Sunday, February 27, 2011

How to make extra income being a virtual Mayor of your own town?

Travel industry is a very promising area for web marketers. Therefore, there are multiple successful interactive guides and social communities, capturing this niche. I would like to present a new site on the map, addressing this high-demand topic - http://zoomvillage.com/.

The site provides an interactive platform for creating online tourism guides for any town in the United States (and a few other countries). The developers started from covering the town, they actually reside (Litchfield, CT) to give an example of the site features and capabilities. The central point is the offer to all the fellows bloggers to join the project and to get a portion of the generated revenues.


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The profit generation scheme looks as follows:
  • The first person to establish a town or city on ZoomVillage is automatically named the Mayor and given the special privileges enjoyed only by Mayors.
  • The Mayor receives 50% of advertising fees for all ads placed on the town's site.
  • As the chief editor of the town's site, the Mayor is responsible for monitoring additions to the site, such as when a user posts information about a new restaurant.
  • Although any registered resident of the town can make certain changes to the town's attractions, some editing tasks (such as deleting an item) are reserved for the Mayor only.
  • The Mayor can give administrative control to other trusted users. The administrators have some, but not all, of the Mayor's privileges.

Advertising rates are dynamically calculated and are a function of the number of active registered users in each town.

So, as a Major of your City, you start your own project of promoting your local community. And your earnings are directly influenced on how successful your efforts are to promote your virtual project.

At the moment, it is hard to estimate, how successful the site may be, and how much visitors (and advertisers) it may attract in the future. But, being at the very beginning, you can make a difference, and the site success will be based on multiple local communities administrators' success.

Sounds interesting? Register for the site and claim your city or town, while still available.



History of Sunchips Biodegradable Bags on Consumer Market

On the top of the Yahoo! Search lines today � Sunchips bags. Let's review, step-by-step, what could possibly bring the public interest to such a trivial item.

Fully Bio-degradable bags introduction

In April 2009, it has been announced that, just in time for Earth Day in 2010, PepsiCo's Frito-Lay Div. would be rolling out compostable packaging. Applied to bags of its SunChips brand, a popular line of multigrain snacks, the plant-based, biodegradable material is a structure made of NatureWorks' (www.natureworksllc.com) polylactic acid (PLA) film, which should decompose over 14 weeks when placed in a hot, active compost bin or pile�at home or at an industrial composting site.

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The company made enormous marketing effort to play up its environmentally friendly nature as the package was made from plants and not plastic and could break down in compost.

However, the problems came from totally unexpected side. Unhappy customers complained the bag was too loud. The stiffer material made it give off noise of that, measured in decibels, is about as loud as a busy city street.

Packages recall

Use of the new environment friendly, but noisy, packages triggered widespread irritation among customers - and caused SunChips sales to drop by as much as 11% over the 52 weeks after the bags became available in March 2010. Profits is a good indicator of the solution effectiveness, and Frito-Lay quickly realized that the bags were trouble, especially when a Facebook group called "Sorry But I Can't Hear You Over This SunChips Bag" gathered quickly of more than 44,000 fans.

"It was interesting we got a lot of extremely positive feedback ... but on the same hand we heard one overwhelming complaint," said Brad Rodgers, manager of sustainable packaging for PepsiCo advanced research.

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So Frito-Lay got rid of the biodegradable bags last October for all flavors except Original SunChips.

New solution

PepsiCo Inc., which owns Frito-Lay, spent a good chunk of last year trying to find a solution. The company found that if it used a different adhesive to put together the two layers of a bag � one which protects the food on the inside and one which carries the logo and labels on the outside � it created a sort of noise barrier.

Brad Rodgers said engineers looked at dozens of possible options. He admitted that he was initially suspect of the theory that the razor-thin layer of adhesive would solve such a big problem. But engineers found that a more rubber-like adhesive really did absorb some of the sound.

The company's first design gave off noise that registered at roughly 80 to 85 decibels. The new design dampens the noise to around 70 decibels, on par with its original packaging and most other chip bags.

The new bags are already hitting store shelves with Original SunChips. If all goes well, Frito-Lay will roll out the bags to all SunChips flavors.

How compostable is the old package?

In the light of the customer complaints on the noise, the question of how real are the manufacturer claims on the biodegradability of the old packages has been not addressed by the consumers.

The first warning sign was received from the Regional Municipality of Niagara, Ontario, announcing May 18, 2010, that it will not accept the bags in its Green Bin program because the film takes too long to degrade in the community's composting plant.

"The Sun Chips bags are made of polylactic acid, which is a corn starch-based product similar to that which is used in the compostable liner bags that are accepted in the Region's organics program. Both products compost under the right conditions, however, the Sun Chips bags have three layers of and compost in about 14 weeks (the same term as promised manufacturers term), while the bin liner bags are a single layer and break down in three to four weeks," Andrew Pollock, director of waste management services, said.

"The Walkers' Gore Composting Facility, which processes the Region's Green Bin material, produces compost in eight weeks. As such, the Sun Chips bag may not fully break down in the composting process. Bags that do not fully break down would be screened out and landfilled.

If the Canadian rejection was based purely on the released compostability term, the further consumer reports questioned the advertised 14-weeks term itself as being inaccurate. Recently the old bag was tested out to see if they could decompose quickly. Testing found that the bag, after 14 weeks in the compost pile, remained intact. In the test, the bag was placed in a home-compost with wood chips, grass clippings, dirt, and leaves.


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"The items in contact with the bag composted nicely, but the bag itself? Take a look at the photo. It might decay in an 'industrial' compost pile, though we can't say for sure," the report said.

Let's see if the new packages can address the questionable biodegradability as well, otherwise revealing that the company advertising does not reflect the real situation might hit again the product sales.


Sources and Additional Information:




How you can beat Stock Market with Piotroski Strategy?

Unknown Investment Guru � Joseph Pioroski

If you haven't heard of Piotroski, you're far from alone. Of all the excellent investment minds upon whom I base my Guru Strategy computer models, Piotroski is probably the least known. He's probably the least well-known of the investment "gurus". Actually, he's not even a professional investor, but instead an accountant and college professor. But while he lacks the fame and reputation of investors like Buffett and Lynch, his contribution to the investing world has been quite significant.

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In 2000, however, Piotroski showed that you don't need to be a smooth-talking Wall Street hot-shot to make it big in the market. While teaching at the University of Chicago, he authored a research paper that showed how assessing stocks with simple accounting-based methods could produce excellent returns over the long haul. No fancy formulas, no insider knowledge � just a straightforward assessment of a company's balance sheet.

His study turned quite a few heads on Wall Street. It focused on companies that had high book/market ratios � i.e. the type of unpopular stocks whose book values (total assets minus total liabilities) were high compared to the value investors ascribed to them (their share price multiplied by their number of shares).

Quite often, such firms have low book/market ratios because they are in financial distress, and investors wisely stay away from them. On certain occasions, however, high book/market firms may be good companies that are being overlooked by investors for one reason or another. These firms can be great investment opportunities, because their stock prices will likely jump once Wall Street realizes it's been shunning a winner.

Through his research, Piotroski developed a methodology to separate the solid but overlooked high book/market firms from high book/market ratio firms that were in financial distress. He found that this method, which included a number of balance-sheet-based criteria, increased the return of a high book/market investor's portfolio by at least 7.5 percent annually. In addition, he found that buying the high book/market firms that passed his strategy and shorting those that didn't would have produced an impressive 23 percent average annual return from 1976 and 1996.

Diving into the Balance Sheet

Piotroski wasn't the first to study high book/market stocks. But his research took things a step further than many past studies. He noted that the majority of high book/market stocks ended up being losers, and that the success of high book/market portfolios was usually dependent on the big gains of a small number of winners. Much as low price/earnings ratio investors like John Neff used a variety of tests to make sure low P/E stocks weren't rightfully being overlooked because of poor financials, Piotroski sought to separate the high book/market winners from the high book/market losers.

The first step in this approach is, of course, to find high book/market ratio stocks. In his study, Piotroski focused on the stocks whose book/market ratios were in the top 20 percent of the market.

That's the easy part. The harder part is determining whether investors are avoiding a low-B/M stock because it is in financial trouble, or whether the company is a solid one that is simply being overlooked. The Piotroski-based model looks at a variety of factors to determine this, including return on assets and cash flow from operations, both of which should be positive.

Several of Piotroski' other financial criteria don't necessarily look for fundamental excellence, but instead for improvement. This makes a lot of sense; a company whose return on assets had declined from 10 percent to 1 percent and whose cash flow from operations had dwindled from $10 million to $10,000 would pass the above ROA and cash flow tests, for example, but it certainly wouldn't be the type of strong performer Piotroski was targeting.

Among the other "change" criteria Piotroski examined were the long-term debt-asset ratio, which he wanted to be declining; the current ratio (current assets/current liabilities), which he wanted to be increasing; gross margin, which should be rising; and asset turnover, which measures productivity by comparing how much sales a company is making in relation to the amount of assets it owns (That should be increasing).

Piotroski Approach Criteria

Despite the differences in portfolio construction, the underlying variables that the strategy looks at are same. The approach begins by looking at bottom 20% of the market based on Price/Book ratio (this is the same as firms with high Book/Market ratios). Piotroski found that just buying low Price/Book stocks does not produce excess returns over the long term, however, because many low Price/Book companies are trading at a discount because they deserve to. Piotroski thus applied a series of additional tests of financial strength to identify a set of criteria that did lead to market outperformance. The 10 criteria are listed below.

- Book/market ratio
- Return on assets
- Change in return on assets
- Cash flow from operations
- Cash compared to net income
- Change in long-term debt/assets
- Change in current ratio
- Change in shares outstanding
- Change in gross margin
- Change in asset turnover

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Examples

Few firms usually pass all of Piotroski-based model's strict criteria, and often they are very small stocks, some of which are too illiquid for most investors. But the Piotroski-inspired portfolio has found big winners among stocks that get scores of 90%, 80%, or even 70% from the model, and, right now, a number of stocks fall into that category. Let's see some examples of what types of stocks the Piotroski model currently likes:

Photronics, Inc. (PLAB): This Connecticut-based small-cap ($365 million) makes photomasks -- high precision photographic quartz plates containing microscopic images of electronic circuits -- that are used in the manufacture of semiconductors and flat panel displays.

Photronics gets a solid 80% score from my Piotroski-based model, thanks in part to its 1.22 book/market ratio. And, in its most recent fiscal year, the firm upped its return on assets from -7.75% to 3.25%, lowered its long-term debt/assets ratio from 17% to 11%, and increased its gross margin from 16% to 22%, all reasons the Piotroski model gives it high marks.

Audiovox Corporation (VOXX): This New York State-based consumer electronics firm owns such well-known brands as RCA and Energizer. It makes a wide variety of mobile electronics and consumer electronics and accessories, ranging from vehicle security and remote start systems to MP3 players and digital camcorders to headphones, speakers, and batteries.  

Audiovox is a small stock ($171 million market cap), so it is likely to be more volatile than larger stocks. But the firm has taken in more than $570 million in sales over the past year, and it gets a solid 80% score from my Piotroski-based model. One big reason: Its impressive 2.17 book/market ratio. (Looked at another way, that means its shares are trading for less than half of book value.) The firm also posted a 4.14% return on assets in its most recent fiscal year, a sharp turnaround from -13.88% the prior year, and it kept its long-term debt/assets ratio steady at just 2%. Gross margin also improved to 19%, up from 17% the year before.

M&F Worldwide Corp. (MFW): M&F ($480 million market cap) is the parent of several businesses, including Harland Clarke Corp., which makes checks and check-related products, direct marketing, and contact center services; Harland Financial Solutions, which makes software for financial firms; and Scantron Corporation, which offers testing and assessment systems and data collection and analysis services. And then there's an intriguing fourth member of the group: Mafco Worldwide Corp. -- a world leader in the licorice -- that's right, licorice -- industry.

M&F shares surged early this week after a weekend article in Barron's was bullish on the stock, and then slid downward Friday. Its book/market ratio remains in the top 20% of the market, however, at 1.25. It also has the balance sheet and fundamentals to boot: Its return on assets (3.24%) almost doubled in its most recently reported fiscal year, while its current ratio rose to 1.63 (from 1.18) and its long-term debt/assets ratio fell to 62% (from 64%). Overall, the stock earns a 90% score from this approach.

AXIS Capital Holdings Limited (AXS): Headquartered in Bermuda, AXIS provides specialty insurance and treaty reinsurance across the world through operating subsidiaries and branch networks based in Bermuda, the U.S., Canada, the U.K, Ireland, Switzerland, Australia, and Singapore.

AXIS ($4.5 billion market cap) gets a 70% score from the Piotroski-based model. It has a book/market ratio of 1.22, which is in the market's top 20%, and in the most recently reported fiscal year it increased return on assets (2.65%, up from 2.15% the previous year) and had positive cash flow from operations (about $850 million). Its number of shares has also declined in recent years, which this model considers a good sign -- Piotroski found that an increasing number of shares outstanding might be a sign that a firm couldn't generate enough internal cash to fund its business.


Sources and Additional Information:


Saturday, February 26, 2011

Depression self-evaluation � Goldberg Depression Scale

Instructions

You might reproduce this scale and use it on a weekly basis to track your moods. It also might be used to show your doctor how your symptoms have changed from one visit to the next. Changes of five or more points are significant. This scale is not designed to make a diagnosis of depression or take the place of a professional diagnosis. If you suspect that you are depressed, please consult a mental health professional as soon as possible.

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The 18 items below refer to how you have felt and behaved during the past week. For each item, indicate the extent to which it is true, by checking the appropriate response next to the item.

Responses:

  • Not at all (0)
  • A little (1)
  • Somewhat (2)
  • Moderately (3)
  • Quite a lot (4)
  • Very much (5)

Questionnaire

1. I do things slowly.
  • Not at all
  • Just a little
  • Somewhat
  • Moderately
  • Quite a lot
  • Very much

2. My future seems hopeless.
  • Not at all
  • Just a little
  • Somewhat
  • Moderately
  • Quite a lot
  • Very much

3. It is hard for me to concentrate on reading.
  • Not at all
  • Just a little
  • Somewhat
  • Moderately
  • Quite a lot
  • Very much

4. The pleasure and joy has gone out of my life.
  • Not at all
  • Just a little
  • Somewhat
  • Moderately
  • Quite a lot
  • Very much

5. I have difficulty making decisions.
  • Not at all
  • Just a little
  • Somewhat
  • Moderately
  • Quite a lot
  • Very much

6. I have lost interest in aspects of life that used to be important to me.
  • Not at all
  • Just a little
  • Somewhat
  • Moderately
  • Quite a lot
  • Very much

7. I feel sad, blue, and unhappy.
  • Not at all
  • Just a little
  • Somewhat
  • Moderately
  • Quite a lot
  • Very much

8. I am agitated and keep moving around.
  • Not at all
  • Just a little
  • Somewhat
  • Moderately
  • Quite a lot
  • Very much

9. I feel fatigued.
  • Not at all
  • Just a little
  • Somewhat
  • Moderately
  • Quite a lot
  • Very much

10. It takes great effort for me to do simple things.
  • Not at all
  • Just a little
  • Somewhat
  • Moderately
  • Quite a lot
  • Very much

11. I feel that I am a guilty person who deserves to be punished.
  • Not at all
  • Just a little
  • Somewhat
  • Moderately
  • Quite a lot
  • Very much

12. I feel like a failure.
  • Not at all
  • Just a little
  • Somewhat
  • Moderately
  • Quite a lot
  • Very much

13. I feel lifeless -- more dead than alive.
  • Not at all
  • Just a little
  • Somewhat
  • Moderately
  • Quite a lot
  • Very much

14. My sleep has been disturbed -- too little, too much, or broken sleep.
  • Not at all
  • Just a little
  • Somewhat
  • Moderately
  • Quite a lot
  • Very much




15. I spend time thinking about HOW I might kill myself.
  • Not at all
  • Just a little
  • Somewhat
  • Moderately
  • Quite a lot
  • Very much

16. I feel trapped or caught.
  • Not at all
  • Just a little
  • Somewhat
  • Moderately
  • Quite a lot
  • Very much

17. I feel depressed even when good things happen to me.
  • Not at all
  • Just a little
  • Somewhat
  • Moderately
  • Quite a lot
  • Very much

18. Without trying to diet, I have lost, or gained, weight.
  • Not at all
  • Just a little
  • Somewhat
  • Moderately
  • Quite a lot
  • Very much

Scoring

  • If you score points was less than 9 then depression is not indicated.
  • Between 10 and 17 � perhaps some slight depression.
  • Between 18 and 21 � perhaps the brink of depression.
  • Between 22 and 35 � less than indicated moderate depression.
  • Between 36 and 53 � moderate to severe depression can be.
  • Over 54 � maybe suffering from severe depression.

About Developer

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Ivan K. Goldberg, M.D specializes in the treatment of individuals with treatment-resistant depression. The founder of Depression Central , he is a psychiatrist and clinical psycho-pharmacologist in private practice in New York City. Formerly on the staff of the National Institute of Mental Health and the Departments of Psychiatry of the Columbia- Presbyterian Medical Center, and Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons, he now devotes his time to evaluating and providing advanced innovative treatment for individuals whose depression or bipolar disorder has not responded to standard drug treatments.


Sources and Additional Information:



Friday, February 25, 2011

Medical Food for Alzheimer's Patients - Axona

About Axona

Axona is a prescription medical food intended for the clinical dietary management of the metabolic processes associated with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease. The human brain relies almost exclusively on glucose as a source of energy. Research shows that, in Alzheimer's disease patients, there is a dramatic drop in the brain's ability to metabolize glucose.


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Axona addresses energy deficiencies in the brain by providing an alternative source of energy. In clinical trials, patients taking Axona experienced cognitive improvement in 45 days.


Axona has demonstrated safety and effectiveness in clinical trials. Axona is available by prescription only and its use must be supervised by a physician.

Axona Benefits

The results of clinical studies involving patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease supported the positive role of Axona as a therapy that is compatible with drugs used to treat Alzheimer's disease.

Clinical studies demonstrated that Alzheimer's disease patients taking Axona:
  • Experienced cognitive improvement by day 45
  • Maintained cognitive benefits over the course of the study
  • Experienced few side effects
  • Could also take commonly prescribed Alzheimer's medications
Video Presentation


Clinical Trial

Axona has been studied in clinical trials involving patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease as well as healthy elderly volunteers. A study was conducted on 20 patients diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease or mild cognitive impairment. The results showed a positive response with improvement in paragraph recall (a primary measure of cognition).

Axona was evaluated in a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study performed at multiple US clinical centers with 152 patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease over a period of 90 days. Approximately 80% of those participating were receiving another type of Alzheimer's therapy. The results showed a significant improvement in cognitive function in certain patients taking Axona while a decline was demonstrated in the placebo group. The results also showed that cognitive benefits could be maintained over a period of time in the patients receiving Axona.

Axona Dozing

Axona is supplied as a powder, and is available in convenient individual packets of 40 grams per packet. It is recommended that patients take one packet of Axona once a day shortly after breakfast. The contents of each packet of Axona should be added to 4 to 8 ounces (118 to 236 milliliters) of water or other liquids, and shaken or blended until fully mixed.

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For those who are unable to tolerate a full dose of Axona, talk to your doctor about starting at a lower dose for a period of time. If you are able to tolerate half the dose (about 2 1/2 Tbsp) of Axona, you may be able to gradually increase to the full dose level (about 5 Tbsp).

In clinical trials, the current formulation of Axona was studied only when it was mixed with water. However, additional studies indicate that Axona is a highly stable product and may be mixed with other foods and liquids, such as:
  • Ice cream
  • Pudding
  • Meal replacement drinks
  • Oatmeal
  • Milk
  • Fruit juice
  • Chocolate syrup
In clinical studies, certain patients experienced improved results when they followed the dosing regimen exactly. Therefore, to take full advantage of your opportunity to achieve the best results, it is important to take Axona exactly as prescribed by your doctor.

About Medical Foods

Accera markets Axona as a medical food, available only by prescription.  Medical foods do not require the same U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) review and approval as drugs.  Without the lengthy FDA review, if no data from placebo-controlled trials is published in peer-reviewed journals, it can be difficult to assess how effective a medical food is.

Medical foods were defined in 1988 by Congress as a special category of products that are designed for dietary management of a condition or disease that has specific nutritional requirements that have been verified by medical evaluation. Producers of medical foods are required to show that their products meet the specific nutritional needs of a particular condition using testing that includes clinical trials. Because they are not classified as drugs, they do not need the official approval of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), as prescription medications do.

Medical foods are subject to some FDA oversight and regulation, which can include monitoring manufacturing processes and quality assurance programs, and analyzing ingredients for safety.  The agency does not necessarily conduct inspections for all medical foods, though.  In addition, food ingredients must be "Generally Recognized as Safe" (GRAS) to be exempt from pre-market review and approval. 

Why did Accera choose to market Axona as a medical food rather than as an FDA-approved drug?  Probably, because developing a potential drug, conducting clinical trials and going through FDA review is a lengthy and expensive process, while marketing as medical food offers much faster access to the market.

Research Limitations

Limited studies, funded by the manufacturers of the product, confirmed that memory and cognition improved for people with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease. However, more studies are needed to determine its safety and effectiveness.

Axona is marketed as a medical food. Medical foods are dietary supplements that help manage a disease or condition that causes nutritional deficiencies. The Alzheimer's Association, however, disputes the notion that Alzheimer's disease causes nutritional deficiencies and requires a medical food. Medical foods are given only under the supervision of a doctor. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) doesn't approve medical foods, nor does it test medical foods for safety or effectiveness.

Until more is known, the Alzheimer's Association doesn't recommend the use of medical foods, including Axona, for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease.

Side Effects

Side effects included diarrhea, heartburn, and flatulence. Axona contains milk and soy products. The company notes that it should be used with caution in people who are hypersensitive to palm or coconut oil, those at risk for ketoacidosis, or those with a history of metabolic syndrome, gastrointestinal inflammation, and/or renal problems. There were no significant interactions noted with commonly used Alzheimer's drugs, including donepezil (Aricept) or memantine (Namenda).


Sources and Additional Information:


Thursday, February 24, 2011

Personal Online Travel Assistant � Perfect Planning with Plnnr

What can be more fun than travel? For some, it is a trip preparation, because you virtually start your journey, and all ways and opportunities are open in front you. But that may be a complicated and tiresome process as well, especially if you plan multiple destinations in different countries. It becomes even more challenging, if you decided to get a hot "last minute" deal, and you do not have enough time for the proper trip preparation ahead of time.

As usual, free online service may offer a great assistance. And one of them, worth to look into, is Plnnr. Plnnr will automatically generate your free personalized ready-to-use itinerary in few easy steps, including scheduled daily routes, navigating directions, hotel price comparison, and attractions information.

The service is especially useful if you choose to visit some fairly popular travel destination, like London in UK, Barcelona in Spain, or Rome in Italy. Following review is offered by AddictiveTips:

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When you launch the plnnr.com wizard for the first time, it will take you through a series of questions, starting with what your destination is, and then going through the nature of your trip, traveling dates, number of persons, and the amount of luxury you want. With these few answers, Plnnr will generate your very own, personalized travel itinerary containing your entire day-by-day schedule (as recommended by Plnnr) for your whole trip. They also recommend what hotel would suit your choices, and also have some discount deals that you may want to check out.

Once an itinerary has been generated, you can fine tune it as much as you want, changing all the aspects. The best thing about Plnnr is that it lays out the foundations for your entire plan, and then gives you the freedom to modify anything and everything. If you're on a leisure trip, Plnnr would also include a guide on what locations to visit and sights to see.

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Overall, Plnnr is a great service with a lot of potential. The destinations supported are yet limited, but the kind of coverage they are given shows that these guys are here to stay. It's a free service, and you can print all your itineraries once you're satisfied that everything is in order. So if you're planning a vacation sometime soon, and your desired location falls under Plnnr's coverage, give it a shot.

As mentioned in the review above, the list of destinations is kind of limited, but it is growing fast. As of today, the following cities are supported:
  • Paris, France
  • Barcelona, Spain
  • London, United Kingdom
  • Rome, Italy
  • Prague, Czech Republic
  • Amsterdam, Netherlands
  • Dublin, Ireland
  • Washington D.C., United States
  • San Francisco, United States
  • Berlin, Germany
  • New York City, United States
  • Toronto, Canada
  • Lisbon, Portugal
  • Madrid, Spain
  • Budapest, Hungary
  • Florence, Italy

Did you find a place, you want to go, on this list? Start your trip at http://plnnr.com/


Wednesday, February 23, 2011

LiberKey Freeware Package of Portable Applications for your USB Drive

With growing amount of the available software for different purposes, your computer becomes eventually overloaded with multiple programs, you use occasionally. Definitely, you can uninstall the programs you do not have to use at the moment, but some of them lack a clean un-installation process, leaving unneeded orphan files and drivers on your Hard Drive. Besides, by the Murphy Law, as soon as you remove the utility, you will need it right away. One of the solutions, you may like, is having a descent collection of the portable utilities stored on your Hard Disks or on your external USB drive. You can use the programs as you like, when you like and how you like, with no need to install them on your PC. In case of the USB storage, you can have your portable toolbox you can easily transfer between multiple computers at home, at work, or at Internet Café.

While the idea is attractive, you may find that gathering good collection of the useful programs will take significant amount of time and efforts. LiberKey developers are doing the hard work of the software hand-picking for you. LiberKey is a portable software package with user-friendly integrated start menu that includes hundreds portable applications in all areas of virtual life, covering the basic essential needs of the average computer user. The suite installation is completely automated, and you can choose from three different packages: Basic Package, containing 12 programs (131 MB on disk); Standard Package, containing 88 programs (517 MB on disk); and Ultimate Package, containing 163 programs (683 MB on disk). If you are looking for additional portable freeware application, which has not been included in one of the conventional packages, mentioned above, you may find it in more comprehensive catalog, and you may add it to the downloads, creating your own, unique, customized suite.

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Lifehacker points out, in its review, that all the applications are neatly divided into categories with sub-categories distinguishing their uses. If you've been hesitant to load up a flash drive with software for a friend because you're afraid they'll never figure out what half the programs do or even know where to look, the LiberKey menu system is an optimal solution. You'll find Firefox under Internet/Browser/Firefox, KeePass under Security/Password Manager/KeePass, and HD_Speed under System Utilities/Benchmark/Hard Disk/HD_Speed. They might still need to read a help file here and there but at least they'll know what the heck something does.

Screenshots (click to enlarge):



The good thing is, that you do not have to monitor all these problems for the new versions and updates. LiberKey is doing that for you as well, offering automatic online updates and fast synchronization of the software installed on your computer with online catalog, which contains at the moment 308 free software utilities on the list.

The package is highly recommended for all users.

Developers' website: http://ping.fm/hCjn0


Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Freeware Compu-Rx Computer Maintenance Package

In the process of the normal computer operation, the computer operation speed gradually decreases. It happens due to the multiple factors, including operation system clogging, registry mess-up, and malware, secretly residing inside. There are many tools on the market, which mat help to improve the computer performance, clean the trash files and unneeded orphans, and optimize your registry. However, most of these utilities are commercial or require certain degree of computer knowledge to be efficiently applied. There are multiple options, switches and buttons to press, so it can become very confusing and difficult to choose for many users. The presented free Compu-RX Computer Maintenance Package is designed to allow everyone, with no particular knowledge on the computer configuration and options, to enjoy the fast and easy to use optimization process.

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Common Problems with Aging Vision in Older Adults

At the previous posts, we reviewed the anatomical and neural changes that affect the vision in older adults. Now, we will analyze how these changes influence the quality and features of the of the elderly person's vision. Each reviewed anatomical change, neural change, or combination of the two has an appropriate impact on the human vision.

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Light Levels

Older persons experience lower light levels than younger persons as a result of decreased illumination within the eye. This decrease is due to a combination of several anatomical changes previously discussed. The first obstacle, light faces up on its way, is significantly decreased pupil diameter through which the light beam must enter to the eye. The aging variable lens further filters light, which is more yellow and opaque in comparison with younger eyes. Researchers estimate that the elderly retina receives approximately one third of the amount of light that a younger retina would receive. This means that older persons require much more intense lighting than younger persons do. This essential need for more light intensity interacts with a greater susceptibility to glare, causing vision-related problems in everyday living.

Glare

Glare is a common complaint among the low-vision elderly. There are several types of glare, each resulting from an interaction between different types of lighting and visual anatomy or anatomical changes. Each ultimately causes a different type of visual impairment.

         Veiling glare occurs when stray light hits the retina uniformly, such as when light from inside a car reflects off the windshield.
         Scotomatic glare occurs when the eye is overloaded with light and often results in an afterimage, like a camera flash may cause.
         Dazzling glare can only be noticed in situations with very bright light, such as when looking at the filament within a light bulb.

The orientation of photoreceptors is an important anatomical issue because it influences both the response to incoming light and the perception of glare. In a normal, healthy eye, the photoreceptors are angled so that light entering the eye through the pupil is most likely to hit directly the top of the photoreceptors. This phenomenon is referred to as the Stiles-Crawford effect and serves to limit the response to light scatter in the healthy eye.

In older eyes, the photoreceptors have become disarranged and abnormally oriented. Photoreceptors that are irregularly oriented are less likely to respond to light than normally oriented receptors. This is because the light is less likely to travel through the long axis of the photoreceptor as in normally oriented cells. When light does not pass through the entire receptor, it is less likely to activate enough of the chemical within the cell to cause it to respond. In older eyes, not only does light entering through the pupil directly hit the top of photoreceptors, but light bouncing off the aging retinal pigment epithelium and light scattering as a result of floaters is also likely to directly hit the top of photoreceptors. Overall, the disorientation of aging photoreceptors causes the photoreceptors to be less responsive to incoming light but more responsive to scattered light within the eye. The result of this situation is that the older eye will perceive more glare than the younger eye in the same conditions.

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Colors Discrimination

Another visual effect of age-related changes is the inability to discriminate colors. The older, yellow lens acts as a filter for shorter wavelengths (which correspond to purple and blue colors), meaning that these colors will appear dull or even gray. Pastel shades, not matter what color, are difficult to distinguish from one another in the elderly eye. Decreased color discrimination is caused mostly by cell loss in the fovea. The fovea is the small area of the retina where the retinal image falls when the eye focuses on something. The fovea is responsible for resolving fine details and it contains densely packed color-sensitive photoreceptors, called cones. As the eye ages and the fovea experiences cell loss, important color information is lost. The need for increased intensity also hampers color discrimination. As the eye ages, it requires greater intensities of color for the visual system to perceive stimuli. Even colors on opposite ends of the color spectrum can be difficult to discriminate if they are of the same intensity.

Depth Perception

People live in a three-dimensional world. But we must infer the structure of that world from the two-dimensional array of light on our retinas. The construction of the third dimension is accomplished by using a number of cues, such as interposition, shading, and relative height. Only stereopsis sensitivity has been studied among different adult age groups. Stereopsis is the depth cue derived from the different images projected on the retinas by an object. Objects that are less than twenty feet from the observer will fall at slightly different positions on each retina. The disparity of these images is a cue for depth. The greater the disparity, the closer the object to the perceiver. As with the other vision characteristics that we have reviewed, stereopsis peaks in early adulthood with notable decreases in sensitivity after the fourth decade of life.

Contrast Sensitivity

Poor color discrimination interacts with poor contrast sensitivity to make boundary detection a challenge. The term contrast refers to the amount of luminance difference between various parts of a stimulus, such as text and background, or the edges of objects. Contrast sensitivity is a measurement of the smallest amount of contrast a person can perceive. People with high (good) contrast sensitivity will be able to distinguish two parts of a stimulus with little contrast (i.e. little difference between the foreground and background), such as dark gray text on a slightly lighter gray background, or light gray text on a white background. People with low contrast sensitivity, such as the elderly, need high contrast stimuli, such as black text on a white background. Contrast sensitivity also correlates with size of the objects, meaning poor contrast sensitivity is less of a problem when a stimulus is large.

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Motion Perception

Objects in motion create a changing pattern of light on our retinas. Our ability to detect and discriminate these shifts of light stimulation is critical for our ability to determine not only the movement of objects but also our body motion and stability. While it is a subject that has generated a lot of interest, few studies of the impact of aging on motion perception have been reported. In one study of individuals from twenty-five to eighty years of age, the investigators reported that there was a linear decline of motion sensitivity with age. As with the decline in light sensitivity, such a pattern of change is suggestive of an age-related neurodegeneration in the visual system. However, several studies comparing the motion sensitivity of young and elderly adults have reported that the deficit in motion sensitivity was restricted to elderly women. That is, these studies reported that only elderly women and not men had poorer motion perception. A reason for such gender effects has not been suggested.


Field of Vision

The combined structural changes in elderly patients, eyes all contribute to decreased visual fields. Due to opacity of the lens, miosis of the pupil, and changes in the cornea, visual fields and peripheral vision are altered with age.

Dry Eyes

Reduced tear production causes many elderly patients to have dry eyes. Although this age-related change does not affect vision, it may be bothersome for patients.

Acuity

Decreased acuity is probably the most commonly known effect of the older person's anatomical and neurological changes. Acuity refers to a person's ability to resolve details (i.e. read small print) and is the measurement of vision with which most people are familiar. Decreased acuity results from a combination of changes within the aging eye, including cell loss in the fovea, decreased transparency of the vitreous, and increased light scatter and glare within the eye. Acuity in the aging eye also depends on the individual's contrast sensitivity. Stimuli with higher contrast will lend itself to higher acuity scores while stimuli with lower contrast will result in lower acuity scores among the elderly.


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Sunday, February 20, 2011

Multi-Rank Checker from iWebTool


In the process of the SEO optimization you may be looking for the simple, reliable, and easy to use way to check Google PageRank and Alexa ranking for multiple domains. The free online checker will save you a lot of time as one can retrieve the data in one click almost instantly. The blog you are testing the ranking for, is not necessary should be owned by you, so you can perform analysis for your competitors' blogs as well.

Sequence of operations:

1. Enter the exact website address of the page you want to check the ranking for into the text box. (include www at the beginning of your domain)

You can enter up to 10 different websites to check their ranking. After entering the first address, press Enter and insert a new website address on the new line.

2. Click the "Check!" button

Please note the Google PageRank goes up to 10 and the best Alexa rating is 1.



Saturday, February 19, 2011

Circadian Rhythm Chronotherapy for Depression Treatment

In one of our previous post we discussed an unusual approach to the depression treatment through sleep deprivation. This method shows very encouraging results in the critical conditions, but is difficult to apply and the received positive effects are usually not sustainable. While the related research is still ongoing, there is no doubt that sleep and depression have tight links, and there is a good potential for the further remedy for the patients.

Chronotherapy is one of the new therapies, applying developed knowledge on the connection between natural biorhythms and well-being to the depression treatment. It is using the circadian rhythm-altering interventions that treat depression by adjustments of the sleep-wake cycle and daily light exposure. In a way, it is theory combining the sleep regulation and light therapy for the patients' treatment.

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Indications for Chronotherapy

Chronotherapy has been found to benefit most forms of depression including:

In addition to these diagnostic indications, chronotherapy is also useful in the following circumstances:
  • When there is a need for a rapid antidepressant response; in other words, when someone needs to get better quickly
  • Inability to tolerate or preference to avoid medication.
    Most often, chronotherapy is used along with antidepressant or mood-stabilizing medication. It can, however, be used on its own, especially when several different forms of chronotherapy are used in combination.

This option allows for a fully non-pharmacologic treatment for those who are sensitive to, or need to minimize medication side-effects; for example, those with other medical illnesses, the elderly, and for antepartum and post-partum depressions.

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Contraindications to the use of Chronotherapy

  • Psychotic Depression.
    People who are experiencing hallucinations or delusions while depressed (or when manic) should not receive chronotherapy.
  • Mixed States (the simultaneous co-occurance of both manic and depressive states) or depressive states with significant anxiety or other manic symptoms (relative contraindication).
    Chronotherapy, like all other biological forms of antidepressant treatment, can cause emotional side effects. About 7% of patients treated with wake therapy will develop hypomanic symptoms. Patients experiencing manic or significant anxiety symptoms as part of their depression are at a higher risk of having this reaction. It is therefore contraindicated in this group.
  • Certain eye conditions may limit the use of bright light treatment.
    Retinal problems, macular degeneration and the use of photosensitizing medications may complicate or prevent the use of light treatment.
  • The presence of epilepsy or a seizure disorder is a relative contraindication for wake therapy.
    The use of antipsychotic drugs, sleep medications (sedatives), or certain anti-anxiety agents can interfere with the action of wake therapy and may need to be discontinued or temporarily suspended.

Chronotherapy Types

Chronotherapy is basically therapy using manipulation of sleep, wake and light. There are different types of Chronotherapy:
  1. Light therapy - this is dosed precisely and at exact times. This therapy is well-known in the treatment of seasonal affective disorder (SAD).
  2. Wake therapy � use of prolonged periods of wakefulness.
  3. Sleep phase advancement � moves the time of the sleep forward to early evening to improve antidepressant action.
  4. Triple chronotherapy � a combination of the above three.
  5. Dawn simulation � gradual light before waking.
  6. Chronobiotics � use of circadian rhythm-modifying compounds such as melatonin.
  7. Social rhythm therapy � schedules daily activities.

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How Chronotherapy Works?

As with most complicated things in life, scientists and doctors admit that the picture is far from being clear. What they are pretty sure about though is that natural circadian rhythms for different mental illnesses are often disturbed.

So, in the average person, they want to sleep at night and be awake during the day. They also want to sleep around eight hours a night and wake and sleep at about the same time each day. This rhythm can be interrupted by normal, life events, but the person will regain their rhythm once circumstances allow.

The problem with different mental illnesses is that people sleep too much, we don't sleep enough, or they able to get sleep at the wrong times. It's one of the reasons so many of the many of the people are hooked on the various sleeping medication.

The idea of Chronotherapy then, is to reinstate a natural sleep rhythm, or to manipulate the sleep rhythm for the positive therapeutic effect.

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Triple Chronotherapy

"Triple chronotherapy is a natural, ultra-rapid therapy that typically reduces depressive symptoms within one-to-two days," explains Northwestern Medicine psychiatrist John Gottlieb, MD, who is an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry and behavioral science at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. "This approach doesn't require medications, but it's every bit as biologically active as antidepressant medications."

Circadian rhythms are the fluctuations of certain physiological variables that occur over a 24-hour period, like sleeping, for instance. Circadian-shifting approaches, like bright-light therapy and dawn stimulation, have long been proven to effectively treat depression and other emotional disorders. Triple chronotherapy is no different, and has been used in Europe for nearly two decades in the successful treatment of unipolar and bipolar depression, as well as seasonal affective disorder. However, due to the intensiveness of the approach, patients were required to remain in the hospital during treatment. For the first time, the triple chronotherapeutic protocol is being administered on an outpatient basis, and Northwestern Medicine is one of few centers to offer this in the US.

"Chronotherapy has been demonstrated to be effective," said Gottlieb. "However, it is not used for patients with psychotic depression or for patients who are bipolar and not on medication. Additionally, patients with eye disorders may be unable to undergo light therapy."

As he explains, the first part involves wake therapy which requires a period of extended wakefulness over one night and the following day. This acts as an antidepressant response-inducer, jump starting an improvement in mood. Following wake therapy, patients move their sleep period earlier (sleep phase advance) and begin using bright light at prescribed times.

Chronotherapeutic treatments can also be used with antidepressant and other psychiatric medications. These combinations can both enhance and expedite treatment response. According to Gottlieb, standard, pharmacological therapy for depression takes between two to eight weeks before significant improvement occurs. Bright light therapy generally produces an antidepressant response within one to two weeks, while triple chronotherapy can induce remissions within hours.

"Triple chronotherapy provides a faster and lasting antidepressant option for many people who struggle with depression." Gottlieb said.


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