can be applied dehydrating agent such as hypertonic glucose solution, 20% mannitol. Paralysis can be used acupuncture and physical therapy, etc.

3. Surgical treatment

(1) laparotomy: Most lung symptoms can disappear after drug treatment, but Some abdominal performance, especially abdominal mass and adhesion of colic, and often requires laparotomy to confirm the diagnosis.

where drug treatment does not work, no obvious surgical contraindications, indications for laparotomy are. After laparotomy, the adhesions between the bowel loops can be properly separated, if necessary, could be considered as a shortcut between the intestinal loop anastomosis, or adhesions break down in the intestinal loop was made after plication. Large cysts can pick out individual, a chronic inflammation or adhesions of the appendix or gallbladder removal may be considered, but the organ surface numerous small nodules is no satisfactory treatment, and can not be processed.

(2) mass resection: subcutaneous mass can be removed under local anesthesia. Mass cut out parasites, such as no parasites can be diagnostic biopsy for reference.

abdominal paragonimiasis should be how?

1. blood leukocytes (10 ~ 30) × 109 / L, the acute phase up to 40 × 109 / L; eosinophils generally increased, usually in the 5 % to 20%, the acute phase of up to 80%. However, eosinophils increased out of proportion with the severity of infection, increased in advanced cases is not obvious. Paragonimus infection in Sichuan and changes in blood compared with Paragonimus flukes as significant.

2. erythrocyte sedimentation rate showed a moderate or high growth.

3. pathogen check

(1) sputum smear method: Paragonimus flukes infected sputum fluid often has rust-colored, microscopic examination shows eggs, eosinophils and Charcot crystals. Paragonimus infection in Sichuan and how often the amount of sputum eosinophils and Charcot crystals, rarely check see eggs.

(2) fecal smear method: fecal 50g by 100 mesh stainless steel screen filter pore size, the quantitative fecal residue fill the central hole, fill Calibrating, Remove quantitative plate, covering a saturated glycerin - malachite green solution of hydrophilic cellophane, gently flatten with a rubber stopper, so that fecal residue spread evenly to the edge of cellophane, overnight at room temperature 30 ℃ after the examination. Paragonimus flukes infections, 15% to 40% positive, while the Paragonimus infection in Sichuan and rarely positive.

4. humoral check

(1) CSF: cerebrospinal fluid of patients with cerebral eosinophils can check see cells, protein content increased slightly, the other normal.

(2) ascites and pleural effusion examination: ascites and pleural effusion was straw yellow or bloody, occasionally Charcot crystals, cholesterol crystals, or eggs.

5. immunology

(1) skin test: The adult Paragonimus antigen 1:2000 0.1ml intradermal injection in the forearm, 15 ~ 20min observations, if the local papules diameter ≥ 1.2cm, flush greater than ≥ 2.5cm were positive.

skin test is simple, quick observation, survey patients in endemic areas for screening purposes, skin test positive, then further examination of other methods of confirmation.

(2) after the cercariae membrane test

(3) serological tests: There agar double diffusion test, indirect immunofluorescence test, convection electrophoresis test, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and so on.

intradermal test, after the cercariae membrane test, complement fixation test, etc. are more than 95% sensitivity, but specificity is not high, and schistosomiasis, clonorchiasis patients, fasciolopsiasis so there is cross-positive. The enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay has high sensitivity and specificity. Some scholars believe that such positive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay together with other immunological test was positive in two of the disease can be diagnosed.

6. biopsy of subcutaneous nodule or mass in the pathological examination showed eggs or schistosomula, adults. Caused by the Sichuan Paragonimus subcutaneous mass in the typical eosinophilic granuloma, some patients can be found in schistosomula, but never found the eggs.

1.X-ray examination of pulmonary symptoms, abnormal chest radiograph often.

(1) markings thickening, pleural thickening: a small egg tracheal invasion, lymphatic vessels, etc., to intimal injury, congestive expansion, wall thickening or due to fibrosis. Lung markings like mesh, in order to step down within the lungs with more common lung infection in 90% of the performance.

(2) miliary, or patchy shadows: resembles hematogenous disseminated tuberculosis, but the relatively small nodules, sizes, edge blur, there are single rooms and multi- Housing translucent zone, partially integrated into the film, and more in the step down in the lungs and the inside, can be identified. This type of lung pathology is granulomatous and allergic alveolitis, more than a self-limiting, usually in 1 to 2 months subsided.

(3) patchy shadows: the migration of schistosomula in the lungs when the lungs caused due to bleeding or hypersensitivity pneumonitis, usually in 1 to 2 weeks after the absorption.

(4) chip block shadow: Chronic pulmonary paragonimiasis film can have a block shadow, the edge was clear, a similar inflammatory pseudotumor for paragonimiasis granuloma caused.

2. head CT can show lesions and the site of obstruction.

3. bronchoscopy is a recent diagnosis of abdominal paragonimiasis new method, because a large number of eggs in the lung tissue and bronchial submucosal deposition, it is visible mucosal congestion , edema, ulcers, bronchial stenosis and submucosal pale miliary nodules, biopsy of lung fluke eggs can be found in tablet.

abdominal paragonimiasis diseases easily confused?

1. Tuberculosis Lungs Paragonimus infection often misdiagnosed as tuberculosis, because of its early symptoms are similar and early tuberculosis, and cystic changes in the lungs but also with the period Ball is similar to tuberculosis. When violation of pleural paragonimiasis caused by pleural effusion, but also with tuberculous exudative pleurisy confused. Paragonimus infection can produce a wide range of peritonitis and peritoneal adhesions, etc., should be differentiated from tuberculous peritonitis. From the above types of TB epidemiology, laboratory tests to be identified.

2. primary epileptic-type seizures Paragonimus infection symptoms similar to idiopathic epilepsy. However, cerebral paragonimiasis infection no past history of epilepsy and seizures, the headache and limb weakness and other symptoms that last for several days; the primary seizures, the symptoms can disappear in a few hours. In addition, there are eggs in sputum, cerebrospinal fluid and other immunological tests positive, as both can be identified.

retroperitoneal fibrosis may be caused by the diseases?

retroperitoneal fibrosis-related diseases

retroperitoneal lipoma

more abdominal symptoms

HBV and HCV re Howship-Romber retrograde spread of cancer patients with advanced gastrointestinal cancer ventral abdominal plate bladder quiet After the effects of violence stones explosive watery diarrhea, abdominal pain, cardiac flaccid obturator nerve damage closed loop obstruction constipation constipation with abdominal mass, abdominal pain, bloody diarrhea and severe constipation with stool mixed with blood and viral diarrhea can not be excluded meconium integrated postprandial onset of abdominal pain after meals sign

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Fun with terminal and Vim macros

April 20, 2015, [MD]

As far as I know, ls doesn't have a built-in way to list only directories, so I found this snippet somewhere and added it to my .zshrc:

awk is a very powerful string manipulation tool, but in this case we're just using it to get the 9th column of each line (awk '{ print $9 }')

OpenEdX and LTI: Pedagogical scripts and SSO

February 21, 2015, [MD]

I came up with a neat way to embed external web tools into EdX courses using an LTI interstitial, which also allows for rich pedagogical scripting and group formation. Illustrated with a brief screencast.

Last year, I experimented with implementing pedagogical scripts spanning different collaborative Web 2.0 tools, like Etherpad and Confluence wiki, in two hybrid university courses.

Coordinating collaboration and group formation in a class of 85 students was already challenging, but currently we are planning a MOOC built on the same principles. Before we begin to design the pedagogical scripts and the flow of the course, a key question was how much we could possible implement technically given the MOOC platform. Happily, it turns out that it will be easier and more seamless than I had feared.

We chose to go with EdX (University of Toronto has agreements with both EdX and Coursera), which is based on an open-source platform. Open source can mean many different things, there are platforms that are mainly developed privately in a company, and released to the public as periodic "code dumps", and where installation is very complex, and the product is unlikely to be used by anyone else. I didn't know much about the EdX code, but the fact that the platform is already used by a very impressive number of other installations, such as China's XuetangX and France's Université Numérique was already a very positive sign.

Random German Stuff that Matters - great content auf Deutsch

January 24, 2015, [MD]

Why introduce German content in English?

One issue that I have not heard much discussion about, is the challenge of finding interesting material in foreign languages. In your own culture and language, you have gotten to know authors through school, through popular media, recommendations from friends, etc. But when you begin exploring a foreign language, it's often like starting from scratch again. I remember walking around in the libraries in Italy, having no idea where to start, or what kinds of authors I might enjoy.

This is made worse by the fact that I am typically much slower at reading in a foreign language, and particularly in "skimming". This means that even though I can really enjoy sitting down with a nice novel, and slowly working through it, actually keeping up with a bunch of blogs, skimming the newspaper every day, or even doing a Google-search and flitting from one page to the next, becomes much more difficult.

Some things are easier these days - it's typically easier to get access to media over the Internet, whether it be movies, podcasts, or ebooks (although this differs a lot between different languages, it is still difficult finding Indonesian movies or TV-shows online, and even Norwegian e-books are hard to come by online), but navigating is still difficult. When I began learning Russian again, I was amazed at the number of very high-quality English blogs that talk about Russian modern literature (places like Lizok's bookshelf, XIX век and Languagehat), which really inspired me to continue working on my Russian, to be able to read the books they so enthusiastically discussed.

Starting data analysis/wrangling with R: Things I wish I'd been told

October 15, 2014, [MD]

R is a very powerful open source environment for data analysis, statistics and graphing, with thousands of packages available. After my previous blog post about likert-scales and metadata in R, a few of my colleagues mentioned that they were learning R through a Coursera course on data analysis. I have been working quite intensively with R for the last half year, and thought I'd try to document and share a few tricks, and things I wish I'd have known when I started out.

I don't pretend to be a statistics whiz – I don't have a strong background in math, and much of my training in statistics was of the social science "click here, then here in SPSS" kind, using flowcharts to divine which tests to run, given the kinds of variables you wanted to compare. I'm eager to learn more, but the fact is that running complex statistical functions in R is typically quite easy. The difficult part is acquiring data, cleaning it up, combining different data sources, and preparing it for analysis (they say 90% of a data scientist's job is data wrangling). Of course, knowing which tests to run, and how to analyze the results is also a challenge, but that is general statistical knowledge that applies to all statistics packages.

A pedagogical script for idea convergence through tagging Etherpad content

October 4, 2014, [MD]

I describe a script aimed at supporting student idea convergence through tagging Etherpad content, and discuss how it went when I implemented it in a class

In an earlier blog post I introduced the idea of pedagogical scripting, as well as implementing scripts in computer code. I discussed my desire to make ideas more "moveable", and support deeper work on ideas, and talked about the idea of using tags to support this. Finally, I introduced the tool tag-extract, which I developed to work on a literature review.

I am currently teaching a course on Knowledge and Communication for Development (earlier open source syllabi) at the University of Toronto at Scarborough. The course applies theoretical constructs from development studies to understanding the role of technology, the internet, and knowledge in international development processes, and as implemented in specific development projects.

I began the course with two fairly tech-centric classes, because I believe that having an intuition about how the Internet works, is important for subsequent discussions. I've also realized in previous years that even the "digital generation" often has very little understanding of what happens when you for example send a Facebook message from one computer to another.

Supporting idea convergence through pedagogical scripts and Etherpad APIs, an introduction

October 4, 2014, [MD]

We can script Etherpad to push discussion prompts out to many small groups, and then pull the information back. Using tags, we can extract information, and as a community organize the emerging folksonomy

This blog post brings together two long-standing interests of mine. The first is how to script web tools to support small-group collaborative learning, and the other is how to support reorganization of ideas across groups.

Two meanings of the word "scripting"

There is an interesting intersection between two quite different meanings of the word scripting in the context of my work. In the CSCL literature, scripts refer to sequences of activities that support groups of students in carrying out a collaborative learning activity. They can be very simple and generic, like the well-known jigsaw script, or very content-specific. There is active on-going research on scripting, including how external scripts interfer with internal scripts, and the dangers of over-scripting.

From the technology side, we talk about writing scripts as a light-weight form of programming, to ask the computer to do something for us. Scripting a program, or a web site, means that we can interact with it automatically, for example asking Google Docs to set up 20 documents for us. There is obviously a connection between developing educational scripts and actually "implementing" them in technology. Often, specialized software has been written to enable specific scripts, but there has been some attempts at enabling more generic implementations of learning designs into software.

Easy interoperability between Ruby and Python scripts with JSON

September 23, 2014, [MD]

I recently needed to call a Ruby script from Python to do some data processing. I was generating some Etherpad-scripts in Python, and needed to restructure tags (using tag-extract) with a Ruby script. The complication was that this script does not just return a simple string or number, but a somewhat complex data structure, that I needed to process further in the Python script.

Luckily, searching online I came across the idea to use JSON as the interchange format, which worked swimmingly. Given that all the information was in text format, and the data structure was not that complex (just some lists and dictionaries), JSON could cope well with the complexity, and was easier to debug, since it's a text format. If I had had other requirements, like binary data, I would have had to investigate other data formats.

The Ruby script already had several different output options, controlled through command-line switches. I added the option to output through JSON, and the code required to do the actual output was simply:

puts JSON.generate(tags)

I also reconfigured the script to accept input from standard-in:

if ARGV.size == 0
  a =
  a = try {[1]) }
  unless a
    puts "Could not read input file"

This meant that I could simply pipe the information from the Python script through the Ruby script, writing to standard-out and reading from standard-in, not having to create any temporary files at all.

Creating Anki cards for Russian Coursera MOOC with stemming and frequency lists

April 17, 2014, [MD]

In which I automatically generate Anki review cards for vocabulary based on subtitles from a Russian Coursera MOOC

Learning Russian, a 10-year project

I have been working on my Russian on and off for many years, I'm at the level where I don't feel the need for textbooks, but my understanding is not quite good enough for authentic media yet. I've experimented with readings novels in parallel (English and Russian side by side, or Swedish and Russian, like on the picture), and I've been listening to a great podcast for Russian learners.

Language learning with MOOCs

MOOCs can be a great resource for language learning, whether intentionally or not. At the University of Toronto, we found that more than 60% of learners across all MOOCs spoke English as a second language, no doubt some of them are not just viewing the foreign language of the MOOC as a barrier, but are also hoping to improve their English. To my delight, the availability of non-English language MOOCs has been growing steadily. For example, Coursera has courses in Chinese, French, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, German, Hebrew and Arabic. There are also MOOC providers focused on specific linguistic areas, for example China's XueTangX, France's Université Numérique, and Germany's iversity.

Learning idiomatic Haskell with

March 11, 2014, [MD]

How to get practice?

Listening to the Functional Geekery podcast, I heard about, which provides exercises for many popular languages. There are several similar websites in existence, perhaps the most well known is Project Euler, however that focuses too much on CS/math-type problems, and is perhaps better for learning algorithms than a particular language. The way works, is that you install it as a command line application. The first time you run it, it downloads the first exercise for a number of languages.

Parsing massive clicklogs, an approach to parallel Python

March 10, 2014, [MD]

I am currently working on analyzing MOOC clicklog data for a research project. The clicklogs themselves are huge text files (from 3GB to 20GB in size), where each line represents one "event" (a mouse click, pausing a video, submitting a quiz, etc). These events are represented as a (sometimes nested) JSON structure, which doesn't really have a clear schema.

Our goal was to run frequent-sequence analyses over these clicklogs, but to do that, we needed to process them in two rounds. Initially, we walk throug the log-file, and convert each line (JSON blob) into a row in a Pandas table, which we store in a HDF5 file using pytables (see also). We convert the JSON key-values to columns, extract information from the URL (for example /view/quiz?quiz_id=3 results in the column action receiving the value /view/quiz, and the column quiz_id, the value 3. We also do a bit of cleaning up of values, throw out some of the columns that are not useful, etc.

Speeding it up

We use Python for the processing, and even with a JSON parser written in C, this process is really slow. An obvious way of speeding it up would be to parallelize the code, taking advantage of the eight-cores on the server, rather than only maxing out a single core. I did not have much experience with parallel programming in general, or in Python, so this was a learning experience for me. I by no means consider myself an expert, and I might have missed some obvious things, but I still thought what we came up with might be useful to others.


Browsing articles in "Fitness"

To Lift or Not to Lift

By bfreyer  //  Fitness, Workouts  //

When males enter the gym they generally enter with the same mentality:to become bigger, faster, and stronger. When females enter the gym they generally enter with the mentality of becoming stronger, toner, and… fitter? In all honestly a female is very unlikely to come to a gym in hopes of becoming bigger. Many women tend to stray away from any form of resistance training for this very reason. Typical comments among women include, “I do not lift weights because I do not want to build big muscles “or “I only do cardio because if I lift weights I will get bulky and look like a man.” It is a common misconception that resistance training creates gigantic muscles. When in actuality women do not possess the necessary amount of the hormone testosterone needed to have the muscular gains comparable to that of a man.

A study conducted by The European Journal of Applied Physiology involved 20 men and 20 women who performed heavy resistance training for 30 minutes sessions (2). Hormone levels were measured both before and after weight training. Results revealed that both males and females experienced increases in testosterone levels, but males experienced a 43% higher increase than females. In other words, because a man’s body contains more testosterone, they experience greater muscle growth. So the chance of looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger is highly unlikely ladies. Need more proof? The American Physiological Society also compared the effects of strength training in men and women (1). Participants completed a 9 week long 4 days per week heavy resistance leg training program. Results concluded that men appear to have a greater capacity for muscle mass gain than women.

It’s time to hop off that bicycle, elliptical, or treadmill ladies and pick up a set of dumbbells!! Weight training builds muscle, and muscle burns fat and increases metabolism (metabolism refers to all chemical reactions that take place in our body such as digestion). Although cardiovascular exercises such as running or biking burn calories when performing the exercise, weight training burns calories during the exercise AND long after completion of the exercise! This is because muscle tissue is torn when weight lifting and repairs while resting. The repairing of muscles requires energy, and energy requires metabolism. Meaning… even when you are sleeping or watching The Bachelorette your body is still burning calories! Sounds too good to be true doesn’t it!!?? In addition to increased overall caloric burn, weight training is also great for one’s bones because it increases bone density. Resistance training also puts additional pressure on bones which stimulates the bone tissue to become denser. Increased bone density can prevent osteoporosis and fragility of bones. As women age they are at higher risk for osteoporosis.

This does not mean you need to completely give up running or biking; cardiovascular exercises definitely have great terrific for your body as well. My suggestion is to slowly incorporate strength training into your exercise routine. Preferably 3-4times a week in 30minute sessions alternating between upper and lower body exercises. If you have any questions regarding strength training or exercise concerns please feel free to leave a comment below or ask me and I will be more than willing to assist you! Also I suggest visiting GGS (Girls Gone Strong) (I DON’T KNOW HOW TO LINK THAT ADAM!), which aims to “redefine what it means to train like a girl.” This website offers how to videos, workouts, and inspirational stories about how heavy weight lifting has changed women’s lives everywhere! GIRL POWER!!

Happy exercising!

How is your posture?

Sit up straight, pull your shoulders back, stick your chest out. These are all things that we have heard when people speak about correcting bad posture. These postural cues are effective at getting people to recognize their bad postural habits, however they do not fix the weaknesses or dysfunctions in the body that cause poor posture. We can address this issue with specific exercises that can alleviate pain and lead to better overall well-being.

I myself was diagnosed with idiopathic scoliosis at a young age, a disorder that causes severe curvature of the spine. As a result of this disorder, I had the posture resembling the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Following surgery I focused on maintaining my corrected posture through numerous exercises and stretches.  To this day my posture has improved tremendously by using some of the exercises I will share with you below.

Poor posture is typically brought on by the effects of poor daily habits that are displayed in the musculoskeletal system. These habits can include chronic sitting or staring at the computer, prolonged driving, lack of exercise, backpack use, working only your mirror muscles or an overall lack of activity. Muscles on the back side of the body are typically under worked, while muscles on the front side of the body, the mirror muscles, are overworked. As a result of these imbalances your head starts to lean forward, your shoulders round, your pecs become tight, and your hips loose alignment. Any one of these issues can force the body to compensate by recruiting other muscles, which over time can develop into larger issues and possibly even an injury.

Pain is commonly displayed in the neck, shoulders, lower back, knees and heels. Your body is programmed to avoid pain, so the body tries to regain the strength and stability that should be present from the muscles in the posterior part of the body by tightening the posterior muscles to protect the body from injury. This is one of the main reasons the majority of the population claim to have tight hamstrings and calves. If we can strengthen these muscles while increasing their flexibility, your posture will improve. Thus, the pain in problem areas will go away and your overall feeling of well-being will improve dramatically.

Pain in the neck can be attributed to lack of strength in the musculature surrounding the neck and upper back. As we sit at the desk all day, our head slowly starts to drift forward. These muscles from our neck, down to the middle portion of the back become fatigued and are not strong enough to support the head. Neck pain is typically located in the upper traps or levator scapulae, whose function is to hold the head in a upright position. Strengthening these muscles will help alleviate neck pain and allow you to maintain an upright posture.

Try these exercises to strengthen the muscles of the neck.

Weakness in the muscles that pull your shoulder blades together contribute to rounded shoulder posture. This also occurs if you train the muscles of the chest more often than the muscles of the back. By training your back muscles more often, specifically your rhomboids and lower traps, while stretching your chest muscles you can correct your rounded shoulder posture. Generally a ratio of 2 back exercises to 1 chest exercise is recommended to correct muscular imbalances.
Try these exercises to strengthen the muscles on the back side of your body.

Try these stretches for your chest

Lower back pain is a complaint that the majority of the population will have at some point in their life. This commonly occurs because the glutes and hamstrings are not strong enough to support the body and keep the pelvis in proper alignment. Weakness in the posterior chain (the muscles located on the back of the body) causes the pelvis to rotate away from a neutral position, which puts excess stress on the lower back to maintain an upright posture. If you experience lower back pain, strengthening your glutes and hamstrings will help take the stress off of the lower back by keeping the pelvis in a neutral alignment and keep your back healthy.

Do these exercises to strengthen the glutes and hamstrings

Poor posture is something that plagues us all. Life is stressful and the stress of life can manifest in your body and lead to chronic issues if your poor posture is left unchecked. Luckily the majority of postural issues can be corrected with simple exercises a couple times a week. These exercises alone will help you target the problem areas, however if you do not change your daily habits, postural issues will plague you for the rest of your life. So get up off the coach or from behind your desk and get moving, ride a bike instead of drive to work and work all the muscles of your body not just the ones you can see in the mirror. Most of all enjoy what you are doing, because if you do not find a feeling of enjoyment from exercise it will always feel like burden.

Returning to Working Out Following Time Off

Falling off the wagon and failing to get to the gym on a regular basis is common and occurs for many reasons. They may include an approaching deadline for work, a recent injury, family commitments, or a general lack of motivation. Getting back into an effective exercise routine can be easy but it requires patience. You will be more successful starting slow and being patient than if you dive in full speed ahead with unrealistic expectations. A reference to a popular children’s story seems to help people in this situation. In the story of the tortoise and the hare, you want to be like the tortoise. He consistently worked to the best of his abilities to get to the finish line, whereas the hare whom may have been able to jump out to a larger lead out of the gate was distracted and could not consistently perform to finish the race.

Time away from the gym effects your body on many levels. First, when you stop exercising you are simple not burning off as many calories as if you are working out. Because you are burning fewer calories your body will be begin to store them as fat. Also the more time you take off from the gym the less efficient your cardiovascular system becomes at performing its function and subsequently the lower your VO2max will be. (more on this later) Because the cardiovascular system does not perform as efficient as it did in the past you can not workout as hard and gain the benefits of those efforts.

Another issue that occurs is less stored energy in your body called glycogen. Glycogen is a complex form of energy that is stored throughout the body primarily in the muscle cells and in the liver. Glycogen is one of the primary sources of fuel you use when you are exercising. Also occurring at the cellular level is a decrease in mitochondrial density within your muscles cells. The mitochondria is the power house of a cell, it produces the energy needed for the cell to carry out its specific function. A person with a higher mitochondrial density will be able to exercise longer and at a higher intensity than one with a lower density. This allows you to burn more fat and sculpt the body you are striving to achieve

All of these issues can compound and contribute to a lower fitness level once returning to the gym. Typically when returning to the gym following a layoff you may feel dizzy, light-headed, nauseous, short of breath, or a general weak feeling. These symptoms occur due to the reasons I have highlighted above. First your body has become less efficient at bringing in and using oxygen and less efficient at dispersing the byproducts of exercise: carbon dioxide and lactic acid. Lactic acid is generally associated with the burn you feel while exercising. The more you workout the more efficient your body becomes at eliminating these byproducts of exercise and subsequently you can exercise at a higher intensity longer to burn more fat. Another adaptation of exercise is the bodies ability to store glycogen more readily. Having higher storage levels of glycogen enables you to workout for longer and harder.

As I stated above, when you take time off from the gym your VO2max decreases. This is a measurement used in the exercise physiology field to describe a person’s highest level of oxygen they can use during sustained aerobic efforts. A higher VO2max is generally correlated with having a higher level of fitness. Intense exercise whether it is cardiovascular in nature or resistance training derives adaptations in your body to become more efficient. In general your body gets better at bringing oxygen to the cells and taking the carbon dioxide out. All of these adaptations allow you to exercise at a higher intensity for a longer period of time. This in turn burns more calories and helps you come leaner.

The best plan of attack to returning to the gym is to start at a lower intensity in which you can complete a specific workout. From there you can establish a baseline fitness level and progress your workouts.Workouts can progress by increasing any of the following: duration, workout intensity, and workout frequency. An effective method to progress your workout routine is by manipulating your work to rest ratio. For any given exercise you may work at a 2:1 work to rest ratio. Meaning your work for twice as long as you rest. For example, if you were performing step-ups a proper work to rest ratio would be 2:1, meaning you would perform the exercise for twice as long as you rest; thus, if you exercised for 60 seconds you would rest for 30. As you become more fit you would change the ratio to where you are working much more than you are resting. For someone returning to exercise a 1:2 ratio would be appropriate. You would then progress to 1:1 and so forth. This method can be utilized with any type of exercise whether it is resistance based or cardiovascular in nature.

Another very effective method of exercise progression is lactic threshold training. Using lactic threshold training you exercise using a progressive program that gets harder the further into the workout you get. I like to describe these workouts in terms of pushing back a curtain, an expression I learned from Juan Carlos Santana a strength and conditioning coach who trains several high level athletes. The curtain is your highest perceived level of exercise you can reach. The workouts in which you are pushing back the curtain you push yourself to the point of reaching the curtain and pushing it back slightly. Each day you push this curtain back a little further. However you do not want to break through the curtain because more than likely you will not be able to complete the workout which will not allow you to be progressive.

Returning from a layoff can be physically and mentally challenging. You return ready to work at the same intensity as you left, however your body has changed and you may not be able reach the same levels.Take it slow at first, to gauge your fitness level, and then continue to progress from there. You will be more successful than diving headfirst into the same routine expecting to pick it back up instantaneously. The most important piece of information you can take from this article is to be patient. Patience and consistent hard work will lead to the results you are looking seeking. Always remember the story of the tortoise and the hare.

Goal Setting 101 for the new year

By FX Studios  //  Fitness, Nutrition  //

Goal Setting for the New Year

As we move through the holidays, inevitably the words “New Years Resolution” will come up in conversation. It’s usually something we KNOW we need to do, but is usually synonymous with “Seems Like a Good Idea at the Time”. It’s a half-hearted attempt to accomplish something we haven’t managed to do last year so why not give it a shot in a new year? Quit Smoking, Eat More Veggies, Read More, Learn A New Language and Lose Weight are all popular Resolutions. For the purpose of this post, we’ll focus on Weight Loss as a Resolution.

The month of January is like a 5K race with a lot of unprepared racers participating. They haven’t worn the right gear, trained, hydrated or even looked at the course map. Everyone sprints out of the start feeling great, moving fast and thinking, “If the whole 5K is like this, it’s going to be a breeze!” only to realize that it’s not possible to sprint a whole 3.1 miles at the speed they’re going. They get tired, sore, out of breath, and quickly drop down to a walk and don’t accomplish what they set out to. A similar thing happens with Weight Loss Resolutions – a lot of unprepared people will likely come out of the gates on a huge high only to drop out after a few days/weeks when they realize how unready they are for the task and they fail for another year.

Fortunately there ARE ways to ACCOMPLISH YOUR GOALS. If you’re calling it a New Years Resolution, so be it, but in reality all you are doing is expressing a goal of yours for a new calendar year.

Step 1. Write It Down

Don’t say you’ll do it, write your goal down and post it on your bathroom mirror, on your car dashboard, on your computer desktop, on your phone wallpaper, and since it’s food related – ON and IN your refrigerator! You want to be constantly reminded of WHY you’re sacrificing things and WHY you need to stay the course.

Step 2. Plan

Want long-term success? PLAN for it by researching best practices and tips and preparing your life for your new goal. If you’re trying to lose weight, you’ll probably want to not have Oreos in the house on January 1 when you’re trying to start strong! And I’m not talking about the latest “Miracle Hollywood Pill” or any gimmick or gizmo that’s supposed to be a cure-all. Want to lose 30lbs? Find someone who has and ask them for advice.

Step 3. Set a Timeframe

Don’t just blindly plunge into it for “2012” because you’re not going to accomplish everything at once. Set up smaller 4-, 6-, or 8-week goals and use those in conjunction with Step 2. Plan each timeframe and what it will take to get the job done. Overall goal is 20lbs? Ok so in 4 weeks a reasonable weight-loss sub-goal is 8lbs.

Step 4. Tell Everyone

Seriously. Everyone. Use your friends, family, and social media to help you. If everyone knows about you wanting to lose weight, then people will hold you accountable when you want to give in. The same goes for food – use your real-life friends, online “Friends” and especially relatives. All of those people care about you so use them! If they don’t care about something that’s important to you then are they actually friends? But I digress.

Step 5. Post your progress

Facebook, Twitter etc. are all wonderful ways of mass-communicating how you’re doing. And you’ll be surprised at the snowball effect your small successes have when people congratulate you for the little things. Trying to lose 40lbs? Well if you post that you lost 4, people give you such a warm response that it is great positive reinforcement to KEEP GOING. So use your support systems!!!

Hopefully you’ve found these 5 Steps helpful in planning for success – At FX Fitness, we are in the business of helping people reach their goals. We have a wonderful 6-Week start-up package called New Year: New You so check it out and good luck in 2012!

Take advantage of our New Year, New You Promo

Adults and fat loss

Adults and Fat Loss

Do This, not That

Brett Klika C.S.C.S.

  1. Do This: Resistance training

Not That: Cardio only

  1. Do This: Whole-Body Metabolic Resistance Training

  1. Do This: Focus your time on large muscle groups

  1. Do This: High Intensity Cardiovascular Interval Training

Not That: Sustained Intensity “Jogging”

  1. Do This: Eat Real, Whole Food

Not That: “Fat Free” or Other Modified Food


by Rachel Oakley in Cool Travel on Friday 18 October 2013

This summer a group of very lucky archaeologists uncovered the portico of the ancient city of Argilos in Greece. This place was founded around 655 B.C. but abandoned in the 4th Century B.C. Archaeologists have discovered that this very ancient strip mall was constructed using a lot of different techniques (indicating that shop owners were the ones responsible for the building).

‘The construction techniques and the stones used are different for one room to another, hinting that several masons were used for each room’, archaeologist Jacques Perreault says. Coins, vases and other artifacts are just some of the things discovered so far.

Via Live Science