21. March 2012 by admin.

I use my Thermalball almost every day for my muscles and arthritis and degenerative bone disease, sometimes hot and sometimes cold.  I would like 3 large Thermalballs in a canvas sack, but I have to admit a ball is pretty easy to use on its own.

Gee, maybe you should take a look at this and get your product a seal of approval from 8 scientists…is this is an intelligence test or what?

The Arthritis Foundation created the Ease-of-Use Commendation Program to encourage manufacturers to design user-friendly products and packaging that could be recommended to the millions of people living with arthritis.

How are products tested?

The process begins with the manufacturer, who submits a product to the Arthritis Foundation seeking expert evaluation of its product. At the GTRI lab, scientists experienced in the design and evaluation of products conduct tests to find out if the products is easy to use for someone with arthritis. The answer results from a three-step testing process.

• Each product is evaluated by a team of scientists, who test the product against a number of “pass” or “fail” requirements specific to the type of product under evaluation. For example, how easy it is to open a medicine bottle or to operate a stationary bike?

• Then the scientists assess and establish user tasks based on every manner in which someone with arthritis might use the product, from the point at which the product is removed from the packaging – yes, the package itself is evaluated – through multiple uses.

• Finally, a team of eight testers who have moderate-to-severe arthritis are evaluated for grip, torque and muscle strength, endurance, pinch force and range of motion. The testers then get to open and use the product, and then each tester is interviewed by the team of scientists.

“We try to be as objective as possible. I rarely ask if a tester likes the product or not, because that’s not the issue,” says Brad Fain, PhD, senior research scientist at GTRI. “I want to know if it’s easy to use.”

How do products earn the Ease-of-Use seal?

To garner a “favorable” grade from GTRI and become eligible for the Arthritis Foundation’s Ease-of-Use Commendation, a product must meet the following criteria:

•  A “pass” rating on all the checklist evaluation items, at least five or eight testers must be able to use it with little or no difficulty; and

• No more than one of eight testers should experience great difficulty using the product.

Posted in Arthritis, Back Pain, Physical Therapy, Pain Relief, Kewler Favorites | Print | 2 Comments »

20. March 2012 by admin.

I couldn’t help re-posting some of these pictures of real Bumper cars

Yes, you read that right; these are street legal.

They run on either Kawasaki or Honda motorcycle engines and co-opt vintage bumper car bodies into the most awesome form of mini-car. There are seven of these little monsters floating around California and they’re all the creation of one man, Tom Wright, a builder in the outskirts of San Diego who figured the leftovers of the Long Beach Pike amusement park needed a more dignified end than the trash heap.

They were originally powered by two cylinder Harley Davidson Motorcycle engines but they vibrated.

Tom replaced them with four cylinder Honda or Kawasaki 750’s capable of 160 MPH, which is terrifyingly fast in machines with such a short wheelbase.

Posted in Invention | Print | No Comments »

20. March 2012 by admin.

Self: Positive affirmation - I am smart!

world: the economy is weak, jobs are hard to come by

You: Can get as free as free money gets by investing your time by writing precise answers to topics that the (DOD) Department of Defense is interested in.

Four times a year a list of topics is solicited by the government for written phase one proposals. These proposals range from 20 to 40 pages and are not simple to write (usually requiring advanced engineering degrees) as few acceptable solutions exist. This is an entrepreneur’s dream!  Written reports and follow-up progress reports can yield up to 60+% for the business owner/inventor.  Awards can be up to $100K and matched at 30% from the state of North Carolina.  Phase 2 awards, if invited are up to 1.5 million dollars over 3 years. I am currently waiting on an invitation for a Phase II.  I know it is hard, but it can be done.  We submitted underwater GPS algorithms for divers using portable communicating lasers!

Here are my bookmarks:

http://www.sbtdc.org/

http://zyn.com/

http://dodsbir.net/

Posted in SBIR / STTR, Patents and Portfolios, Technology, Invention | Print | No Comments »

19. March 2012 by admin.

You have to be emotionally prepared – that blogging is not a part of your business- it is a small business you run in the context and for the support of your main one.

-      It is a time consuming job – so you have to plan time for it

Writing interesting, engaging posts, using the appropriate keywords, clean language and proper grammar is hard work! Therefore trying to plan and manage your time from the beginning will turn you from a DESPERADO to a successful blogger and marketer.

The solution: get prepared in advance with a batch of articles. A good rule is to get them all done at the beginning of the next posting unit.  For example: if you have decided to update daily, you can have seven articles ready by the end of the previous business week. If you update monthly, you can get all your articles done by the beginning of the last quarter of the previous month.

Posted in Social Network, Facebook, Marketing, Invention, Managing Business | Print | No Comments »

13. March 2012 by admin.

New Funding:

Contact Names and Numbers:

Presentation – Attached for your review is the DoD presentation that was delivered by Nicole Fox

DoD SBIR/STTR webinar  Download Preserntation

Posted in Patents and Portfolios, SBIR / STTR, Technology, Wealth Management, Military, Invention | Print | No Comments »

9. March 2012 by admin.

Researchers have discovered that the genetic complexities of cancer could thwart current methods of matching a patient’s tumor with targeted drugs. The study by U.K. researchers could mean that more extensive digging into the genetics of cancer will be required before dispatching targeted treatments to attack tumors, a change that could drive up the already high cost of cancer care.

With an arsenal of targeted cancer drugs at their disposal now, doctors use DNA tests, typically of a single tumor specimen from their patients, to determine which meds are the best fit to take out their tumors. Alas, U.K. researchers conducted DNA tests from multiple areas of kidney tumors and found that only one third of all the key genetic mutations were present in all tumor samples, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The study is unlikely to unhinge enthusiasm about targeted cancer meds, but the findings could prompt doctors to take extra caution before using the drugs. What’s more, the results could explain how cancers eventually bounce back after gene-targeted drug treatments, Bloomberg reported. And, rather than forming to overcome the effects of targeted drugs, the mutations that drive a cancer’s comeback could already be present before treatment with the meds.

The targeted cancer drug phenomenon has pushed many of the top drugmakers into action, with Pfizer ($PFE), Roche ($RHBBY), and Novartis ($NVS) among the leading developers of such meds. It’s probably too early to tell how the results of the U.K. study impact those companies’ fortunes, but it’s worth watching how the study impacts enthusiasm in the field.

“It’s a sobering finding,” Andrew Futreal, a co-author of the study and former director of cancer genetics and genomics at Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in London, said, as quoted by the WSJ. He added that, with just one biopsy, “you might miss the connection between the mutation and whatever outcome you are looking at.”

- read Bloomberg’s article
- check out the WSJ piece

Posted in Health and Wellness, Pain Relief | Print | No Comments »

7. March 2012 by admin.

During impedance matching, a specific electronic load (RL) is made to match a generator output impedance (Rg) for maximum power transfer. The need arises in virtually all electronic circuits, especially in RF circuit design. This article introduces the L-network, which is a simple inductor-capacitor (LC) circuit that can be used to match a wide range of impedances in RF circuits.

1. There are four basic L-network configurations. The network to be used depends on the relationship of the generator and load impedance values. Those in (a) and (b) are low-pass circuits, and those in (c) and (d) are high-pass versions.

The impedances that are being matched determine the Q of the circuit, which cannot be specified or controlled. If it is essential to control Q and bandwidth, a T or π-network is a better choice.

While the L-network is very versatile, it may not fit every need. There are limits to the range of impedances that it can match. In some instances, the calculated values of inductance or capacitance may be too large or small to be practical for a given frequency range. This problem can sometimes be overcome by switching from a low-pass version to a high-pass version or vice versa.

Parallel And Series Circuit Equivalents

Sometimes it’s necessary to convert a series RC or RL circuit into an equivalent parallel RC or RL circuit or vice versa. Such conversions are useful in RLC circuit analysis and design.

4. These are all the possible practical series and parallel RC and RL circuit equivalents. The text provides the calculations for R_S, R_P, X_S, and X_P.

These equivalents also can help explain how the L-networks and other impedance-matching circuits work. The designations are:

R_s = series resistance

R_p = parallel resistance

X_s = series reactance

X_p = parallel reactance

The conversion formulas are:

R_s = R_p/(Q² + 1)

X_s = X_p/[Q² + 1)Q²]

R_p = R_s (Q² + 1) 

X_p = X_s [(Q² +1)/Q²]

Q = √[R_p/(R_s – 1)]

Q = X_L/R_s

Q = R_p/X_C

If the Q is greater than 5, you can use the simplified approximations:

R_p =Q²R_s

X_p = X_s

Posted in Patents and Portfolios, Technology, Marketing, Invention, Programming Code Help | Print | No Comments »

7. March 2012 by admin.

The search for Alzheimer’s disease biomarkers goes on, with a number of biomarkers beginning to emerge. The latest research focuses on biomarkers that signal damage to neurons, which might allow doctors to spot decline at an early stage. In the research published in Neurology, a team from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis measured biomarkers in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) from lumbar punctures in people with very mild or mild Alzheimer’s disease over an average of 2.6 years. They measured the biomarkers visinin-like protein-1 (VILIP-1), tau, p-tau181 and Aβ42 (amyloid beta), as well as tracking changes in mental activity and memory with annual assessments.

VILIP-1 measures damage to brain cells, and tau and Aβ42 reflect the plaques starting to form in the brain. Alzheimer’s disease in people with higher levels of these biomarkers, particularly VILIP-1, progressed more quickly.

“VILIP-1 appears to be a strong indicator of ongoing injury to brain cells as a result of Alzheimer’s disease. Memory and other mental abilities declined faster in patients with the highest levels of VILIP-1,” says lead author Dr. Rawan Tarawneh, now at the University of Jordan. “In patients with early symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, VILIP-1 seems to be at least as good as–and potentially even better than–the other prognostic indicators we used in the study. That could be very useful in predicting the course of the disease and in evaluating new treatments in clinical trials.”

This research is early but shows promise for predicting disease progression and prognosis, and tracking outcomes in clinical trials, and further development is under way at Washington University. However, it is still a CSF-based biomarker, and until simple blood-based biomarker tests are available, broader screening for Alzheimer’s disease to allow early diagnosis and treatment isn’t really going to be feasible.

Posted in Technology, Health and Wellness, Kewler Favorites | Print | 1 Comment »

7. March 2012 by admin.

Buy.com integrates with Facebook.

Facebook changes to timeline and breaks Buy.com strategy (was supposed to allow embedded shopping cart)

Buy.com create share link.

Posted in Facebook, Marketing, Health and Wellness | Print | No Comments »

5. March 2012 by admin.

It cost him only 6 cents to do it.And for that price, he was able to bombard our people with ads. The cost of that inventory is a 30 cent CPM, which means it costs 30 cents to show a thousand ads. So he was able to send 200 highly targeted messages, as he details in this post on the Facebook Microtargeting trick.

Sounds less like advertising and more like super-targeted email marketing, doesn’t it?

And, in fact, it is, except for this:

• You can send these messages without needing someone’s email address.

• You pay only when someone clicks it (yes, it’s cost per click advertising).

• An impression is guaranteed when the person next opens Facebook (whereas in sending an email, you can only hope that someone will open it).

Now imagine that you’re a software company like Webtrends, building relationships with other agencies that resell your social analytics software. The founders of the data visualization agency JESS3 come to visit and you’d like to strengthen that bond. Maybe you spend $5 on a micro-targeted campaign like the one above, but slice it up to put the ad image more compactly next to the stats. You absolutely bombard anyone who works at that firm with your message almost 3,000 times. If they have 50 people, that’s 60 ads per person. Who cares that we got only 9 clicks (of which 4 happened to become fans)? The goal is not the click, but the awareness.

Total cost: $5.67 in Facebook ads

Create a specialty video with a customized message

But you could take it a step further, since those folks who do click through on the ad can come to your landing page. So imagine that we send all employees of the email marketing company ExactTarget to this Facebook landing page (warning: there is sound). And how much did this landing page cost? Only $5. We have a network of dozens of freelancers that will do voiceovers, take photos, sing songs or do whatever for a few dollars. More examples of specialty videos here.

Social media success is about pinpoint precision targets — we’re simulating the one-on-one conversations that friends have among themselves

While each of these examples might be clever or interesting, the question becomes: How do you scale this? Social media success is about pinpoint precision targets — ultimately, because we’re simulating the one-on-one conversations that friends have among themselves. But if you want to have 1,000 conversations, you need 1,000 different ads and 1,000 different landing pages. Who has the infrastructure, staff, or the budget to do that?

This is where smart automation comes in. Here’s an example of our scoring platform at work:

Webtrends sells analytics software to the big boys who don’t mind paying $100,000 per year for analytics software. Trouble is that every website needs some form of analytics. Maybe they’ll use Google Analytics — it’s free and pretty good. But we want to talk to only those customers who have the money and need for enterprise analytics software. It would be suicide to buy the keyword “web analytics” on PPC because of all the players that offer web analytics for free or super cheap.

So we took the Fortune 1000 and ran a script that collected a wide range of data — market cap, their industry, annual revenue, P/E ratio, website url, homepage pagerank, pages indexed, Facebook page, number of fans, company logo from Google images and so forth — dozens of metrics. See the detail from our spreadsheet/CSV file below.

Click to enlarge

And then we ran this data through our scoring algorithm to calculate their Social Score — how well they did versus peers in their industry. We might say, “Shell, you got a 56 and rank 7 out of 9 in Oil and Gas.” Or we might say, “Shell, why do you have only 53,548 fans while others in oil and gas have 184k on average?” Then we target people who work at Shell — not just everyone, but those people who have titles of VP of Marketing, Chief Financial Officer, Public Relations and so forth.

There might be only a couple dozen people and not everyone puts their information on Facebook, but it’s enough. And you can bet it gets their attention! They come to a landing page that has their social scoring report, which shows a portion of the metrics that we’ve gathered. But they have to click Like to see the rest of the report, which is grayed out.

Now what happens when that person clicks “Like”? Of course, some of their friends and co-workers see it. And as all curious co-workers will do, they want to check out what you found to be so interesting. And then when these people see our ad, it shows that their friend liked it, which makes our offer of a report that much more credible (image at right).

A move to quality targeting over mass media blasts

Now do you see how this works? It’s quality over quantity, folks. Think about who you want to target as precisely as possible. Where do they work? Where do they live? What kind of car do they drive? What TV shows do they watch? What industry conferences do they attend?

Let Facebook do the work for you, running ads that target journalists who write for the Wall Street Journal, Mashable, Forrester, VentureBeat, the New York Times

Can’t afford $15,000 to exhibit at your favorite conference, plus the $3k to ship the booth out, the cost of the people to have to man the booth during Expo Hall hours, the schwag you have to give out and so forth? Then run an ad for the three weeks leading up to the conference targeting fans of the conference.

Bingo, you’ve now spent $5 to target this audience with your message and you have plenty of time to set up in-person meetings with those folks who are worth talking to, as opposed to any random people who might wander up to visit you at the show. And then you can thank them later.

Click to enlarge

Need some PR help, but can’t afford a New York PR agency for $10,000 a month? Then let Facebook do the work for you, running ads that target journalists who write for the Wall Street Journal, Mashable, Forrester, VentureBeat, the New York Times or whoever. What would you like to say to them?

Can’t afford to hire a big sales staff to cold call people who don’t want to talk to you? Easy. Just run ads targeting the competitors of your existing customers. Let’s say that Marriott is your client and you’ve got a great case study there. Run ads targeting the folks who work at Hilton, Starwood, Motel 6 or whoever. You can bet they want to know what their competitors are doing. Inquiring minds want to know!

Making waves with 5 bucks in your pocket

By now, I hope to have shown you that with some ingenuity and $5 in your pocket, you can make some serious waves on Facebook. If you’re a small business or start-up, learn how to master some of the techniques mentioned here. If you’re a big brand and looking to scale, then you’ll need some process and software automation to make this happen across thousands of conversations.

Know of any companies that offer software that will do mass personalization of ad and landing page content? Ad agencies are good at throwing bodies at client accounts — great service, but no scale. Software companies are good at building code based on a predefined set of rules that can be repeated. But success for your company can’t be solved by either a pure agency or a pure software company. The agency can’t throw enough people at the problem and the software company can’t offer a one-size fits all solution to everyone.

Only you can work the magic at your company. As much as we’d like to sell you some software, vendors like us can only assist you in coming up with the creative strategy that resonates best with your customers, the PR strategy that gets the press talking about you, a unique way to position how you solve your client’s pain. Ultimately, these $5 campaigns, whether you run just one of them or 10,000 of them, boil down to a marketing strategy — a unique, compelling message — that we can multiply out to your customers and get those customers to spread on your behalf. (Again, if you’re a smaller company targeting just a few potential or existing clients or partners, go for it yourself!)

In our next segment, we’ll explore that topic in more detail — how to get your fans to do your marketing for you. The techniques that work are probably not what you’d expect, since the world of Facebook relies upon the game dynamics of News Feed Optimization, advertising, applications and Open Graph widgets. We’ll show you how the harder you make it for customers to convert, in certain instances, the more likely they will take action. Stay tuned to learn why.

Posted in Social Network, Patents and Portfolios, Nonprofit, Facebook, Programming Code Help, Marketing, Managing Business | Print | No Comments »